Quotes About Prophet Muhammad

We have collected and put the best quotes about Prophet Muhammad. Enjoy reading these insights and feel free to share this page on your social media to inspire others.

Muhammad (‎‫‬‎محمد; c. 570 – 8 June 632; full name: Muhammad Ibn Abd Allāh IbnAbd al-Muttalib) is the central figure of Islam. Muslim beliefs assert that he is the Seal of the Prophets and is Rasool Allah (“Messenger of God”). Archaic spellings of his name in English include: Mohammed, Muhammed, and Mahomet.

Humanity came to know true civilization by means of Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, and favored it. All efforts exerted after him for the sake of true civilization have been no more than practicing or trying to practice the principles he brought and adjusting them to new conditions. For this reason, he deserves to be called the founder of true civilization. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, rejected indolence and the lazy and esteemed labor as a mode of worship and applauded the hard-working. He directed his followers to horizons beyond the age in which they lived and taught them how they could be the element of balance in the world. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, is unequaled in that he appeared as a sword of valor and eloquence against unbelief and savagery. He proclaimed the truth with the clearest voice and showed mankind the ways to true existence. – M. Fethullah Gulen

If there is ever a person whom ignorance, unbelief and brutality hate the most, it is Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings. Those who search for truth and thirst for true knowledge eventually will seek him out and embrace his path. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Prophet Muhammad, upon him be peace, proclaimed true freedom to humanity, and ingrained in human consciousness that all human beings are equal before the law. He established that superiority lies in virtue, piety, and morality. He regarded proclaiming the truth against all oppressors and oppressive thought as a kind of worship. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, called upon us to protect religion, life, reason, property and the integrity of family and lineage, and to strive for this purpose. In a remarkably balanced way, he proclaimed that no other duty could equal this struggle. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Muhammad, upon him be peace and blessings, unveiled the transitory nature of this world and death, and showed the grave to be a waiting room opening onto the realm of eternal happiness. He led every heart seeking happiness, regardless of place or time, to the fountain of Khadr, and enabled them to drink the elixir of immortality. – M. Fethullah Gulen

Muhammad is the most successful of all Prophets and religious personalities.
…. A mass of detail in the early sources show that he was an honest and upright man who had gained the respect and loyalty of others who were like-wise honest and upright men. – The Encyclopædia Britannica Vol. 12

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 anti-Christ, he must be called the Savior 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 that it would be acceptable to the Europe of tomorrow as it is beginning to be acceptable to the Europe of today.
If any religion had the chance of ruling over England, nay Europe within the next hundred years, it could be Islam. – Sir George Bernard Shaw in ‘The Genuine Islam,’ Vol. 1, No. 8, 1936.

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 levels. – Michael H. Heart, The 100, A RANKING OF THE MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS IN HISTORY, Kensington Publication, New York, N Y. 1992.

“He was the most faithful protector of those he protected, the sweetest and most agreeable in conversation. Those who saw him were suddenly filled with reverence; those who came near him loved him; they who described him would say,
‘I have never seen his like either before or after.’
He was of great taciturnity, but when he spoke it was with emphasis and deliberation, and no one could forget what he said…” – Lane Poole, Speeches and Table Talk of the Prophet

“But the very idea that Muhammad would have found any thing to be optimistic about in the carnage committed in his name on September 11th is an obscenity, because, as I try to show in these pages, Muhammad spent most of his life trying to stop that kind of indiscriminate slaughter. The very word islam, which denotes the existential “surrender” of the whole being to God, which Muslims are required to make, is related to salam, “peace.” And most importantly, Muhammad eventually abjured violence and pursued a daring, inspired policy on non-violence that was the culmination of his prophetic career. In imagining that the holy war was the culmination of his career, the fundamentalists (extremists) have distorted the whole meaning of his life. Far from being the father of Jihad, Muhammad was a peacemaker, who risked his life and nearly lost his closest companions, because he was so determined to effect a reconciliation with Mecca. Instead of fighting an intransigent war to the death, Muhammad was prepared to negotiate and to compromise. And this apparent humiliation and capitulation proved, in the words of the Qur’an, to be a great victory (fat-‘h)….If we could view Muhammad as we do any other important historical figure we would surely consider him to be one of the greatest geniuses the world has known.” – Karen Armstrong, Muhammad, a Biography of the Prophet,

“People like Pasteur and Salk are leaders in the first sense. People like Gandhi and Confucius, on one hand, and Alexander, Caesar and Hitler on the other, are leaders in the second and perhaps the third sense. Jesus and Buddha belong in the third category alone. Perhaps the greatest leader of all times was Muhammad, who combined all three functions. To a lesser degree, Moses did the same. – Professor Jules Masserman, USA Psychiatric Association

From Wikiquote

By non-Muslims

This section contains quotations about Muhammad attributed to non-Muslims

• Mahomet made the people believe that he could call a hill to him, and from the top of it offer their prayers, for the observers of his law. The people assembled; Mahomet called the hill to come to him again and again; and when the hill stood still, he was never a whit abashed, but said “If the hill will not come to Mahomet, Mahomet will go to the hill.”
  • Francis Bacon in his Essays (1625), XII: On Boldness; there appears to be no historic truth to this anecdote.

• But do you mean to tell me that the man who in the full flush of youthful vigour, a young man of four and twenty, married a woman much his senior, and remained faithful to her for six and twenty years, at fifty years of age when the passions are dying married for lust and sexual passion? Not thus are men’s lives to be judged. And you look at the women whom he married, you will find that by every one of them an alliance was made for his people, or something was gained for his followers, or the woman was in sore need of protection.
  • Annie Besant, The Life and Teachings of Muhammad (1932), p. 4

• It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knew how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. And although in what I put to you I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel, whenever I reread them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher.
  • Annie Besant, in “The Life and Teachings of Mohammad (1932), p. 4

• The ideas of freedom for all human beings, of human brotherhood, of the equality of all men before the law of democratic government, by consultation and universal suffrage, the ideas that inspired the French Revolution and the Declaration of Rights, that guided the framing of the American Constitution and inflamed the struggle for independence in the Latin-American countries were not inventions of the West. They find their ultimate inspiration and source in the Holy Quran, They are the quintessence of what the intelligentsia of medieval Europe acquired from Islam over a period of centuries through the various societies that developed in Europe in the wake of the Crusades in imitation of the brotherhood associations of Islam. It is highly probable that but for the Arabs modern European civilization would never have arisen at an, it is absolutely certain that but for them it would never have assumed that character which has enabled it to transcend all previous phases of evolution.
  • Robert Briffault, Hundred great Muslims p:9

• How one man single-handedly, could weld warring tribes and Bedouins into a most powerful and civilized nation in less than two decades? The lies (Western slander) which well-meaning zeal has heaped round this man (Muhammad) are disgraceful to ourselves only. A silent great soul, one of that who cannot but be in earnest. He was to kindle the world; the Worlds Maker had ordered so.
  • Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History (1841)

• “It is a great shame for any one to listen to the accusation that Islaam is a lie and that Muhammad was a fabricator and a deceiver. We saw that he remained steadfast upon his principles, with firm determination; kind and generous, compassionate, pious, virtuous, with real manhood, hardworking and sincere. Besides all these qualities, he was lenient with others, tolerant, kind, cheerful and praiseworthy and perhaps he would joke and tease his companions. He was just, truthful, smart, pure, magnanimous and present-minded; his face was radiant as if he had lights within him to illuminate the darkest of nights; he was a great man by nature who was not educated in a school nor nurtured by a teacher as he was not in need of any of this.”
  • Thomas Carlyle, On Heroes, Hero Worship and the Heroic in History (1841)

• Every new cosmic cycle — we are entering a new one now, the Age of Aquarius — brings into the world a teacher. People like Hercules and Hermes, Rama, Mithra, Vyasa, Zoroaster, Confucius, Krishna, Shankaracharya, the Buddha, the Christ, Mohammed — these are all Masters who have come from the same spiritual centre of the planet, called the Spiritual, or Esoteric, Hierarchy, which is made up of the Masters and Their initiates and disciples of various degrees.
  • Benjamin Creme in The Ageless Wisdom, An Introduction to Humanity’s Spiritual Legacy, Share International (1996), p.6

• “Is it possible to conceive, we may ask, that tho man who directed such great and lasting reforms in his own country by substituting the worship of tho one only true God for tho gross and debasing idolatry in which his countrymen had boon plunged for ages; who abolished infanticide, prohibited the use of spirituons liquors and games of chance (those sources of moral depravity), who restricted within comparatively narrow limits the unrestrained polygamy which he found in existence and practice—can we, we repeat, conceive so great and zealous a reformer to have been a mere impostor, or that his whole career was one of sheer hypocrisy? Can we imagine that his divine mission was a mere invention of his own of whose falsehood he was conscious throughout? No, surely, nothing but a consciousness of really righteous intentions could have carried Mohammed so steadily and constantly without ever flinching or wavering, without ever betraying himself to his most intimate connections and companions, from his first revelation to Khadijah to his last agony in the arms of Ayesha.
  • John Davenport, An apology for Mohammed and the Koran. London, 1869. Pages 138-139

• Four years after the death of Justinian, A.D. 569, was born in Mecca, in Arabia, the man Muhammad, who of all men, has exercised the greatest influence upon the human race. To be the religious head of many empires, to guide the daily life of one-third of the human race, may perhaps justify the title of a Messenger of God.
  • Dr. William Draper, M.D. L.L.D. in “History of Intellectual Development of Europe” (1876)

• I wanted to know the best of one who holds today undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind … I became more than convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for his pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the 2nd volume (of the prophet’s biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of the great life.
  • Mahatma Gandhi, speaking on the character of Muhammad in Young India

• The communication of ideas requires a similitude of thought and language: the discourse of a philosopher would vibrate without effect on the ear of a peasant; yet how minute is the distance of their understandings, if it be compared with the contact of an infinite and a finite mind, with the word of God expressed by the tongue or the pen of a mortal! The inspiration of the Hebrew prophets, of the apostles and evangelists of Christ, might not be incompatible with the exercise of their reason and memory; and the diversity of their genius is strongly marked in the style and composition of the books of the Old and New Testament. But Mahomet was content with a character, more humble, yet more sublime, of a simple editor; the substance of the Koran. … In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet [Muhammad] rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book; audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauties of a single page; and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture; whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds; and whose ignorance is incapable of comparing the productions of human genius. The harmony and copiousness of style will not reach, in a version, the European infidel: he will peruse with impatience the endless incoherent rhapsody of fable, and precept, and declamation, which seldom excites a sentiment or an idea, which sometimes crawls in the dust, and is sometimes lost in the clouds. The divine attributes exalt the fancy of the Arabian missionary; but his loftiest strains must yield to the sublime simplicity of the book of Job, composed in a remote age, in the same country, and in the same language. If the composition of the Koran exceed the faculties of a man to what superior intelligence should we ascribe the Iliad of Homer, or the Philippics of Demosthenes? In all religions, the life of the founder supplies the silence of his written revelation.
  • Edward Gibbon, [1788], Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 5, Chapter L: Description Of Arabia And Its Inhabitants. Part IV.

