Islam's modern image as a savage religion of terror and oppression is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the nine-year Soviet war in Afghanistan, the American C.I.A. sent aid to the Afghan mujahideen who were fighting the Soviet occupation of their country. As the Cold War drew to a close, and Iraq annexed Kuwait, threatening America's steady supply of oil, America grew ever less isolationist and ever more interventionist, determined to protect 'her' resources at all costs. In order to justify her brutal actions abroad, the American government has claimed many different excuses, including bringing democracy to the Middle East, searching for weapons of mass destruction, protection of economic interests abroad, and last but not least, a 'war on terror'.
To validate this last, the media has resorted to extraordinarily fraudulent tactics, creating a narrative of highly-organized 'jihadists' initiating violence against the west, Muslim suicide-bombers determined to kill as many infidel westerners as possible. America in turn, is the heroic defender of the west, stamping out these murderous Muslims to bring secular democracy and peace to the Middle East. And the West swallows it up. Every new act of murder in the news is labeled Islamic terror, until proven otherwise, and once the aggressor is acquitted of any Islamic connection, he is written off as a mentally-unstable individual (see, for example, the media's initial reaction to Anders Breivik). Few have the audacity to step back and analyze the narrative objectively, to recognize America's true hand in the war, the utter ridiculousness of the vast levels of power, structure, funding, and ammunition attributed to supposed back-woods organizations in under-developed countries (such as alqaeda and the taliban), to grasp the extent of America's wanton slaughter of innocent men, women and children in the Middle East, to ask Muslims what their religious and political views are, to study the Qur'an and find out what it says about terrorism, and to realize that this is nothing but a political war in which weak countries are fighting for their rights against the invasion of a militant superpower. The fact that America is predominantly secular and these countries are Muslim-majority, is irrelevant, yet the media's portrayal of these citizens as militant Islamists has been so successful, that Islam's long-held image as a peaceful, civilized reformer of society has been bulldozed into the ground along with the homes and families of millions of Muslims.
Yet, prior to these events, Islam has long enjoyed a high reputation for many centuries, since its advent in the Arabian peninsula. Non-Muslim intellectuals through the ages have esteemed the prophet Muhammad highly, as one of the world's most successful religious and political leaders of all time, and recognized the Islamic civilization that blossomed throughout both East and West as the first and most impressive renaissance to take place. I've shared a collection of quotes below in hopes that it will encourage readers to set aside their modern misconceptions shaped by a political war and the media's scandalous distortion of it, and view Islam through the lens of Europe's Christian and secular intellectuals whose writings have shaped Western thought for generations.
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| Edward Gibbon |
"More pure than the system of Zoroaster, more liberal than the law of Moses, the religion of Muhammad might seem less inconsistent with reason than the creed of mystery and superstition which, in the seventh century, disgraced the simplicity of the gospels." ~Edward Gibbon (b. 1737), The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
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| Napoleon Bonaparte |
"He was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without the Pope's pretensions, Caesar without the legions of Caesar, without a standing army, without a bodyguard, without a palace, without a fixed revenue; if ever any man had the right to say that he ruled by the right divine, it was Muhammad, for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports." ~Rev. Benjamin Smith (b. 1784), American bishop and author of Apostolic Succession
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| Alphonse de Lamartine |
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| Thomas Carlyle |
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| Sir William Muir |
"Islam replaced monkishness by manliness. It gives hope to the slave, brotherhood to mankind, and recognition of the fundamental facts of human nature." ~Isaac Taylor (b.1829), Anglican canon of York and author of Leaves from an Egyptian Notebook
"I often think that woman is more free in Islam than in Christianity. Woman is more protected by Islam than by the faith which preaches monogamy. In the Qur'an, the law about woman is more just and liberal. It is only in the last twenty years that Christian England has recognized the right of woman to property, while Islam has allowed this right from all times." ~Annie Besant (b. 1847), British socialist, feminist, political activist, author, and president of the India National Congress, The Life and Teaching of Muhammad
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| George Bernard Shaw |
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| Edward Montet |
"The Qur'an, its grandeur of form is so sublime that no translation into any European language can allow us to appreciate it." ~Edward Montet
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| Mohandas Ghandi |
