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Battle_4_Peace
11-02-2007, 09:49 PM



Thomas Carlyle in 'Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History,' 1840

"The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only."

"A silent great soul, one of that who cannot but be earnest. He was to kindle the world, the world’s Maker had ordered so."
A. S. Tritton in 'Islam,' 1951

"The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand and the Qur'an in the other is quite false".
De Lacy O'Leary in 'Islam at the Crossroads,' London, 1923.

"History makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated".



Edward Gibbon in 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' 1823

"The good sense of Muhammad despised the pomp of royalty. The Apostle of God submitted to the menial offices of the family; he kindled the fire; swept the floor; milked the ewes; and mended with his own hands his shoes and garments. Disdaining the penance and merit of a hermit, he observed without effort of vanity the abstemious diet of an Arab".
Edward Gibbon and Simon Oakley in ‘History of the Saracen Empire,’ London, 1870

"The greatest success of Mohammad’s life was effected by sheer moral force."

“It is not the propagation but the permanency of his religion that deserves our wonder, the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina is preserved after the revolutions of twelve centuries by the Indian, the African and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran....The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. ‘I believe in One God and Mahomet the Apostle of God’ is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honors of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtue, and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion.”



Reverend Bosworth Smith in 'Muhammad and Muhammadanism,' London, 1874.

"Head of the State as well as the Church, he was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without the Pope's pretensions, and Caesar without the legions of Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a police force, without a fixed revenue. If ever a man ruled by a right divine, it was Muhammad, for he had all the powers without their supports. He cared not for the dressings of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life."

"In Mohammadanism every thing is different here. Instead of the shadowy and the mysterious, we have history....We know of the external history of Muhammad....while for his internal history after his mission had been proclaimed, we have a book absolutely unique in its origin, in its preservation....on the Substantial authority of which no one has ever been able to cast a serious doubt."
Edward Montet, 'La Propagande Chretienne et ses Adversaries Musulmans,' Paris 1890. (Also in T.W. Arnold in 'The Preaching of Islam,' London 1913.)

"Islam is a religion that is essentially rationalistic in the widest sense of this term considered etymologically and historically....the teachings of the Prophet, the Qur'an has invariably kept its place as the fundamental starting point, and the dogma of unity of God has always been proclaimed therein with a grandeur a majesty, an invariable purity and with a note of sure conviction, which it is hard to find surpassed outside the pale of Islam....A creed so precise, so stripped of all theological complexities and consequently so accessible to the ordinary understanding might be expected to possess and does indeed possess a marvelous power of winning its way into the consciences of men."



Alphonse de LaMartaine in 'Historie de la Turquie,' Paris, 1854.

"Never has a man set for himself, voluntarily or involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim was superhuman; to subvert superstitions which had been imposed between man and his Creator, to render God unto man and man unto God; to restore the rational and sacred idea of divinity amidst the chaos of the material and disfigured gods of idolatry, then existing. Never has a man undertaken a work so far beyond human power with so feeble means, for he (Muhammad) had in the conception as well as in the execution of such a great design, no other instrument than himself and no other aid except a handful of men living in a corner of the desert. Finally, never has a man accomplished such a huge and lasting revolution in the world, because in less than two centuries after its appearance, Islam, in faith and in arms, reigned over the whole of Arabia, and conquered, in God's name, Persia Khorasan, Transoxania, Western India, Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, all the known continent of Northern Africa, numerous islands of the Mediterranean Sea, Spain, and part of Gaul.

"If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astonishing results are the three criteria of a human genius, who could dare compare any great man in history with Muhammad? The most famous men created arms, laws, and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislations, empires, peoples, dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then inhabited world; and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and the souls.

"On the basis of a Book, every letter which has become law, he created a spiritual nationality which blend together peoples of every tongue and race. He has left the indelible characteristic of this Muslim nationality the hatred of false gods and the passion for the One and Immaterial God. This avenging patriotism against the profanation of Heaven formed the virtue of the followers of Muhammad; the conquest of one-third the earth to the dogma was his miracle; or rather it was not the miracle of man but that of reason.

"The idea of the unity of God, proclaimed amidst the exhaustion of the fabulous theogonies, was in itself such a miracle that upon it's utterance from his lips it destroyed all the ancient temples of idols and set on fire one-third of the world. His life, his meditations, his heroic revelings against the superstitions of his country, and his boldness in defying the furies of idolatry, his firmness in enduring them for fifteen years in Mecca, his acceptance of the role of public scorn and almost of being a victim of his fellow countrymen... This dogma was twofold the unity of God and the immateriality of God: the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with words.

