Non-Muslims from different backgrounds quotes

Quotations regarding the best of creation; Prophet Muhammad (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him):

“The greatest crimes, the greatest “sin” of Mohammed in the eyes of Christian West is that he did not allow himself to be slaughtered, to be “crucified” by his enemies. He only defended himself, his family and his followers; and finally vanquished his enemies. Mohammed’s success is the Christians’ gall of disappointment… He did not believe in any vicarious sacrifices for the sins of others.”
Author :
Edward Gibbon
Book Reference :
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

“The lies which we [Christians] have heaped round this man (Mohammed), are disgraceful to ourselves only.”
Author :
Thomas Carlyle
Book Reference :
Heroes and Hero Worship

“Muhammed was the most successful of all religious personalities.”
Author :
Encyclopedia Britannica, 4th & 11th editions

“Among leaders who have made the greatest impact through the ages, I would consider Muhammed before Jesus Christ”
Author :
James Gavin, Speeches by a U.S. Army General

"Mohammed never assigned himself a status more than a common man and a messenger of God. People had faith in him when he was surrounded by poverty and adversity and trusted him while he was the ruler of a great Empire. A man of spotless character who always had a confidence in himself and in God’s help. No aspect of his life remained hidden nor was his death a mysterious event."
Author :
M.H. Hyndman
Book Reference :
The Awakening of Asia

“Mohammed brought an end to idol worship. He preached monotheism and infinite Mercy of God, human brotherhood, care of orphan, emancipation of slaves, forbidding of wine - No religion achieved as much success as Islam did."
Author :
Sir William Muir
Book Reference :
Life of Mohammed

“I believe that if today an autocrat of Mohammed’s caliber assumes world leadership, he could solve all problems of humanity splendidly. The world will become an abode of peace and happiness. I predict that tomorrow’s Europe will embrace Islam."
Author :
George Bernard Shaw

“The sayings of Muhammed are a treasure of wisdom not only for Muslims but for all of mankind.”
Author :
M. Gandhi
Book Reference :
Preface to The Sayings of Muhammed by Sohrawardi

The founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammed. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?
Author :
Lamartine
Book Reference :
Historie de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol. 11 pp. 276-277

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.
Author :
John Austin
Book Reference :
MUHAMMAD THE PROPHET OF ALLAH in T.P.'s and Cassel's Weekly for 24th September 1927

Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabia the man who, of all men exercised the greatest influence upon the human race... Mohammed
Author :
John William Draper, M.D., L.L.D.
Book Reference :
A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, London 1875, Vol.1, pp.329-330

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...
Author :
Lane-Poole
Book Reference :
in 'Speeches and Table Talk of the Prophet Muhammad'

His military triumphs awakened no pride nor vain glory as they would have done had they been effected by selfish purposes. In the time of his greatest power he maintained the same simplicity of manner and appearance as in the days of his adversity. So far from affecting regal state, he was displeased if, on entering a room, any unusual testimonial of respect was shown to him.
Author :
Washington Irving
Book Reference :
'Life of Muhammad,' New York, 1920

“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'.”
Author :
James Michener
Book Reference :
‘Islam: The Misunderstood Religion,’ Reader’s Digest, May 1955, pp. 68-70

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.
Author :
Thomas Carlyle
Book Reference :
'Heroes and Hero Worship and the Heroic in History,' 1840

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.
Author :
Gibbon
Book Reference :
in 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' 1823

The greatest success of Mohammad’s life was effected by sheer moral force.
Author :
Edward Gibbon and Simon Oakley
Book Reference :
‘History of the Saracen Empire,’ London, 187

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.”
Author :
Edward Gibbon and Simon Oakley
Book Reference :
‘History of the Saracen Empire,’ London, 1870

It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knew how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. And although in what I put to you I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel, whenever I reread them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher.
Author :
Annie Besant
Book Reference :
'The Life and Teachings of Mohammad,' Madras, 1932

So great was his liberality to the poor that he often left his household unprovided, nor did he content himself with relieving their wants, he entered into conversation with them, and expressed a warm sympathy for their sufferings. He was a firm friend and a faithful ally.
Author :
W.C. Taylor
Book Reference :
'The History of Muhammadanism and its Sects'

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.
Author :
Reverend Bosworth Smith
Book Reference :
'Muhammad and Muhammadanism,' London, 1874

