Ibn WarraqIn existographies, Ibn Warraq (1946-) (FA:170) (CR:10) is an Pakistani-born English ex-Muslim secular humanist (1995) turned atheist (2009), pseudonymously named after Arabian god skeptic Abu Isa al-Warraq (c.815-870), noted for his 1995 Why I Am Not a Muslim, stylized as an Islamic version of Bertrand Russell's 1927 Why I Am Not a Christian, characterized as the "first Muslim history of doubt" (Hecht, 2003).

Influences
Warraq was influenced, in respect to existive thinkers, by Salman Rushdie and the "Rushdie affair" and articles by pseudo Ibn al-Rawandi (see: Ibn al-Rawandi) in the New Humanist, into going public with his work in attempting to "sow a drop of doubt in a sea of dogmatic certainty. [5]

Warraq, in his 1995 book, cites: Xenophanes, Michel Montaigne, Galileo, Benedict Spinoza, Isaac La Peyrere, Thomas Hobbes, Edward Gibbon, Pierre Bayle, Voltaire, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer, Thomas Paine, Carlyle, Averroes, Avicenna, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Robert Ingersoll, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Einstein, Reynold Nicholson, Christopher Luxenberg. (Ѻ) [5]

Overview
Warraq, as a young man, always felt as a skeptic, but at one point had a crisis of identity in which he briefly opened to Islam. Finally, however, skepticism prevailed, and he turned to philosophers like: Benedict Spinoza, Immanuel Kant, Gottfried Leibniz, and David Hume. [2]

In 1993, Warraq was "shaken loose in his faith by the Rushdie affair", as Christopher Hitchens put it.

In 1995, Warraq, penned his Why I am Not a Muslim, stylized on Bertrand Russell's Way I am Not a Christian (1925), wherein he begins with Jewish physician-philosopher Ibn Kammuna (c.1210-1284), author of Examination of the Three Faiths, a religion-critical book, and goes onto explain how he lost his faith. [1]

Muhammad | Never existed
See main: Muhammad never existed
Warraq seems to have been one of the first to openly state his reasoned belief that Muhammad "never existed" as real person.

In 1995 or 1996, American Robert Spencer, soon-to-become founder of Jihad Watch (2003), author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (2005) and The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World’s Most Intolerant Religion (2006), before becoming a public figure, read Warraq’s Why I Am Not a Muslim, during which time he then believed that Muhammad was a real person, who actually existed as an historical figure, i.e. he believed Muhammad was a "false prophet", someone who sold his own opinions off to people as divine revelations. In 2007, however, Spencer was at a conference, at which Warraq was also a speaker, during which time they went for a walk together, amid which Warraq made the following comment:

“I don’t think Muhammad ever existed at all.”
— Ibn Warraq (2007), comment to Robert Spencer during walk [3]

Spencer and Warraq then debated this issue, and by 2013 Spencer had reevaluated his position:

Ibn Warraq is responsible for the fact that I no longer believe in Muhammad, i.e. I no longer believe Muhammad existed as an historical figure.”
— Robert Spencer (2013), “Interview with Ibn Warraq” [3]

The general issue here is that all of the main figures, characters, and prophets of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, each of which progressively building on the other, are human character re-writes of Egyptian mythological gods and stories, as the works of the 100+ religio-mythology scholars have shown, e.g. Noah is the god Nu (Noah never existed), Abraham is the god Ra (Abraham never existed), Sarah is the god Isis, Jesus is the god Osiris (see: Jesus never existed), and so on; hence, if the Islamic figure Muhammad claimed to have "spoken" to all of these so-called prophets, then he too is a mythological figure, sold to people, over time, as a real person.

Education
In the 1980s, Warraq studied at the University of Edinburgh with orientalist William Watt, some of whose views on the backwardness of Islam he cites. In 1995, he was professor of British and American culture in Toulouse, France.

Quotes | Employed
The following are quotes employed by Warraq:

“One fact must be familiar to all those who have any experience of human nature—a sincerely religious man is often an exceedingly bad man”
Winwood Reade (1872), Source; cited by Ibn Warraq (1995) in Why I Am Not a Muslim (pg. #) (Ѻ)

“Anyone who believes in the law of causation, cannot, for a moment, entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events. He has no use for the religion of fear.”
Albert Einstein (c.1930) in: Why I Am Not A Muslim (pg. 141)

Quotes | On
The following are quotes on Warraq:

“There going to kill him like drinking water. Pakistani’s are the most hard-headed Muslims in the world (behind Afghanistan, Muslim African countries, and Indonesia, respectively).”
— Angela Jabari (2017), “comment upon hearing that al-Warraq’s family is in Pakistan and how he is afraid to go home”, Jul 5

Quotes | By
The following are quotes by Warraq:

“As soon as I was able to think for myself, I discarded all the religious dogmas that had been foisted on me. I now consider myself a secular humanist who believes that all religions are sick men’s dreams, false—demonstrably false—and pernicious.”
— Ibn Warraq (1995), Why I Am Not a Muslim (pg. viii) [4]

“Muslims cannot hide forever from the philosophical implications of the insights of Nietzsche, Freud, Marx, Feuerbach, and Renan [1823-1892] (Ѻ). Hume’s writings on miracles are equally valid in the Islamic context. What of the rise of the critical method in Germany in the nineteenth century, and its application to the study of the Bible and religion in general? When biblical scholars say that Jonah never existed or that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, then, implicitly, the veracity of the Koran is being called into question.”
— Ibn Warraq (1995), Why I Am Not a Muslim (pg. 33) [4]

“Many Christians have incorporated science into their faith; Muslims have yet to take the first step.”
— Ibn Warraq (1995), Why I Am Not a Muslim (pg. 33) [4]

“Sometimes you find a man skillful in his trade, perfect in sagacity and in the use of arguments, but when it comes to religion he is found obstinate, so does he follow the old groove. To the growing child, that which falls from the elders’ lips is a lesson that abides with him all his life.”
— Ibn Warraq (1995), Why I Am Not a Muslim (pg. 283); an al-Marri paraphrase [4]

References
1. (a) Warraq, Ibn. (1995). Why I Am Not a Muslim (pg. #). Prometheus Books, 2003.
(b) Abu Isa al-Warraq – Wikipedia.
2. Ibn Warraq (GermanEnglish) – Wikipedia.
3. (a) Spencer, Robert. (2013). “Ibn Warraq Exposes Islam on ABN” (Ѻ), Betsy Ross, Jan 31.
(b) Robert Spencer (author) – Wikipedia.
4. (a) Warraq, Ibn. (1995). Why I Am Not a Muslim (think for myself, pg. viii; insights, pg. 33; old groove, pg. 283). Prometheus Books, 2003.
(b) Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pgs. 477-79). HarperOne.
5. Hecht, Jennifer M. (2003). Doubt: A History: The Great Doubters and Their Legacy of Innovation from Socrates and Jesus to Thomas (pg. 477-78). HarperOne.

Further reading
● Hitchens, Christopher. (2007). The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever, Selected and with Introductions by Christopher Hitchens (§43: The Koran, pgs. 384-44; The Totalitarian Nature of Islam, pgs. 445-53). De Capo Press.

Videos
● Warraq, Ibn. (2010). “Why I am Not a Muslim” (Ѻ), Free Thought Society, GRCCtv, Jan 14.

External links
Ibn Warraq – Wikipedia.

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