...He's possibly a relative of the monk Buhaira(best spelling, means "a little lake" in Arabic), because only a very tiny percentage of Iraqi Christians(Assyrians, Chaldean, and Syriac - all Catholic) are Syriac. The story of Buhaira is well known by Iraqi Catholics, although they don't publicly mention it within earshot of any Muslim, since it is technically punishable by death, according to Sharia law. Respect to Catholic/Christians is given to them by Muslims, by order of the Quran, and even Saddam Hussein's sons went to a Jesuit high school called Baghdad college(which has since been shut down due to suspicion of being a CIA post).
First the facts:
The historical basis that Buhaira existed and had influence on Mohammed is pretty well established by both Muslim scholars and those who hated Muslims.
Mohammed was in the caravan business and for about 20 years ran the route by Buhaira's isolated post(monastary), and they spent time with each other while Mohammed was young and impressionable. Mohammed was illiterate, but Buhaira was very knowledgable and was one of the very few at that time who knew how to write and read Arabic. Arabic at that time was much more difficult to write than the Arabic of today, so only the most educated/smartest people knew it; leaving only nobility and monks to write it, since there were no schools. It was immediately after Mohammed's death that the easier modern Arabic was invented, incorporating "dotting" techniques.
Here's my Syriac friend's take, which makes sense:
Mo's society was one of degenerate barbarism. For example, the commonly drunken Beduins would bury alive some of their infant daughters, to keep them from being taken as sex slaves by other pillaging beduins. Other outside societies then were much more progressive, with better social orders and economies. Mo's exposure to foreign lands through his caravan work, inspired a better future for his people, so Mo was a perfect fit for Buhaira, who saw Mo as the vehicle to start his original idea of religion. My friend speculates Buhaira was rebelious to the fact that the foreign westerner, Constantine, was imposing strict regulations on what could be in the Bible. After much contact with Buhaira, the young Mo then returns one day to his people with many leather scrolls that he says he wrote in Arabic. Mo's answer to people asking how an illiterate kid could write them was of course, "God inspired me". There are two people that Mohammed would have had contact with that could have written the scrolls; the first being his employer, who was a noble, and the other was Buhaira. It's not likely his rich employer would've encouraged the Quran's socialist thinking, or that his employer would randomly be so introspective and concerned with religion, so many people suspect it was Buhaira who had the time, motivation, and ability to write it. In addition, the Quran was written in a very obscure form of poetry, so only an expert linguist would've understand that form of poetry, which also leads many to believe that a monk would've done the job. It doesn't make sense to think any authority in the Catholic Church had any hand in Buhaira or any other monk meeting with and injecting someone with another religion, other than possibly a bit of Christian philosophy making its way to the Quran, filtered and altered through Buhaira's personal philosophies. It was just adequate timing for Mohammed and Buhaira. Buhaira, arguably, was the most likely author of the Quran, but if you say that in Saudi Arabia then you could be beheaded.
-Billster
I'm a loyal Catholic, because Catholicism insists on both Faith and Logic. You can't divorce God from His creation, so I see God's watermark in everything.