""It was the genius of Muhammad, the spirit that he breathed into the Arabs through the soul of Islam, that exalted them, that raised them out of the lethargy and low level of tribal stagnation up to the high watermark of national unity and empire. It was in the sublimity of Muhammad's deism, the simplicity, the sobriety and purity it inculcated, the fidelity of its founder to his own tenets, that acted on their moral and intellectual fiber with all the magnetism of true inspiration." ~Major Arthur Glyn Leonard (ca. 1870), Islam, Her Moral and Spiritual Values
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| Bertrand Russell |
"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 (b. 1872), British Arabist and Semitist, University of Bristol professor, and author of Short History of the Fatimid Caliphate
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| Robert Briffault |
"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." ~Sarojini Naidu (b. 1879), Indian independence activist, first woman president of the Indian National Congress, and governor of Uttar Pradesh
"It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy for, in the mosque when the call for prayer is sounded and worshipers are gathered together, the democracy of Islam is embodied five times a day when the peasant and king kneel side by side and proclaim: 'God alone is great.' I have been struck over and over again by this indivisible unity of Islam that makes man instinctively a brother." ~Sarojini Naidu, The Ideals of Islam
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| Arnold J. Toynbee |
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| Hamilton Alexander Gibb |
"The Qur’an in its original Arabic dress has a seductive beauty and charm of its own. Couched in concise and exalted style, its brief pregnant sentences, often rhymed, possess an expressive force and explosive energy which it is extremely difficult to convey by literal word-for-word translation." ~John Naish M.A., D.D. (ca. 1900), The Wisdom of the Qur'an
"The doctrine of brotherhood of Islam extends to all human beings, no matter what colour, race or creed. Islam is the only religion which has been able to realize this doctrine in practice. Muslims wherever on the world they are will recognize each other as brothers." ~Dr. R.L. Mellema (ca. 1900), Dutch anthropologist and author of Een Interprtatie van de Islam
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| James Michener |
"That his [Muhammad's] reforms enhanced the status of women in general is universally admitted." ~James A. Michener, Mohammedanism
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| William Montgomery Watt |
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| Bernard Lewis |
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| Paul Findley |
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| Hermann Eilts |
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| Hans Küng |
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| Michael H. Hart |
"Medieval Islam was technologically advanced and open to innovation. It achieved far higher literacy rates than in contemporary Europe; it assimilated the legacy of classical Greek civilization to such a degree that many classical books are now known to us only through Arabic copies. It invented windmills, trigonometry, lateen sails and made major advances in metallurgy, mechanical and chemical engineering and irrigation methods. In the middle-ages the flow of technology was overwhelmingly from Islam to Europe rather from Europe to Islam." ~Jared Diamond, Professor of Physiology at UCLA School of Medicine, Guns, Germs, and Steel - The Fates of Human Societies
"Jim Jones, David Koresh and Meir Kahane do not typify Christianity and Judaism in the eyes of the 'civilized' West, but those same eyes are prone to see Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar as typifying Islam." ~Richard Bulliet, Professor of History at Columbia University
"Prophet Muhammad bequeathed to humanity a scripture that has helped millions of human beings to make sense of their lives. To have such a combination of very strong spiritual genius with political genius is extraordinary." ~Karen Armstrong, British author and commentator on comparative religion, author of A History of God
"Islam is part of our past and our present, in all fields of human endeavor. It has helped to create modern Europe. It is part of our own inheritance, not a thing apart." ~Prince Charles, Islam and the West
"Islam's appeal, wherever it has triumphed, has been in its simplicity. It requires submission to some basic, straightforward rules which are easily kept, and in return it offers that most wonderful and rare commodity, peace of mind." ~Peter Hitchens, British columnist, foreign correspondent, and author
"The Qur'an often urges believers to fight, yet it also commands that enemies be shown mercy when they surrender. Some frightful portions of the Bible, by contrast, go much further in ordering the total extermination of enemies, of whole families and races - of men, women, and children, and even their livestock, with no quarter granted." ~Prof. Philip Jenkins, Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, and Professor of Humanities Emeritus at Pennsylvania State University
"Muslim scripture counsels respect for these communities (Jews & Christians), and indeed, in the history of Islam, within Islamic societies Jews and Christians have fared FAR better than non-Christians in Christendom." ~Gary Leupp, Professor of History at Tufts University and author of Challenging Ignorance on Islam: A Ten-Point Primer for Americans
