i'd like to return now, if i may, to the question i came here for, father stephano said.
and what was that?
my country sent me over as a clergyman to your country not to spend my time in preaching. goodness knows you have more than enough muslim and christian preachers already.
you're right, i said. so what were you sent for?
i was engaged by the people i work for to study the "aspects of mercy for human beings in the character of muhammad." through these aspects i am supposed to see the real character of this prophet: was it such a harsh and callous character that would justify the charge of coming to power and of spreading his faith by the sword, or was it a compassionate, merciful and humane character that would ipso facto invalidate such accusations?
and what called for such a study in the first place, i asked?
well, our western societies have become obsessed with almost everything related to islam and to the life of your prophet, largely due to what's being put across in the media these days. the people concerned found no better way than conduct their own research, trying to reassess the life of muhammad in the light of the original texts he brought with him. the aim is to arrive at the honest, objective truth about muhammad and his religion, then put through the facts and findings of this study to western societies so as to help them rid themselves of any misconceptions.
when i decided to begin work, he added, i found that i had to read what western scholars and orientalists had written about the character of muhammad. it took me about a year and it yielded the following conclusion:
western scholars who studied the character of muhammad can be divided into two groups:
-the first group wrote about him from a wholly negative perspective. their starting point was the classical hostile view propagated and adopted by the western church long time ago. this view pointedly posited a mutilated picture, geared to put westerners off muhammad and his religion so that christians would neither be attracted to him nor converted to his religion.
amongst this group of perverse mutilators were ancient and modern scholars.
it was the french philosopher renan who lifted the lid on the ancient mutilators. he exposed them to the public so that no one would ever again be deceived by what they said. he bore witness to their overt bias against islam and their open hatred to muhammad (pbuh). he said: "christians have written a weird history of muhammad… filled with malicious hatred. they claimed that muhammad used to prostrate himself in worship before a golden statue the devils had kept hidden for him! in his inferno, dante labeled him the atheist infidel par excellence. to him, and to many others, the name muhammad became synonymous with apostate and infidel!
in the eyes of medieval writers, muhammad was sometimes a sorcerer, other times a terrible dissolute and debauch, a camel-stealing thief, even a christian cardinal who failed to become pope and so concocted a new religion he called islam to avenge himself and vent his anger at his adversaries! the story of muhammad became the epitome of all abominations and sins, the stuff and matter of all horror tall tales."([1])
renan's views become clearer, father stephano added, when set against what the swiss orientalist john vanport wrote in his muhammad and the 'quran: "the clearer the picture we get of muhammad's real character, as seen through the judicious and insightful eyes of genuine historical sources, the weaker the proof and flimsier the evidence furnished in support of all the harsh criticism and ugly slander leveled at him by prejudiced and biased writers. those writers have systematically failed to see the truth about muhammad and about his status in the world."
they become clearer still when we also read what george bernard shaw wrote in his book muhammad, which incidentally was burnt by the british authorities. he said: "because of their ignorance and prejudice, medieval christian theologians and clergymen drew a really dark picture of muhammad's religion."
-in his book islam at a crossroad, father stephano went on, the austrian orientalist leopold weiss([2]) tells us about the other lot in this group- the modern mutilators. those claim to have studied muhammad's character according to the latest scientific and objective critical methodology, which demands that the scholar set aside all personal prejudices and partisan views before he embarks on his study. weiss says: "the inductive/deductive approach adopted by most orientalists (who studied islam and the prophet's sirah) brings to mind the medieval inquisitions, instituted by the catholic church to settle accounts with its adversaries. this so-called scientific methodology never really managed to look objectively at the available historical evidence. in almost every case, the starting point was a preconceived idea and a foregone conclusion, dictated by its author's partisan ideological bias."([3])
"orientalists' prejudice against islam," weiss continues in the same book, "is an inherited drive and a natural urge. it is the product of the crusades and the impact they had left behind, with all their associations and implications to the european mind."([4])
the french orientalist etienne dinet, father stephano added, also talked about those modern mutilators in his book muhammad the prophet of god. he showed the lower depths to which some orientalists had sunk in their accounts of the prophet's life. "it is difficult," dinet said, "often practically impossible for orientalists to set aside their personal feelings and the different influences of their environment and their various persuasions. that is why their distortions of the prophet's biography have reached such a ludicrous extent that one well and truly fears for the real picture. for all their claims to have used innocent critical tools, to have applied the laws and standards of serious and objective research, we always find that muhammad in their writings speaks with a distinct german accent when the orientalist is german or with a distinct italian accent if the orientalist is italian. indeed the picture we derive of muhammad is so different with each telling and each author that if we sift through their varying biographical images and accounts, we find no traces of the real arab and islamic muhammad.
