Karen Armstrong born in 1944 is a former nun of the Catholic Church. She is Professor of comparative study of religions in Oxford. Recently in her well-written and well-researched book, Muhammad, A Biography of the Prophet, comparing the life of the Jesus and Muhammad (peace be upon them both), she writes;
“In contrast to Muhammad, we know very little about Jesus.
The earliest Christian writer was St. Paul, who dispatched his first epistle some twenty years after Jesus’ death.
Paul, however, had no interest in Christ’s earthly life but concentrated almost entirely on the spiritual meaning of his death and resurrection.
Later, in the gospels, the evangels drew on the oral tradition which dwelt more than he on Jesus’ life in Palestine and recorded his words.
Mark, he first, wrote about forty years after Jesus’ death in the seventies; Mathew and Luke wrote during the eighties and John in about 100 CE.
But these gospel accounts are quite different form the early biographies of Muhammad by the Arab historians………..
Muslims have evolved a symbolic devotion to Muhammad, but indeed he is a very human figure in the early histories.
Muhammad is more like the colourful figures of the Jewish scriptures – Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah or Isaiah.”1
Muhammad, A Biography of the Prophet, page 51.