In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful
The Islam that was revealed to Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), is the continuation and culmination of all the preceding revealed religious and hence it is for all times and all people. 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 win 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 honour. Islam shaped their social cultural, moral and commercial life with basic laws and principles which are most 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 huge literature was produced to tarnish the image of Islam. But Islam has began 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.
-Canon Taylor,
Paper read before the Church Congress at Walverhamton, Oct. 7,1887
Quoted by Arnond in The Preaching of Islam, p.p. 71-72
-Sarojini Naidu,
Lectures on “The Ideals of Islam” see Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu,Madras, 1918,p.167.
-De lacy O’Leary,
Islam at the Crossroads, London, 1923 p.8.
H.A.R.Gibb, Whether Islam, London, 1932, p.379.
G. Bernard Shaw, The Genuine Islam, Vol. I, No.81936.
A.J. Toynbee, Civilization of Trial, New York, 1948, p.205.
A.M.L. Stoddard, quoted in Islam – The Religion of all Prophets,
Begum Bawani Waqf, Karachi, Pakistan p.56.
– Edward Montet. ” Law Propagande Chretienne et ses Adversaries Musulmans” Paris 1890,quoted by T.W.Arnold in The Preaching of Islam, London 1913, pp.413-414.
W. Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity Today – London 1983, p.IX
