What Non-Muslim used to say about Islam?

It is usually common to hear Islam from the viewpoint of Muslim alone; It is hardly commonplace to hear it from the point of view of Non-Muslims. In this series of quotations, I would like all my readers to ponder over the sincere meanings of the message delivered by the following religious leaders, state leaders, influential writers, intellectual personalities, historians, scientists, and so on. The essential message which underlies their thought is to call Mankind to be humble and tolerant towards the religious beliefs. If some people did not find the release they seek for during their own religious search for Truth in a particular belief, other people might already have found it in the Islamic faith Therefore, it remains as our duty to respect their faith and their choice.

At the age of 70 Goethe writes (Notes and Essays to the Divan, WA I, 17, 153) that he intends “to celebrate respectfully that night when the Prophet was given the Koran completely from above” He also wrote: “No one may wonder about the great efficiency of the Book. That is why it has been declared as uncreated by real admirers” and added to it: “This book will eternally remain highly efficacious/effective” (WA I, 7, 35/36)

Goethe says:

“Whether the Koran is of eternity?
I don’t question that!…
That it is the book of books
I believe out of the muslim’s duty.”

In another poem of the “Divan” Goethe says:
If Islam means submission to God,
We all live and die in Islam.”

When in 1831 the cholera appeared and killed many people he consoled a friend: “Here no one can counsil the other; each one has to decide on his own. We all live in Islam, whatever form we choose to encourage ourselves.” (Letter to Adele Schopenhauer, 19.9.1831, WA IV, 49, 87)

In December 1820 Goethe wrote thanks for the gift of a book of aphorisms of his friend Willemer and says: “It fits … with every religious-reasonable view and is an Islam to which we all have to confess sooner or later.” (WA IV, 34, 50)

“That philosophical system of the mohammedan people is an excellent measure which one can apply spirit because it indicates for man the unity within his own self.” (Noten und Abhandlungen zum West-stlichen Divan, chapter Mahmud von Gasna, WA I, 7, 42) Goethe tells about the difference between a prophet and a poet and the confirmation of Muhammad – may Allah bless him and give him peace! – as a prophet: “He is a prophet and not a poet and therefore his Koran is to be seen as a divine law and not as a book of a human being, made for education or entertainment.” (Noten und Abhandlungen zum West-stlichen Divan, WA I, 7, 32)

Goethe said :

“Jesus felt pure and calmly thought
Only the One God;
Who made himself to be a god
Offends his holy will.
And thus the right(ness) has to shine
What Mahomet also achieved;
Only by the term of the One
He mastered the whole world”

Maurice Bucaille:

This observation is of prime importance, since in the West, Jews, Christians and atheists are unanimous in stating (without a scrap of evidence however) that Muhammad (peace be upon him) wrote the Qur’an or had it written as an imitation of the Bible. It is claimed that stories of religious history in the Qur’an resume Biblical stories. This attitude is as thoughtless as saying that Jesus Himself duped His contemporaries by drawing inspiration from the Old Testament during His preaching: the whole of Matthew’s Gospel is based on this continuation of the Old Testament, as we have indeed seen already.

The best reply to the misconception that Islam was spread by the sword is given by the noted historian De Lacy O’Leary in the book “Islam at the cross roads” (Page 8):

“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.”

The famous historian, Thomas Carlyle, in his book “Heroes and Hero worship”, refers to this misconception about the spread of Islam: “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 tries 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.”

David Emile Durkleim says ” Muhammed is one of the prophets of the biblical line “

Dr. Joseph Adam Pearson rightly says, “People who worry that nuclear weaponry will one day fall in the hands of the Arabs, fail to realize that the Islamic bomb has been dropped already, it fell the day MUHAMMAD was born”.

Lamartine’s tribute to the Prophet:

Lamartine, the celebrated historian 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? 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 over 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 the 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. As regards all the standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may ask, is there any man greater than he?” (Lamartine, Histoire de la Turquie, Paris, 1854, Vol. II, pp. 276-277)

“If greatness of purpose, smallness of means and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could claim to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad?”
(Histoire de la Turquie,

Gandhi:

“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 for 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”.
(Young India, 1922).
1855).