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.
Author :
Reverend Bosworth Smith
Book Reference :
'Muhammad and Muhammadanism,' London, 1874

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.
Author :
Dr. Gustav Weil
Book Reference :
in 'History of the Islamic Peoples'

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.
Author :
Alphonse de LaMartaine
Book Reference :
'Historie de la Turquie,' Paris, 1854

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.
Author :
Alphonse de LaMartaine
Book Reference :
'Historie de la Turquie,' Paris, 1854

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: all these and finally, his flight his incessant preaching, his wars against odds, his faith in his success and his superhuman security in misfortune, his forbearance in victory, his ambition, which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death; all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. 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.
Author :
Alphonse de LaMartaine
Book Reference :
'Historie de la Turquie,' Paris, 1854

Deeply read in the volume of nature, though extremely ignorant of letters, his mind could expand into controversy with the wisest of his enemies or contract itself to the apprehension of meanest of his disciples. His simple eloquence was rendered impressive by a manner of mixed dignity and elegance, by the expression of a countenance where the awfulness of his majesty was so well tempered by an amiable sweetness, that it exerted emotions of veneration and love. He was gifted with that authoritative air or genius which alike influences the learned and commands the illiterate.
Author :
Charles Stuart Mills
Book Reference :
in 'History of Mohammadanism'

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.
Author :
Philip K. Hitti
Book Reference :
in 'History of the Arabs'

He was one of those happy few who have attained the supreme joy of making one great truth their very life spring. He was the messenger of One God, and never to his life's end did he forget who he was or the message which was the marrow of his being. He brought his tidings to his people with a grand dignity sprung from the consciousness of his high office, together with a most sweet humility.
Author :
Stanley Lane-Poole
Book Reference :
in 'Studies in a Mosque'

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.
Author :
Rodwell
Book Reference :
in the Preface to his translation of the Holy Qur'an

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.
Author :
W. Montgomery Watt
Book Reference :
'Muhammad at Mecca,' Oxford, 1953

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.
Author :
D. G. Hogarth in 'Arabia'

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.
Author :
Washington Irving
Book Reference :
'Mahomet and His Successors'

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.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.
Author :
Washington Irving
Book Reference :
'Mahomet and His Successors'

Quotations regarding the history of Islam:

“The Christian World came to wage crusades against Muslims but eventually knelt before them to gain knowledge. They were spellbound to see that Muslims were owners of a culture that was far superior to their own. The Dark Ages of Europe were illuminated by nothing but the beacon of Muslim Civilization.”
Author :F.J.C Hearushaw
Book Reference :The Science of History

"History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated."
Author :
De Lacy O'Leary
Book Reference :
ISLAM AT THE CROSSROADS, London, 1923, p. 8

“The Renaissance of Europe did not take place in the 15th century. Rather it began when Europe learned from the culture of the Arabs. The cradle of European awakening is not Italy. It is the Muslim Spain.”
Author :
Robert Briffault
Book Reference :
The Making Of Mankind

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.
Author :
Lawrence E. Browne
Book Reference :
‘The Prospects of Islam,’ 1944

Despite the growth of antagonism, Moslem (Muslim) rulers seldom made their Christian subjects suffer for the Crusades. When the Saracens finally resumed the full control of Palestine the Christians were given their former status as dhimmis. The Coptic Church, too had little cause for complaint under Saladin's (Salahuddin) strong government, and during the time of the earlier Mameluke sultans who succeeded him the Copts experienced more enlightened justice than they had hitherto known. The only effect of the Crusaders upon Egyptian Christians was to keep them for a while from pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for as long as the Frank were in charge heretics were forbidden access to the shrines. Not until the Moslem victories could they enjoy their rights as Christians.
Author :
James Addison
Book Reference :
'The Christian Approach to the Moslem,' p. 35

The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand and the Qur'an in the other is quite false.
Author :
A. S. Tritton
Book Reference :
in 'Islam,' 1951

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

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.
Author :
K. S. Ramakrishna Rao
Book Reference :
'Mohammed: The Prophet of Islam,' 1989

When Pococke inquired of Grotius, where the proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from Mahomet's (Muhammad's) ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there was no proof!..
Author :
Thomas Carlyle
Book Reference :
‘Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History,’ Lecture 2, Friday, 8th May 1840

A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the almighty have lived by and died by?...
Author :
Thomas Carlyle
Book Reference :
‘Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History,’ Lecture 2, Friday, 8th May 1840

