Slough Mosque

 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 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.

Here we furnish some observations on Islam by great and acknowledged non-Muslim scholars of modern time.

" 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 Wolverhampton , Oct 7, 1887 , Quoted by Arnond 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."

Sarojini Naidu, Lectures on "The Ideals of Islam' see Speeches and Writings of Sarojini Naidu, Madras, 1918, p167.

"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, Slough, 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 in uniting in an equality of status, of opportunity, and of endeavors 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, Slough, 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 far from being an Antichrist, 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 tliat 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.

Bukhara, Samarkand, Uzbekistan

"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 of the earth.

The closer we examine this development the more extraordinary does it appear. The other great religions won their zoay slowly by painful struggle and finally triumphed with the aid of powerful monarchies 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 the fastest-growing religion in America, a guide and pillar of stability for many of our people..."
HILLARY RODMAN CLINTON, Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1996, p.3

"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 tire 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 development, in every sense of tire term, of the teachings of the Prophet, the Quran has invariably kept its place as tire fundamental starting point, and the dogma of unity of God Iras always been proclaimed therein with a grandeur, a majesty, an invariable purity and zoith a note of sure conviction which 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 Cretienne et ses Adversaries Musulmans' Paris 1890, quoted by T.W. Arnold in The Preaching of Islam, Slough 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 Slough 1983, p IX.

"The theory of Islam and sword for instance is not heard now frequently in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam that there is no compulsion in religion is well known. Gibbon, a historian of world-wide fame says, 'A pernicious tenet has been imputed to the Mohammadans, the duty of extirpating all the religions by the sword.' This charge of ignorance and bigotry, says the eminent historian, is refuted by Quran; by the history of Musalman conquerors and by their public and legal toleration of Christian worship. The greatest success of Muhammad's life was affected by sheer moral force without the stroke of a sword."

Prof. Ramakrishna Rao, Muhummad the Prophet of Islam, Page 4.

Writing in the latter part of the nineteenth century, the renowned HINDU Scholar, SWAMI VIVEKANANDA had this to say about Islam.

" The HINDUS may get the credit of arriving at it earlier than other races, yet practical Advaitism, Which looks upon and behaves to all mankind as one's own soul was never developed among the Hindus. On the other hand, my experience is that if ever any religion approached to this equality in an appreciable manner, it is Islam and Islam alone, I am firmly persuaded, therefore, that without the help of practical Islam, Theories of Vedantism, however fine and wonderful they may be, are entirely valueless to the vast mass of mankind...."

Letters of Swami Vivekananda p 463.

"What does Islam stand for? I regard and all thinking men regard Islam as the one and only democratic faith that is actually functioning in the world today. Being a Hindu, firmly entrenched in the Hindu Faith, I yet make bold to say so. My own religion has not succeeded, despite its fundamental philosophy, in implementing in practice the Oneness of Humanity. No other religion, whatever its theory may be, has brought into practice the essential idea of oneness of man before God as Islam has done. It is only in Islam that there can be no such problem as those presented by the Boers in the South Africa, as those prevalent in white Australia or in the Southern states of the United states of America or even in England among the several strata of society."

Sir C.P. Ramaswamy lyer. Eastern Times, 22nd December 1944.

 "Someone has said that Europeans in South Africa dread the advent of Islam - Islam that civilized Spain - Islam that took the torch of light to Morocco and preached to the world the Gospel of brotherhood. The Europeans of South Africa dread the advent of Islam, as they may claim, equality with the white races. They may well dread it. If brotherhood is a sin, If it is equality of coloured races that they dread, then their dread is well founded."