"orietalists have offered us such fanciful images that cannot be farther from the truth- so farther from the truth and more fanciful in fact than all the dramatis personae of the historical novels of walter scot or alexander dumas. at least those historical novelists were depicting persons from their own people and their own cultural milieu, and had to worry therefore only about the different timing and chronological order. orientalists on the other hand could not even envisage the cultural milieu of the prophet, the subject of their biographies, so they simply depicted him from the standpoint of their own western logic and modern imagination.
"what would the europeans think," dinet asks, "if some eastern scholar, say in the far ends of china, had studied the numerous contradictory accounts of cardinal richelieu common to french historians, then subjected these accounts to the logic of his distant eastern revisionism, dismantled the story of cardinal richelieu as we know it, and reconstructed for us a totally different richelieu with the distinct mentality, nature and characteristics of a beijing priest?!
"orientalists of the modern world have followed the same methodology, and they necessarily reached similar conclusions in relation to muhammad's biography. we often imagine that the muhammad of their writings speaks german, english or french. with the mentality and attributes they have ascribed to him, we can never envisage the arab and muslim prophet muhammad talking in arabic to arabs and muslims."([5])
-the orientalist montgomery watt, father stephano went on, talked about those modern mutilators, too. "if it happens that the views of some western scholars are unacceptable to muslims," he said in his book muhammad at mecca, "it is because those scholars have not been always true to the objective premises of their scholarship. that is why their views must be rethought from the standpoint of historical accuracy."([6])
maxim rodinson said as much in assessing the overall value of what modern western scholars have written about islam and the muslim prophet: "it can be safely said that western scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have on the whole been more harmful than beneficial, precisely because they were influenced by hearsay and commonsensical views, not by the objective dictates of historical evidence."([7])
having read what this group of ancient and modern mutilators had written, i myself have come to the conclusion that they were ignorant of muhammad and of his true sirah, father stephano added. they didn't even bother to go back to the primary sources and original texts of muhammad's life.([8])
it can be said therefore that the studies of these orientalists and scholars of muhammad's sirah had been marred by a great deal of arbitrariness in explaining the texts and the events of his life, either because of their religious bias and racist prejudice, or because of their gross misunderstanding of islam and its basic rules, regulations and real intentions.([9])
for all these reasons, father stephano concluded, the findings of this mutilating group of scholars, ancient and modern alike, have not been of much use to me in writing my research.
what about the other group, i asked?
the other group wrote about muhammad's character from a diametrically opposite, often wholly positive, perspective. the starting point for its members was a cordial, sympathetic and fair minded attitude, seeking the truth and nothing but the truth.([10])
i tried to make use of their findings but, having read them thoroughly, i came to the conclusion that i cannot really content myself with the larger part of their collective oeuvre, despite the vivid picture of muhammad they had painted in their writings.
but why?
because i found that some scholars in this group studied muhammad the genius, by studying aspects of human ingenuity then comparing muhammad to other geniuses in human history; some others studied muhammad the philosopher, by studying the principles of human philosophy then comparing muhammad to great philosophers in human history; others studied muhammad the religious reformer, by studying the ways and means of the religious reformation then comparing muhammad to other great reformers in human history; some others still studied muhammad the great military leader, by studying military prowess and systems of warfare then comparing muhammad's achievements to the great military leaders' in human history; others yet studied muhammad the legislator, by studying human laws and legislations then comparing muhammad's sharia' laws to the great lawmakers' and legislators' in human history.
