Note 16 — Chapter VIII · FREETHOUGHT UNDER ISLAM1
Reading edition
Kuenen challenges Sprenger’s conclusions and sums up: “We need not deny that Mohammed had predecessors; but we must deny that tradition gives us a faithful representation of them, or is correct in calling them hanyfs.16 On the other hand, he concedes that “Mohammed made Islam out of elements which were supplied to him very largely from outside, and which had a whole history behind them already, so that he could take them up as they were without further elaboration.”17