• He is a prophet and not a poet and therefore his Koran is to be seen as Divine Law, and not as a book of a human being made for education or entertainment.
  • Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Noten und Abhandlungen zum Weststlichen Dvan, WA I, 7, 32; translator unknown

• He spoke in the market and other public places. Most of those who heard him laughed at what he told them; but some poor people and a few slaves believed him and adopted the new religion. Others said he was a dreamer and a fool.
  Mohammed, however, paid no heed to the insults he received. He went on telling about the appearance of Gabriel and preaching the doctrines which he said the angel had ordered him to teach the people.
  • John Henry Haaren, in Famous Men of the Middle Ages (1904)

• In the beginning of the seventh century this man did arise; a singular compound of whatever the nation, tribe, time, and country, could produce ; merchant, prophet, orator, poet, hero, and legislator; all after the Arabian manner. Mohammed was born of the noblest tribe in Arabia, the guardian of the purest dialect, and of the Caaba, the ancient sanctuary of the nation; a boy of considerable beauty, not rich, but educated in the family of a man of consequence.
  • Johann Gottfried Herder (1791). Outlines of a philosophy of the history of man. p. 583.

• The league of nations founded by the prophet of Islam put the principle of international unity and human brotherhood on such universal foundations as to show candle to other nations. … the fact is that no nation of the world can show a parallel to what Islam has done towards the realization of the idea of the League of Nations.
  • Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje, as quoted in Encyclopaedic Survey of Islamic Culture (1997) by Mohamed Taher, p. 260

• He was sober and abstemious in his diet and a rigorous observer of fasts. He indulged in no magnificence of apparel, the ostentation of a petty mind; neither was his simplicity in dress affected but a result of real disregard for distinction from so trivial a source. In his private dealings he was just. He treated friends and strangers, the rich and poor, the powerful and weak, with equity, and was beloved by the common people for the affability with which he received them, and listened to their complaints. His military triumphs awakened no pride nor vain glory, as they would have done had they been effected for selfish purposes. In the time of his greatest power he maintained the same simplicity of manners and appearance as in the days of his adversity. So far from affecting a regal state, he was displeased if, on entering a room, any unusual testimonials of respect were shown to him. If he aimed at a universal dominion, it was the dominion of faith; as to the temporal rule which grew up in his hands, as he used it without ostentation, so he took no step to perpetuate it in his family.
  • Washington Irving ‘Mahomet and His Successors’ (1849)

• The Mullahs say Ahmed went to heaven, Sarmad says that heaven came down to Ahmed.
  • Sarmad Kashani, as quoted in Armenian settlements in India, from the earliest times to the present day, Anne Basil (1969), Armenian College, p. 14

• Never has a man set for himself, voluntarily or involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim was super human; to subvert superstitions which had been imposed between man and his Creator, to render God unto man and man unto God; to restore the rational and sacred idea of divinity amidst the chaos of the material and disfigured gods of idolatry, then existing. Never has a man undertaken a work so far beyond human power with so feeble means, for he Muhammad had in the conception as well as in the execution of such a great design, no other instrument than himself and no other aid except a handful of men living in a corner of the desert. Finally, never has a man accomplished such a huge and lasting revolution in the world, because in less than two centuries after its appearance, Islam, reigned over the whole of Arabia, and conquered, in God’s name, Persia, Khorasan, Transoxania, Western India, Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, all the known continent of Northern Africa, numerous islands of the Mediterranean Sea, Spain and part of Gaul.
  If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modern history with Muhammad? The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislations, empires, peoples and dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then inhabited world; and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and souls. . . his forbearance in victory, his ambition, which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death; all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold, the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with words.
  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?
  • Alphonse de Lamartine, Histoire de la Turquie (1854), Vol. I, pp. 276-277

• On 8 June 632, according to the traditional biography, the Prophet died after a short illness. He had achieved a great deal. To the pagan peoples of western Arabia he had brought a new religion which, with its monotheism and its ethical doctrines, stood on an incomparably higher level than the paganism it replaced. He had provided that religion with a revelation which was to become in the centuries to follow the guide to thought and count of countless millions of Believers. But he had done more than that; he had established a community and a well organized and armed state, the power and prestige of which made it a dominant factor in Arabia. What then is the final significance of the career of the Arabian Prophet? For the tradiotional Muslim the question scarcely arises. Muhammad was the last and greatest of the Apostles of God, sent as the Seal of Prophecy to bring the final revelation of god’s word to mankind. His career and success were fore-ordained and inevitable and needed no the pious fantasy of later generations of believers clothed the dim figure of the Prophet with a rich and multi-coloured fabric of fable, legend, and miracle, not realizing that by diminishing his essential historic humanity they were robbing him of one of his most attractive qualities.
  • Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History (1950), p. 45-46.

• My whole heart and soul are stirred and incensed against the Turks and Mohammed, when I see this intolerable raging of the Devil. Therefore I shall pray and cry to God, nor rest until I know that my cry is heard in heaven.
  • Martin Luther while being confined to residence at Coburg, as quoted in History of the Christian Church, (1910) by Philip Schaff, Vol. VII : Modern Christianity : The German Reformation, § 123. Luther at the Coburg; though it mentions Muhammad, this remark might actually be directed at those responsible for his confinement, as he makes allusions to dwelling in the “empire of birds” and his location as a “Sinai” and regularly uses other uncomplimentary comparisons of those involved in suppressing his ideas to figures unpopular to himself and his contemporaries.

• His Mohammed, as has been said, commands that ruling is to be done by the sword, and in his Koran the sword is the commonest and noblest work. Thus the Turk is, in truth, nothing but a murderer or highwayman, as his deeds show before men’s eyes.
  • Martin Luther from On War against the Turk

• I regard Mohammed as a great man, who solved a political problem of appalling difficulty, — the construction of a state and an empire out of the Arab tribes. I have endeavored, in recounting the mode in which he accomplished this, to do justice to his intellectual ability and to observe towards him the respectful attitude which his greatness deserves.
  • D. S. Margoliouth, Mohammed and the Rise of Islam (1905), Preface

• No other religion in history spread so rapidly as Islam. The West has widely believed that this surge of religion was made possible by the sword. But no modern scholar accepts this idea, and the Qur’an is explicit in the support of the freedom of conscience. Like almost every major prophet before him, Muhammad fought shy of serving as the transmitter of God’s word sensing his own inadequacy. But the Angel commanded ‘Read’. So far as we know, Muhammad was unable to read or write, but he began to dictate those inspired words which would soon revolutionize a large segment of the earth: “There is one God”. In all things Muhammad was profoundly practical. When his beloved son Ibrahim died, an eclipse occurred and rumors of God ‘s personal condolence quickly arose. Whereupon Muhammad is said to have announced, ‘An eclipse is a phenomenon of nature. It is foolish to attribute such things to the death or birth of a human being’. At Muhammad’s own death an attempt was made to deify him, but the man who was to become his administrative successor killed the hysteria with one of the noblest speeches in religious history: ‘If there are any among you who worshiped Muhammad, he is dead. But if it is God you Worshiped, He lives for ever’.
  • James A. Michener in ‘Islam: The Misunderstood Religion,’ Reader’s Digest, May 1955, pp. 68-70.
• I have seen the light of Muhammad (with my mind’s eye). I have seen the prophet and the messenger of God, in other words, I have understood his message or imbibed his spirit. After contemplating the glory of God, my ego was completely eliminated.
  • Guru Nanak, ‘Guru Granth Sahib: A Model For Interfaith Understanding,’ by and quote translated by Dr. Kazi Nurul Islam, professor and founding chair of Department of World Religions and Culture at Dhaka University.
• It is difficult to be called a Muslim; if one is truly a Muslim, then he may be called one.
  First, let him savor the religion of the Prophet as sweet; then, let his pride of his possessions be scraped away.
  Becoming a true Muslim, a disciple of the faith of Mohammed, let him put aside the delusion of death and life.
  As he submits to God’s Will, and surrenders to the Creator, he is rid of selfishness and conceit.
  And when, O Nanak, he is merciful to all beings, only then shall he be called a Muslim.
  • Guru Nanak, ‘Sri Granth Sahib,’ page 141 line 11
• Muhammad was a prince; he rallied his compatriots around him. In a few years, the Muslims conquered half of the world. They plucked more souls from false gods, knocked down more idols, razed more pagan temples in fifteen years than the followers of Moses and Jesus did in fifteen centuries. Muhammad was a great man. He would indeed have been a god, if the revolution that he had performed had not been prepared by the circumstances.
  • Napoleon I of France in Campagnes d’Egypte et Syrie (1998), Imprimerie Nationale, p. 275. as translated by John v. Tolan in European Accounts of Muhammad’s Life. Napoleon wrote his memoirs on the island of Saint Helena. It is here he develops his portrait of Muhammad as a model lawmaker and conqueror.
• Mahomet was a great man, an intrepid soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Bender (sic); a great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, he revived his fatherland and created a new people and a new power in the middle of Arabia.
  • Napoleon I of France in Précis des guerres de César, Gosselin, 1836, edited by Comte Marchand, p. 237. This work was written by Napoleon during his exile on St. Helena. Translated by Ziad Elmarsafy in The Enlightenment Qur’an.
• I hope the time is not far off when I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of Qur’an which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness.
  • Napoleon Bonaparte, Quoted in Christian Cherfils’ Bonaparte Et Islam, Paris, 1914
• It was the first religion that preached and practiced democracy; for, in the mosque, when the call for prayer is sounded and worshippers 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, Ideals of Islam, vide Speeches & Writings (1918), p. 169

• ‘I believe in one God, & Muhammad, is the Apostle of God’ is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. is the simple and invariable profession of Islam. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol; the honor of the Prophet have never transgressed the measure of human virtues; and his living precepts have restrained the gratitude of his disciples within the bounds of reason and religion.
  • Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 4

• The personality of Muhammad, it is most difficult to get into the whole truth of it. Only a glimpse of it I can catch. What a dramatic succession of picturesque scenes. There is Muhammad the Prophet. There is Muhammad the Warrior; Muhammad the Businessman; Muhammad the Statesman; Muhammad the Orator; Muhammad the Reformer; Muhammad the Refuge of Orphans; Muhammad the Protector of Slaves; Muhammad the Emancipator of Women; Muhammad the Judge; Muhammad the Saint. All in all these magnificent roles, in all these departments of human activities, he is alike a hero.
  • K. S. Ramakrishna Rao, in Muhammad the Prophet of Islam (1979)