they studied all aspects of human greatness they could find in muhammad's life and put him in the forefront of all great human beings, way ahead of all the others!
and what's wrong with that?
as such they were studying muhammad the great human being and the great figurehead, blessed with the distinctive attributes of human greatness, much like any other human genius.([11]) what they systematically failed to see and discuss however was the conclusion they have reached over and over again- namely that muhammad is always in the forefront of all great human figures, regardless of the specific aspect of genius under study. they even concluded that of all the other great figures, muhammad alone possessed all attributes of greatness and combined all aspects of human genius in himself! why?
and is this questionable, i asked?
yes, he said. when all those scholars have reached the same conclusion, they ought to have asked themselves: why? why muhammad alone of all others has always been on top? why only muhammad, of all the great human figures whose biographies we know of, combines all aspects of human greatness in his character?
they ought to have discussed this and detected the secret behind their unanimous verdicts.
and did you discover the secret others were mindless of?
yes, he said.
would you tell me about it?
i'm afraid i'll have to, he said, to get the benefit i expect from you in my research. now listen.
([1]) e. renan, etudes d'histoire religiouse, quoted in abdull rahman badawi's a defense of muhammad, translated into arabic as difa' 'an muhammad by k. jadullah, cairo: al-dar al-'alamiah lilkutub, 1999, pp. 5-6.
([2]) after he studied islam and came to know its essence and the truth about it, the orientalist leopold weiss converted to islam and called himself muhammad assad.
([3]) in his book la vie de mahomet, the french orientalist emile dermenghem talks about the negative role some orientalists played in writing the prophet's sirahs. he said: "it is truly unfortunate that some specialists- including muir, margoliouth, noldeke, sprenger, dozy, caetani, marsin, grimm, goldziher, gaudefroy and others- have gone to extremes in their criticism sometimes. their books still have a destructive impact, and the conclusions they reached are still negative and incomplete. no objective biography can be based on negation and dismissal… (or) on a series of self-contradictory arguments. equally unfortunate however is that father lamnes, one of the best modern orientalists, was the most biased and prejudiced! his otherwise marvelous and precise accounts have been marred by his hatred of islam and its prophet." (e. demenghem, la vie de mahomet, translated into arabic by a. zu'aiter, beirut: dar al-'iilm lilmalayeen, nd., pp. 8-11.)
([4]) leopold weiss, islam at a crossroads, translated into arabic by a. zu'aiter, beirut: dar ih'ia' al-kutub al-arabiah, 1956, p. 58.
([5]) etienne dinet, muhammad the messenger of god, translated into arabic by abdulhaleem mahmud, beirut: dar al-kitab al-lubnani, 1979, pp. 27-28, 43-44. after he studied islam and came to know its essence and the truth about it, the orientalist dinet converted to islam and called himself nasser al-deen al-jazai'ri.
([6]) montgomery watt, muhammad at mecca (london: 1952), translated into arabic by sha'ban barakat, beirut: al-maktabah al-a'sriah, nd., p. 6.
([7]) quoted in joseph schacht et al., the islamic heritage, translated into arabic as turath al-islam, kuwait: a'lam al-ma'rifah: 8, p. 63.
([8]) dr abdul rahman badawi writes in his a defense of muhammad: "in tracing the conceptions europeans have held of the prophet of islam, i was shocked by their sheer ignorance, their flagrant aggression, their inherently preconceived ideas and ready-made verdicts, their oppressive prejudice against their adversaries. this does not apply only to their naïve and ignorant common people but also to their best scientists, philosophers, theologians, thinkers and historians." (cit., p. 29.)
([9]) see dr akram al-umari, al-sirah al-nabawiah al-sahihah, cit., p. 18.
([10]) some writers in this group played a favourable and largely positive role in introducing the west to the true picture of the prophet (pbuh). montgomery watt says in his muhammad at mecca: "ever since carlyle presented his study of muhammad (on heroes and hero worship), the west came to realize that there are good reasons to believe in muhammad's honesty and truthfulness." (cit., p. 94.)
