How is Jesus, Moses, known by Muhammed, etc. pt. 3?

To convert the people of Makkah as his followers, he took the offensive against them. He adopted means which went against the hallowed traditions of the ancient Arabs and repeatedly gave offence to his followers—for instance when he caused a Makkan caravan to be attacked during a sacred month. He claimed “divine revelations” told him to do it. This tendency became more and more conspicuous in Muhammad, namely, to make supernatural manifestations justify humanly reprehensible actions, such as the move against a Jewish tribe in Madinah on the ground of a “revelation” permitting the breach of a treaty between him and the Jews if one of them was suspect.

Muhammad’s attitude towards Christians and the Mosaic changed considerably with the growth of his “prophetic consciousness.” Initially he had believed that both denominations would forthwith recognize him as standing in the line of their heritage and therefore concur with his preaching. When nothing of this sort came to pass, and when the Jews more and more drew his attention to contradictions in his revelations on Old Testament themes, he turned against them with mounting repugnance and seized upon what was, in the circumstances, the appropriate expedient – that of describing their traditions as intentionally falsified and presenting himself as the restorer of the religion of Abraham, founder of the Kabah and its cult. In so doing, he of course renounced the claim to be the first Prophet of his nation. This assertion was not open to disproof, though it was not well grounded because neither he nor his followers could read or understand the scriptures in their garb of foreign tongues. Even had they been able to do so, it would have been an easy thing to suggest that these writings had been deliberately altered by the ancestors of their then living devotees and that references in them to Muhammad had been excised. Common people, who know nothing of textual criticism or the comparative history of religions, are quite powerless against such a reproach, and even today a convinced Muslim will, when the Scriptures and the Qur’an are compared, hold fast to this view and so put every objection out of court (without proof). For Muhammad it meant that his alleged oversights were not errors, but rectifications by which the “falsifications” of his adversaries were unmasked. (conclusion of 3 pts. of condensed section.)

This has been a condensed version of Spuler, The Age of the Caliphs, History of the Muslim World, pp. 5-8. The full book can be found on many bookselling sources.