Non Believers

CHAPTER NINE

IN PRAISE OF THE PROPHET

(may Allah bless him and grant him peace)

O Allah (The Exalted) raise that which Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) built up over all that mankind has built up and ennoble his place and his sojourn with You, and complete for him his light and reward him with Your approval so that his testimony is accepted and his word is Pleasing to You, making him the one whose utterance is just and whose course is distinct and whose argument mighty.

Diwan Chand Sharma wrote: “Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him.” i

John Austin says: “In little more than a year he was actually the spiritual, nominal and temporal rule of Medina, with his hands on the lever that was to shake the world.” ii

John William Draper says: “Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born at Mecca, in Arabia the man who, of all men exercised the greatest influence upon the human race . . . Mohammed (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). . .” iii

Sarogini Naidu: the famous poetess of India says about Islam: “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.” iv

Lamartine says: “If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace)? 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 and 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 souls. . . his forbearance in victory, his ambition, which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death; all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold, the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with words.

Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire, that is Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?” v

Annie Besant says: “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 you I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel whenever I re-read them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher.” vi

Bosworth Smith says: “He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope’s pretensions, 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 the right divine, it was Mohammed (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports.” vii 2 www.GardensOfSunnah.co.uk

i D.C. Sharma, The Prophets of The East, Calcutta, 1935, pp. 12

ii John Austin “Muhammad the Prophet of Allah,” in T.P.’s and Cassel’s Weekly for 24th September 1927.

iii John William Draper, A History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, London 1875, Vol. 1, pp. 329-330.

iv (S. Naidu, Ideals of Islam, video Speeches and Writings, Madras, 1918, p.169).

v Lamartine, HISTOIRE DE LA TURQUIE, Paris, 1854, Vol. II, pp. 276-277.

vi Annie Besant, THE LIFE AND TEACHINGS OF MUHAMMAD, Madras ,1932, p. 4.

vii Bosworth Smith, MOHAMMAD AND MOHAMMADANISM, London, 1874, p. 92.

viii Michael H. Hart, THE 100: A RANKING OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS IN HISTORY, New York: Hart Publishing Company, Inc., 1978, p. 33.

ix W. Montgomery Watt, MOHAMMAD AT MECCA, Oxford, 1953, p. 52.

x Edward Gibbon and Simon Ocklay, HISTORY OF THE SARACEN EMPIRE, London, 1870, p. 54.

xi Surah Inshirah, Surah No: 94, Verse: 4

Michael H. Hart says: “My choice of Muhammad (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) 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 level.” viii

W. Montgomery Watt says: “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 (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) 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.” ix

Edward Gibbon and Simon Ocklay say: “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 Mahometans1 (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their faith an devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. ‘I believe in One God and Mahomet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace) 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 honours 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.” x

1 Meaning the followers of the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace)

The Meaning of the name Muhammad means ‘Praised One’. The non-Muslims have even praised the Prophet (may Allah bless him and grant him peace). Allah (The Exalted) states in the Qur’an:

“And we have exalted for you your remembrance.” xi