Most influential person

format_quote Originally Posted by StrivingforDeen

Elliot Hulse and Tupac Amaru Shakur are two that pop up in my mind. Elliott Hulse was someone that influenced in a earlier stage of my life. And Tupac Shakur is a recent one. It seems like we agree upon almost everything.

I googled to see who they are....so your interested in body building and music. Right?... Then... Nothing weird of you as us Muslims also like sportsman, politician, writer, poet etc.

If Muhammad is not the most influential person to you, you need to have a serious look at your Imaan.

From the 100, a Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History

by Michael H. Hart

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 religious and secular levels.

Of humble origins, Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world's great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader. Today, thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive.

The majority of the persons in this book had the advantage of being born and raised in centers of civilization, highly cultured or politically pivotal nations. Muhammad, however, was born in the year 570, in the city of Mecca, in southern Arabia, at that time a backward area of the world, far from the centers of trade, art, and learning. Orphaned at age six, he was reared in modest surroundings. Islamic tradition tells us that he was illiterate. His economic position improved when, at age twenty-five, he married a wealthy widow. Nevertheless, as he approached forty, there was little outward indication that he was a remarkable person.

Most Arabs at that time were pagans, who believed in many gods. There were, however, in Mecca, a small number of Jews and Christians; it was from them no doubt that Muhammad first learned of a single, omnipotent God who ruled the entire universe. When he was forty years old, Muhammad became convinced that this one true God (Allah) was speaking to him, and had chosen him to spread the true faith.

For three years, Muhammad preached only to close friends and associates. Then, about 613, he began preaching in public. As he slowly gained converts, the Meccan authorities came to consider him a dangerous nuisance. In 622, fearing for his safety, Muhammad fled to Medina (a city some 200 miles north of
Mecca), where he had been offered a position of considerable political power.

This flight, called the Hegira, was the turning point of the Prophet's life. In Mecca, he had had few followers. In Medina, he had many more, and he soon acquired an influence that made him a virtual dictator. During the next few years, while Muhammad s following grew rapidly, a series of battles were fought between Medina and Mecca. This was ended in 630 with Muhammad's triumphant return to Mecca as conqueror. The remaining two and one-half years of his life witnessed the rapid conversion of the Arab tribes to the new religion. When Muhammad died, in 632, he was the effective ruler of all of southern Arabia.
The Bedouin tribesmen of Arabia had a reputation as fierce warriors. But their number was small; and plagued by disunity and internecine warfare, they had been no match for the larger armies of the kingdoms in the settled agricultural areas to the north. However, unified by Muhammad for the first time in history, and inspired by their fervent belief in the one true God, these small Arab armies now embarked upon one of the most astonishing series of conquests in human history. To the northeast of Arabia lay the large Neo-Persian Empire of the Sassanids; to the northwest lay the Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople. Numerically, the Arabs were no match for their opponents. On the field of battle, though, the inspired Arabs rapidly conquered all of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. By 642, Egypt had been wrested from the Byzantine Empire, while the Persian armies had been crushed at the key battles of Qadisiya in 637, and Nehavend in 642.

But even these enormous conquests-which were made under the leadership of Muhammad's close friends and immediate successors, Abu Bakr and 'Umar ibn al-Khattab -did not mark the end of the Arab advance. By 711, the Arab armies had swept completely across North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean There they turned north and, crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigothic kingdom in Spain.

For a while, it must have seemed that the Moslems would overwhelm all of Christian Europe. However, in 732, at the famous Battle of Tours, a Moslem army, which had advanced into the center of France, was at last defeated by the Franks. Nevertheless, in a scant century of fighting, these Bedouin tribesmen, inspired by the word of the Prophet, had carved out an empire stretching from the borders of India to the Atlantic Ocean-the largest empire that the world had yet seen. And everywhere that the armies conquered, large-scale conversion to the new faith eventually followed.

Now, not all of these conquests proved permanent. The Persians, though they have remained faithful to the religion of the Prophet, have since regained their independence from the Arabs. And in Spain, more than seven centuries of warfare 5 finally resulted in the Christians reconquering the entire peninsula. However, Mesopotamia and Egypt, the two cradles of ancient civilization, have remained Arab, as has the entire coast of North Africa. The new religion, of course, continued to spread, in the intervening centuries, far beyond the borders of the original Moslem conquests. Currently it has tens of millions of adherents in Africa and Central Asia and even more in Pakistan and northern India, and in Indonesia. In Indonesia, the new faith has been a unifying factor. In the Indian subcontinent, however, the conflict between Moslems and Hindus is still a major obstacle to unity.

