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.
TO READ THE NON-MUSLIM VERDICT ON MUHAMMED (PBUH). CLICK HERE
TO READ MICHAEL H. HART'S CHAPTER ON JESUS CHRIST (PBUH). CLICK HERE
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.
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.
D. G. 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.
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..."
"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...
"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 Qur'an which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness."
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 far 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."
Bertrand Russel in '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."
H.G. Wells
"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."
Dr. William Draper in 'History of Intellectual Development of Europe'
"During the period of the Caliphs the learned men of the Christians and the Jews were not only held in great esteem but were appointed to posts of great responsibility, and were promoted to the high ranking job in the government....He (Caliph Haroon Rasheed) never considered to which country a learned person belonged nor his faith and belief, but only his excellence in the field of learning."
Thomas Carlyle in 'Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History,' Lecture 2, Friday, 8th May 1840.
"As there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans (i.e. Muslim), I mean to say all the good of him I justly can... "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!...
"A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man; careless of what vulgar men toil for. Not a bad man, I should say; Something better in him than hunger of any sort, -- or these wild arab men, fighting and jostling three-and-twenty years at his hand, in close contact with him always, would not revered him so! They were wild men bursting ever and anon into quarrel, into all kinds of fierce sincerity; without right worth and manhood, no man could have commanded them. They called him prophet you say? Why he stood there face to face with them; bare, not enshrined in any mystry; visibly clouting his own cloak, cobbling his own shoes; fighting, counselling, ordering in the midst of them: they must have seen what kind of man he was, let him be called what you like! No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clouting. During three-and-twenty years of rough actual trial. I find something of a veritable Hero necessary for that, of itself...
"These Arabs, the man Mahomet, and that one century, - is it not as if a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what proves explosive powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Granada! I said, the Great man was always as lightning out of Heaven; the rest of men waited for him like fuel, and then they too would flame..."
Phillip Hitti in 'Short History of the Arabs.'
"During all the first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made as important a contribution to human progress as did the Arabs, if we take this term to mean all those whose mother-tongue was Arabic, and not merely those living in the Arabian peninsula. For centuries, Arabic was the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress for the whole of the civilized world with the exception of the Far East. From the IXth to the XIIth century there were more philosophical, medical, historical, religiuos, astronomical and geographical works written in Arabic than in any other human tongue."
Carra de Vaux in 'The Philosophers of Islam,' Paris, 1921.
"Finally how can one forget that at the same time the Mogul Empire of India (1526-1857 C.E.) was giving the world the Taj Mahal (completed in 1648 C.E.) the architectural beauty of which has never been surpassed, and the 'Akbar Nameh' of Abul Fazl: "That extraordinary work full of life ideas and learning where every aspect of life is examined listed and classified, and where progress continually dazzles the eye, is a document of which Oriental civilization may justly be proud. The men whose genius finds its expression in this book were far in advance of their age in the practical art of government, and they were perhaps in advance of it in their speculations about religious philosophy. Those poets those philosophers knew how to deal with the world or matter. They observe, classify, calculate and experiment. All the ideas that occur to them are tested against facts. They express them with eloquence but they also support them with statistics."...the principles of tolerance, justice and humanity which prevailed during the long reign of Akbar."
Marcel Clerget in 'La Turquie, Passe et Present,' Paris, 1938.
"Many proofs of high cultural level of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent are to be found in the development of science and law; in the flowering of literary works in Arabic, Persian and Turkish; in the contemporary monuments in Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne; in the boom in luxury industries; in the sumptuous life of the court and high dignitaries, and last but not least in its religious tolerance. All the various influences - notably Turkish, Byzantine and Italian mingle together and help to make this the most brilliant epoch of the Ottomans."
Michael the Elder (Great) as Quoted in 'Michael the Elder, Chronique de Michael Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d' Antioche,' J.B. Chabot, Editor, Vol. II, Paris, 1901.
"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. Click here for a relevant document sent to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai, 628 C.E.)
Sir John Bagot Glubb
"Khalif (Caliph) Al-Ma'mun's period of rule (813 - 833 C.E.) may be considered the 'golden age' of science and learning. He had always been devoted to books and to learned pursuits. His brilliant mind was interested in every form of intellectual activity. Not only poetry but also philosophy, theology, astronomy, medicine and law all occupied his time." "By Mamun's time medical schools were extremely active in Baghdad. The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Caliphate of Haroon-ar-Rashid. As the system developed, physicians and surgeons were appointed who gave lectures to medical students and issued diplomas to those who were considered qualified to practice. The first hospital in Egypt was opened in 872 AD and thereafter public hospitals sprang up all over the empire from Spain and the Maghrib to Persia."
On the Holocaust of Baghdad (1258 C.E.) Perpetrated by Hulagu: "The city was systematically looted, destroyed and burnt. Eight hundred thousand persons are said to have been killed. The Khalif Mustasim was sewn up in a sack and trampled to death under the feet of Mongol horses.
"For five hundred years, Baghdad had been a city of palaces, mosques, libraries and colleges. Its universities and hospitals were the most up-to-date in the world. Nothing now remained but heaps of rubble and
6 comments:
Every one has their own view.
MUHAMMAD
570-632
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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What about his epilepsy,serial killing,paedophilia, and anti semitism?!
The Truth About Muhammad: Founder of the World's Most Intolerant Religion
There is a preview here and a review of Spencer's book by Andrew C. McCarthy here.
Thanks for info.Jihad watch will be added to my blogroll.