• One who realizes the Prophet attains heaven. Azraa-eel, the Messenger of Death, does not cast him into hell.
  • ‘Sri Granth Sahib,’ page 1084 line 7

• Muhammad was the soul of kindness, and his influence was felt and never forgotten by those around him.
  • Diwan Chand Sharma, The Prophets of the East, Calcutta, 1935, pp. 12

• The medieval ecclesiastics, either through ignorance or bigotry, painted Muhammadanism in the darkest colours. They were in fact trained both to hate the man Muhammad and his religion. To them Muhammad was Anti-Christ. I have studied him — the wonderful man, and in my opinion far from being an Anti-Christ 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.
  • George Bernard Shaw, as quoted in The Genuine Islam, Singapore, Vol. 1, No. 8, 1936

• Head of the State as well as of the Church, he was Caesar and Pope in one; but he was Pope without the Pope’s pretensions, and 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 a right Divine, it was Mohammed; for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports. He rose superior to the titles and ceremonies, the solemn trifling, and the proud humility of court etiquette. To hereditary kings, to princes born in the purple, these things are, naturally enough, as the breath of life; but those who ought to have known better, even self-made rulers, and those the foremost in the files of time — a Caesar, a Cromwell, a Napoleon — have been unable to resist their tinsel attractions. Mohammed was content with the reality, he cared not for the dressings, of power. The simplicity of his private life was in keeping with his public life.
  • Reginald Bosworth Smith, in “Mohammedanism and Christianity” (7 March 1874), published in Mohammed and Mohammedanism (1889), p. 289

• In the year 612, Muhammad ibn Abdullah, a prosperous merchant from Mecca deeply troubled by the splintered, selfish nature of Arab society, emerged as the Prophet Muhammad with divine instructions on how to unite and transform his people. He called his new belief system Islam, meaning “peace through surrender to God.” In its essence, Islam was a strict code of ethics requiring subservience to the community and compassion toward the poor. It quickly helped Arab tribes end their constant blood feuds and create and all-powerful super-tribe based not on family connection but on shared ideology and security. Islam made Arabia an instant superpower. Within two decades of Muhammad’s death in 632, the new Muslim Empire controlled Persia, Syria, Egypt, and pieces of North Africa.
  • David Shenk, The Immortal Game: A History of Chess (2006), chapter “House of Wisdom”.

• The Prophet Muhammad at God’s behest, called men to the worship of one God and proclaimed that, by responding to this call, mankind would achieve true dignity, honour, prosperity and happiness. Within an astonishingly brief period, and over vast areas which were in the grip of ignorance, darkness and confusion were finally dispelled, order was established and all manner of beneficent institutions sprang into life, a high moral order was set up and the blessings of knowledge, learning and science began to be widely diffused. The strength of this message was its crystal clear simplicity and marvelous easiness, for Islam reached out to the soul of the people without having recourse to long explanations and involved sermons. Thanks to this message, bringing the ideals of tauhid, resalat, peace and harmony, paganism in its various forms was defeated, and human dignity finally became a reality. Islam taught right thinking, proper action and honest speaking, and for these reasons it found its way, without any difficulty, into both the minds and hearts of men.
  • Prof. Laura Veccia Vaglieri, An interpretation of Islam (1957)

• His readiness to undergo persecutions for his beliefs, the high moral character of the men who believed in him and looked up to him as leader, and the greatness of his ultimate achievement – all argue his fundamental integrity. To suppose Muhammad an impostor raises more problems than it solves. Moreover, none of the great figures of history is so poorly appreciated in the West as Muhammad.
  • William Montgomery Watt, Mohammad at Mecca (1953), p. 52

• The more one reflects on the history of Muhammad and of early Islam, the more one is amazed at the vastness of his achievement. Circumstances presented him with an opportunity such as few men have had, but the man was fully matched with the hour. Had it not been for his gifts as seer, statesman, and administrator and, behind these, his trust in God and firm belief that God had sent him, a notable chapter in the history of mankind would have remained unwritten.
  …Only a profound belief in himself and his mission explains Muhammad’s readiness to endure hardship and persecution during the Meccan period when from a secular point of view there was no prospect of success. Without sincerity how could he have won the allegiance and even devotion of men of strong and upright character like Abu-Bakr and ‘Umar ? For the theist there is the further question how God could have allowed a great religion like Islam to develop on a basis of lies and deceit. There is thus a strong case for holding that Muhammad was sincere. If in some respects he was mistaken, his mistakes were not due to deliberate lying or imposture.
  • William Montgomery Watt, in Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1961), p. 229

• In Muhammad, I should hold, there was a welling up of the creative imagination, and the ideas thus produced are to a great extent true and sound. It does not follow, however, that all the Qur’anic ideas are true and sound. In particular there is at least one point at which they seem to be unsound; the idea that ‘revelation’ or the product of the creative imagination is superior to normal human traditions as a source of bare historical fact. There are several verses in the Qur’an (II. 5I; 3. 39; I2. I03) to the effect that ‘this is one of the reports of the unseen which We reveal to thee; thou didst not know it, thou nor thy people, before this’. One could admit a claim that the creative imagination was able to give a new and truer interpretation of a historical event, but to make it a source of bare fact is an exaggeration and false.
  This point is of special concern to Christians, since the Qur’an denies the bare fact of the death of Jesus on the cross, and Muslims still consider that this denial outweighs the contrary testimony of historical tradition. The primary intention of the Qur’an was to deny the Jews’ interpretation of the crucifixion as a victory for themselves, but as normally explained it goes much farther. The same exaggeration of the role of ‘revelation’ has also had other consequences. The Arab contribution to Islamic culture has been unduly magnified, and that of the civilized peoples of Egypt, Syria, ‘Iraq and Persia, later converted to Islam, has been sadly belittled.
  Too much must not be made of this slight flaw. Which of us, conscious of being called by God to perform a special task, would not have been more than a little proud ? On the whole Muhammad was remarkably free from pride. Yet this slight exaggeration of his own function has had grave consequences and cannot be ignored.
  • William Montgomery Watt in Muhammad: Prophet and Statesman (1961), p. 239

• I always took the view — contrary to most previous scholars of Islam — that the Quran was not something that Muhammad had consciously produced. For long, however, I hesitated to speak of him as a prophet, because Muslims would have taken this to mean that everything in the Quran was finally and absolutely true, which was something I did not believe. More recently, however, I have said that Muhammad is a prophet comparable to the Old Testament prophets, though with a different task, namely, to bring the knowledge of God to people without such knowledge, whereas their task was mainly to criticize the conduct of those who already believed in God.
  • William Montgomery Watt, as quoted in Muhammad : A Short Biography (1998) by Martin Forward, p. 106 ISBN 1-85168-131-0

• I therefore do not believe that either the Bible or the Qur’an is infallibly true in the sense that all their commands are valid for all time. … when the form of society changes in important respects some commands cease to be appropriate, though many others continue to be valid. I do, however, believe that Muhammad, like the earlier prophets, had genuine religious experiences. I believe that he really did receive something directly from God. As such, I believe that the Qur’an came from God, that it is Divinely inspired. Muhammad could not have caused the great upsurge in religion that he did without God’s blessing.
  • William Montgomery Watt, in “The whole house of Islam, and we Christians with them…” An interview with “the Last Orientalist” – the Rev Prof William Montgomery Watt, published in The Coracle (2000)

• Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached. God is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death.
  • Manuel II Palaiologos, in the 7th of the 26 Dialogues Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia (1391), this quote became the subject of much controversy when it was used by Pope Benedict XVI in his lecture “Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections” (12 September 2006)

• And one his limb transpierced, and one lopped off, should show, it would be nothing to compare with the disgusting mode of the ninth Bolgia. A cask by losing centre-piece or cant was never shattered so, as I saw one rent from the chin to where one breaketh wind. Between his legs were hanging down his entrails; his heart was visible, and the dismal sack that maketh excrement of what is eaten. While I was all absorbed in seeing him, he looked at me, and opened with his hands his bosom, saying: “See now how I rend me; How mutilated, see, is Mahomet; in front of me doth Ali weeping go, cleft in the face from forelock unto chin; and all the others whom thou here beholdest, disseminators of scandal and of schism while living were, and therefore are cleft thus.
  • The Divine Comedy: Inferno – Canto XXVIII

• Since the coming of Jesus Christ, Mahometanism has overspread a great part of the barbarous world. But this carries in it such apparent and certain marks of falsity, that it can be no temptation to any person in whom there is but a spark of good sense…The author from whom it was derived: a robber, one drenched in sensuality, and therefore utterly unqualified to be the revealer of the will of the holy God to men…
  • Reverend William Bates in the Works of the Reverend William Bates, D.D. (1990) Volume 1, page 114, Sprinkle Publications

• By the false prophet [in Revelation 16:13], is sometimes meant the Pope and his clergy; but here an eye seems to be had to Mahomet, whom his followers call the great prophet of God.
  • J. Edwards, The Fall of Antichrist (1829), Part VII, page 395, New York, Published by S. Converse

• After him arose the Madman who emulated his precursor since he paved the way for him. But he added the further objective of procuring rule and submission, and he invented his well known religion. All of these men purposed to place their teachings on the same level with our divine religion. But only a simpleton who lacks knowledge of both would liken divine institutions to human practices. Our religion differs as much from other religions for which there are alleged resemblances as a living man endowed with the faculty of reason is unlike a statue which is ever so well carved out of marble, wood, bronze or silver. When a person ignorant of divine wisdom or of God’s works sees the statue that superficially resembles a man in its contours, form, features, and color, he believes that the structure of the parts of a statue is like the constitution of a man, because he is deficient in understanding concerning the inner organization of both. But the informed person who knows the interior of both, is cognizant of the fact that the internal structure of the statue betrays no skillful workmanship at all, whereas the inward parts of man are truly marvelously made, a testimony to the wisdom of the Creator, such as the prolongation of the nerves in the muscles and their ramifications, the branching out of the sinews and their intersections and the network of their ligaments and their manner of growth, the articulations of the bones and the joints, the pulsating and non-pulsating blood vessels and their ramifications, the setting of the limbs into one another, the uncovered and covered parts, every one of these in proportion, in form and proper place. … This event was predicted in the divinely inspired prophecy of Daniel, according to which, in some future time a person would appear with a religion similar to the true one, with a book of Scriptures and oral communications, who will arrogantly pretend that God had vouchsafed him a revelation, and that he held converse with Him, besides making other extravagant claims. Thus Daniel in his description of the rise of the Arabic kingdom after the fall of the Roman Empire, alluded to the appearance of the Madman and his victories over the Roman, Persian, and Byzantine Empires in the vision concerning a horn which grew, became long and strong. This is clearly indicated in a verse that can be understood by the masses as well as by the select few. Since this interpretation is borne out by the facts of history, no other meaning can be given to the following verse: “I considered the horns, and, behold, there came among them another horn, a little one, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots; and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.” (Danield 7:8).
  • Maimonides, Epistle to Yemen (1172), Chapter IV-V, translated by Boaz Cohen.