How, then, is one to assess the overall impact of Muhammad on human history? Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world's great religions all figure prominently in this book . Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Moslems in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. There are two principal reasons for that decision. First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity. Although Jesus was responsible for the main ethical and moral precepts of Christianity (insofar as these differed from Judaism), St. Paul was the main developer of Christian theology, its principal proselytizer, and the author of a large portion of the New Testament.

Muhammad, however, was responsible for both the theology of Islam and its main ethical and moral principles. In addition, he played the key role in proselytizing the new faith, and in establishing the religious practices of Islam. Moreover, he is the author of the Moslem holy scriptures, the Koran, a collection of certain of Muhammad's insights that he believed had been directly revealed to him by Allah. Most of these utterances were copied more or less faithfully during Muhammad's lifetime and were collected together in authoritative form not long after his death. The Koran therefore, closely represents Muhammad's ideas and teachings and to a considerable extent his exact words. No such detailed compilation of the teachings of Christ has survived. Since the Koran is at least as important to Moslems as the Bible is to Christians, the influence of Muhammed through the medium of the Koran has been enormous 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. On the purely religious level, then, it seems likely that Muhammad has been as influential in human history as Jesus.

Furthermore, Muhammad (unlike Jesus) was a secular as well as a religious leader. In fact, as the driving force behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank as the most influential political leader of all time.

Of many important historical events, one might say that they were inevitable and would have occurred even without the particular political leader who guided them. For example, the South American colonies would probably have won their independence from Spain even if Simon Bolivar had never lived. But this cannot be said of the Arab conquests. Nothing similar had occurred before Muhammad, and there is no reason to believe that the conquests would have been achieved without him. The only comparable conquests in human history are those of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, which were primarily due to the influence of Genghis Khan. These conquests, however, though more extensive than those of the Arabs, did not prove permanent, and today the only areas occupied by the Mongols are those that they held prior to the time of Genghis Khan.

It is far different with the conquests of the Arabs. From Iraq to Morocco, there extends a whole chain of Arab nations united not merely by their faith in Islam, but also by their Arabic language, history, and culture. The centrality of the Koran in the Moslem religion and the fact that it is written in Arabic have probably prevented the Arab language from breaking up into mutually unintelligible dialects, which might otherwise have occurred in the intervening thirteen centuries. Differences and divisions between these Arab states exist, of course, and they are considerable, but the partial disunity should not blind us to the important elements of unity that have continued to exist. For instance, neither Iran nor Indonesia, both oil-producing states and both Islamic in religion, joined in the oil embargo of the winter of 1973-74. It is no coincidence that all of the Arab states, and only the Arab states, participated in the embargo.
We see, then, that the Arab conquests of the seventh century have continued to play an important role in human history, down to the present day. 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.


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100 most influential people in the world

This is a list chosen by Michael H. Hast, from the book ‘100 most influential people in the world‘. He chose people on a ranking of who had done the most to influence the world.

