[DrazAdwamoi]

as_salaamu "alaykum

In this thread I would like to present some extracts from the books of historians about the greatness of the Prophet (S+). I have gathered them over twenty years ago for my book The Qur'aan Cosmological Model which is a delineation of the origin, evolution, and final fate of the Universe as it is contained in just two verses of the Qur'aan. I quote from the book,

Muhammad (S+)

" Many well known books have been written about the life of this extraordinary and humble prophet of Islaam. He was a great and an outstanding man of many dimensions. His influence upon all facets of the world has never stopped growing. In fact even in our very day there is an escalation in the rise of the desire of humanity wanting to know more about and follow him in whichever way they can. The name Muhammad is now the most uttered name of any human being in the entire history or for that matter evolution of the human race. Every calculation that is made shows that Muhammad (S+) is even growing greater and greater. And no one has any reason to fear as the teaching of this compassionate and intelligent man slowly becomes the teaching of the human race. Only the Fools and the Ungrateful ones among humanity can hate a man like Muhammad (S+). Even if you are one of those who do not believe in his mission right now he still deserves your full respect because he has been the cause of many good things to you that you may as yet have no knowledge of. May the peace and salutations of ALLAAH (God) the All-Mighty and Mightier be upon Muhammad and his family and his companions.
Here I have selected some quotations about what some non-Muslim historians have written about the Prophet (S+)."

From Section Two
Muhammad (S+), Islaam, and the Qur'aan
The Qur'aan Cosmological Model
Muhammad Al-Qurashiy Al-Amjadiy
Hope others can add to the quotations
continued in next post inshaa allaah

[Arexytece]

Muhammad as a great revolutionary leader
“The words ‘revolution’ and ‘revolutionary’ have a modern ring to them. Yet they do not seem out of place when applied to Muhammad’s achievement in seventh century Arabia. Muhammad’s career was the classic one of a revolutionary leader.”
The author continues
“In the course of the struggle his ideology had been refined and amplified so that finally the old order was replaced by an entirely new system whose internal dynamism combined with its attractiveness to outsiders, enabled it to impose itself far beyond the particular society to which the original message had been addressed. If that is not a revolution, what is? (Pages 39 - 40)
Edward Mortimer
Faith and Power – The Politics of Islam

[dupratac]

Muhammad’s (S+) amazing energy and power of influence
“His character must have been one of amazing energy and persuasiveness, and we may catch some sense of the power which he exercised over his tribesmen from the more personal utterance of the Koran in which his preaching is enshrined.” (Pages 223 - 224)
A J Grant
A History of Europe
P ii - the constructive forces of the Middle Ages

“He was a man of extraordinary powers and gifts-“
“He showed deep sincerity and must have been a man of unusual personality and charm, for he not only bound to himself men of different types, but also kept their devotion.” (Page 462)
Chambers Encyclopaedia Vol. ix (1959)

[daguy]

Muhammad‘s (S+) successful actions at unification a marvel to historians
“How Muhammad succeeded in so short a time, both in subduing the long-standing feuds among the Arabs of Medina and in establishing a brotherly unity between his Meccan fellow immigrants and the native Medinese Arabs, has been a marvel to historians.” (Page 516)
John B Noss
Man’s Religions (1969)

[drycleden]

Muhammad (S+) commands loyalty second to none
“-followers adhered to the new prophet with a loyalty and devotion seldom paralleled in the world’s history.” (Page 223)
Huston Smith
The Religions of Man (1958)

[Kotyara]

Muhammad (S+) could win over his strongest enemies
“His personality was so overwhelming that he could win even his strongest enemies to his side.”
Oxford Junior Encyclopaedia (1971)
Vol. 5 Great Lives

[Gerribase]

Muhammad (S+), the most rapidly successful man in history
“Never before or since has a prophet won such success so quickly; nor has the work of a single man so rapidly and radically transformed the course of world history. Through his inspired utterances, his personal example, and the organizational framework he established for Islam, Mohammed laid the basis for a distinctive new style of life, which within the space of two centuries attracted the allegiance of a major fraction of the human race and today commands the loyalty of about one seventh of mankind.”
W.H. McNeill
The Rise of the West (1963)

[flanna.kersting]

Muhammad (S+), a universal personality or manifold of many dimensions

“- a thinker and judge, military leader and organizer, emissary of God and educator,”(Page 48)
G.E. Grunebaum
Classical Islam A History (1963)

“Mohammed died in 632. During his short life, he was a successful merchant, a devotee to the verge of fanaticism, a great religious teacher, and a successful military leader – the founder of an empire of great extent.”
Consolidated Encyclopaedia V.6 LEI – MUL

"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 standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?"
Lamartine
Histoire de la Turquie, Paris 1854, Vol. II

to be continued inshaa allaah

[gkruCRi1]

Muhammad (S+), the most misrepresented man in history

“…The lies which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man are disgraceful to ourselves only…”
Thomas Caryle
Heros and Hero Worship

“No great religious leader has been so maligned and misrepresented, outside his religion,-“ (Page 85)
Geoffrey Parrinder
Encountering World Religions (1987)

to be continued inshaa allaah

[DuePew]

Muhammad, the greatest and most influential man in history

"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 level." (Page 33)
Michael H. Hart
The 100:
A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History (1978)

to be continued inshaa allaah

[chuecaloversvv]

Muhammad (S+) gives rise to the Mightiest Empire

“The Sudden Eruption of the Arab peoples in the 7th century is something unique in history.- How was it achieved? – It was Muhammad, a magnetic personality and statesmen of genius, in whom all the forces coalesced.” (Page 40)
Thames and Hudson
The Dark Ages (1965)
iii – The Empire of the Prophet

“But ten years later ,when Mohammed died, the latest of the great religions of the world was fully formed, and its believers ready for the holy war which in less than a century carved out for Islam an empire greater than the Roman empire at its height.
As early as 638 the Arabs had swallowed up all Persia and seized from Byzantium Palestine and Syria; they had taken Egypt in 642; well before 732 they had won central Asia as far as the roof of the world, northern Africa to the fringes of the tropics, the Iberian Peninsula up to the gorges and passes of the Pyrenees. Their vanguard had even passed, or would soon pass, beyond those limits in a series of offences against Chinese, Hindus, Byzantines and Franks, which, taken as a whole, could be called the first ‘hemispheric’ (or even ‘world’) war that the earth has known. (Page 73)
R.S. Lopez
The Birth of Europe.

“The story of its rise is in every way an amazing one.” (Page 223)
“However we explain it, his preaching had kindled a fire in the hearts of the tribesmen of Arabia which made them above all things a body of warriors, irresistible for over a century by all enemies that they met.” (Page 224)
A.J. Grant
A History of Europe (1918)

[Oberjej]

Vast majority of original followers of Jesus (D+) (i.e. Christians) convert to Islaam and accept Muhammad (S+) as the last prophet of God (ALLAAH)

“…no spiritual leader has founded a faith which so rapidly appealed to such an enormous number of people.”
“In the seventh and eighth centuries the great majority of the Christian populations who lived along the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean went over to this new faith founded by Muhammad. It was a great blow for Christianity that its oldest and most intensive centres should have been lost to Islam. Yet, from the point of view of the history of human values, when the high quality of Islamic theology and ethics is taken into account, it cannot be said that a great disaster had occurred. Why the Christians should have so readily accepted Islam remains something of a mystery in view of the fact that no historian has yet been able to work out the details of this conversion.” (Page 169)
Norman F. Cantor
Medieval History (1963)
(ii) The impact of Islam on Early Medieval Europe

to be continued inshaa allaah