George Bernard Shaw:
“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 the much needed peace and happiness. Europe is beginning to be enamored of the creed of Muhammad. In the next century it may go further in recognizing the utility of that creed in solving its problems.”
(A Collection of writing of some of the eminent scholars, 1935).

Bill Clinton:
“So I ask you again to rededicate yourselves in this coming year to
making sure that others in this country truly understand and appreciate the faith you embrace, its practices, its beliefs, its precepts and its inclusive humanity… The Koran also teaches, in addition, to the fact that we should do unto others as we wish to have done to us, and reject for others what we would reject for ourselves, but we should also make a commitment to live in peace…”

Tony Blair: Qur’an Inspired Me
“If you read the Koran, it is so clear… the concept of love and fellowship as the guiding spirits of humanity”

The essential and definite element of my conversion to Islam was the Qur’an. I began to study it before my conversion with the critical spirit of a Western intellectual… There are certain verses of this book, the Qur’an, revealed more than thirteen centuries ago, which teach exactly the same notions as the most modern scientific researches do. This definitely converted me.288 (Ali Selman Benoist, France, Doctor of Medicine)

Everything made so much sense. This is the beauty of the Qur’an; it asks you to reflect and reason… When I read the Qur’an further, it talked about prayer, kindness and charity. I was not a Muslim yet, but I felt the only answer for me was the Qur’an and Allah had sent it to me.286 (Yusuf Islam [Cat Stevens], former British pop star)

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.”287 (From the book Islam and Christianity Today)

Napolean Bonaparte as Quoted in Cherfils, ‘Bonaparte et Islam,’ Paris, France, pp. 105, 125.

“Moses has revealed the existence of God to his nation. Jesus Christ to the Roman world, Muhammad to the old continent…
“Arabia was idolatrous when, six centuries after Jesus, Muhammad introduced the worship of the God of Abraham, of Ishmael, of Moses, and Jesus. The Ariyans and some other sects had disturbed the tranquility of the east by agitating the question of the nature of the Father, the son, and the Holy Ghost. Muhammad declared that there was none but one God who had no father, no son and that the trinity imported the idea of idolatry…

“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.”

The strength of the Koran is that a Muslim, or anyone, can open it to any page and get a message dealing with life’s meaning.290 (The well-known theologian John Esposito).

I have read the Sacred Scriptures of every religion; nowhere have I found what I encountered in Islam: perfection. The Holy Qur’an, compared to any other scripture I have read, is like the Sun compared to that of a match. I firmly believe that anybody who reads the Word of Allah with a mind that is not completely closed to Truth, will become a Muslim.289 (Saifuddin Dirk Walter Mosig)

Bertrand Russel in ‘History of Western Philosophy,’ London, 1948, p. 419.

“Our use of phrase ‘The Dark ages’ to cover the period from 699 to 1,000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe…
“From India to Spain, the brilliant civilization of Islam flourished. What was lost to christendom at this time was not lost to civilization, but quite the contrary…

“To us it seems that West-European civilization is civilization, but this is a narrow view.”

H.G. Wells

“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.”

Dr. William Draper in ‘History of Intellectual Development of Europe’

“During the period of the Caliphs the learned men of the Christians and the Jews were not only held in great esteem but were appointed to posts of great responsibility, and were promoted to the high ranking job in the government….He (Caliph Haroon Rasheed) never considered to which country a learned person belonged nor his faith and belief, but only his excellence in the field of learning.”

Edward Montet, ‘La Propagande Chretienne et ses Adversaries Musulmans,’ Paris 1890. (Also in T.W. Arnold in ‘The Preaching of Islam,’ London 1913.)

“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.”

Simon Ockley in ‘History of the Saracens’.

“A rugged, strife-torn and mountaineering people…were suddenly turned into an indomitable Arab force, which achieved a series of splendid victories unparalleled in the history of nations, for in the short space of ninety years that mighty range of Saracenic conquest embraced a wider extent of territory than Rome had mastered in the course of eight hundred.”

Phillip Hitti in ‘Short History of the Arabs.’

