What They Say About Islam

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.



"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,
remoulding 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.