1. Muhammad (570 – 632 AD) Prophet of Islam.
2. Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727) – British mathematician and scientist.
3. Jesus Christ (c.5BC – 30 AD) Spiritual teacher and central figure of Christianity.
4. Buddha (c 563 – 483 BC) Spiritual Teacher and founder of Buddhism.
5. Confucius (551 – 479 BC) – Chinese philosopher.
6. St. Paul (5 – AD 67) – Christian missionary and one of main writers of New Testament.
7. Ts’ai Lun (AD 50 – 121) Inventor of paper.
8. Johann Gutenberg (1395 – 1468) – Inventor of printing press.
9. Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506) – Italian explorer landed in America.
10. Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955) German/ US scientist discovered Theory of Relativity.
11. Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895) French biologist. Developed cure for rabies and other infectious diseases.
12. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) Italian scientist – confirmed heliocentric view of universe.
13. Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) – Greek philosopher and polymath
14. Euclid (c. 325 – 265 BC) – Greek mathematician
15. Moses (c 1391 – 1271 BC) A key figure of Jewish / Christian history gave 10 Commandments of Old Testament
16. Charles Darwin (1809 -– 1882) –Scientist who proposed and popularised theory of evolution.
17. Shih Huang Ti (259 – 210 BC) – King of the state of Qin who conquered and united different regions of China in 221 BC.
18. Augustus Caesar (63 BC – AD 14) – First Emperor of Rome
19. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) Renaissance mathematician and astronomer who believed Sun was centre of Universe – rather than earth.
20. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743 – 1794) French chemist and biologist who had leading impact on the chemical revolution.
21. Constantine the Great (272 AD – 337) Roman Emperor who accepted Christian religion.
22. James Watt (1736 – 1819) Scottish engineer. Watt improved the Newcome steam engine creating an efficient steam engine
23. Michael Faraday (1791 – 1867) – English scientist who contributed in fields of electromagnetism and electro-chemistry.
24. James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) Scottish physicist. Maxwell made a significant contribution to understanding electro-magnetism
25. Martin Luther (1483-1546) Sought to reform the Roman Catholic Church – starting the Protestant Reformation.
26. George Washington (1732 – 1799) – Leader of US forces during American Revolution and 1st President of US.
27. Karl Marx (1818 -– 1883) – German Communist philosopher.
28. Orville and Wilbur Wright Orville (1871 – 1948) – Wilbur (1867 – 1912) – Created and flew first aeroplane.
29. Genghis Kahn (1162 – 1227) – Military and political leader of the Mongols.
30. Adam Smith (1723-1790) Scottish social philosopher and pioneer of classical economics.
31. William Shakespeare (1564- 1616) English poet and playwright.
32. John Dalton (1766 – 1844) English chemist and physicist. Made contributions to atomic theory.
33. Alexander the Great (356 -– 323 BC) – King of Macedonia and military leader.
34. Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 –- 1821) – French military and political leader.
35. Thomas Edison (1847 – 1931) – Inventor and businessman helped introduce electricity and electric light bulbs.
36. Antony van Leeuwenhoek (1632-1723) Dutch chemist – founder of micro-biology.
37. William T.G. Morton (1819 – 1868) American dentist who pioneered used of anaesthetic.
38. Guglielmo Marconi (1874 – 1937) Italian engineer who helped develop radio transmission.
39. Adolf Hitler (1889 – 1945) – Dictator of Nazi Germany.
40. Plato (424 –- 348 BC) – Greek philosopher.
41. Oliver Cromwell (1599-1658) – Leader of Parliamentarians in English civil war.
42. Alexander Graham Bell (1847 – 1922) – Scottish inventor of telephone.
43. Alexander Fleming (1881-1955) Scottish biologist who discovered penicillin.
44. John Locke (1632-1704) English political philosopher. Locke promoted theory of liberal democracy and a social contract.
45. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 – 1827) German composer of the classical and romantic period.
46. Werner Heisenberg (1901–1976) German theoretical physicist – one of pioneers of Quantum mechanics
47. Louis Daguerre (1787–1851) French artist and photographer, who is credited with invention of camera.
48. Simon Bolivar (1783 – 1830) – Liberator of Latin American countries
49. Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650) French philosopher and mathematician. “I think, therefore I am
50. Michelangelo (1475 – 1564) Renaissance sculptor, painter and architect
51. Pope Urban II
52. ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab
53. Asoka
54. St. Augustine
55. William Harvey
56. Ernest Rutherford
57. John Calvin
58. Gregor Mendel
59. Max Planck
60. Joseph Lister
61. Nikolaus August Otto
62. Francisco Pizarro
63. Hernando Cortes
64. Thomas Jefferson (1743 – 1826) 3rd President of US. Principle author of Declaration of Independence
65. Queen Isabella I
66. Joseph Stalin
67. Julius Caesar
68. William the Conqueror
69. Sigmund Freud
70. Edward Jenner
71. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen
72. Johann Sebastian Bach
73. Lao Tzu
74. Voltaire
75. Johannes Kepler
76. Enrico Fermi
77. Leonhard Euler
78. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
79. Nicoli Machiavelli
80. Thomas Malthus
81. John F. Kennedy
82. Gregory Pincus
83. Mani
84. Lenin
85. Sui Wen Ti
86. Vasco da Gama
87. Cyrus the Great
88. Peter the Great
89. Mao Zedong
90. Francis Bacon
91. Henry Ford
92. Mencius
93. Zoroaster
94. Queen Elizabeth I
95. Mikhail Gorbachev
96. Menes
97. Charlemagne
98. Homer
99. Justinian I
100. Mahavira

format_quote Originally Posted by StrivingforDeen

Well I am a non-Muslim.

And you say that proudly...

Good Luck in the Aakhirah