"Philosopher, Orator, Apostle, Legislator, Conqueror of Ideas, Restorer of Rational beliefs.... The founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?"



Mahatma Gandhi, statement published in 'Young India,'1924.

"I wanted to know the best of the life of one who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind.... I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the second volume (of the Prophet's biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of that great life".



Sir George Bernard Shaw
in 'The Genuine Islam,' Vol. 1, No. 8, 1936.

"If any religion had the chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam."

“I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion which appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man and in my opinion for from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Savior of Humanity."

"I believe that if a man like him were to assume the dictatorship of the modern world he would succeed in solving its problems in a way that would bring it the much needed peace and happiness: I have prophesied about the faith of Muhammad that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.”



Michael Hart in 'The 100, A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons In History,' New York, 1978.

"My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world’s most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the secular and religious level. ...It is probable that the relative influence of Muhammad on Islam has been larger than the combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity. ...It is this unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I feel entitles Muhammad to be considered the most influential single figure in human history".



Dr. William Draper in 'History of Intellectual Development of Europe'

"Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born in Mecca, in Arabia, the man who, of all men, has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race... To be the religious head of many empires, to guide the daily life of one-third of the human race, may perhaps justify the title of a Messenger of God".
Arthur Glyn Leonard in 'Islam, Her Moral and Spiritual Values'

"It was the genius of Muhammad, the spirit that he breathed into the Arabs through the soul of Islam that exalted them. That raised them out of the lethargy and low level of tribal stagnation up to the high watermark of national unity and empire. It was in the sublimity of Muhammad's deism, the simplicity, the sobriety and purity it inculcated the fidelity of its founder to his own tenets, that acted on their moral and intellectual fiber with all the magnetism of true inspiration".
Philip K. Hitti in 'History of the Arabs'

"Within a brief span of mortal life, Muhammad called forth of unpromising material, a nation, never welded before; in a country that was hitherto but a geographical expression he established a religion which in vast areas suppressed Christianity and Judaism, and laid the basis of an empire that was soon to embrace within its far flung boundaries the fairest provinces the then civilized world".
Rodwell in the Preface to his translation of the Holy Qur'an

"Mohammad's career is a wonderful instance of the force and life that resides in him who possesses an intense faith in God and in the unseen world. He will always be regarded as one of those who have had that influence over the faith, morals and whole earthly life of their fellow men, which none but a really great man ever did, or can exercise; and whose efforts to propagate a great verity will prosper".



W. Montgomery Watt in 'Muhammad at Mecca,' Oxford, 1953.

"His readiness to undergo persecution for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as a leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement - all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems that it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad.... Thus, not merely must we credit Muhammad with essential honesty and integrity of purpose, if we are to understand him at all; if we are to correct the errors we have inherited from the past, we must not forget the conclusive proof is a much stricter requirement than a show of plausibility, and in a matter such as this only to be attained with difficulty".



David George Hogarth in 'Arabia'

"Serious or trivial, his daily behavior has instituted a canon which millions observe this day with conscious memory. No one regarded by any section of the human race as Perfect Man has ever been imitated so minutely. The conduct of the founder of Christianity has not governed the ordinary life of his followers. Moreover, no founder of a religion has left on so solitary an eminence as the Muslim apostle".



Washington Irving 'Mahomet and His Successors'

"He was sober and abstemious in his diet and a rigorous observer of fasts. He indulged in no magnificence of apparel, the ostentation of a petty mind; neither was his simplicity in dress affected but a result of real disregard for distinction from so trivial a source".

"In his private dealings he was just. He treated friends and strangers, the rich and poor, the powerful and weak, with equity, and was beloved by the common people for the affability with which he received them, and listened to their complaints".

"His military triumphs awakened no pride nor vain glory, as they would have done had they been effected for selfish purposes. In the time of his greatest power he maintained the same simplicity of manners and appearance as in the days of his adversity. So far from affecting a regal state, he was displeased if, on entering a room, any unusual testimonials of respect were shown to him. If he aimed at a universal dominion, it was the dominion of faith; as to the temporal rule which grew up in his hands, as he used it without ostentation, so he took no step to perpetuate it in his family".



James Michener
in ‘Islam: The Misunderstood Religion,’ Reader’s Digest, May 1955, pp. 68-70.

"No other religion in history spread so rapidly as Islam. The West has widely believed that this surge of religion was made possible by the sword. But no modern scholar accepts this idea, and the Qur’an is explicit in the support of the freedom of conscience."

