JaiZBlog

John William Draper
A history of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Vol. 1

· "Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca in Arabia, the man who of all men, has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race…Mohammad…."

Major Arthur Glyn Leonard
Islam – Her Moral and Spiritual Value, London 1927, p.20-1

· "Mohammad was no mere spiritual peddler, no vulgar time-serving vagrant, but one of the most profoundly sincere and earnest spirits of any age or epoch. A man not only great, but one of the greatest ( i.e. truest), men that humanity has ever produced. Great, not simply as a prophet but as a patriot and a statesman: a material as well as a spiritual builder who constructed a great nation, a greater empire and more even than all three, a still greater Faith, true moreover, because he was true to himself, his people and above all, to his God."

· "The theory of Islam and Sword for instance is not heard now frequently in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam that there is no compulsion in religion is well known. Gibbon, a historian of world repute says, "A pernicious tenet has been imputed to Mohammadans, the duty of extirpating all the religions by sword.This charge based on ignorance and bigotry, is refuted by Qur'an, by history of Musalman conquerors and by their public and legal toleration of Christian worship. The great success of Mohammad's life had been effected by sheer moral force, without a stroke of sword."

Prof. K. S. Ramakrishna Rao,
Head of the Department of Philosophy,
Government College for Women University of Mysore, Mandya-571401 (Karnataka). Mohammed The Prophet -Re-printed from "Islam and Modern age", Hyderabad, March 1978.

· "The personality of Muhammed, it is most difficult to get into the whole truth of it….There is Muhammed, the Prophet. There is Muhammed, the General; Muhammed, the King; Muhammed the Preacher; Muhammed the Philosopher; Muhammed the Statesman; Muhammed the Orator; Muhammed the Reformer; Muhammed the Protector of Slaves; Muhammed the Emancipator of Women; Muhammed the Judge; Muhammed the Saint. And in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is alike, a hero."

Jules Masserman
U.S. psychoanalyst, Time Magazine, July 15, 1974

· Leaders must fulfill three functions – provide for the well-being of the led; provide a social organization in which people feel secure and provide them with a set of beliefs.

· People like Pasteur and Salk are leaders in the first sense. People like Gandhi and Confucius on one hand and Alexander, Caesar and Hitler on the other are leaders in the second and perhaps the third. Jesus and Buddha belong in the third category alone.

· Perhaps the greatest leader of all times was Mohammad who combined all three functions."

· "Some one has said that Europeans in South Africa dread the advent of Islam -- Islam that civilized Spain, Islam that took the torch light to Morocco and preached to the world the gospel of brotherhood.The Europeans of South Africa dread the Advent of Islam. They may claim equality with the white races. They may well dread it, if brotherhood is a sin. If it is equality of colored races then their dread is well founded."

Mahatma Gandhi

in Young India

· "I become more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days.

· It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard fro pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers and 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."

Dr. Annie Besant
The Life and Teachings of Muhammad

· "It is impossible for anyone who studies the life & character of the great Prophet of Arabia, …., to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. …I myself feel whenever I re-read them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher."

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

· "I have studied him – the wonderful man – in 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 the problems in a way that would bring 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."

Rev. Bosworth Smith
"Mohammed and Mohammedanism", 1874

· "By a fortune absolutely unique in history, Mohammed is a threefold founder, of a nation, of an empire and of a religion.

· 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 palace, without a fixed revenue, if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by right Divine, it was Mohammed, for he had all the powers without its instruments and without its supports."

Alphonse de Lamar tine
Historie de le Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol.11.Pages 276-77

· "If greatness of purpose, smallness of means and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who would dare to compare any great man in history with Muhammad?

· Philosopher, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational beliefs, of a cult without images, the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and one spiritual empires, 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?"

Dr. Sarojini Naidu
IDEALS OF ISLAM, vide Speeches & Writings, Madras, 1918

· "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."

Thomas Carlyle
On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, London 1888,p.61

· "His household was the frugalest; his common diet barley-bread and water; sometimes for months there was not a fire once lighted on his hearth. They record with just pride that he would mend his own shoes, patch his own cloak. A poor, hard-toiling, ill provided man; careless of what vulgar men toil for.

· No emperor with his tiaras was obeyed as this man in a cloak of his own clouting. During his three and twenty years of rough trial, I find something of a veritable hero necessary for that of itself."

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