What Did They Say?

My choice of Muhammad 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 levels.

Alphonse de Lamartine

1790–1869

French poet, historian & statesman

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.

W. Montgomery Watt

1909–2006

Professor of Arabic & Islamic Studies

His readiness to undergo persecution 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.

Mohandas K. Gandhi

1869–1948

Indian independence leader

I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. 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.

Annie Besant

1847–1933

British theosophist & social reformer

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.

Thomas Carlyle

1795–1881

Scottish philosopher & essayist

The lies which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man are disgraceful to ourselves only. A silent great soul; one of that who cannot but be in earnest, whom Nature herself has appointed to be sincere.

Edward Gibbon

1737–1794

English historian of Rome

‘I believe in one God, and Mahomet 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.

Will Durant

1885–1981

American historian & philosopher

If we judge greatness by influence, he was one of the giants of history. He undertook to raise the spiritual and moral level of a people harassed into barbarism by heat and foodless waste.

Arnold J. Toynbee

1889–1975

British historian

The extinction of race consciousness as between Muslims is one of the outstanding moral achievements of Islam, and in the contemporary world there is a crying need for the propagation of this Islamic virtue.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

1749–1832

German poet & polymath

If Islam means submission to God, in Islam we all live and die.

Maurice Bucaille

1920–1998

French surgeon and author

How could a man, from being illiterate, become the most important author, in terms of literary merits, in the whole of Arabic literature? How could he then pronounce truths of a scientific nature that no other human being could possibly have developed at that time?

Keith L. Moore

1925–2019

Professor of anatomy and embryology, University of Toronto

It has been a great pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Qur'an about human development. It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God, because almost all of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later.

Tejatat Tejasen

1983

Professor of anatomy and former dean, Chiang Mai University

From my studies and from what I have learned throughout this conference, I believe that everything that has been recorded in the Qur'an 1,400 years ago must be the truth.

E. Marshall Johnson

1930–2018

Professor of anatomy and developmental biology

I see nothing here in conflict with the concept that divine intervention was involved in what he was able to write.

Gerald C. Goeringer

20th–21st century

Professor of medical embryology, Georgetown University

In a relatively few ayahs is contained a rather comprehensive description of human development from the time of commingling of the gametes through organogenesis.

T. V. N. Persaud

1939–2021

Professor of anatomy, embryology and child health

The descriptions are concise and, for the period in which they were written, remarkably meaningful.

Joe Leigh Simpson

1943–

Physician-scientist in obstetrics and medical genetics

Religion can guide science by adding revelation to some of the traditional scientific approaches.

Alfred Kroner

1939–2019

Professor of geology, Johannes Gutenberg University

Thinking where Muhammad came from, I think it is almost impossible that he could have known about things like the common origin of the universe.

William W. Hay

1934–

Marine geologist and palaeoceanographer

It is interesting that this sort of information is in the ancient scripture of the Holy Qur'an.

From the second half of the eighth to the end of the eleventh century, Arabic was the scientific, the progressive language of mankind.

Science owes a great deal more to Arab culture; it owes its existence.

The birth of the scientific method is often credited to Europe, but its foundations were laid centuries earlier by scholars in the Islamic world.

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 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 the Qur'an, which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.

Muhammad has always been standing higher than the Christianity. He does not consider God as a human being and never makes himself equal to God. Muslims worship nothing except God, and Muhammad is His Messenger.

It was the first religion that preached and practised 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.

The Qur'an is emphatically not a manifesto of violence. It is far more complex, far more subtle, and far more demanding than the sound bites suggest — and it insists, again and again, on the limits of human knowledge.

His military triumphs awakened no pride nor vainglory as they would have done had they been effected for selfish purposes. In the time of his greatest power he maintained the same simplicity of manner and appearance as in the days of his adversity.

He was the most faithful protector of those he protected, the sweetest and most agreeable in conversation. Those who saw him were suddenly filled with reverence; those who came near him loved him.

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.

He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without Pope's pretensions, and Caesar without the legions of Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue.

The Arabs civilised us. Their tolerance was such that, of all the conquerors the world has known, they were the only ones to allow the conquered to keep their faith.

Islam had triumphed in Asia and Africa because it brought a message of brotherhood, of the equality of man and the unity of God. It had a democratic and equalising influence that appealed to the masses.

Muhammad was not a man of violence. We must approach his life in a balanced way, in order to appreciate his considerable achievements. To cultivate an inaccurate prejudice damages the tolerance and compassion that are supposed to characterise Western culture.