“Like almost every major prophet before him, Muhammad fought shy of serving as the transmitter of God’s word sensing his own inadequacy. But the Angel commanded ‘Read’. So far as we know, Muhammad was unable to read or write, but he began to dictate those inspired words which would soon revolutionize a large segment of the earth: "There is one God"."

“In all things Muhammad was profoundly practical. When his beloved son Ibrahim died, an eclipse occurred and rumors of God 's personal condolence quickly arose. Whereupon Muhammad is said to have announced, ‘An eclipse is a phenomenon of nature. It is foolish to attribute such things to the death or birth of a human being'."

“At Muhammad's own death an attempt was made to deify him, but the man who was to become his administrative successor killed the hysteria with one of the noblest speeches in religious history: ‘If there are any among you who worshiped Muhammad, he is dead. But if it is God you Worshiped, He lives for ever'.”
Lawrence E. Browne in ‘The Prospects of Islam,’ 1944

"Incidentally these well-established facts dispose of the idea so widely fostered in Christian writings that the Muslims, wherever they went, forced people to accept Islam at the point of the sword".

K. S. Ramakrishna Rao
in 'Mohammed: The Prophet of Islam,' 1989

"My problem to write this monograph is easier, because we are not generally fed now on that (distorted) kind of history and much time need not be spent on pointing out our misrepresentations of Islam. The theory of Islam and sword, for instance, is not heard now in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam that “there is no compulsion in religion” is well known".



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
, the German writer said:

"Us, Europeans, with all our concepts could not reach what Muhammad has reached, and no one will be able to precede him. I have looked in the history of humanity for an example and found that it was Muhammad, as the truth must be revealed. Indeed, Muhammad succeeded to subdue the entire world to monotheism".



Dr. Gustav Weil writes in "History of the Islamic Peoples":

“Muhammad was a shining example to his people. His character was pure and stainless. His house, his dress, his food - they were characterized by a rare simplicity. So unpretentious was he that he would receive from his companions no special mark of reverence, nor would he accept any service from his slave which he could do for himself. He was accessible to all and at all times. He visited the sick and was full of sympathy for all. Unlimited was his benevolence and generosity as also was his anxious care for the welfare of the community.”
J.W.H. Stab wrote in "Islam and its Founder":

“Judged by the smallness of the means at his disposal, and the extent and permanence of the work that he accomplished, no name in world's history shines with a more specious luster than that of the Prophet of Makkah. To the impulse, which he gave, numberless dynasties have owed their existence, fair cities and stately palaces and temples have arisen, and wide provinces became obedient to the Faith. And beyond all this, his words have governed the belief of generations, been accepted as their rule of life, and their certain guide to the world to come. At a thousand shrines the voices of the faithful invoke blessings on him, whom they esteem the very Prophet of God, the seal of the Apostles… Judged by the standards to human renown, the glory of what mortal can compare with his?



Sarojini Naidu

"Sense of justice is one of the most wonderful ideals of Islam, because as I read in the Qur'an I find those dynamic principles of life, not mystic but practical ethics for the daily conduct of life suited to the whole world."

Sarojini Naidu, Lectures on 'The Ideals of Islam' see Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, Madras, 1918, p 167.



Annie Besant, wrote in "The Life and Teachings of Muhammad":

It is impossible for anyone who studies the personality of the great Prophet of the Arabs, and come to know how this prophet he used to live, and how he taught the people, but to feel respect towards this honorable prophet”.
Canon Taylor

"It (Islam) replaced monkishness by manliness. It gives hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind and recognition of the fundamental facts of human nature."

Canon Taylor, Paper read before the Church Congress at Wolverhampton, Oct 7, 1887, Quoted by Arnond in The °reaching of Islam, pp 71-72.



A.J. Toynbee

"The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding achievements of Islam and in the Contemporary world there is as it happens, a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.

A.J. Toynbee, Civilization on Trial, New York, 1948, p 205.



Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer

"What does Islam stand for? I regard and all thinking men regard Islam as the one and only democratic faith that is actually functioning in the world today. Being a Hindu, firmly entrenched in the Hindu Faith, I yet make bold to say so. My own religion has not succeeded, despite its fundamental philosophy, in implementing in practice the Oneness of Humanity. No other religion, whatever its theory may be, has brought into practice the essential idea of oneness of man before God as Islam has done. It is only in Islam that there can be no such problem as those presented by the Boers in the South Africa, as those prevalent in white Australia or in the Southern states of the United states of America or even in England among the several strata of society".

Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer, Eastern Times, 22nd December 1944.
J. H. Denison writes in his book, Emotions as the Basis of Civilisation, pp. 265 9:

"In the fifth and sixth centuries, the civilised world stood on the verge of chaos. The old emotional cultures that had made civilisation possible, since they had given to man a sense of unity and of reverence for their rulers, had broken down, and nothing had been found adequate to take their place. ..... It seemed then that the great civilisation which had taken four thousand years to construct was on the verge of disintegration, and that mankind was likely to return to that condition of barbarism where every tribe and sect was against the next, and law and order were unknown ....... The new sanctions created by Christianity were creating divisions and destruction instead of unity and order .... Civilisation like a gigantic tree whose foliage had over reached the world ..... stood tottering ..... rotted to the core .... Was there any emotional culture that could be brought in to gather mankind once more to unity and to save civilisation? ... It was among the Arabs that the man was born who was to unite the whole known world of the east and south".
S. P. Scott writes in, History of the Moorish Empire in Europe, p. 126:

"If the object of religion be the inculcation of morals, the diminution of evil, the promotion of human happiness, the expansion of the human intellect, if the performance of good works will avail in the great day when mankind shall be summoned to its final reckoning it is neither irreverent nor unreasonable to admit that Muhammad was indeed an Apostle of God".
SIR WILLIAM MUIR

"It is strongly corroborative of Muhammad's sincerity that the earliest converts to Islam were not only of upright character, but his own bosom friends and people of his own household who, intimately acquainted with his private life could not fail otherwise to have detected those discrepancies which even more or less exist between the profession of the hypocritical deceiver abroad and his actions at home".



SIR JOHN GLUBB

"Whatever opinion the reader may form when he reaches the end of this book, it is difficult to deny that the call of Muhammad seems to bear a striking resemblance to innumerable other accounts of similar visions, both in the Old and New Testaments, and in the experience of Christian saints, possibly also of Hindus and devotees of other religions. Such visions, moreover, have often marked the beginnings of lives of great sanctity and of heroic virtue".

"To attribute such phenomena to self delusion scarcely seems an adequate explanation, for they have been experienced by many persons divided from one another by thousands of years of time and by thousands of miles of distance, who cannot conceivably have even heard of each other. Yet the accounts which they give of their visions seem to bear an extraordinary likeness to one another. It scarcely appears reasonable to suggest that all these visionaries "imagined" such strikingly similar experiences, although they were quite ignorant of each other's existence".



WILL DURANT

Talking about the immence influence of Muhammad on world history he wrote:

"In the year 565 Justinian died, master of a great empire. Five years later Muhammad was born into a poor family in a country three quarters desert, sparsely peopled by nomad tribes whose total wealth could hardly have furnished the sanctuary of St. Sophia. No one in those years would have dreamed that within a century these nomads would conquer half of Byzantine Asia, all Persia and Egypt, most of North Africa, and be on their way to Spain. The explosion of the Arabian peninsula into the conquest and conversion of half the Mediterranean world is the most extraordinary phenomenon in medieval history".
ALFRED GUILLAME

He wrote the following in his book Islam in regards to the battles fought by the Prophet:

"Muhammad accomplished his purpose in the course of three small engagements: the number of combatants in these never exceeded a few thousand, but in importance they rank among the world's decisive battles".



KAREN ARMSTRONG

A modern research scholar of Islam Karen Armstrong, wrote in her book:

"Muhammad had to start virtually from scratch and work his way towards the radical monotheistic spirituality of his own. When he began his mission, a dispassionate observer would not have given him a chance. The Arabs, he might have objected, were just not ready for monotheism: they were not sufficently developed for this sophisticated vision. In fact, to attempt to introduce it on a large scale in this violent, terrifying society could be extremely dangerous and Muhammad would be lucky to escape with his life".