• I said to myself: You’ve dealt with Christianity and Judaism but what about your own religion? Can you take it for granted that Muhammad existed? … The more I read, the historical person at the root of the whole thing became more and more improbable.
  • Muhammad Sven Kalisch:Andrew Higgins – [[[:Template:Reference archive]] Professor Hired for Outreach to Muslims Delivers a Jolt] – Wall Street Journal, November 15, 2008

• It is probable that the relative influence of Muhammad on Islam has been larger than the combined influence of Jesus Christ and St. Paul on Christianity. On the purely religious level, then, it seems likely that Muhammad has been as influential in human history as Jesus.
  Furthermore, Muhammad (unlike Jesus) was a secular as well as a religious leader. In fact, as the driving force behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank as the most influential political leader of all time.
  Of many important historical events, one might say that they were inevitable and would have occurred even without the particular political leader who guided them. For example, the South American colonies would probably have won their independence from Spain even if Simon Bolivar had never lived. But this cannot be said of the Arab conquests. Nothing similar had occurred before Muhammad, and there is no reason to believe that the conquests would have been achieved without him. The only comparable conquests in human history are those of the Mongols in the thirteenth century, which were primarily due to the influence of Genghis Khan. These conquests, however, though more extensive than those of the Arabs, did not prove permanent, and today the only areas occupied by the Mongols are those that they held prior to the time of Genghis Khan. … the Arab conquests of the seventh century have continued to play an important role in human history, down to the present day. It is this unparalleled combination of secular and religious influence which I feel entitles Muhammad to be considered the most influential single figure in human history.
  • Michael H. Hart, in The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History (1978)

• It is no wonder the religion of Mahomet extended and established its conquests in many countries: for that seducer persuaded the barbarous people by force of arms, they must be his disciples or slaves. And can the mind form a clear judgment, or the will make a free choice, when under a tyrannous necessity of compliance, or losing all the comforts of life? Can violence and cruelty produce a rational faith? That may force them to a counterfeit compliance, but cannot make men sincerely believe; it is apt to breed form without, and atheism within.
  • Reverend William Bates (1990). The Whole Works of the Rev. William Bates, Volume 1 (W. Farmer, Ed.)(pages 152–153). Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications.

• …in later times Mahomet opened a way for his religion by his sword, and advanced it by conquest. Now it is no wonder that a religion so pleasing to the lower appetites, that gives licence to all corrupt affections in the present life, and promises a sensual paradise suitable to beasts in the future, should be embraced by those who were subject to his arms.
  • Reverend William Bates (1990). The Whole Works of the Rev. William Bates, Volume 1 (W. Farmer, Ed.)(pages 503–504). Harrisonburg, VA: Sprinkle Publications.

• Not a few of the false prophets—for instance, Mahomet—without premeditated foresight, have by slow and imperceptible degrees gained over parties of retainers, and afterwards deceived both themselves and others: accordingly, the circumstances of their birth and their condition, in their early years, are in the case of such impostors unknown, unworthy of trust, and fictitious.
  • Johann Albrecht Bengel (1860). Vol. 2: Gnomon of the New Testament (M. E. Bengel & J. C. F. Steudel, Ed.) (A. R. Fausset, Trans.) (10). Edinburgh: T&T Clark.

• By the false prophet, is sometimes meant the Pope and his clergy; but here an eye seems to be had to Mahomet, whom his followers call the great prophet of God.
  • Jonathan Edwards, referring to the false prophet of Revelation 16:13, in The Fall of Antichrist (1829), Part VII, page 395, New York, Published by S. Converse

• But with all that, Mohammed spoke some wonderful truths. If you read the Koran, you find the most wonder­ful truths mixed with supersti­tio­ns. How will you expl­ain it? That man was inspi­red, no doubt, but that inspi­rat­ion was, as it were, stum­bled upon. He was not a trained Yogi, and did not know the reason of what he was doing. T­hink of the good Mohammed did to the world, and think of the great evil that has been done thro­ugh his fanatic­ism! Think of the millions massacred through his teachi­ngs, mothers bereft of their children, children made orphans, whole countries destroyed, mil­lions upon mil­lions of people killed! (…) So we see this danger by studying the lives of great teach­ers like Moham­mad and others. Yet we find, at the same time, that they were all inspi­red. Whene­ver a prophet got into the super­conscious state by heighte­ning his emotional nature, he brought away from it not only some truths, but some fanaticism also, some super­st­ition which injured the world as much as the greatness of the teaching help­ed.
  • Swami Vivekananda: Complete Works, vol.1, p.184, from his book Raja Yoga, Ch.7: “Dhyana and Samadhi”)

• But that a camel-merchant [Muhammad] should stir up insurrection in his village; that in league with some miserable followers he persuades them that he talks with the angel Gabriel; that he boasts of having been carried to heaven, where he received in part this unintelligible book, each page of which makes common sense shudder; that, to pay homage to this book, he delivers his country to iron and flame; that he cuts the throats of fathers and kidnaps daughters; that he gives to the defeated the choice of his religion or death: this is assuredly nothing any man can excuse, at least if he was not born a Turk, or if superstition has not extinguished all natural light in him.
  • Voltaire:François-Marie Arouet, Letter to Frederick II of Prussia, December 1740, referring to Muhammad

• Most blessed Father [Pope Benedict XIV]— Your holiness will pardon the liberty taken by one of the lowest of the faithful, though a zealous admirer of virtue, of submitting to the head of the true religion this performance [“Fanaticism, or Mahomet”], written in opposition to the founder of a false and barbarous sect. To whom could I with more propriety inscribe a satire on the cruelty and errors of a false prophet, than to the vicar and representative of a God of truth and mercy? Your holiness will therefore give me leave to lay at your feet both the piece and the author of it, and humbly to request your protection of the one, and your benediction upon the other; in hopes of which, with the profoundest reverence, I kiss your sacred feet.
  • Voltaire:François-Marie Arouet, Letter to Benedict XIV, written in Paris on August 17, 1745

• From “The Hundred-word Eulogy”

Since the creation of the universe

God had already appointed his great faith-preaching man,

From the West he was born,

And received the holy scripture

And book made of 30 parts (Juz)

To guide all creations,

Master of all rulers,

Leader of the holy ones,

With support from the Heavens,

To protect his nation,

With five daily prayers,

Silently praying for peace,

His heart directed towards Allah,

Giving power to the poor,

Saving them from calamity,

Seeing through the Unseen,

Pulling the souls and the spirits away from all wrongdoings,

Mercy to the world,

Transversing the ancient, Majestic path,

vanquishing away all evil,

His religion, Qing Zhen (the name for islam in chinese (especially at that time), which literally means Pure and True),

Muhammad, The Noble Great One.

• • Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor and first emperor of the Ming Dynasty of China, from Kaikyōken: Le monde Islamique, Volume 7, page 139, published by Shikai Shobo

• From “The Hundred-word Eulogy”

The universe began with the heavenly tablet recording his name.

The religion-delivering great sage, born in the western realm.

Conferring and receiving heavenly scripture in thirty parts, universally transforming all created beings.

Master of the trillion rulers, leader of the ten thousand sages.

Assisted by destiny, protector of the community. In each of the five prayers, he silently supplicates for their total well-being.

His intention is that Allah should remember the needy. Deliver them from tribulations to safety, Knower of the unseen.

Exalted above every soul and spirit, free from any blameworthy deeds.

A mercy to all of the worlds, whose path is preeminent for all time.

Renounce spiritual ignorance; return to The One – that is the religion called Islam.

Muhammad is the most noble sage.

• • Zhu Yuanzhang, from Praising the Prophet Muhammad in Chinese, The Matheson Trust, page 3, by Brendan Newlon, translated by Brendon Newlon

• In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust: to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature. Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.
  • Unknown, passage comparing Christianity and Islam by an anonymous author in The American Annual Register for the Years 1827-8-9 (1830), edited by Joseph Blunt, Ch. X, p. 269; Robert Spencer attributed the authorship to John Quincy Adams in The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) (2005), p. 83, but provided no clear documentation as to why this attribution was made.

The Qur’an

This section contains quotations about Muhammad attributed to God in the Qur’an

• And thus we have made you a just community that you will be witnesses over the people and the Messenger will be a witness over you. And We did not make the qiblah which you used to face except that We might make evident who would follow the Messenger from who would turn back on his heels. And indeed, it is difficult except for those whom Allah has guided. And never would Allah have caused you to lose your faith. Indeed Allah is, to the people, Kind and Merciful. We have certainly seen the turning of your face, [O Muhammad], toward the heaven, and We will surely turn you to a qiblah with which you will be pleased. So turn your face toward al-Masjid al-Haram. And wherever you [believers] are, turn your faces toward it [in prayer]. Indeed, those who have been given the Scripture well know that it is the truth from their Lord. And Allah is not unaware of what they do.
  • Quran, Chapter 2 (Al-Baqarah) verse 143-144

• And [recall, O People of the Scripture], when God took the covenant of the prophets, [saying], “Whatever I give you of the Scripture and wisdom and then there comes to you an apostle confirming what is with you, you [must] believe in him and support him.” [God] said, “Have you acknowledged and taken upon that My commitment?” They said, “We have acknowledged it.” He said, “Then bear witness, and I am with you among the witnesses.”
  • Qur’an 3:81

• Exalted is He who took His Servant by night from al-Masjid al-Haram to al-Masjid al-Aqsa, whose surroundings We have blessed, to show him of Our signs. Indeed, He is the Hearing, the Seeing.
  • Chapter 17 (Al-Isra) verse 1

• And [remember, O Muhammad], when We told you, “Indeed, your Lord has encompassed the people.” And We did not make the sight which We showed you except as a trial for the people, as was the accursed tree [mentioned] in the Qur’an. And We threaten them, but it increases them not except in great transgression.
  • Quran, Chapter 17 (Al-Isra) verse 60

• And We have not sent you, [O Muhammad], except as a mercy to all the creation.
  • Quran 21:107

• There has certainly been for you in the Messenger of God [Muhammad] an excellent pattern for anyone whose hope is in God and the Last Day and [who] remembers God often.
  • Qur’an 33:21

• Muhammad is not the father of [any] one of your men, but [he is] the Apostle of God and the Seal of the prophets. And ever is God, of all things, Knowing.
  • Qur’an 33:40

• Indeed, God and His angels are saluting the Prophet [Muhammad]. O you who have believed! salute him, and greet him with the greetings of peace.
  • Qur’an 33:56

• And those who believe and do righteous deeds and believe in what has been sent down upon Muhammad – and it is the truth from their Lord – He will remove from them their misdeeds and amend their condition.
  • Qur’an 47:2

• Indeed, We have granted to you, [O Muhammad], a great conquest
  • Qur’an 48:1

• And be patient, [O Muhammad], for the decision of your Lord, for indeed, you are in Our eyes. And exalt [God] with praise of your Lord when you arise.
  • Qur’an 52:48

• And he certainly saw him in another descent,
  At the Lote-tree of the Utmost Boundary –
  Near it is the Garden of Refuge –
  When there covered the Lote Tree that which covered [it]
  The sight [of the Prophet] did not swerve, nor did it transgress [its limit].
  He certainly saw of the greatest signs of his Lord.