“During all the first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made as important a contribution to human progress as did the Arabs, if we take this term to mean all those whose mother-tongue was Arabic, and not merely those living in the Arabian peninsula. For centuries, Arabic was the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress for the whole of the civilized world with the exception of the Far East. From the IXth to the XIIth century there were more philosophical, medical, historical, religiuos, astronomical and geographical works written in Arabic than in any other human tongue.”

Carra de Vaux in ‘The Philosophers of Islam,’ Paris, 1921.

“Finally how can one forget that at the same time the Mogul Empire of India (1526-1857 C.E.) was giving the world the Taj Mahal (completed in 1648 C.E.) the architectural beauty of which has never been surpassed, and the ‘Akbar Nameh’ of Abul Fazl: “That extraordinary work full of life ideas and learning where every aspect of life is examined listed and classified, and where progress continually dazzles the eye, is a document of which Oriental civilization may justly be proud. The men whose genius finds its expression in this book were far in advance of their age in the practical art of government, and they were perhaps in advance of it in their speculations about religious philosophy. Those poets those philosophers knew how to deal with the world or matter. They observe, classify, calculate and experiment. All the ideas that occur to them are tested against facts. They express them with eloquence but they also support them with statistics.”…the principles of tolerance, justice and humanity which prevailed during the long reign of Akbar.”

Marcel Clerget in ‘La Turquie, Passe et Present,’ Paris, 1938.

“Many proofs of high cultural level of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent are to be found in the development of science and law; in the flowering of literary works in Arabic, Persian and Turkish; in the contemporary monuments in Istanbul, Bursa, and Edirne; in the boom in luxury industries; in the sumptuous life of the court and high dignitaries, and last but not least in its religious tolerance. All the various influences – notably Turkish, Byzantine and Italian mingle together and help to make this the most brilliant epoch of the Ottomans.”

Thomas Arnold in ‘The Call to Islam.’

“We have never heard about any attempt to compel Non-Muslim parties to adopt Islam or about any organized persecution aiming at exterminating Christianity. If the Caliphs had chosen one of these plans, they would have wiped out Christianity as easily as what happened to Islam during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; by the same method which Louis XIV followed to make Protestantism a creed whose followers were to be sentenced to death; or with the same ease of keeping the Jews away from Britain for a period of three hundred fifty years

James Addison in ‘The Christian Approach to the Moslem,’ p. 35.

“Despite the growth of antagonism, Moslem (Muslim) rulers seldom made their Christian subjects suffer for the Crusades. When the Saracens finally resumed the full control of Palestine the Christians were given their former status as dhimmis. The Coptic Church, too had little cause for complaint under Saladin’s (Salahuddin) strong government, and during the time of the earlier Mameluke sultans who succeeded him the Copts experienced more enlightened justice than they had hitherto known. The only effect of the Crusaders upon Egyptian Christians was to keep them for a while from pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for as long as the Frank were in charge heretics were forbidden access to the shrines. Not until the Moslem victories could they enjoy their rights as Christians.”

Muhammad Marmaduke Pickthall in his 1927 Lecture on ‘Tolerance in Islam,’ Madras, India.

“In the eyes of history, religious toleration is the highest evidence of culture in a people….It was not until the Western nations broke away from their religious law that they became more tolerant, and it was only when the Muslims fell away from their religious law that they declined in tolerance and other evidences of the highest culture. Before the coming of Islam it (tolerance) had never been preached as an essential part of religion…
“If Europe had known as much of Islam, as Muslims knew of Christendom, in those days, those mad, adventurous, occasionally chivalrous and heroic, but utterly fanatical outbreak known as the Crusades could not have taken place, for they were based on a complete misapprehension…

“Innumerable monasteries, with a wealth of treasure of which the worth has been calculated at not less than a hundred millions sterling, enjoyed the benefit of the Holy Prophet’s (Muhammad’s) Charter to the monks of Sinai and were religiously respected by the Muslims. The various sects of Christians were represented in the Council of the Empire by their patriarchs, on the provincial and district council by their bishops, in the village council by their priests, whose word was always taken without question on things which were the sole concern of their community…

“The tolerance within the body of Islam was, and is, something without parallel in history; class and race and color ceasing altogether to be barriers

