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The
renowned historian, speaking on the essentials of human greatness
wonders:
"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 than
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,
legislation, 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.
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 the standards by which Human
Greatness may be measured, we may well ask,
IS THERE ANY MAN GREATER THAN HE ?"
(ALPHONSE DE LAMAR TINE, HISTOIRE DE LA TURQUIE,
PARIS, 1854, VOL. II, PP 276-277)
The world has had its share of
great personalities.
But these were one-sided
figures who distinguished themselves in
but one or two fields, such as religious
thought or military leadership.
The lives and teachings
of these great personalities of the
world are shrouded in the mist of time.
There is so much
speculation about the time and place
of their birth, the mode and style
of their life, the nature and detail
of their teachings and the degree
and measure of their success or
failure that it is impossible for
humanity to reconstruct accurately
the lives and teachings of these
men.
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