“A rugged, strife-torn and mountaineering people...were suddenly turned into an indomitable Arab force, which achieved a series of splendid victories unparalleled in the history of nations, for in the short space of ninety years that mighty range of Saracenic (i.e. Muslim) conquest embraced a wider extent of territory than Rome had mastered in the course of eight hundred.”
Author :
Simon Ockley
Book Reference :
in 'History of the Saracens'

We have never heard about any attempt to compel Non-Muslim parties to adopt Islam or about any organized persecution aiming at exterminating Christianity. If the Caliphs had chosen one of these plans, they would have wiped out Christianity as easily as what happened to Islam during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; by the same method which Louis XIV followed to make Protestantism a creed whose followers were to be sentenced to death; or with the same ease of keeping the Jews away from Britain for a period of three hundred fifty years.
Author :
Thomas Arnold
Book Reference :
in 'The Call to Islam.'

This is why the God of vengeance, who alone is all-powerful, and changes the empire of mortals as He will, giving it to whomsoever He will, and uplifting the humble beholding the wickedness of the Romans who throughout their dominions, cruelly plundered our churches and our monasteries and condemned us without pity, brought from the region of the south the sons of Ishmael, to deliver us through them from the hands of the Romans. And if in truth we have suffered some loss, because the Catholic churches, that had been taken away from us and given to the Chalcedonians, remained in their possession; for when the cities submitted to the Arabs, they assigned to each denomination the churches which they found it to be in possession of (and at that time the great churches of Emessa and that of Harran had been taken away from us); nevertheless it was no slight advantage for us to be delivered from the cruelty of the Romans, their wickedness, their wrath and cruel zeal against us, and to find ourselves at people. (Michael the Elder, Jacobite Patriarch of Antioch wrote this text in the latter part of the twelfth century, after five centuries of Muslim rule in that region.)
Author :
Michael the Elder (Great)
Book Reference :
'Michael the Elder, Chronique de Michael Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d’ Antioche,' J.B. Chabot, Editor, Vol. II, Paris, 1901

Despite the growth of antagonism, Moslem (Muslim) rulers seldom made their Christian subjects suffer for the Crusades. When the Saracens finally resumed the full control of Palestine the Christians were given their former status as dhimmis. The Coptic Church, too had little cause for complaint under Saladin's (Salahuddin) strong government, and during the time of the earlier Mameluke sultans who succeeded him the Copts experienced more enlightened justice than they had hitherto known. The only effect of the Crusaders upon Egyptian Christians was to keep them for a while from pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for as long as the Frank were in charge heretics were forbidden access to the shrines. Not until the Moslem victories could they enjoy their rights as Christians.
Author :
James Addison
Book Reference :
'The Christian Approach to the Moslem,' p. 35

In the eyes of history, religious toleration is the highest evidence of culture in a people....It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant, and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Before the coming of Islam it (tolerance) had never been preached as an essential part of religion...
Author :
Marmaduke Pickthall
Book Reference :
1927 Lecture on 'Tolerance in Islam,' Madras, India

If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension...
Author :
Marmaduke Pickthall
Book Reference :
1927 Lecture on 'Tolerance in Islam,' Madras, India

The tolerance within the body of Islam was, and is, something without parallel in history; class and race and color ceasing altogether to be barriers.
Author :
Marmaduke Pickthall
Book Reference :
1927 Lecture on 'Tolerance in Islam,' Madras, India

format_quote Originally Posted by Ansar Al-'Adl

271. Ibid.
272. Ibid.
273. Ibid.
274. Video tape entitled This is the Truth, http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Qur...cientists.html.
275. Ibid.
276. Ibid.
277. Ibid.
278. Ibid.
279. Ibid.
280. Ibid.
281. Ibid.
282. http://islamweb.net/english/new/week...0%20%20%20%20%
20%20%20%20THE%20
LEADERS%20OF%20MODERN%20.htm.
283. Ibid.
284. Ibid.
285. Ibid.

SOURCE:
http://www.-----------------------/perfection_02.html

wow Masha Allah!

Brother Ansar Al-'Adl

What is that Ibid thing about

format_quote Originally Posted by Ansar Al-'Adl

Ibid stands for 'Ibidem' which is the latin word to say "in the same place". It's used when we provide references for quotes, and we want to let the reader know that the next quote is in the same source as the previous one.

ah! I see jazakallahu Kahyr

What beautiful posts.

