What objection, then, can be directed against Muhammad? Is it this, that He did not, with His followers and their women and children, place himself at the mercy of these lawless tribes? Moreover, to free these tribes from their bloodthirstiness was the greatest gift, and to curb and restrain them was pure bounty. It is like a man who holds in his hand a cup of poison and who is about to drink it. A loving friend would certainly shatter the cup and restrain the drinker. If Christ had been placed in similar circumstances, He would have undoubtedly delivered, through an all-conquering power, those men, women, and children from the claws of such ravenous wolves (7:8)

Muhammad never fought against the Christians; on the contrary, He treated them with consideration and accorded them complete freedom. In Najran there lived a community of Christians, and they were under His care and protection. Muhammad said: "Should anyone infringe upon their rights, I myself will be his enemy and will charge him before God." In the edicts He promulgated, it is clearly stated that the lives, property, and honour of Jews and Christians are under the protection of God; that a Muslim husband may not prevent his Christian wife from going to church, nor oblige her to wear a veil; that if she died he must entrust her remains to the care of a priest; and that if the Christians desired to build a church the Muslims must support them. Furthermore, in time of war between Islam and her enemies, the Christians were to be exempt from fighting, unless they desired of their own accord to join and assist the Muslims in battle, in view of the protection they enjoyed. In compensation for this exemption, they were to pay each year a small amount. In short, there are seven lengthy edicts on these subjects, copies of some of which are to this day extant in Jerusalem.[3] This is the very truth and not merely my own assertion: The edict of the second Caliph[4] is still in the custody of the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the matter is beyond doubt. Nevertheless, after a time, rancour and envy arose between Muslims and Christians as transgressions were committed by both sides. (7:9) com1

Beyond this truth, whatever Muslims, Christians, or others may say is pure fabrication and proceeds from fanaticism, ignorance, or intense hostility. For example, the Muslims claim that the moon was cleft asunder by Muhammad and fell upon the mountain of Mecca. They imagine the moon to be a small body which Muhammad divided in twain, casting one part on one mountain and the other part on another! These tales are prompted by sheer fanaticism. Likewise, the accounts that the Christian clergy provide and the charges that they level are always exaggerated and often baseless (7:10)

Briefly, Muhammad appeared in the desert of Hijaz in the Arabian Peninsula, which was a treeless and barren wilderness: sandy, desolate in the extreme, and in some places, such as Mecca and Medina, exceedingly hot. Its inhabitants were nomads, had the morals and manners of desert-dwellers, and were entirely bereft of knowledge and learning. Even Muhammad Himself was illiterate, and the Qur'an was originally written upon the blade-bones of sheep or on palm leaves. Infer then from this the conditions prevailing among the people to whom Muhammad was sent! (7:11)

His first reproach to them was this: "Why do you reject the Torah and the Gospel, and wherefore do you refuse to believe in Christ and in Moses?" This statement came indeed hard upon them, for they asked: "What then is to be said of our fathers and forefathers, who did not believe in the Torah and the Gospel?" He answered, "They had gone astray, and it is incumbent upon you to renounce those who do not believe in the Torah and the Gospel, though they be your own forefathers." (7:12)

It was in such a land and amidst such barbarous tribes that an illiterate Man brought forth a Book in which the attributes and perfections of God, the prophethood of His Messengers, the precepts of His religion, and certain fields of knowledge and questions of human learning have been expounded in a most perfect and eloquent manner (7:13)

For example, as you know, before the observations of the renowned astronomer of later times,[5] that is, from the first centuries down to the fifteenth century of the Christian era, all the mathematicians of the world were unanimous in upholding the centrality of the earth and the movement of the sun. This modern astronomer was the source of the new theory that postulated the movement of the earth and the fixity of the sun. Until his time, all the mathematicians and philosophers of the world held to the Ptolemaic system, and whosoever uttered a word against it was considered ignorant. It is true that Pythagoras, and Plato during the latter part of his life, conceived that the sun's annual movement around the zodiac did not proceed from the sun itself but from the earth's movement around it, but this theory was entirely forgotten and the Ptolemaic theory was universally accepted by all mathematicians. But in the Qur'an a number of verses were revealed which contradicted the Ptolemaic system. One of them, "The sun moves in a fixed place of its own",[6] alludes to the fixity of the sun and its movement around an axis. Likewise, in another verse, "And each swims in its own heaven",[7] the movement of the sun, the moon, the earth, and the other celestial bodies is specified. When the Qur'an was spread abroad, all the mathematicians scoffed and attributed this view to ignorance. Even the Muslim divines, finding these verses contrary to the Ptolemaic system, were obliged to interpret them figuratively, for the latter was accepted as incontrovertible fact and yet was explicitly contradicted by the Qur'an. (7:14) com2

It was not before the fifteenth century of the Christian era, nearly nine hundred years after Muhammad, that new observations were made by a famous mathematician,[8] that the telescope was invented, that important discoveries were made, that the rotation of the earth and the fixity of the sun were proven, and that the latter's movement about an axis was likewise discovered. Then it became evident that the explicit text of the Qur'an was in full agreement with reality and that the Ptolemaic system was sheer imagination. (7:15) com3

In short, multitudes of Eastern peoples were reared for thirteen centuries under the shadow of the Muhammadan Faith. During the Middle Ages, while Europe had sunk to the lowest depths of barbarity, the Arabs excelled all other nations of the earth in sciences and crafts, mathematics, civilization, governance, and other arts. The Educator and Prime Mover of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, and the Founder of the civilization of human perfections among those contending clans, was an illiterate Man, Muhammad. Was this illustrious Man a universal Educator or not? Let us be fair (7:16)

Get Next Chapter