Re: Mohammed the man vs Mohammed the prophet.
No we should not associate every mortal moment of his life with Islam but this is not enough to set a premises for throwing out things at will when we are unable to correlate them out of a lack of knowledge.
Or is it enough to include things at will due to lack of knowledge?
What limits/rules/criteria did God set up to include post-Quranic teachings as part of Islam? The only form of revelation (divine wisdom) was the Quran. The practice of following hadith and sunnah is a man-made practice. Man decided which hadith, teachings, sunnah to include as part of the religion. No where in the Quran does it say in to follow a whole separate set of religoius teachings (revealed by someone other than God no less).
Of course Muslims believe they only worship the one God - that's the most basic tenant of the faith - so it's understandable that a Muslim would say that it's ridulous to say they worship the prophet. Even insulting. But it has become such a built-in part of the way the faith is practiced that isn't seen a such. Even if it's not "worship", it's not treating the Quran as the sole, divine, untouched, unchangeable word of God. To follow the subjective teachings of hadith doesn't make Islam any different than what Muslims believe Christianity to be - following a religion that was not revealed by God.