Thank you Brothers.

format_quote Originally Posted by kadafi

I will here list all the quotes provided by Non-Muslims from various backgrounds and what they have to say about Islam and/or Muslims. These quotes are for Muslims and Non-Muslims alike. Insha'Allah, it will reveal that Islaam is not despised by the non-muslim academic scholars at all.

Some you might have read and some are completely new. Bear in mind that only quotes that are rare will be added.

"All the quotes" or only "rare quotes"?!

You've quoted Edward Gibbon - the greatest English speaking historian of all time, in my view - several times. He was highly respectful of the Islamic tradition (as I am), but was also an atheist (as I am). In the Western world, no person of his time knew more about the history of early religions, particularly Christianity, which he loathed, and upon which he placed the largest blame for "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".

format_quote Originally Posted by czgibson

"All the quotes" or only "rare quotes"?!

You've quoted Edward Gibbon - the greatest English speaking historian of all time, in my view - several times. He was highly respectful of the Islamic tradition (as I am), but was also an atheist (as I am). In the Western world, no person of his time knew more about the history of early religions, particularly Christianity, which he loathed, and upon which he placed the largest blame for "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire".

Greetings!

Hehe, you have spotted the error. Thank you

Indeed, Edward Gibbon was the greatest contempary historian - of all time is an exaggeration - but they that is my view!

You are also correct that he highly admired Islaam and detested Christianity.

Regards

Yepp. I agree ... Great Posts THANKS !

[QUOTE=biblico_studico;120125]Perhaps the problem lies about generality concept about a certain idea by a person holding it. Not all Christian despised Non-Christian (like Muslim, Buddhists..etc). A Christian must not harbor ill-feelings to anybody. He/She must not say anything bad for the purpose of condemning a certian person. There is no such good and bad Christian, either you are one or you are not.Either you are Christian or anti-Christian. In the same manner there is no such good or bad Muslim. If you believe that there is only One True God then start at that point to be together as brothers/sisters. Let no one be the reason for other to stumble about real spirituality as required by GOD to be qualified to receive His promised Gift.
Hope, I did not offend anybody. I am ready to hear any reaction on what I said here now and willing to change view for should it be in line with what conviction I have of God.
Thanks.

This is amazing, keep up the good work brothers

QUOTATIONS FROM FAMOUS HISTORIANS OF SCIENCE
http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/Introl1.html

Western writers have often used the word Arabs or Muhammadans for Muslims and Arabic civilization for Islamic Civilization. In other instances, the words Saracen(ic) and Moor(ish) are also used for Muslims (Arabs and non-Arabs) from various parts of Europe, Africa, Arabia and Asia. According to a tradition of the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) anyone whose primary language is Arabic is an Arab despite his ethnic origin, place of birth, or national origin. Arabic was the medium of communication throughout the Muslim world until a couple of centuries ago, regardless of the type of activity whether religious, social or scientific. During 800-1500 C.E. essentially all scientific works were written in Arabic. It is only after colonization of Muslim lands that this practice became less prevalent and in many instances was eliminated.


George Sarton's Tribute to Muslim Scientists in the "Introduction to the History of Science," I

"It will suffice here to evoke a few glorious names without contemporary equivalents in the West: Jabir ibn Haiyan, al-Kindi, al-Khwarizmi, al-Fargani, al-Razi, Thabit ibn Qurra, al-Battani, Hunain ibn Ishaq, al-Farabi, Ibrahim ibn Sinan, al-Masudi, al-Tabari, Abul Wafa, 'Ali ibn Abbas, Abul Qasim, Ibn al-Jazzar, al-Biruni, Ibn Sina, Ibn Yunus, al-Kashi, Ibn al-Haitham, 'Ali Ibn 'Isa al-Ghazali, al-zarqab, Omar Khayyam. A magnificent array of names which it would not be difficult to extend. If anyone tells you that the Middle Ages were scientifically sterile, just quote these men to him, all of whom flourished within a short period, 750 to 1100 A.D."


John William Draper in the "Intellectual Development of Europe"

"I have to deplore the systematic manner in which the literature of Europe has continued to put out of sight our obligations to the Muhammadans. Surely they cannot be much longer hidden. Injustice founded on religious rancour and national conceit cannot be perpetuated forever. The Arab has left his intellectual impress on Europe. He has indelibly written it on the heavens as any one may see who reads the names of the stars on a common celestial globe."

