Famous Sayings about Islam, Quran, & Prophet Muhammad [pbuh]
Islam, the Quran, Prophet Muhammad, & Muslims in the Eyes
of non-Muslim Scholars
[ Collected from various sources ]
“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.”
Robert Briffault - The Making of Humanity
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Johann von Goethe
'If that is Islam, we are all Muslims.'
Johann von Goethe, famous German writer and statesman commenting after Thomas Carlyle explained Islam to him. Source: Carlyle’s memoirs of a trip.
If Islam means submission to God,
We all live and die in Islam."
[ Source: Goethe’s poem]
"In no other language spirit, word and letter are embodied in such a primal way."
Goethe commenting on the Quran (Letter to Schlosser, 23.1.1815, WA IV, 25, 165)
“The teachings of Islam can fail under no circumstances. With all our systems of culture and civilization, we cannot go beyond Islam and, as a matter of fact, no human mind can go beyond the Qur'an.”
Letter of Goethe to Eckermann, Sir Henry Elliott's collection, 1865
“The message of Mohammad is flowing toward its noble destination like a pure, fresh and transparent rivulet.”
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Bernard Shaw, a renowned thinker of our time
"'The future religion of the educated, cultured and enlightened people will be Islam. "
“In my view, Islam is the only religion in the world that will remain eternally practicable with changing times.”
“if Muhammad (PBUH) were alive today, he would succeed in solving all those problems which threaten to destroy human civilization in our times.”
“I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion that 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, he must be called the Savior of Humanity.” George Bernard Shaw - The Genuine Islam
“I believe that if a man like Mohammad's caliber 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.”
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Philip K. Hitti in 'History of the Arabs'
“Islam does not set impossible goals. There are no mythological intricacies in this message. No hidden meanings or secrets and absolutely no priesthood.”
Prof. Phillip K. Hitti - American historian and philosopher - 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.”
Philip K. Hitti in 'History of the Arabs'
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“The Book revealed to Muhammad is one and unique of its kind. It has left indelible impression on the hearts of humanity. Nothing can overcome its majesty. The Quran has given new dimensions to human thinking - Surprising reforms, stunning success!”
Rev. B. Margoliouth - A Biography of Mohammad
“The power that created in Muslims a ravenous appetite for knowledge sprung from the Quran. „
Rev. B. Margoliouth
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Thomas Carlyle, famous British author - On Heroes and Hero Worship
Thomas Carlyle was amazed at how one man, single-handedly, could weld warring tribes and wandering Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades. Napoleon and Gandhi never tired of dreaming of a society along the lines established by this man in Arabia fourteen centuries ago
“A man of truth and fidelity, true in what he did, in what he speaks and thought - this is the only sort of speech worth speaking.”
“The word of Mohammad is a voice direct from nature's own heart--all else is wind in comparison.”
“The sword indeed, but where will you get your sword? Every new opinion, at its starting is precisely in a minority of one. In one man’s head alone. There it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole world believes it, there is one man against all men. That he takes a sword and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You must get your sword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can.”
“The lies that we (Christians) have heaped round this man are disgraceful to ourselves only.”
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“Muhammad was the most successful of all religious personalities.”
Encyclopedia Britannica, 4th & 11th editions
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“Mahatma Gandhi, the 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.
The more I study, the more I discover that the strength of Islam does not lie in the sword.”
“The sayings of Muhammad are a treasure of wisdom not only for Muslims but for all mankind.”
Mahatma Gandhi
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“The Creed of Mohammad is free from ambiguity and the Quran is a glorious testimony to the unity of God.”
Edward Gibbon - British historian 1737-1794 - The History of the Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire
The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand and the Qur'an in the other is quite false.
A. S. Tritton in 'Islam,' 1951
“The solution to all international conflicts lies only in embracing Islam en masse because Islam is the only religion that can transcend nationalism. I see, with great dismay, that nationalism is gaining grounds even among the bearers of the Qur'an. I will hope for the day when all humanity will break this idol and unite all as the children of God.”
Arnold J. Toynbey, historian - The World and the West, 1952
“Among leaders who have made the greatest impact through ages, I would consider Muhammad before Jesus Christ.”
James Gavin - Speeches of a U.S. Army General
Jules Masserman - Professor of History, Chicago University
“People like Pasteur and Salk are leaders in the first sense. People like Gandhi and Confucius, on the one hand, and Alexander, Caesar, and Hitler, on the other, are leaders in the second and perhaps the third sense. Jesus and Buddha belong in the third category alone. Perhaps the greatest leader of all time was Mohammed, who combined all three functions. To a lesser degree, Moses did the same.”
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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.”
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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.
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“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”
De Lacy O'Leary in 'Islam at the Crossroads,' London, 1923.
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"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.”
Edward Gibbon and Simon Oakley in ‘History of the Saracen Empire,’ London, 1870
“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.”
Gibbon in 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' 1823
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“Muhammad saved the human civilization from extinction.”
