101 Reasons Why We Left Islam – Chapter 4: Islamic History – Reason 54
The Quran states:
“And We certainly sent into every nation a Messenger, Worship Allah…” Quran 16:36
Note that ‘past tense’ tune. By the time Islam arrived, Allah had already sent a messenger to every nation.
Furthermore, the authentic hadith confirms the suggestion that every nation had a prophet or messenger who informed them of Allah.
Narrated Ibn `Umar:
On the Day of Resurrection the people will fall on their knees and EVERY NATION will follow their prophet and they will say, “O so-and-so! Intercede, “till intercession is given to the Prophet (Muhammad) and that will be the day when Allah will raise him into a station of praise and glory.
Sahih al-Bukhari 4718 In-book reference: Book 65, Hadith 240 Vol. 6, Book 60, Hadith 242
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:4718
It gets worse, Musnad Ahmad states a Hadith that claim 124,000 Prophets.
“It was narrated that Abu Dharr said: I said: O Messenger of Allah, how many Prophets were there? He said: “One hundred and twenty four thousand.” I said: O Messenger of Allah, how many of them were Messengers? He said: “Three hundred and thirteen, a good number.” I said: O Messenger of Allah, who was the first of them? He said: “Adam.”
Many scholars have classified the Hadith as da’if (Weak) so much so that Sunnah.com did not include it in their list of Hadiths. But what is agreed upon is that there were many Prophets and Messengers sent throughout history, it is just that the number is disputed and unspecified.
Apologists have tried hard to come up with various ways to explain this but none of them works. If we go strictly by the Quran, it mentions by name only 25 Prophets those located in a small stretch of the Middle East – roughly from Egypt’s Nile to Iraq, down the west coast of Arabia to Mecca. That is roughly 2,900km, equating to 2% of the land size of Earth. What about the remaining 98% of the world?
From the inception of Islam to the early 20th century, Islamic Scholars were seeking to find any evidence to back this verse claim. They looked everywhere for any religion resembling Islam, calling for a one God, having a book that resembles the Quran, having prayer that resembles the Islamic ones, or even having evidence they had the messenger of Islam (Abrahamic religion) from outside that area specified earlier. They found absolutely no evidence. Like many Quranic verses and Hadiths that did not come to provide the evidence to back Islam, this quest for evidence was pushed under the carpet, ignored, or simply forgotten.
Critics of Islam reflect on the limited geographic layout of Prophets of the Quran and speculate why the Quran did not extend beyond the world that the Arabs knew to have Prophets. Meaning, the Quran and the Prophet did not provide any new evidence that would back the claim that Prophets were sent to every nation.
Once, an Islamic person pointed to what he read from a Dawah page that claims Australian Aboriginals had a powerful God who was the god of everything and that this god required them to pray five times. I searched, and this so-called god turned out to be residing among several gods. All evidence points to the fact that all Australian Aboriginals are pagans or polytheists. Anytime someone makes this or a similar claim, make an AI search. One thing you should never do is take their word for it. If they had found the one power, Allah, with a book that even remotely looks like the Quran outside the geographic map we mentioned, they would have made millions of PR videos about it and would never have heard the end of it.
Typical Islamist excuses you get for the lack of evidence of messengers beyond the limited land are that all around the world, these messengers’ message was lost, forgotten, and erased over time. Apparently, the divine message of Allah has had such a low impact that no written record was ever made, no houses of prayer pointing to Islamic characteristics ever erected, no Arabic language tradition (because Arabic is the language of Allah) ever remained, not even Allah’s name resided in the memory of the people who got that message. From the deep humid forests of uncontacted tribes of the Amazon, to the frozen hard igloos of Alaska, to the isolated continent of Australia and remote islands, and to cultures that were meticulous in recording history events such as the Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures – no one cared to report a message from the all-mighty Allah that aligns and backs His Prophet Muhammad!