• Quran, Chapter 53 (An-Najm), verses 13–1

• And indeed, you [O Muhammad] are of a great moral character.
  • Qur’an 68:4

By his Companions

This section contains quotations about Muhammad attributed to his Companions

• Anas bin Malik said about Muhammad: “The Apostle of God [Muhammad] was the most handsome, most generous and the bravest of all the people..”
  • Sahih al-Bukhari, Vol. 4, Book 52, Hadith 277.

• Abu Hurayrah said about him: “The Apostle of God [Muhammad] was so clean, clear, beautiful and handsome, as though his body was covered and molded in silver. His hair was slightly curled.”
  • Shama’il Muhammadiyah, Book 1, Hadith 11

• Al-Bara’ said about him: “The Apostle of God had the most handsome face amongst men and he had the best disposition and he was neither very tall nor short-statured.”
  • Sahih Muslim, Book 30, Hadith 5772

• Ibn ‘Umar reported that Abu Bakr as-Siddiq said, “Respect Muhammad, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, in the members of his family.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 347

• ‘Abdullah ibn Mas’ud said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, slept on a straw mat and when he got up he had a mark on his side. We said, “Messenger of Allah, we could make a covering for you?” He said, “What have I to do with this world? I am only in this world like a rider who seeks shade under a tree and then goes on.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 486

• ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib was asked, “How was your love for the Messenger of Allah?” He replied, “By Allah, we loved him more than our wealth, our sons, our fathers and our mothers, and more than cold water in a time of great thirst.”
  • Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• ‘Amr ibn al-Harith, the brother of the Umm al-Mu’minin, Juwayriyya bint al-Harith, said, “When the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, died, he left neither dirham nor dinar nor slave nor slavegirl nor anything other than his white mule which he used to ride, his weapons, and some land that he made sadaqa for travellers.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 475

• Ibn ‘Abbas said that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to go hungry for nights in a row at the time when his people could find no support. Most of their bread was barley bread.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 513

• An-Nu’man ibn Bashir said, “‘Umar ibn al-Khattab mentioned the things of this world that the people had acquired and he said, ‘One day I saw the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, sifting through some bad dates he had found in order to fill his belly.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 473

• ‘A’isha said, “When the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, died, there was nothing in my house that could be eaten by a living creature except for half a barley loaf on a shelf. I ate from it until I seemed to have had it for a long time. Then I measured it and it finished.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 474

• ‘Abdullah ibn Mughaffal said, “A man said to the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, “Messenger of Allah, by Allah, I love you.” He said, “Be careful of what you say.” He said, “By Allah, I love you,” three times. He said, “If you love me, then prepare yourself for poverty. Poverty comes swifter to the one who loves me than a flood to its destination.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 3, hadith number 484

• Anas said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, had the best character of anyone.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 621

• .’Abdullah ibn ‘Amr ibn al-‘As said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was neither obscene nor indecent. He used to say, ‘The best of you are the best in character.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 625

• Abu Sa’id al-Maqburi said that Abu Hurayra passed by some people who had a roast sheep in front of them and they invited him to eat, but he refused to eat, saying, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, left this world without having his fill of barley bread.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 493

• Abu Hurayra said, “I have not seen anything more beautiful than the Messenger of Allah. It was as if the sun was shining in his face. When he laughed, it reflected from the wall.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 2

• Umm Ma‘bad said, “From afar, he was the most beautiful of people, and close up he was the most handsome.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 2

• His mother Amina said, “He was born clean. There was no impurity on him.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 2

• Anas said, “I have not smelled amber, musk or anything more fragrant than the smell of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• ‘A’isha said, “I never ever saw the private parts of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• ‘Amr ibn al-‘As said, “There is no one I love better than the Messenger of Allah.”

• Ash-Shifa’ by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• When Bilal was near death, his wife called out, “O sorrow!” Bilal said, “What joy! I will meet those I love, Muhammad and his party!”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• It is related that a woman said to ‘A’isha, “Show me the grave of the Messenger of Allah.” She showed it to her and the woman wept until she died.

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• Ibn Ishaq said that the father, brother and husband of one of the women of the Ansar were killed in the Battle of Uhud fighting for the Messenger of Allah. She asked, “What has happened to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace?” They said, “He is as well as you would like, praise be to Allah!” She said, “Show him to me so I can look at him.” When she saw him, she said, “Every affliction is as nothing now that you are safe.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• ‘A’isha said, “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, never filled his stomach completely. When he was with his family, he did not ask them for food nor desire it. If they fed it to him, he ate. He accepted whatever they served him and he drank whatever they gave him to drink.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 12

• ‘A’isha said, “I never the saw the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, ever take revenge for an injustice done to him as long as it was not regarding one of the orders of Allah which must be respected. He never struck anyone with his hand at all except when doing jihad in the way of Allah. He never hit a servant or a woman.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 12

• ‘A’isha said, “His character was the Qur’an. He was pleased by what it finds pleasing and angry according to what it finds hateful.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 10

• Ibn ‘Abbas said, “The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was the most generous of people in giving gifts and most generous of all in the month of Ramadan. When he met with Jibril, he was more generous than even the wind which is sent forth.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 13

• It is mentioned that Mu‘awwidh ibn ‘Afra’ said, “I brought the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, a plate of fresh dates and cucumber, and he gave me a handful of jewelry and gold.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 13

• ‘Ali said, “When the situation was hot, fear intense and the fighting fierce, we were concerned for the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. None was closer to the enemy than he. I saw him on the Day of Badr when we were keeping close to him and he was the closest one to the enemy. He was the bravest person on that day.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 14

• Ibn Abi Hala described him saying, “He was always joyful with an easy disposition. He was gentle, neither gruff nor rude nor clamorous nor obscene nor carping nor excessively complimentary. He left food which he did not want without complaining about it.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 16

• Jabir ibn ‘Abdullah said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, never kept himself apart from me from the time I became a Muslim and whenever he saw me, he smiled.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 16

• Al-Husayn said, “Tell me about when he went out and how he behaved then?” His father replied, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, held his tongue except regarding what concerned people. He brought people together and did not split them. He honoured the nobles of every group of people and appointed them over their people. He was cautious about people and on his guard against them, but he did that without averting his face from them or being discourteous. He asked about his Companions and he asked people how other people were. He praised what was good and encouraged it, and disliked what was ugly and discouraged it. He took a balanced course, without making changes. He was not negligent, fearing that people would become negligent or weary. He was prepared for any eventuality. He did not neglect a right nor did he let his debts reach the point where others had to help him. The best and most preferred people in his eyes were those who had good counsel for all. Those he most esteemed were those who supported and helped him.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 25

• “Zayd ibn Aslam said, ‘Umar went out at night to observe the people and saw a lamp in a house where an old woman was teasing some wool, saying:

“The prayer of the good be upon Muhammad, may the blessed bless him!

I was standing in tears before dawn. If only I knew,when death gives us different forms,

Whether the Abode will join me to my beloved!”

She meant the Prophet. ‘Umar sat down in tears.”

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• It is related that once ‘Abdullah ibn ‘Umar’s foot went numb. He was told, “Remember the most beloved of people to you and it will go away!” He shouted, “O Muhammad!” and the feeling returned.

• Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

• Anas said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was not asked in Islam for anything without giving it. A man came to him and he gave him sheep filling the space between two mountains and he returned to his people saying, ‘O people! Become Muslim! Muhammad gives a gift without any fear of poverty.’ Even if a man becomes Muslim only out of desire for this world, it is not long before Islam becomes dearer to him than this world and everything in it.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 553

• Anas said that he passed by some boys and greeted them, saying, ‘The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to do that.'” [Agreed upon]
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 604

• Anas said, “If one of the slavegirls of the Madina took the hand of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, she could take him wherever she liked.” [meaning he was fatherly and kind] [al-Bukhari]
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 605

• Al-Aswad ibn Yazid said, “I asked ‘A’isha, ‘What did the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to do in his house?’ She said, ‘He would serve his family. When it was time for the prayer, he would go out to the prayer.” [al-Bukhari]
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 606

• ‘A’isha said, “The words of the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, were clear words which could be understood by all who heard them.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 697

• ‘A’isha said, “I never saw the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, laugh so much that the inside of his mouth showed. He used only to smile.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 703

• Jabir said, “When it was the day of the ‘Id, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to return by a different route.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 719

• Abu Hurayra said, “The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, never criticised food. If he liked it, he ate it, and if he disliked it, he left it.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 739

• “When I saw his light shining forth,

In fear I covered my eyes with my palms,

Afraid for my sight because of the beauty of his form.

So I was scarcely able to look at him at all.

The lights from his light are drowned in his light

and his faces shines out like the sun and moon in one.

A spirit of light lodged in a body like the moon,

a mantle made up of brilliant shining stars.

I bore it until I could bear it no longer.

I found the taste of patience to be like bitter aloes.

I could find no remedy to bring me relief

other than delighting in the sight of the one I love.

Even if he had not brought any clear signs with him,

the sight of him would dispense with the need for them.

Muhammad is a human being but not like other human beings.

Rather he is a flawless diamond and the rest of mankind is just stones.

Blessings be on him so that perhaps Allah may have mercy on us

on that burning Day when the Fire is roaring forth its sparks.”

