In the Name of Allah, The Beneficent, The Merciful

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.

        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, 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.