Robert Briffault in the "Making of Humanity"

"It was under the influence of the arabs and Moorish revival of culture and not in the 15th century, that a real renaissance took place. Spain, not Italy, was the cradle of the rebirth of Europe. After steadily sinking lower and lower into barbarism, it had reached the darkest depths of ignorance and degradation when cities of the Saracenic world, Baghdad, Cairo, Cordova, and Toledo, were growing centers of civilization and intellectual activity. It was there that the new life arose which was to grow into new phase of human evolution. From the time when the influence of their culture made itself felt, began the stirring of new life.

"It was under their successors at Oxford School (that is, successors to the Muslims of Spain) that Roger Bacon learned Arabic and Arabic Sciences. Neither Roger Bacon nor later namesake has any title to be credited with having introduced the experimental method. Roger Bacon was no more than one of apostles of Muslim Science and Method to Christian Europe; and he never wearied of declaring that knowledge of Arabic and Arabic Sciences was for his contemporaries the only way to true knowledge. Discussion as to who was the originator of the experimental method....are part of the colossal misinterpretation of the origins of European civilization. The experimental method of Arabs was by Bacon's time widespread and eagerly cultivated throughout Europe.

"Science is the most momentous contribution of Arab civilization to the modern world; but its fruits were slow in ripening. Not until long after Moorish culture had sunk back into darkness did the giant, which it had given birth to, rise in his might. It was not science only which brought Europe back to life. Other and manifold influence from the civilization of Islam communicated its first glow to European Life.

"For Although there is not a single aspect of European growth in which the decisive influence of Islamic Culture is not traceable, nowhere is it so clear and momentous as in the genesis of that power which constitutes the permanent distinctive force of the modern world, and the supreme source of its victory, natural science and the scientific spirit.

"The debt of our science to that of the Arabs does not consist in startling discoveries or revolutionary theories, science owes a great deal more to Arab culture, it owes its existence. The Astronomy and Mathematics of the Greeks were a foreign importation never thoroughly acclimatized in Greek culture. The Greeks systematized, generalized and theorized, but the patient ways of investigation, the accumulation of positive knowledge, the minute method of science, detailed and prolonged observation and experimental inquiry were altogether alien to the Greek temperament. Only in Hellenistic Alexandria was any approach to scientific work conducted in the ancient classical world. What we call science arose in Europe as a result of new spirit of enquiry, of new methods of experiment, observation, measurement, of the development of mathematics, in a form unknown to the Greeks. That spirit and those methods were introduced into the European world by the Arabs.

"It is highly probable that but for the Arabs, modern European civilization would never have arisen at all; it is absolutely certain that but for them, it would not have assumed that character which has enabled it to transcend all previous phases of evolution."

George Sarton in the "Introduction to the History of Science"

"During the reign of Caliph Al-Mamun (813-33 A.D.), the new learning reached its climax. The monarch created in Baghdad a regular school for translation. It was equipped with a library, one of the translators there was Hunayn Ibn Ishaq (809-77) a particularly gifted philosopher and physician of wide erudition, the dominating figure of this century of translators. We know from his own recently published Memoir that he translated practically the whole immense corpus of Galenic writings."
"Besides the translation of Greek works and their extracts, the translators made manuals of which one form, that of the 'pandects,' is typical of the period of Arabic learning. These are recapitulations of the whole medicine, discussing the affections of the body, systematically beginning at the head and working down to the feet."

"The Muslim ideal was, it goes without saying, not visual beauty but God in His plentitude; that is God with all his manifestations, the stars and the heavens, the earth and all nature. The Muslim ideal is thus infinite. But in dealing with the infinite as conceived by the Muslims, we cannot limit ourselves to the space alone, but must equally consider time.

"The first mathematical step from the Greek conception of a static universe to the Islamic one of a dynamic universe was made by Al-Khwarizmi (780-850), the founder of modern Algebra. He enhanced the purely arithmetical character of numbers as finite magnitudes by demonstrating their possibilities as elements of infinite manipulations and investigations of properties and relations.