WHAT-NON-MUSLIMS-SAY-ABOUT-QURAN-ISLAM-AND-MOHAMMAD-[pbuh]
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.
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.
D. G. 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.
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..."
"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...
"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 Qur'an which alone are true and
which alone can lead men to happiness."
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 far 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."
Bertrand Russel in '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."
H.G. Wells
"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."
Dr. William Draper in 'History of Intellectual Development of Europe'
"During the period of the Caliphs the learned men of the Christians
and the Jews were not only held in great esteem but were appointed to
posts of great responsibility, and were promoted to the high ranking
job in the government....He (Caliph Haroon Rasheed) never considered
to which country a learned person belonged nor his faith and belief,
but only his excellence in the field of learning."
Thomas Carlyle in 'Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History,'
Lecture 2, Friday, 8th May 1840.
"As there is no danger of our becoming, any of us, Mahometans (i.e.
Muslim), I mean to say all the good of him I justly can... "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!...
"A poor, hard-toiling, ill-provided man; careless of what vulgar men
toil for. Not a bad man, I should say; Something better in him than
hunger of any sort, -- or these wild arab men, fighting and jostling
three-and-twenty years at his hand, in close contact with him always,
would not revered him so! They were wild men bursting ever and anon
into quarrel, into all kinds of fierce sincerity; without right worth
and manhood, no man could have commanded them. They called him prophet
you say? Why he stood there face to face with them; bare, not
enshrined in any mystry; visibly clouting his own cloak, cobbling his
own shoes; fighting, counselling, ordering in the midst of them: they
must have seen what kind of man he was, let him be called what you
like! No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of
his own clouting. During three-and-twenty years of rough actual trial.
I find something of a veritable Hero necessary for that, of itself...
"These Arabs, the man Mahomet, and that one century, - is it not as if
a spark had fallen, one spark, on a world of what proves explosive
powder, blazes heaven-high from Delhi to Granada! I said, the Great
man was always as lightning out of Heaven; the rest of men waited for
him like fuel, and then they too would flame..."
Phillip Hitti in 'Short History of the Arabs.'
"During all the first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made as
important a contribution to human progress as did the Arabs, if we
take this term to mean all those whose mother-tongue was Arabic, and
not merely those living in the Arabian peninsula. For centuries,
Arabic was the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress
for the whole of the civilized world with the exception of the Far
East. From the IXth to the XIIth century there were more
philosophical, medical, historical, religiuos, astronomical and
geographical works written in Arabic than in any other human tongue."
Carra de Vaux in 'The Philosophers of Islam,' Paris, 1921.
"Finally how can one forget that at the same time the Mogul Empire of
India (1526-1857 C.E.) was giving the world the Taj Mahal (completed
in 1648 C.E.) the architectural beauty of which has never been
surpassed, and the 'Akbar Nameh' of Abul Fazl: "That extraordinary
work full of life ideas and learning where every aspect of life is
examined listed and classified, and where progress continually dazzles
the eye, is a document of which Oriental civilization may justly be
proud. The men whose genius finds its expression in this book were far
in advance of their age in the practical art of government, and they
were perhaps in advance of it in their speculations about religious
philosophy. Those poets those philosophers knew how to deal with the
world or matter. They observe, classify, calculate and experiment. All
the ideas that occur to them are tested against facts. They express
them with eloquence but they also support them with statistics."...the
principles of tolerance, justice and humanity which prevailed during
the long reign of Akbar."
Marcel Clerget in 'La Turquie, Passe et Present,' Paris, 1938.
"Many proofs of high cultural level of the Ottoman Empire during the
reign of Suleiman the Magnificent are to be found in the development
of science and law; in the flowering of literary works in Arabic,
Persian and Turkish; in the contemporary monuments in Istanbul, Bursa,
and Edirne; in the boom in luxury industries; in the sumptuous life of
the court and high dignitaries, and last but not least in its
religious tolerance. All the various influences - notably Turkish,
Byzantine and Italian mingle together and help to make this the most
brilliant epoch of the Ottomans."
Michael the Elder (Great) as Quoted in 'Michael the Elder, Chronique
de Michael Syrien, Patriarche Jacobite d' Antioche,' J.B. Chabot,
Editor, Vol. II, Paris, 1901.
"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. Click here for a relevant
document sent to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai,
628 C.E.)
Sir John Bagot Glubb
"Khalif (Caliph) Al-Ma'mun's period of rule (813 - 833 C.E.) may be
considered the 'golden age' of science and learning. He had always
been devoted to books and to learned pursuits. His brilliant mind was
interested in every form of intellectual activity. Not only poetry but
also philosophy, theology, astronomy, medicine and law all occupied
his time."
"By Mamun's time medical schools were extremely active in Baghdad. The
first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Caliphate
of Haroon-ar-Rashid. As the system developed, physicians and surgeons
were appointed who gave lectures to medical students and issued
diplomas to those who were considered qualified to practice. The first
hospital in Egypt was opened in 872 AD and thereafter public hospitals
sprang up all over the empire from Spain and the Maghrib to Persia."
On the Holocaust of Baghdad (1258 C.E.) Perpetrated by Hulagu:
"The city was systematically looted, destroyed and burnt. Eight
hundred thousand persons are said to have been killed. The Khalif
Mustasim was sewn up in a sack and trampled to death under the feet of
Mongol horses.
"For five hundred years, Baghdad had been a city of palaces, mosques,
libraries and colleges. Its universities and hospitals were the most
up-to-date in the world. Nothing now remained but heaps of rubble and
If you want to contribute in future akhter no more cut and paste jobs.Can't you think for yourself?
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