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Napoleon Bonaparte
Quoted in Christian Cherfils: ‚Bonaparte and Islam,‘ (Bonaparte and Islam) Pedone Ed., Paris, France, 1914, pp. 105, 125.
– Original reference: “Correspondance de Napoléon Ier Tome V pièce n ° 4287 du 17 / 07/1799 … ”
“ Moses conveyed the existence of God to his people. Jesus Christ the Roman Empire, Muhammad the Old Continent …
“Arabia served idols when six centuries after Jesus, Muhammad introduced the worship of the God of Abraham, Ishmael, Moses and Jesus”. The Aryans and several other sects had disturbed the calm of the East by raising questions about the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Muhammad explained that there is no one other than God who has no father or son and that the Trinity is an imported idea of idolatry …
„I hope time is not too far away until I will be able to to unite all the wise and learned men from all over the world and to form a unified government based on the principles of the Quran that are only true and that can only help people to be happy. ”
Sir George Bernard Shaw
‚The Genuine Islam,‘ Vol. 1, No. 8, 1936.
„If any religion has any prospect of ruling England, if not all of Europe, for the next hundred years, it could be Islam.“
“I have always highly valued the religion of Muhammad for its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion that, it seems to me, has this assimilating quality of adapting to the changing phases of existence so that it fits all ages. I studied him, this wonderful man, and in my opinion – far from being an anti-Christian – he has to be called the savior of humanity. ”
“I believe that if a man like him took over the dictatorship of the modern world, he would successfully solve their problems in a way that would bring them the peace and happiness so much needed: I predicted Muhammad’s belief that he for tomorrow’s Europe will be just as acceptable as it was for today’s Europe in its beginnings. ”
Bertrand Russel
‚History of Western Philosophy,‘ London, 1948, p. 419.
“Our use of the term“ the dark times ”to denote the period from 699 to 1000 marks our inadequate focus on Western Europe …
“From India to Spain, the glamorous civilization of Islam blossomed. What escaped Christianity at that time had not escaped this civilization, on the contrary …
„It seems to us that only Western European civilization is real civilization, but this is a poor view.“
HG Wells
“Islamic teachings have left great traditions for just and noble behaviors and decency rules, and they inspire people with refinement and tolerance. These are human teachings of the highest order and applicability at the same time. These teachings created a society in which hard-heartedness and collective oppression and injustice were very little compared to any other society that followed it. … Islam is filled with gentleness, courtesy and fraternity. ”
Dr. William Draper
‚History of Intellectual Development of Europe‘
“During the time of the Khalifas, the learned men were not only highly valued among Christians and Jews, but they were assigned posts with great responsibility and were given high-ranking positions in the government … He (Khalif Haruun Raschied) did not pay any attention which country a scholar still came from, only his excellence in his field of knowledge counted. ”
Thomas Carlyle
‚Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History,‘ 2nd lecture on May 8, 1840.
“Since none of us run the risk of Mahomedans (ie Muslim ), I intend to say as much good about him as I can …
“When Pococke asked Grotius, where was the evidence in the story about the pigeon who had learned to pick peas from Mahomet’s (Muhammad’s) ear and give it to an angel who dictated to him? Then Grotius replied that there was no evidence! …
“A poor, hard working, poorly cared for man; careless of what ordinary men do for themselves. Not a bad man, what can I say; Something better in him than hunger of any kind – or these wild Arab men who fought and beat for 23 years under his hand, always in close contact with him, they would not have worshiped him like that! They were wild men who broke out in quarrels from time to time, with overwhelming seriousness of all kinds; without proper value and manliness; nobody could command them. You say they called him a prophet? Then why was he standing face to face with them, poor, not protected by any mystery; visibly mending his own coat, mending his own shoes; fighting, advising, commanding among them: they must have seen what kind of man he was; call him what you want! No conqueror with his headband was obeyed like this man in his own patched coat. In the 23 years of stormy temptation. I think something of a true hero is necessary for this …
“These Arabs, the man Mahomet and the one century – it is not as if a flame had fallen, a flame on a world made of explosive black powder, it blazed from Dheli to Granada! I say the great man was always like lightning from heaven; the rest of the men were waiting for him like fuel, and then they burned too … ”
(part 2 of 2)
Phillip Hitti
‚Short History of the Arabs.‘ (Brief history of the Arabs)
“In the very first part of the Middle Ages, no other people made a correspondingly important contribution to human development as the Arabs did when we refer to this term to those whose mother tongue was Arabic, and not only to those who lived on the Arabian Peninsula . For centuries, Arabic has been the language of learning, culture and intellectual progress for the entire civilized world, with the exception of the Far East. From the ninth to the twelfth centuries, more philosophical, medical, historical, religious, astronomical, and geographic works were written in Arabic than in any other language. ”
Carra de Vaux
‚The Philosophers of Islam,‘ (The Philosophers of Islam) Paris, 1921.