J.H. Denison - Emotions As The Basis Of Civilization
“Islam is the only religion that gives dignity to the poor.”
Ramsey Clark, Former U.S. Attorney General
“He laid the foundation of a universal government. His law was one for all. Equal justice and love for everyone.”
George Rivorie - Visages de L' Islam
“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 bodyguard, without a palace. If any one man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Mohammad.”
Reverend B. Smith
“The message of Mohammad, Islam, is nothing but a blessing for mankind -The usher from darkness to light and from Satan to God.”
Rev E. Stephenson - My Reflections
“Mohammad was the greatest Executive Officer for implementation of the Divine Will. Like other prophets he knew that time will come when all mankind will become one community.”
H.N. Spalding - Civilization in East and West
“If the object of religion be the inculcation of morals, the diminution of evil, the promotion of human happiness, the expansion of the human intellect, if the performance of good works will avail in the great day when mankind shall be summoned to its final reckoning it is neither irreverent nor unreasonable to admit that Muhammad was indeed an Apostle of God.”
S. P. Scott - History of the Moorish Empire in Europe
“In Islam the believer is a worshiper and a soldier ever ready to go to the battlefield but only for that battle which is waged to eradicate the evil.”
H.N. Spalding
“Mohammad's religion reformed all existing dogmas and brought the Arabs ahead of the super powers of the time.”
Dr. Marcus Dods - Mohammad, Buddha and Christ
“The greatest leader of all times was Mohammad.”
Prof. Jules Masserman
“Mohammad introduced the concept of such Glorious and Omnipotent God in Whose eyes all worldly systems are pieces of straw. Islamic equality of mankind is no fiction as it is in Christianity. No human mind has ever thought of such total freedom as established by Mohammad.”
Dr. Mawde Royden - The Problem Of Palestine
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“Kingdom of God on Earth! God's messenger serving as the greatest proponent of human brotherhood, His viceroy on earth in the form of Muhammad.”
Prof. Philip K. Hitti, famous Orientalist
“The Message of Mohammad is not a set of metaphysical phenomena. It is a complete civilization.”
W.A.R. Gibb - Whither Islam
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"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."
Reverend Bosworth Smith in 'Muhammad and Muhammadanism,' London, 1874.
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“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.”
F.J.C. Hearushaw - The Science of History
“Mohammad 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. He was a man of spotless character who always had confidence in himself and in God's help. No aspect of his life remained hidden nor was his death a mysterious event.”
M.H. Hyndman - The Awakening of Asia
“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.”
Rodwell in the Preface to his translation of the Holy Qur'an
“Fellow inhabitants of the planet! Search for the ideal Prophet, who in the 7th century, has shown you the way to total success."
Lewis Mumford -Transformation of Man
“All religions, save the word of Muhammad, are broken boats. They cannot take humanity to the shore of serenity.”
Dr. E.B. Hocking - The Universal Faith
“Mohammad was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him.”
Diwan Chand Sharma - The Prophets of the East, 1935
"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."
“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. “
Napoleon Bonaparte
“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.”
H.G. Wells
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John William Draper, M.D. LLD. - A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, London 1875
“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.”
“The greatest crime, the greatest "sin" of Mohammad in the eyes of the 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. Mohammad's success is the Christians' gall of disappointment: He did not believe in any vicarious sacrifices for the sins of others.”
“The towering personality of Muhammad has left bright and indelible imprints on all mankind.”
“The man who of all men exercised the greatest influence upon the human race--Muhammad.”
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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.
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“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.”
“Absolutely unique in history, Muhammad is a threefold founder of a nation, of an empire and of a religion.”
“The noble founder of a nation, an empire and a religion. The unlettered one bestowed upon the world the Book which is a miracle, the eternal miracle and the true miracle.”
Reverend B. Smith - Mohammad and Mohammedanism, London
“In the person of the prophet of Islam we see the rarest phenomenon on earth walking in flesh and blood i.e. the union of the theorist, the organizer and the leader in one man.”
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Prof. K.S. Ramakrishna Rao - Mohammad, the Prophet of Islam
“The personality of Muhammad, it is most difficult to get into the whole truth of it. Only a glimpse of it I can catch. What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes! There is Muhammad, the Prophet. There is Muhammad, the Warrior; Muhammad, the Businessman; Muhammad, the Statesman; Muhammad, the Orator; Muhammad, the Reformer; Muhammad, the Refuge of Orphans; Muhammad, the Protector of Slaves; Muhammad, the Emancipator of Women; Muhammad, the Judge; Muhammad, the Saint. All in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is alike a hero.”
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“History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword is the most fantastically absurd myth that historians have ever repeated.”
De Lacy O' Leary - Islam at the Cross Roads, London, 1923
“He was the Messenger of the One True God: And never to his life's end did he forget for a moment who he was! He was one of those happy few who have attained the supreme joy of making one great truth their very life-spring.”
Stanley Lane Poole - Memoirs
“Those who believe that Islam was spread by force are fools who neither know the ways of Islam nor the ways of the world.”
