I've been reading god is not Great by Christopher Hitchens which is from time to time hard to understand for me.
I came across a sentence majority of which makes sense to me, but I lose the track at the end. Here are the sentence and the one following right after:
"Later Muslim conquests, impressive in their speed and scope and decisiveness, have lent point to the idea that these Arabic incantations must have had something to them. But if you allow this cheap earthly victory as a proof, you allow the same to Joshua’s blood-soaked tribes- men or to the Christian crusaders and conquistadores." – Chrsitopher Hitchens, god is not Great, p. 125.
I cannot get the meaning of "have something to them" here. I made my search through the net and found that lots of people use the phrase, which, sadly, did not do much for my understanding.
For example, one of the results given by my search is an article by Hendrick Hertzberg on 17 May 2015, that is:
"There’s the Clashing Nationalisms Theory: alarmed at the rise of the Scottish National Party and the prospect of a Labour-S.N.P. coalition that might accelerate the breakup of the United Kingdom, English voters stampeded rightward. There’s the—well, there are a lot of theories. All have something to them, and none are mutually exclusive."
Link: http://www.newyorker.com/news/hendrik-hertzberg/misrule-britannia-the-u-k-s-screwed-up-election
Another one is an article by Kimberly Lew which is as follows:
"Fourth Tier. These are the ideas that have something to them, but you can’t quite put your finger on it yet. It isn’t even a fully developed concept yet, but you know you’re going to think of it from time to time."
Link: http://www.crazytownblog.com/crazytown/brainfood/page/25/
Best Answer
OP has misparsed the usages. You can have something on someone (you know something "secret" about them, giving you power to "blackmail" them). But you can't have something to [a person].
The cited usages are versions of the idiomatic there's something to it, meaning it's not a completely daft idea - there's at least a grain of truth in it. Or perhaps there is some point in doing it.
EDIT: In the same general area, it's worth noting there's nothing to it, which usually means it's easy. It is sometimes used to mean the exact opposite of the usage under consideration here, but I think most people use there's nothing in it when they mean it contains nothing of value or truth, though it can also mean there's no difference [between two things being compared].