"Indeed, Muhammad was frequently in deadly peril and his survival was a near-miracle. But he did succeed. By the end of his life he had laid an axe to the root of the chronic cycle tribal violence that afflicted the region and paganism was no longer a going concern. The Arabs were ready to embark on a new phase of their history".
(Muhammad - A Biography of the Prophet page 53-54)

"Finally it was the West, not Islam, which forbade the open discussion of religious matters. At the time of the Crusades, Europe seemed obsessed by a craving for intellectual conformity and punished its deviants with a zeal that has been unique in the history of religion. The witch-hunts of the inquisitors and the persecution of Protestants by the Catholics and vice versa were inspired by abtruse theoligical opinions which in both Judaism and Islam were seen as private and optional matters. Neither Judaism nor Islam share the Christian conception of heresy, which raises human ideas about the divine to an unacceptably high level and almost makes them a form of idolatry. The period of the Crusades, when the fictional Mahound was established, was also a time of the great strain and denial in Europe. This is graphically expressed in the phobia about Islam".
(Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet, page 27).
MAJOR A. LEONARD

"If ever any man on this earth has found God; if ever any man has devoted his life for the sake of God with a pure and holy zeal then, without doubt, and most certainly that man was the Holy Prophet of Arabia".
(Islam, its Moral and Spiritual Values, p. 9; 1909, London).
John Austin

"In little more than a year he was actually the spiritual, nominal and temporal rule of Medina, with his hands on the lever that was to shake the world."

Sources: John Austin "Muhammad the Prophet of Allah," in T.P.'s and Cassel's Weekly for 24th September 1927.



Hercules

"Arabia, during the time of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh), was a country without any central authority. It was a country far from the civilized nations of those days. At the time Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) was spreading Islam; asking people to turn away from worshipping idols to worshipping Allah, the Almighty, the All-Knower, and the Master. The Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) sent letters of invitation to Kings and Rulers of various countries in the world, inviting them to embrace Islam. Many of the letters were met with a favorable response whilst others were rejected.

In many cases, the messengers of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) were badly treated and abused. But the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) was not worried by these setbacks. He was inviting people to the right path and a few setbacks could not deter him from propagating Islam.

Abu Sufyan a leader of the tribe of Quraish and the arch enemy of the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) was in Constantinople on a business trip, when the Prophet Mohammed's (pbuh) letter of invitation reached Hercules, the Byzantine emperor of Eastern Roman Empire. Hercules, at the time was in his court at Constantinople celebrating his victory over the Persians.

Hercules read the letter through an interpreter and then asked the people in his court, to find out if there was someone in the city, who knew the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh). Abu Sufyan with his companions was brought into the court.

The emperor Hercules asked Abu Sufyan, "What kind of family does Mohammed belong to?"
"Noble", replied Abu Sufyan.

"Has there been a king in his family?" Hercules asked.
"No," said Abu Sufyan.

"Are the people who have accepted his religion poor or rich?" Hercules questioned again.
"They are poor", replied Abu Sufyan.

Hercules was now becoming more and more interested and he went on asking questions.

His next question was, "Are his followers on the increase or decrease?"
"Increasing", Abu Sufyan replied shortly.

"Have you known him to tell lies"? Hercules asked.
"No", admitted Abu Sufyan
.

"Does he ever go against his convents?" Hercules once again asked.
"Not so far. But we have to see whether he carries out the new agreement made between us and him", Abu Sufyan answered lengthily for a change
.

"Have you ever fought him in wars?" Hercules questioned.
"Yes", answered Abu Sufyan.

"What has been the result?" Hercules asked, getting more and more interested.
"Sometimes we have won, sometimes he", replied Abu Sufyan.

"What does he teach?" Hercules asked.
"Worship One God, join no partners with Him, carry out your prayers, be chaste, speak the truth and keep union with your relatives", answered Abu Sufyan.

Even surprised at his own answer as it sounded like he was preaching Islam, Hercules stood up and said, "If all you said is true, then I am sure that this Prophet's Kingdom will reach here where I am standing. I was certain that a Prophet was coming, but I didn't know that he would be born in Arabia. If I were to go there, I would embrace Islam and wash the Prophet's feet with my own hands."

This was the way in which the Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) spread Islam.

Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) impressed them by his truthfulness, honesty, noble character and dedication in the service of Allah. Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) did not compel people to accept Islam under threat of waging wars, nor did he compel people to accept Islam by the force of the sword. Prophet Mohammed (pbuh) fought only in defense, and only when the enemies waged war on him".
Lane-Poole in 'Speeches and Table Talk of the Prophet Muhammad'

"He was the most faithful protector of those he protected, the sweetest and most agreeable in conversation. Those who saw him were suddenly filled with reverence; those who came near him loved him; they who described him would say, "I have never seen his like either before or after." He was of great taciturnity, but when he spoke it was with emphasis and deliberation, and no one could forget what he said".



Jules Masserman in 'Who Were Histories Great Leaders?' in TIME Magazine, July 15, 1974

"Perhaps the greatest leader of all times was Mohammad, who combined all the three functions. To a lesser degree Moses did the same".