Balbir Singh - Navan Hindustan, 1947
“The height of human achievement and glory, Mohammad.”
Pringle Kennedy - Arabian Society At The Time Of Mohammad
“Under his influence people became united in one bond which they knew not, the bond of true monotheism.”
L.E. Browne - The Eclipse Of Christianity In Islam
“Mohammad brought an end to idol worship. He preached Monotheism and infinite Mercy of God, human brotherhood, care of the orphan, emancipation of slaves, forbiddin g of wine. No religion achieved as much success as Islam did.”
Sir William Muir - Life of Mohammad
“The Arabian Prophet Mohammad is the founder of a revolution unparalleled in history. He founded a political state that will ultimately embrace the entire planet. The law of that Government will rest on justice and kindness. His teachings revolve around human equality, mutual cooperation and universal brotherhood.”
Raymond Lerouge - Life de Mohamet
“Islam is a forceful spiritual energy. Its true meaning will manifest itself when it will be implemented on a large scale.”
Tor Andre - Muhammad, The Man And His Faith
“The Book revealed to Muhammad defines an unalterable guide to individual and collective lives of people.”
Sir Richard Gregory - Religion In Science And Civilization
“Think and ponder! Which person is it who taught mankind the way to establish the greatest society; the society in which blessings descend upon every individual . . . “
J.H. Dennison - Emotions as the Basis of Civilization
“The critics are blind. They cannot see that the only sword of Muhammad wielded was the sword of mercy, compassion, friendship and forgiveness - the sword that conquers enemies and purifies their hearts. His sword was sharper than the sword of steel. But the biased critics of Islam are prejudicial and partisan, who are narrow minded and whose eyes are covered by a veil of ignorance. They see fire instead of light, ugliness instead of beauty and evil instead of good. They distort and present every good quality as a great vice. It reflects their own depravity.”
Pandit Gyanandra Dev Sharma Shastri - My Religion, Hinduism
“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.”
K. S. Ramakrishna Rao in 'Mohammed: The Prophet of Islam,' 1989
“Some people say that Islam was preached by the sword, but we cannot agree with this view. What is forced on people is soon rejected. Had Islam been imposed on people through oppression, there would have been no Islam today. Why? Because the Prophet of Islam had spiritual power, he loved humanity and he was guided by the ideal of ultimate good.”
A Hindu Editor of Sat Updaish, 7 July 1915
“In the beginning the Prophet’s enemies made life difficult for him and his followers. So the Prophet asked his followers to leave their homes and migrate to Medina. He preferred migration to fighting his own people, but when oppression went beyond the pale of tolerance he took up his sword in self-defense. Those who believe religion can be spread by force are fools who neither know the ways of religion nor the ways of the world. They are proud of this belief because they are a long, long way away from the Truth.”
Sikh Journalist, Nawan Hindustan, 17 November 1947
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Dr. Annie Besant - The Life and Teachings of Mohammad, Madras 1932
“But do you mean to tell me that the man who in the full flush of youthful vigor, a young man of four and twenty (24), married a woman much his senior, and remained faithful to her for six and twenty years (26), at fifty years of age when the passions are dying married for lust and sexual passion? Not thus are men's lives to be judged. And you look at the women whom he married, you will find that by every one of them an alliance was made for his people, or something was gained for his followers, or the woman was in sore need of protection.”
“It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knows 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 how I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel whenever I re-read them, a new admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher.”
“No great religious leader has been so maligned as Prophet Mohammed. Attacked in the past as a heretic, an impostor, or a sensualist, it is still possible to find him referred to as "the false prophet." A modern German writer accuses Prophet Mohammed of sensuality, surrounding himself with young women. This man was not married until he was twenty-five years of age, then he and his wife lived in happiness and fidelity for twenty-four years, until her death when he was forty-nine. Only between the age of fifty and his death at sixty-two did Prophet Mohammed take other wives, only one of whom was a virgin, and most of them were taken for dynastic and political reasons. Certainly the Prophet's record was better than the head of the Church of England, Henry VIII.”
Geoffrey Parrinder - Mysticism in the World's Religions, New York: Oxford University Press, 1976
“His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement - all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad.”
W. Montgomery Watt - MOHAMMAD AT MECCA, Oxford, 1953.
“It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy; for in the mosque, when the call for prayer is sounded and worshippers are gathered together, the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and king kneel side by side and proclaim: 'God Alone is Great. I have been struck over and over again by this indivisible unity of Islam that makes man instinctively a brother.”
Sarogini Naidu - the famous poetess of India
“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.”
Arthur Glyn Leonard in 'Islam, Her Moral and Spiritual Values'
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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'.”
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“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.”
Lawrence E. Browne in ‘The Prospects of Islam,’ 1944
“If ever any man on this earth has found God; if ever any man has devoted his life for the sake of God with a pure and holy zeal then, without doubt, and most certainly that man was the Holy Prophet of Arabia.”
Major A. Leonard, ‘Islam, its Moral and Spiritual Values’, 1909, London.
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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?"
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