• Hassaan ibn Thabit, quoted from, Qasida in praise of the Prophet attributed to Hassan ibn Thabittranslated by Aisha Bewley, [17]

• “By God, no woman has conceived and born

One like the apostle, the prophet of mercy and the guide

Nor has there walked on the surface of the earth

One more faithful to the protection of a neighbor or to a promise

Than he who was the light that shone on us

Blessed in his deeds, just, and rightly guided”

• Hassaan ibn Thabit, as quoted in HASSĀN IBN THĀBIT, A TRUE MUKHADRAM:A STUDY OF THE GHASSĀNID ODES OF HASSĀN IBN THĀBIT,Jennifer Hill Boutz, p. 40

• I witness with God’s permission that Muhammad

Is the messenger who is higher than heaven.

• Hassaan ibn Thabit, Diwan number 89, as quoted in And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 179, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• Qayla bint Makhrama said, “I saw the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, while he was sitting cross-legged and when I saw the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, sitting so humbly, I trembled out of fear.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 5, hadith number 823

• Aisha radiyallahu anha relates that the speech of Rasoolullah [Muhammad] sallallahu alaihe wasallam was not quick and continuous as that of yours. He spoke clearly, word for word. A person sitting in his company remembered what he said.
  • Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 33, Hadith 213

• Anas bin Maalik Radiyallahu ‘Anhu reports: “No one was more beloved to the Sahaabah than Rasulullah [Muhammad] Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam. When they saw him they did not stand up, knowing that he did not approve of it”.
  • Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 46, Hadith 318

• ‘Aayeshah Radiyallahu ‘Anha reports, that: “It was not the nature of Rasulullah [Muhammad] Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam to talk indecently, nor did he engage himself in the use of obscene language. Nor did he shout and talk in the bazaars (which is against dignity). He did not avenge a bad deed with a bad one, but forgave it, and thereafter did not even mention it”.

• Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 47, Hadith 330

• Jaabir Radiyallahu ‘Anhu says. “Rasulullah [Muhammad] Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam never said ‘No’ to a request of a person”.
  • Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 47, Hadith 335

• Anas Radiyallahu ‘Anhu says: “Rasulullah [Muhammad] Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam did not store anything for the next day”.

• Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 47, Hadith 337

• Abdullah ibn Haarith radiyallahu anhu relates, The laugh of Sayyidina Rasoolullah [Muhammad] sallallahu alaihe wasallam was but a smile

• Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 34, Hadith 218

• Abdullah ibn Haarith radiyallahu anhu reports, I did not see anyone who smiled more than Rasoolullah [Muhammad] sallallahu alaihe wasallam.

• Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 34, Hadith 217

• lbn ‘Abbaas Radiyallahu ‘Anhu reports that: “Rasulullah [Muhammad] Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam and his family spent many consecutive nights without food, because there would be no supper. The bread of Rasulullah Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam was mostly made of barley”. (Sometimes bread made of wheat was also available).

• Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 24, Hadith 137

• ‘Aayeshah Radiyallahu ‘Anha says: “Rasulullah Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wasallam never filled his stomach with bread made of barley for two consecutive days till he passed away”.

• Shama’il Muhammadiyah of Al-Tirmidhi, Book 24, Hadith 141

By his contemporary enemies

This section contains quotations about Muhammad attributed to his contemporary enemies

• Abu Sufyan Sakhr ibn Harb said in a long hadith concerning what happened with Heraclius: “Heraclius said, “What does he order you to do?” I replied, “He says, “Worship Allah alone and do not associate anything with Him and abandon what our ancestors said.” He commands us to pray, to speak the truth, to be chaste, and to maintain ties of kinship.”
  • Riyadh-as-Saliheen by Imam Al-Nawawi, volume 4, hadith number 553

• When the Makkans drove Zayd ibn ad-Dathima out of the Haram to kill him, Abu Sufyan ibn Harb said to him, “I ask you by Allah, Zayd, don’t you wish that Muhammad were with us now to take your place so that we could cut off his head, and you were with your family?” Zayd said, “By Allah, I would not wish Muhammad to be now in a place where even a thorn could hurt him if that was the condition for my being with my family!” Abu Sufyan remarked, “I have not seen any people who love anyone the way the Companions of Muhammad love Muhammad.”
  • Ash-Shifa by Qadi Ayyad, chapter 2, section 3

By Muslims

This section contains quotations about Muhammad attributed to Muslims

• Inscribed on the Prophet’s sword:
  Forgive him who wrongs you
  join him who cuts you off
  do good to him who does evil to you
  and speak the truth even if it be against yourself.
  • Hadith of Ahmad ibn Hanbal; quoted in The Knowing Heart : A Sufi Path of Transformation (1999) as translated by Kabir Helminski, p. 180

• Muhammad’s wisdom is uniqueness (fardiya) because he is the most perfect existent creature of this human species. For this reason, the command began with him and was sealed with him. He was a Prophet while Adam was between water and clay, and his elemental structure is the Seal of the Prophets.
  • Ibn Arabi, Fusus Al-Hikam section 27

• His [Muhammad’s] aspiration preceded all other aspirations, his existence preceded nothingness, and his name preceded the Pen, because he existed before all peoples. There is not in the horizons, beyond the horizons or below the horizons, anyone more elegant, more noble, more knowing, more just, more fearsome, or more compassionate, than the subject of this tale. He is the leader of created beings, the one “whose name is glorious Ahmad”61:6.
  • Mansur Al-Hallaj, as quoted in, The Cambridge Companion to Muhammad, Carl W. Ernst (2010), Muḥammad as the Pole of Existence, Cambridge University Press, p. 125

• All knowledge is but a drop from his [Muhammad’s] ocean, and all wisdom is but a handful from his stream, and all times are but an hour from his life.
  • Mansur Al-Hallaj, as quoted in The Tawasin, Mansur Al-Hallaj, Translated by Aisha Bewley (1974), Diwan Press, p. 1-3

• When Muhammad was born, angels proclaimed it with high and low voices. Gabriel came with the good tidings, and the Throne trembled. The houris came out of their castles, and fragrance spread. Ridwan [the keeper of the gates of Paradise] was addressed: “Adorn the highest Paradise, remove the curtain from the palace, send a flock of birds from the birds of Eden to Amina’s dwelling place that they may drop a pearl each from their beaks.” And when Muhammad was born, Amina saw a light, which illuminated the palaces of Bostra. The angels surrounded her and spread out their wings. The rows of angels, singing praise, descended and filled hill and dale

• Ibn Al-Jawzi, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 150, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• If a single atom of the Prophet manifested itself to creation, naught that is beneath the Throne would endure it.

• Bayazid Bastami, Aspects of Islamic Civilization, Routledge, p. 124, translated by A. J. Arberry

• The gnosis and knowledge of men is, compared with the Prophet’s, like the drop of moisture which oozes out of the top of a bound waterskin.

• Bayazid Bastami, Aspects of Islamic Civilization, Routledge, p. 124, translated by A. J. Arberry

• Then for thirty thousand years I flew in the expanse of His Unity, and for thirty thousand years more I flew in Divinity, and for thirty thousand years more I flew in Singularity. When ninety thousand years had come to an end, I saw Abu Yazid, and all that I saw, all was I. Then I traversed four thousand wildernesses, and reached the end. When I gazed, I saw myself at the beginning of the degree of the prophets. Then for such a while I went on in that infinity, that I said, “No one has ever reached higher than this. Loftier than this no station can be.” When I looked well, I saw that my head was at the sole of the foot of a prophet. Then I realized that the end of the state of the saints is but the beginning of the states of the prophets; to the end of the prophets there is no term. Then my spirit transcended the whole Dominion, and Heaven and Hell were displayed to it; but it heeded naught Whatever came before it, that it could not suffer. To the soul of no prophet it reached, without it gave greeting. When it reached the soul of God’s Chosen One, upon him be peace, there it beheld a hundred thousand seas of fire without end, and a thousand veils of light. Had I so much as dipped my foot in the first of those seas, I would have been consumed and given myself over to destruction. Therefore I became so bewildered with awe and confusion, that naught remained of me. However I desired to be able to see but the tent-peg of the pavilion of Mohammad, God’s Messenger, I had not the boldness. Though I had attained to God, I had not the boldness to attain to Mohammad. Then Abu Yazid said, “O God, whatsoever thing I have seen, all has been I. There is no way for me to Thee, so long as this ‘I’ remains; there is no transcending my selfhood for me What must I do?” The command came, “To be delivered out of thy thouness, follow after Our beloved, the Arab Mohammad. Anoint thine eye with the dust of his foot, and continue following after him.

• Bayazid Bastami, Muslim Saints and Mystics: Episodes from the Tadhkirat al-Auliya’ (Memorial of the Saints) by Farid al-Din Attar, p. 126-134, translated by A.J. Arberry

A complete version can be viewed at Wikisource: Bayazid Bastami’s Encounter with God

• Freedom of expression cannot be the freedom to tell lies, the prophet did not found a terrorist religion, but a religion of peace.
  • Dalil Boubakeur, As quoted in Prophet cartoons enraging Muslims. International Herald Tribune (2 February 2006). Retrieved on 2007-11-22.

• He has been glorified by all glorious qualities; he was granted all words. By his noble nature the props of the tent of the whole of existence stay firmly placed; he is the secret of the word of the book of the angel, the meaning of the letters “creation of the world and the heavens”; he is the pen of the Writer Who has written the growing of created things; he is the pupil in the eye of the world, the master who has smithed the seal of existence. He is the one that suckles at the teats of revelation, and carries the eternal mystery; he is the translator of the tongue of eternity. He carries the banner of honor and keeps the reins of praise; he is the central pearl in the necklace of prophethood and the gem in the diadem of messengers. He is the first according to the cause, and the last in existence. He was sent with the Greatest namus to tear the veil of sorrow, to make the difficult easy, to push away the temptation of the hearts, to console the sadness of the spirit, to polish the mirror of the souls, to illuminate the darkness of the hearts, to make rich those who are poor in heart and to loosen the fetters of the souls.
  • Abdul-Qadir Gilani, as quoted in, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 135, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• They say that on the night of his Ascension into heaven, the Prophet, peace and blessing be upon him, prayed first at the Dome of the Rock, laying his hand upon the Rock. As he went out, the Rock, to do him honour, rose up, but he laid his hand on it to keep it in its place and firmly fixed it there. But by reason of this rising up, it is even to this present day partly detached from the ground beneath.
  • Nasir-I Khursraw, Dairy of a Journey through Syria and Palestine, pp. 49-50; translated (1888) by Guy le Strange.

• I am the servant of the Qur’an as long as I have life.

I am the dust on the path of Muhammad, the Chosen one.

If anyone quotes anything except this from my sayings,

I am quit of him and outraged by these words

• Rumi, as quoted in Rumi and Self Discovery by Ibrahim Gamard

• The Sufi is hanging on to Muhammad, like Abu Bakr.
  • Rumi, Quoted in Ibrahim Gamard, Rumi and Islam: Selections from His Stories, Poems, and Discourses — Annotated and Explained, p. 171.