“How can you finally forget that the empire of the Mughals of India (1526-1857 AD) gave the world the Taj Mahal (completed in 1648 AD), whose architectural beauty was never surpassed, and Abul Fazl’s ‚Akbar Nameh‘:
‚That extraordinary work, full of lively ideas and learning material, where every aspect of life is examined, enumerated and assigned, and where progress continually blinds the eye, is a document that oriental civilization can rightly be proud of. The men whose spirit finds expression in this book were far ahead of their time in the practical nature of government and perhaps in their speculation about religious philosophy. These poets, these philosophers knew how to deal with this world or matters. They observed, classified, calculated and experimented. All the ideas that came to mind were examined for facts. They describe them with eloquence and support them with statistics. ‚
… the principles of tolerance, justice and humanity that prevailed in the long reign of Akbar. ”
Marcel Clerget
‚La Turquie, Passe et Present,‘ (Turkey, Past and Present) Paris, 1938.
“Much evidence of the high cultural level of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Suleiman the Great is reflected in the development of science and law; in the flourishing literature in Arabic, Persian and Turkish; in the contemporary monuments in Istambul, Bursa and Edirne; on the upswing in the luxury business; in the splendid life at court and the high dignitaries and finally in their religious tolerance. All the different influences – namely Turkish, Byzantine and Italian merged together and brought this most brilliant era of the Ottomans to life. ”
Michael the Elder (Great)
Quoted in ‚Michael the Elder, Chronique de Michael Syria, Patriarche Jacobite d‘ Antioche, ‚(Chronicle of Michael the Elder, Syria, Patriarch of the Jacobins of Antioche) JB Chabot, Editor, Vol. II, Paris, 1901.
“This is (the reason) why the God of punishment, who is alone Almighty and changes the kingdom of mortals as he wants, is there for those he wants and uplifts the humble in the face of the wickedness of the Romans during their lives Whole rule, our churches and monasteries were cruelly looted and relegated, the sons of Ishmael from a region in the south brought them to them to free us from the hands of the Romans. And if we have actually suffered some loss, because the Catholic Churches that were taken from us and given to the Chalcedonies remained in their possession; because when the cities were subjugated by the Arabs, they wrote the churches that they found under their possession, to (and at that time the great churches of Emessa and Harran had been taken from us); nonetheless, it was a weak advantage for us to be freed from the cruelty of the Romans, from their wickedness, their curse and their cruel zeal towards us and us as a people. (Michael the Elder, patriarch of the Jacobins in Antioch, wrote this text in the last part of the twelfth century, after five centuries of Muslim rule in this region.
Click here for a relevant document sent to the monks of St. Catherine Monastery in Mt. Sinai, 628 CE)
Sir John Bagot Glubb
“Khalif Al-Ma’mun’s reign (813 – 833 AD) can be seen as the ‚golden age‘ of science and of learning. He always devoted himself to books and studies. His brilliant brain was interested in any form of intellectual activity. Not only poetry, but also philosophy, theology, astronomy, medicine and law took possession of his time. ”
“In Mamun’s time, medical schools were extremely active in Baghdad. The first free public hospital was opened in Baghdad during the Haruun ar-Raschied Khalifat. As the system developed, doctors and surgeons were called to give lectures to medical students and to issue diplomas to those who were considered to be qualified to practice. The first hospital in Egypt was opened in 872 AD, after which public hospitals emerged from Spain and Morocco to Persia throughout the empire.
Committed by Hulagu over the Holocaust of Baghdad (1258 AD).
“The city was systematically looted, destroyed and burned. It is said that eight hundred thousand people were killed. The Khalif Mustasim was sewn into a sack and trampled to death under the hooves of the Mongolian horses.
“For five hundred years, Baghdad had been the city of palaces, mosques, libraries and universities. Their universities and hospitals were the most developed in the world. Nothing was left of it except piles of rubble and the stench of rotting human flesh.
Source: https://www.islamland.com/deu/articles/zitate-ber-die-islamische-zivilisation