Sir John Bagot Glubb

“Khalif (Caliph) Al-Ma’mun’s period of rule (813 – 833 C.E.) may be considered the ‘golden age’ of science and learning. He had always been devoted to books and to learned pursuits. His brilliant mind was interested in every form of intellectual activity. Not only poetry but also philosophy, theology, astronomy, medicine and law all occupied his time.”
“By Mamun’s time medical schools were extremely active in Baghdad. The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Caliphate of Haroon-ar-Rashid. As the system developed, physicians and surgeons were appointed who gave lectures to medical students and issued diplomas to those who were considered qualified to practice. The first hospital in Egypt was opened in 872 AD and thereafter public hospitals sprang up all over the empire from Spain and the Maghrib to Persia.”

On the Holocaust of Baghdad (1258 C.E.) Perpetrated by Hulagu:
“The city was systematically looted, destroyed and burnt. Eight hundred thousand persons are said to have been killed. The Khalif Mustasim was sewn up in a sack and trampled to death under the feet of Mongol horses.

“For five hundred years, Baghdad had been a city of palaces, mosques, libraries and colleges. Its universities and hospitals were the most up-to-date in the world. Nothing now remained but heaps of rubble and a stench of decaying human flesh.”

Captain Cousteau told of the event that had caused him to become a
Muslim, as follows:

“In 1962 German scientists said that the waters of the Red Sea
and the Indian Ocean did not mix with each other in the Strait
of Bab-ul-Mandab where the Aden Bay and the Red Sea join. So we
began to examine whether the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the
Mediterranean mixed with each other. First we analyzed the water
in the Mediterranean to find out its natural salinity and density,
and the life it contained. We repeated the same procedure in the
Atlantic Ocean. The two masses of water had been meeting each
other in the Gibraltar for thousands of years. Accordingly, the
two masses of water must have been mixing with each other and
they must have been sharing identical, or, at least, similar
properties in salinity and density. On the contrary, even at
places where the two seas were closest to each other, each mass
of water preserved its properties. In other words, at the point
where the two seas met, a curtain of water prevented the waters
belonging to the two seas from mixing. When I told Professor
Maurice Bucaille about this phenomenon, he said that it was no
surprise and that it was written clearly in Islam’s Holy Book,
the Qur’an al-karim. Indeed, this fact was defined in a plain
language in the Qur’an al-karim. When I knew this, I believed in
the fact that the Qur’an al-karim was the ‘Word of Allah’. I chose
Islam, the true religion. The spiritual potency inherent in the
Islamic religion gave me the strength to endure the pain I had
been suffering for the loss of my son.”

George W. Bush:

“It’s [the Qur'an is] a very thoughtful gift.”

Michael H. Hart of USA, compiled a ranking list of the 100 most influential persons in the history of the entire humanity, who authored book “The 100 most influential persons”, published in 1978 by Hart Publishing Company Inc. He ranked Muhammad peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him, as the number one, at the top of his list.
Following are brief excerpts from the chapter on Muhammad peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him.

“My choice of Muhammad to lead the best 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 levels.

Of humble origins, Muhammad founded and promulgated one of the world’s great religions, and became an immensely effective political leader. Today thirteen centuries after his death, his influence is still powerful and pervasive.
The majority of the persons in this book had the advantage of being born and raised in centers of civilization, highly cultured or politically pivotal nations. Muhammad, however, was born in the year 570, in the city of Mecca, in southern Arabia, at that time a backwards area of the world, far from the centers of trade, art and learning. Orphaned at the age of six, he was reared in modest surroundings. Islamic tradition tells us that he was illiterate.”

“When Muhammad died, in 632, he was the effective ruler of all of Southern Arabia”.

About the rapid spread of Islaam which continued after the demise of Muhammad, Michael Hart writes that the lands that accepted Islaam included ”The Northeast of Arabia the larger Neo-Persian Empire of Sassamids; to the northwest bay Byzantine, or Eastern Roman Empire, centered in Constantinople . . . all of Mesopotamia, Syria and Palestine.”

“By 711, North Africa, to the Atlantic Ocean, then the Visigoth Kingdom of Spain . . . stretching from the boarders of India to the Atlantic Ocean, the largest empire that the world had yet seen”.