• The soil of Medina is sweeter than both worlds:
  

Oh, happy the town where dwell the Beloved!

• Rumi, as quoted in, Secrets of the Self, Muhammad Iqbal, translated by R. A. Nicholson, p. 36

• Our caravan leader is the pride of the world, Mustafa [Muhammad]
  • Rumi, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 215, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• “The way to God is exceedingly fearful and blocked deep by snow. Mohammed risked his life, driving his horse through and opening up the road. Whoever goes on this road, does so by his guidance and guarding. He discovered the road in the first place, and set up waymarks everywhere, posting signs that say, “Do not go in this direction, and do not go that way. If you go that way you will perish, even as the people of ‘Ad and Thamud, but if you go in this direction you will be saved, like the believers… Know that Mohammed is the guide. God says,“Until you first come to Mohammed you cannot reach Us.” This is like when you decide to go somewhere; thought leads the way, saying, “Go to this place, it is in your best interests.” After that your eyes act as a guide, and then your limbs begin to move, all in that order. But the limbs have no knowledge of eyes, nor the eyes of thought.”

• Rumi, Discourses of Rumi, OMPHALOSKEPSIS, p. 408-409, translated by A. J. Arberry

• Mohammed is not called “Ummi” because he was incapable of writing or reading. He is called “Ummi” because with him writing and wisdom were innate, not taught. He who inscribes characters on the face of the moon, is such a man not able to write? And what is there in all the world that he does not know, seeing that all people learn from him? What can the partial intellect know what the Universal Intellect [Muhammad] does not possess?”

• Rumi, Discourses of Rumi, OMPHALOSKEPSIS, p. 257

• The king of the kingdoms of messengerdom,

The tughra of the page of Majesty.

• Amir Khusrow, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 205, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• O Thou! to please whose love and wrath as well,

Allah created heaven and likewise hell;

Thou hast thy court in heaven, and I have naught,

Why not admit me in thy courts to dwell?

• Omar Khayyam, as quoted in, The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, New York M.W. Dunne, 1903, p. 145

• Enumerate my good qualities one by one; my faults,

pass by in tens. Pardon each sin committed for the love

of God. Fan not the fire of hatred by the breath of

passion, pardon, rather, in memory of the tomb of the

Prophet of God [Mohammed].

• Omar Khayyam, as quoted in, The Sufistic Quatrains of Omar Khayyam, number 249

• There is a beloved hidden within thine heart:

I will show him to thee, if thou hast eyes to see.

His lovers are fairer than the fair,

Sweeter and comelier and more beloved.

By love of him the heart is made strong

And earth rubs shoulders with the Pleiades.

The soil of Najd was quickened by his grace

And fell into a rapture and rose to the skies

In the Muslim ‘s heart is the home of Muhammad,

All our glory is from the name of Muhammad.

Sinai is but an eddy of the dust of his house,

His dwelling-place is a sanctuary to the Ka’ba itself.

Eternity is less than a moment of his time,

Eternity receives increase, from his essence.

He slept on a mat of rushes,

But the crown of Chosroes was under his people’s feet.

He chose the nightly solitude of Mount Hira,

And he founded a state and laws and government.

He passed many a night with sleepless eyes

In order that the Muslims might sleep on the throne of Persia.

In the hour of battle, iron was melted by the fash of his sword;

In the hour of prayer, tears fell like rain from his eye.

When he prayed for Divine help, his sword answered “Amen”

And extirpated the race of kings.

He instituted new laws in the world,

He brought the empires of antiquity to an end.

With the key of religion he opened the door of this world:

The womb of the world never bore his like…

• Muhammad Iqbal, as quoted in, Secrets of the Self, translated by R. A. Nicholson, p. 30-31

• Muhammad is the preface to the book of the universe;

All the worlds are slaves and he is the Master.

• Jami, as quoted in, Secrets of the Self, by Muhammad Iqbal, translated by R. A. Nicholson, p. 36

• Please pray for us on Doomsday-

Your name is beautiful, you yourself are beautiful, Muhammad!

Your words are accepted near God, the Lord-

Your name is beautiful, you yourself are beautiful, Muhammad!

• Yunus Emre, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 105, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• God made your praise and uttered your glorification

He made Gabriel kiss the threshold of your mystic rank

The lofty heaven is ashamed before your sublime worth

You were created while Adam was being kneaded of water and clay

You were the primordial starting-point of creation

Whatever came into being thence forward was your offshoot and branch

I am bewildered by what kind of words to oddness you

Because you are more sublime than what I say about you

Suffice is for your glorious rank the Divine utterance “Were it not for

you…” and enough for your glorification the names of Taha an Yasin

• Saadi, as quoted in, Glorification of the Prophet Muhammad in the Poems of Sa’adi, translated by Gholamreza Aavani, Institute For Research In Philosophy, p. 6

“He who chooses a path contrary to that of the prophet [Muhammad], shall never reach the destination. O Saadi, do not think that one can treat that way of purity except in the wake of the chosen one [Muhammad].”

• Saadi, Glorification of the Prophet Muhammad in the Poems of Sa’adi, Gholamreza Aavani, p. 4

• the full moon dwindles when seeing the beauty of Muhammad.

the cypress tree cannot match the statues of Muhammad in uprightness

• Saadi, as quoted in, Glorification of the Prophet Muhammad in the Poems of Sa’adi, translated by Gholamreza Aavani, Institute For Research In Philosophy, p. 15

• To speak any word but your name

Is error, is error;

To sing any artistic praise but for you

Is shame, is shame!

• Sanai, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 176, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• No better leaders guiding you on the Path of God

Than the Koran and the sacred Traditions.

Only Muhammad’s hand and heart are able

To take care of the secrets’ treasury (the human heart).

If your heart is filled by Ahmad’s light,

Be assured that you are saved from the Fire.

• Sanai, Persian Sufi Poetry, by J. T. P. De Bruijn, Curzon, pg. 40

• I asked the wind: “Why do you serve Solomon?”

It said: “Because Ahmad’s name is engraved on his seal!”

• Sanai, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 197, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• Muhammad is the exemplar to both worlds, the guide of the descendants of Adam.

He is the sun of creation, the moon of the celestial spheres, the all-seeing eye;

The torch of knowledge, the candle of prophecy, the lamp of the nation and the way of the people;

The commander-in-chief on the parade-ground of the Law; the general of the army of mysteries and morals;

The lord of the world and the glory of ‘But for thee’; ruler of the earth and of the celestial spheres…

• Attar, Ilahi Nama (Book of God)

• Whatever is the radiance of both worlds,

Is the reflection of his, Muhammad’s, heart.

• Attar, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 200, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• Your sandals are the crown for the Throne’s seat

• Nizami, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 272, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• Muhammad, the lord of the two worlds and of men and djinn,
  

Of the two communities, the Arabs and the non-Arabs.

• Al-Busiri, Qasida Burdah Shareef, p. 7

• Grant me by your intercession, for which I hope,

A beautiful page instead of my ugly sins!

• Ibn Khaldun, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 88, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• He brought his community from darkness to light, and afforded shadow for them when the sun was burning bright; Muhammad, God’s messenger and closest friend, his prime choice among his creatures, the best one ever created by God and His proof on His earth; he, guiding to His truth and alerting to His wisdom and calling to His guidance; he whose birth was blessed and whose arrival was fortunate; radiant is his morning light and glowing his lamp at night; he, whose wars are victorious and whose sermons are glorious,…
  • Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tha’labi, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 181, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• Prince of Medina, listen to my calling-

The journey is under your protection.

You lead the travelers to the other shore.

Lord of Medina, listen to my calling,

My hopes are directed to you,

I do not think of any other helper.

Bridegroom of Medina, listen to my calling!

Come again, Muhammad, the sinner hopes in you!

• Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 192, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

My prince will protect me- therefore I trust in God

The beloved will prostrate, will lament and cry-

therefore I trust in God.

Muhammad, the pure and innocent, will intercede there for his people…

When the trumpet souns, the eyes all will be opened…

The pious will father, and Muhammad, full of glory…

Will proceed for every soul to the gat of the Benefactor…

And the Lord will honor him, and forgive us all our sins-

Therefore I trust in God!

• Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 192, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• I shall kiss the image if I do not find

A way to kiss the Prophet’s sandals.

Perhaps the good fortune of kissing it

Will be granted to me in Paradise in the most radiant place,

And I rub my heart on it so that perhaps

The burning thirst which rages in it will be quenched.

• Sa’duna Umm Sa’d bint ‘Isam al-Himyariyya, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 40, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• In a commentary of the Quran, Sahl al-Tustari states in regards to Surah An-Najm verse 13, “That is, in the beginning when God, Glorified and Exalted is He, created him as a light within a column of light (nūran fī ʿamūd al-nūr), a million years before creation, with the essential characteristics of faith (ṭabāʾiʿ al-īmān), in a witnessing of the unseen within the unseen (mushāhadat al-ghayb bi’l-ghayb). He stood before Him in servanthood (ʿubūdiyya), by the lote tree of the Ultimate Boundary [53:14], this being a tree at which the knowledge of every person reaches its limit.” Tustari states in regards to Surah An-Najm verse 16 “when there shrouded the lote tree that which shrouded [it].This means: ▛that which shrouded▜ the lote tree (ay mā yaghshā al-shajara) was from the light of Muḥammad as he worshipped. It could be likened to golden moths, which God sets in motion towards Him from the wonders of His secrets. All this is in order to increase him [Muḥammad] in firmness (thabāt) for the influx [of graces] (mawārid) which he received [from above].” Tustari states in regards to Surah An-Najm verse 17 “The eye did not swerve, nor did it go beyond [the bounds].He did not incline to the evidences of his self (shawāhid nafsihi), nor to witnessing them (mushāhadatihā), but was totally absorbed in the witnessing (mushāhada) of his Lord, Exalted is He, seeing (shāhid) the attributes [of God] that were being manifested [to him], which required firmness from him in that place (maḥall).” Tustari states in regards to Surah An-Najm verse 18 “Verily he saw some of the greatest signs of his Lord.That is, those of His attributes that became manifest through His signs. Though he saw them, he did not let slip [his gaze] from his witnessed Object (mashhūd) [of worship], and did not withdraw from the vicinity of his worshipped Object (maʿbūd), but rather [what he saw] only increased him in love (maḥabba), longing (shawq) and strength (quwwa).God gave him the strength by which he could bear the theophany (tajallī) and supreme lights (anwār ʿaẓīma). This was out of his being favoured above the other prophets. Do you not see how Moses fell down in a swoon at the theophany. Yet twice as much did the Prophet ﷺ penetrate it (jābahu) in his contemplation, through a face-to-face encounter with the sight of his heart (kifāḥan bi-baṣar qalbihi), and yet remained firm due to the strength of his state, and his elevated station (maqām) and rank (daraja). His words, Exalted is He:”
  • Sahl al-Tustari, Tafsir al-Tustari by Sahl al-Tustari, translated by Annabel Keeler and Ali Keeler (2011), Royal Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought, pages 213-214

• You are free from the defect of having an end,

I am perplexed my Master! What shall I call thee?