"In Greek mathematics, the numbers could expand only by the laborious process of addition and multiplication. Khwarizmi's algebraic symbols for numbers contain within themselves the potentialities of the infinite. So we might say that the advance from arithmetic to algebra implies a step from being to 'becoming' from the Greek universe to the living universe of Islam. The importance of Khwarizmi's algebra was recognized, in the twelfth century, by the West, - when Girard of Cremona translated his theses into Latin. Until the sixteenth century this version was used in European universities as the principal mathematical text book. But Khwarizmi's influence reached far beyond the universities. We find it reflected in the mathematical works of Leonardo Fibinacci of Pissa, Master Jacob of Florence, and even of Leonardo da Vinci."

"Through their medical investigations they not merely widened the horizons of medicine, but enlarged humanistic concepts generally. And once again they brought this about because of their over riding spiritual convictions. Thus it can hardly have been accidental that those researches should have led them that were inevitably beyond the reach of Greek masters. If it is regarded as symbolic that the most spectacular achievement of the mid-twentieth century is atomic fission and the nuclear bomb, likewise it would not seem fortuitous that the early Muslim's medical endeavor should have led to a discovery that was quite as revolutionary though possibly more beneficent."

"A philosophy of self-centredness, under whatever disguise, would be both incomprehensible and reprehensible to the Muslim mind. That mind was incapable of viewing man, whether in health or sickness as isolated from God, from fellow men, and from the world around him. It was probably inevitable that the Muslims should have discovered that disease need not be born within the patient himself but may reach from outside, in other words, that they should have been the first to establish clearly the existence of contagion."

"One of the most famous exponents of Muslim universalism and an eminent figure in Islamic learning was Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna (981-1037). For a thousand years he has retained his original renown as one of the greatest thinkers and medical scholars in history. His most important medical works are the Qanun (Canon) and a treatise on Cardiac drugs. The 'Qanun fi-l-Tibb' is an immense encyclopedia of medicine. It contains some of the most illuminating thoughts pertaining to distinction of mediastinitis from pleurisy; contagious nature of phthisis; distribution of diseases by water and soil; careful description of skin troubles; of sexual diseases and perversions; of nervous ailments."

"We have reason to believe that when, during the crusades, Europe at last began to establish hospitals, they were inspired by the Arabs of near East....The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingt, was founded by Louis IX after his return from the crusade 1254-1260."

"We find in his (Jabir, Geber) writings remarkably sound views on methods of chemical research, a theory on the geologic formation of metals (the six metals differ essentially because of different proportions of sulphur and mercury in them); preparation of various substances (e.g., basic lead carbonatic, arsenic and antimony from their sulphides)."

Ibn Haytham's writings reveal his fine development of the experimental faculty. His tables of corresponding angles of incidence and refraction of light passing from one medium to another show how closely he had approached discovering the law of constancy of ratio of sines, later attributed to snell. He accounted correctly for twilight as due to atmospheric refraction, estimating the sun's depression to be 19 degrees below the horizon, at the commencement of the phenomenon in the mornings or at its termination in the evenings."

"A great deal of geographical as well as historical and scientific knowledge is contained in the thirty volume meadows of Gold and Mines of Gems by one of the leading Muslim Historians, the tenth century al Mas'udi. A more strictly geographical work is the dictionary 'Mujam al-Buldan' by al-Hamami (1179-1229). This is a veritable encyclopedia that, in going far beyond the confines of geography, incorporates also a great deal of scientific lore."

"They studied, collected and described plants that might have some utilitarian purpose, whether in agriculture or in medicine. These excellent tendencies, without equivalent in Christendom, were continued during the first half of the thirteenth century by an admirable group of four botanists. One of these Ibn al-Baitar compiled the most elaborate Arabic work on the subject (Botany), in fact the most important for the whole period extending from Dioscorides down to the sixteenth century. It was a true encyclopedia on the subject, incorporating the whole Greek and Arabic experience."

"'Abd al-Malik ibn Quraib al-Asmai (739-831) was a pious Arab who wrote some valuable books on human anatomy. Al-Jawaliqi who flourished in the first half of the twelfth century and 'Abd al-Mumin who flourished in the second half of the thirteenth century in Egypt, wrote treatises on horses. The greatest zoologist amongst the Arabs was al-Damiri (1405) of Egypt whose book on animal life, 'Hayat al-Hayawan' has been translated into English by A.S.G. Jayakar (London 1906, 1908)."

"The weight of venerable authority, for example that of Ptolemy, seldom intimidated them. They were always eager to put a theory to tests, and they never tired of experimentation. Though motivated and permeated by the spirit of their religion, they would not allow dogma as interpreted by the orthodox to stand in the way of their scientific research."