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What they Say
About Qur'an
The Islam that was
revealed to Muhammad (PBUH), is the continuation and
culmination of all the preceding revealed religions and
hence it is for all times and all peoples. This status of
Islam is sustained by glaring facts.
Firstly, there is no
other revealed book extant in the same form and content as
it was revealed.
Secondly, no other
revealed religion has any convincing claim to provide
guidance in all walks of human life for all times. But
Islam addresses humanity at large and offers basic
guidance regarding all human problems.
Moreover, it has
withstood the test of fourteen hundred years and has all
the potentialities of establishing an ideal society as it
did under the leadership of the last Prophet Muhammad
(PBUH). It was a miracle that Prophet Muhammad could bring
even his toughest enemies to the fold of Islam without
adequate material resources. Worshippers of idols, blind
followers of the ways of forefathers, promoters of tribal
feuds, abusers of human dignity and blood, became the most
disciplined nation under the guidance of Islam and its
Prophet. Islam opened before them vistas of spiritual
heights and human dignity by declaring righteousness as
the sole criterion of merit and honor. Islam shaped their
social, cultural, moral and commercial life with basic
laws and principles which are in conformity with human
nature and hence applicable in all times as human nature
does not change. It is so unfortunate that the Christian
West, instead of sincerely trying to understand the
phenomenal success of Islam during its earlier time,
considered it as a rival religion. During the centuries of
the Crusades this trend gained much force and impetus and
a huge amount of literature was produced to tarnish the
image of Islam. But Islam has begun to unfold its
genuineness to the modern scholars whose bold and
objective observations on Islam belie all the charges
leveled against it by the so-called unbiased orientalists.
Here we furnish some observations on Islam by great and
acknowledged non-Muslim scholars of modern time. Truth
needs no advocates to plead on its behalf, but the
prolonged malicious propaganda against Islam has created
great confusion even in the minds of free and objective
thinkers. We hope that the following observations would
contribute to initiating an objective evaluation of Islam:
"It (Islam)
replaced monkishness by manliness. It gives hope to the
slave, brotherhood to mankind, and recognition of the
fundamental facts of human nature." --Canon Taylor,
Paper read before the Church Congress at Walverhamton,
Oct. 7, 1887; Quoted by Arnoud in THE PREACHING OF ISLAM,
pp. 71-72.
"Sense of justice
is one of the most wonderful ideals of Islam, because as I
read in the Qur'an I find those dynamic principles of
life, not mystic but practical ethics for the daily
conduct of life suited to the whole world."
--Lectures on "The Ideals of Islam" see SPEECHES
AND WRITINGS OF SAROJINI NAIDU, Madras, 1918, p. 167.
"History makes it
clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims
sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point
of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most
fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever
repeated." --De Lacy O'Leary, ISLAM AT THE
CROSSROADS, London, 1923, p. 8.
"But Islam has a
still further service to render to the cause of humanity.
It stands after all nearer to the real East than Europe
does, and it possesses a magnificent tradition of
inter-racial understanding and cooperation. No other
society has such a record of success uniting in an
equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavours so
many and so various races of mankind . . . Islam has still
the power to reconcile apparently irreconcilable elements
of race and tradition. If ever the opposition of the great
societies of East and West is to be replaced by
cooperation, the mediation of Islam is an indispensable
condition. In its hands lies very largely the solution of
the problem with which Europe is faced in its relation
with East. If they unite, the hope of a peaceful issue is
immeasurably enhanced. But if Europe, by rejecting the
cooperation of Islam, throws it into the arms of its
rivals, the issue can only be disastrous for both."
--H.A.R. Gibb, WHITHER ISLAM, London, 1932, p. 379.
"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 Saviour 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." --G.B.
Shaw, THE GENUINE ISLAM, Vol. 1, No. 81936.
"The extinction of
race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the
outstanding achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary
world there is, as it happens, a crying need for the
propagation of this Islamic virtue." --A.J. Toynbee,
CIVILIZATION ON TRIAL, New York, 1948, p. 205.
"The rise of Islam
is perhaps the most amazing event in human history.
Springing from a land and a people like previously
negligible, Islam spread within a century over half the
earth, shattering great empires, overthrowing long
established religions, remolding the souls of races, and
building up a whole new world - world of Islam."
"The closer we examine this development the more
extraordinary does it appear. The other great religions
won their way slowly, by painful struggle and finally
triumphed with the aid of powerful monarchs converted to
the new faith. Christianity had its Constantine, Buddhism
its Asoka, and Zoroastrianism its Cyrus, each lending to
his chosen cult the mighty force of secular authority. Not
so Islam. Arising in a desert land sparsely inhabited by a
nomad race previously undistinguished in human annals,
Islam sallied forth on its great adventure with the
slenderest human backing and against the heaviest material
odds. Yet Islam triumphed with seemingly miraculous ease,
and a couple of generations saw the Fiery Crescent borne
victorious from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas and from the
desert of Central Asia to the deserts of Central
Africa." --A.M.L. Stoddard, quoted in ISLAM - THE
RELIGION OF ALL PROPHETS, Begum Bawani Waqf, Karachi,
Pakistan, p. 56.
"Islam is a
religion that is essentially rationalistic in the widest
sense of this term considered etymologically and
historically. The definition of rationalism as a system
that bases religious beliefs on principles furnished by
the reason applies to it exactly . . . It cannot be denied
that many doctrines and systems of theology and also many
superstitions, from the worship of saints to the use of
rosaries and amulets, have become grafted on the main
trunk of Muslim creed. But in spite of the rich
developments, in every sense of the term, of the teachings
of the Prophet, the Quran has invariable 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. This fidelity to the fundamental dogma of
the religion, the elemental simplicity of the formula in
which it is enunciated, the proof that it gains from the
fervid conviction of the missionaries who propagate it,
are so many causes to explain the success of Muhammadan
missionary efforts. 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." --Edward Montet,
"La Propagande Chretienne et ses Adversaries
Musulmans", Paris, 1890; Quoted by T.W. Arnold in THE
PREACHING OF ISLAM, London, 1913, pp. 413-414.
"I am not a Muslim
in the usual sense, though I hope I am a
"Muslim" as "one surrendered to God,"
but I believe that embedded in the Quran and other
expressions of the Islamic vision are vast stores of
divine truth from which I and other occidentals have still
much to learn, and 'Islam is certainly a strong contender
for the supplying of the basic framework of the one
religion of the future." --W. Montgomery Watt, ISLAM
AND CHRISTIANITY TODAY, London, 1983, p. ix.
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