The melodies of Razā echo resoundingly in the gardens

And why not? Does he not sing the praises of the majestic flower?

I will say that, you to be the Master, for you are the beloved of The Master (Allah).

For between the Beloved and One who loves Him, there is no mine and yours.

• Ahmad Raza Khan, Imam Ahmed Raza Khan and Love for the Prophet, translated by The Sunni Way, [18]

• God has elevated the dignity of His Prophet and granted him virtues, beautiful qualities and special prerogatives. He has praised his high dignity so overwhelmingly that neither tongue nor pen are sufficient [to describe him]. In His book He has clearly and openly demonstrated his high rank and praised him for his qualities of character and his noble habits. He asks His servants to attach themselves to him and to follow him obediently. It is God—great is His Majesty!—who grants honor and grace, who purifies and refines, He that lauds and praises and grants a perfect recompense… He places before our eyes his noble nature, perfected and sublime in every respect. He grants him perfect virtue, praiseworthy qualities, noble habits and numerous preferences. He supports his message with radiant miracles, clear proofs, and apparent signs.

• Qadi Ayyad, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 46, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

O Centre of the compass! O inmost ground of the truth!

O pivot of necessity and contingency!

O eye of the entire circle of existence! O point of the Koran and the Furqan!

O perfect one, and perfecter of the most perfect, who has been beautified by the majesty of God the Mericful!

Thou art the Pole (qutb) of the most wondrous things. The sphere of perfection in its solitude turns on thee.

Thou art transcendent, nay thou art immanent, nay thine is all that is known and unknown, everlasting and perishable.

Thine in reality is Being and not-being; nadir and zenith are thy two garments.

Thou art both the light and its opposite, nay but thou art only darkness to a gnostic that is dazed.

• Abd al-Karīm al-Jīlī, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 137, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• Adam was still dust and clay-

Ahmad was a prophet then,

He had been selected by God-

Utter blessings over him!

• Asikpasazade, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 101, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• We trust in him [Muhammad] at the Day of Judgment,

And in this world too he is our protection.

• Muhammad Iqbal, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 241, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• Love of the Prophet runs like blood in the veins of his community.

• Muhammad Iqbal, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 256, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

My wish is this, that when I die, I still may smile,

And while I go, Muhammad’s name be on my tongue,

• Shakeel Badayuni, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 87, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• To our friend (Muhammad), in beauty of disposition and of fidelity, one — reacheth not

In this matter, to thee, denial of our work — reacheth not.

By the right of ancient society (I swear) that any mystery confidant —

To our friend, of one way (sincere), thank-offering, — reachet not.

Although, into splendour, have come beauty boasters (the prophets, the leaders of the people, the guides of the path),

To our beloved (Muhammad, whose beauty was the world’s boast) in beauty and grace, one — reachet not.

To the market of created beings, they (Fate and Destiny) bring a thousand coins:

To the die of our master of assay, one (coin) — reachet not.

From the Creator’s reed, issue a thousand pictures: and one

To the degree of approval of the picture of our idol (Muhammad) — reacheth not.

O heart! grieve not of the reproach of the envious; and be firm;

For, to our hopeful heart, evil — reachet not.

Alas! the Kafila of life (manifestations of glories) passed in such a way,

That, to the air of our (far distant) country, its dust — reachet not.

So live that if thou (die and) become the dust of the path, to any one,

From our way (of life) a particle of dust (of grief) of the heart — reach not.

Hafiz consumed; and I fear that the explanation of his tale

To the ear of the powerful King — reacheth not.

• Hafez, The Divan-i Hafiz translated by H. Wilberforce-Clarke, Ibex Publishers, pg. 392-393

• From all the heart-ravishers, it is fit that thou (O Muhammad) shouldest take tribute;

For, over all lovely ones (prophets), thou, crown-like, art chief.

• Hafez, The Divan-i Hafiz translated by H. Wilberforce-Clarke, Ibex Publishers, pg. 233

• Another of the auspicious omens predicting my future greatness, was this: in a dream I saw the Prophet Muhammad, “on whom be the Grace of God,” who congratulated me and said, “in consequence of the support you have given to my descendants, the Almighty has decreed that seventy-two of your posterity shall sit on the throne of Sovereignty.” When I awoke, I wrote all the particulars of this dream to my Peer, he replied by letter, “I congratulate you on this dream, your having seen the Prophet, (on whom be the grace of God), proves that you will certainly obtain numerous victories and that many happy consequences will arise from this dream.”
  • Timur, The Mulfuzat Timury, translated from Chughtai to Persian by Abu Talib Hussayny, translated from Persian to English by Major Charles Stewart, Oriental Translation Committee, 1830, page 11

• When I reached my ninth year, they taught me the daily service of the Mosque, during which I always read the 91st Chapter, denominated the Sun. While seated in the school-room, I always took the chief seat, and often fancied myself the commander of all the other boys. One day a subject of conversation was started, on which was the best mode of sitting, each boy gave some answer to the question, when it came to my turn, I said, the best mode of sitting is on the knees, for Muhammad has commanded, “whilst in prayer sit on your knees;” on which all the spectators praised me exceedingly.
  • Timur, The Mulfuzat Timury, translated from Chughtai to Persian by Abu Talib Hussayny, translated from Persian to English by Major Charles Stewart, Oriental Translation Committee, 1830, page 21

• If my sin is too grave to be forgiven,

Yet I have hope that God will grant me the best of refuges.

When God the Savior appears in His terrible might, I will place

my hope

In Muhammad, the dispeller of cares and sorrows in this world

and the next.

When I lower the wing of submission before him, asking for the

precious gift

Of intercession, to him my request will be a paltry thing.

And if the pious man comes before him with good deeds,

I will present before him tears of remorse.

I hereby cling to the door of Muhammad, the Prince of Prophets,

For he who holds tight to the key of God’s door will prosper.

For every act of virtue, charity, or favor, whether performed freely

Or compelled, comes through him.

I hereby grab tight to the rope of praise for him, which will avail me

on a day

When bonds of lineage and kinship are of no avail.

My poetry, when I praise the Prophet, disdains Zuhayr’s,

For the dew of Harim’s gifts cannot compare with the bounty that

will pour down on me.

• Ahmed Shawqi, The Mantle Odes — Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad, by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, translated by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, Indiana University Press, pg. 173

• Glad tidings of the Guide and his birth spread east and west,

Like light that penetrates the dark of night,

It snatched the blood from Arab despots’ hearts,

And put to flight the foreign tyrants’ souls.

It so alarmed the battlements of Īwān Kisrá that they cracked,

From the shock of truth, not the shock of bold warriors’ advance.

When you came you found mankind in chaos,

Like stone idols enthralled by stone idols,

And the earth was filled with injustice

And subjected to every despot who held sway over mankind.

The Persian overlord oppressed his subjects,

While pride left Rome’s Caesar blind and deaf to his people’s plight.

They tortured God’s worshippers on false pretexts,

And slaughtered them like sacrificial sheep.

Among mankind, the strong shed the blood of the weak,

Like lions killing sheep or whales killing minnows.

• Ahmed Shawqi, The Mantle Odes — Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad, by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, translated by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, Indiana University Press, pg. 184-186

God conveyed you by night to the Farthest Mosque,

Where His angels and Messengers stood gathered to receive you.

When you strode in, they thronged around you, their master,

Like stars around the full moon, or troops around their flag.

Each one of noble station, they followed you in prayer,

For whoever follows God’s beloved will triumph.

Passing close by them, you traversed the heavens—or what lies above them—

On a luminous mount with a bridle of pearl.

Yours was a mount that, due to your might and dignity, has no equal

Among swift steeds or hard-treading she-camels that leave traces on

the ground.

Burāq is of the Maker’s will and of His make,

And God’s power is above all suspicion and doubt.

Until you reached a heaven to which

No wing can fly, no foot can walk.

As if a voice had said, “Let every prophet stand according to his rank,”

And, “O Muhammad, this is God’s throne, so touch it!”

You have written out the sciences for both religion and the world,

O reader of the Tablet! O holder of the Pen!

Your mind comprehends the secrets of both religion and the world;

The stores of science and knowledge were laid open before you.

Your closeness to God has multiplied beyond reckoning

The pendants of favor bestowed upon you, and the necklaces of grace.

• Ahmed Shawqi, The Mantle Odes — Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad, by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, translated by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, Indiana University Press, pg. 184-186

• Then ask the band of polytheists who were pasturing their herds
  round the cave
  (Who, except to pursue God’s Chosen One, would not have pastured
  there):
  Did they see the pure trace or hear the whisper
  Of voices glorifying God or reciting the Qurƒān?
  Did they think the spider’s web was a forest
  And the dappled doves that hovered there were vultures
  So that they turned back, cursed by the very ground they traversed,
  Like falsehood put to flight by the majesty of truth?
  But for God’s hand, the two companions would not have been safe;
  But for His watchful eye, the pillar of religion would not still stand.
  They were concealed and covered by the wing of God,
  And whoever is enfolded in God’s wing will not be harmed.

• • Ahmed Shawqi, The Mantle Odes — Arabic Praise Poems to the Prophet Muhammad, by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, translated by Suzanne Pinckney Stetkevych, Indiana University Press, pg. 184-186

• He entered a world that had lost its faith, and hence had lost the secret of internal peace and external order, a world that was waiting for the liberating voice of Islam. Muhammad was the exemplar of virtues, virtues both of the preacher and of the soldier; he had the eloquence, convincing power, and intensity of the preacher, and the courage, gallantry and success of the warrior. Superb in his talents and his character he ruled his time as he dominated later times. No event that has since taken place has been the same as it would have been without Muhammad. History before him and after him is completely different.
  • Abbās al-Aqqād, And Muhammad is his Messenger – The Veneration of the Prophet in Islamic Piety, Annemarie Schimmel (1985), The University of North Carolina Press, p. 236, ISBN 0-8078-1639-6

• The lord of the Prophets, whose name we proclaim from our minarets five times a day, sooner or later will enter the hearts of all human beings. And since Prophet Muhammad was a man of peace, humanity will attain happiness through the Message he brought: Islam.
  • Fethullah Gülen, in the paragraph “Following the Prophet” of the general introduction of his book Muhammad The Messenger of God.