Napoleon Bonaparte,

"Muhammad (peace be upon him) was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They snatched away more souls from false gods, pulled down more idols, demolished more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He might have been, in fact, a god, if the revolution which he was instrumental in bringing about had not been prepared by circumstances. When he appeared, the Arabs had been, since many years, afflictedwith civil wars. All those nations that have achieved great things have done them when they came out of such ordeals that renewed equally their souls and their bodies. If the battles of Kadesia and (gap in the original MSS) which enabled the intrepid Muslims to plant the standard of the Prophet on the banks of the Oxus and on the frontiers of China; if those of Ajnadin and Yarmuk, which caused Syria and Egypt to fall under their dominion, were turned against them; if the Khalids, the Zerars and the Amrs had been defeated and repelled to the vast deserts, the Arabs would have gone back to their wandering life; they would have lived like their forefathers, poor and miserable; the names of Muhammad, Ali, and Omar would have remained unknown to the World".

“Moses has revealed the existence of God to his nation. Jesus Christ to the Roman world, Muhammad to the old continent… “Arabia was idolatrous when, six centuries after Jesus, Muhammad introduced the worship of the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, of Moses, and Jesus. The Ariyans and some other sects had disturbed the tranquility of the east by agitating the question of the nature of the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. Muhammad declared that there was none but one God who had no father, no son and that the trinity imported the idea of idolatry". [Napolean Bonaparte as Quoted in Christian Cherfils, ‘Bonaparte et Islam,’ Pedone Ed., Paris, France, 1914, pp. 105, 125. (Original References: “Correspondance de Napoléon Ier Tome V pièce n° 4287 du 17/07/1799…”].

"I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness." [Napoleon Bonaparte as Quoted in Christian Cherfils, 'Bonaparte et Islam,' Pedone Ed., Paris, France, 1914, pp. 105, 125].



Bertrand Russel

History of Western Philosophy,’ London, 1948, p. 419.

“Our use of phrase ‘The Dark ages’ to cover the period from 699 to 1,000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe...

From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary...

“To us it seems that West-European civilization is civilization, but this is a narrow view.”
Goethe:

"If this be Islam, do we not all live in Islam".

(Writing in the 1770s)



Leo Tolstoy

“As far as the preference of Mohammedanism to Orthodoxy is concerned…, I can fully sympathize with such conversion. To say this might be strange for me who values the Christian ideals and the teaching of Christ in their pure sense more that anything else, I do not doubt that Islam in its outer form stands higher than the Orthodox Church. Therefore, if a person is given only two choices: to adhere to the Orthodox Church or Islam, any sensible person will not hesitate about his choice, and anyone will prefer Islam with its acceptance of one tenet, single God and His Prophet instead such complex and incomprehensible things in theology as the Trinity, redemption, sacraments, the saints and their images, and complicated services…”. (Yasnaya Polyana, March, 15th, 1909).

“I would be very glad if you were of the same faith with me. Just try to understand what my life is. Any success in life- wealth, honour, glory- I don’t have these. My friends, even my family are turning away from me. Some- liberals and aesthetes- consider me to be mad or weak- minded like Gogol; others- revolutionaries and radicals- consider me to be a mystic and a man who talks too much; the officials consider me to be a malicious revolutionary; the Orthodox consider me to be a devil. I confess that it is hard for me… And therefore, please, regard me as a kind Mohammedan, and all will be fine”. (Yasnaya Polyana, April, 1884).



Gustav Lobon


"Mohammad is the greatest man that history ever knew".



Herbert George Wells' Testimony:

"The Islamic teachings have left great traditions for equitable and gentle dealings and behavior, and inspire people with nobility and tolerance. These are human teachings of the highest order and at the same time practicable. These teachings brought into existence a society in which hard-heartedness and collective oppression and injustice were the least as compared with all other societies preceding it....Islam is replete with gentleness, courtesy, and fraternity."



Jean-Louis Michon


"Islam which ordered Jihad or Holy War, had much tolerance with followers of other religions, as per the teachings of Mohammad, Omar Ibn Khattab did not inflect harm upon the Christians when he concuered Jerusalem".



Encyclopedia Britannica

"Muhammad is the most successful of all religious personalities."

"... A mass of detail in the early sources shows that he was an honest and upright man who had gained the respect and loyalty of others who were likewise honest and upright men." (Vol. 12).
Allaahu Akbar!!
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-xRafeenax-
11-02-2007, 10:27 PM
wow thats LONG........
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jouju
11-03-2007, 06:08 PM
thanks...found it very interesting
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