Barakat Ahmad

Barakat Ahmad (died 1988) was an Ahmadi scholar and Indian diplomat. He had a doctorate in Arab history from the American University of Beirut and a doctorate in literature from the University of Tehran. and was a fellow of the Indian Council of Historical Research. Ahmad died in 1988 as a result of bladder cancer.

Ahmad further argues that the account given by Ibn Ishaq cannot possibly be accurate, as, for example, states that the beheading and burial of 600-900 men would have been physically too colossal an undertaking for a small city like Medina. He also writes that the corpses would have constituted an obvious menace to public health.

To support his thesis, Ahmad also points to Jewish sources' silence about the alleged atrocity.

Harold Kasimow, in a 1982 review for the Journal of the American Academy of Religion wrote:

Dr. Ahmad has carefully considered all the early Islamic sources and the Jewish writings dealing with the period...Although I was not totally convinced by the evidence presented, there were moments during my reading when Dr. Ahmad did create doubt in my mind about the accuracy of the traditional history of the time. And that, after all, was his intent.