([11]) in his the messenger: the life of muhammad, the british orientalist r. bodley talks about the various subjects of the holy 'quran which, to him, "give clear idea about the kind of mind muhammad was endowed with. they make one wonder how did he come to know all this?! when did he think about all that?! where did he learn to compose such rhythmic, melodious poetry?" (the messenger: the life of muhammad new york: doubleday, 1964, p. 218.)
in his the 100: a ranking of the most influential persons in history, the american author michael hart says: "muhammad is the greatest political leader history has ever known." (new york: carol publishing group, 1992, p. 18.)
thomas carlyle concludes his defense of muhammad in heroes and hero worship by saying: "such is greatness, such is heroism, such is genius." (t. carlyle, oh heroes and hero worship, cit., 317.)
in his the present and future of islam, the orientalist edward montet says: "with its sheer piety and sincerity, the religious nature of muhammad puzzles every scrupulous and honest scholar. muhammad was primarily a religious reformer with a staunch religious belief."
in the life of muhammad, the orientalist emil dremenghem says: "the breadth and power of muhammad's creative genius, his great intelligence, his insightful view of the hard facts, his self-control and wisdom, his zeal for work, his realistic life, all these make it impossible to accept falsehood as the premises of his divine call. how could it be imagined that that thing whose success appeared to be clear proof of god's support for his cause would all of a sudden turn to be false? how could anyone have the audacity to twist and pervert his mission at a time he himself saw it as sacred and fully approved by god?" he goes on to say: "soon as they heard his important and timely sermons and speeches, the people felt a kind of attraction connecting them to the hidden secret he was leading them to." (la vie de mahomet, cit., p. 108.)
the famous french poet lamartine says in his histoire de la turquie: "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 only arms, laws and empires. 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; more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs." lamartine adds: "this is the philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational creed, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual kingdom- this is muhammad." (a. lamartine, histoire de la turquie, paris: v. lecou & paganerre, 1855, vol. 11, pp. 276-77.)
in his book mohammed and the mohammedanism the orientalist benjamin bosworth smith says that muhammad was both a political and religious leader: "he was caesar and pope in one; but he was pope without the pope's pretensions, 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 the right divine it was muhammad, for he had all the power without its instruments and without its supports." (b. smith, mohammed and mohammedanism [sic.], london: smith, elder & co., 1874, p. 92.)
the canadian orientalist s. zweimer says in his the orient and its habits: "muhammad was beyond doubt the greatest muslim leader. it is true to say he was at once an able religious reformer, eloquent rhetorician, brave warrior and great thinker. we should not ascribe to him anything that contradicts these attributes. the quran he brought with him and his own history testify to the credibility and truthfulness of such a claim." quoted in muhammad fi nathar falasifat al-gharb, cit., p. 89.
all these accounts seek in one way or another to dissociate muhammad (pbuh) from the miraculous phenomenon of the divine revelation. they labour to show that what muhammad (pbuh) came up with was only a credit to his human personality. if the word "prophet" crops up in their accounts at all, it is taken either as yet another human attribute of his, or used in the old testament sense of the term, i.e. a prophet like the many prophets of biblical israel who used to have visions and prophecies in their sleep and to whom the books of prophecies and psalms are attributed. as such muhammad (pbuh), to them, was the one who composed the quran. this is precisely what the orientalist edward montet said in his the present and future of islam. unwittingly praising the prophet (pbuh), he wrote: "muhammad in arabia was very like one of the prophets of israel, who were highly important figures in the history of their people. it is ironic that many people remain ignorant of muhammad and thus fail to give him his due, although- like other reformers- the details of his life were quite known to them."
needless to say one should be wary of such orientalist accounts that pay no attention to the miraculous phenomenon of the divine revelation. in the islamic world and its historical issues, the orientalist bianca scarcia-amoretti shows a perceptive grasp of the reasons behind this fact. she says: "orientalism always worked in favour of colonialism instead of bringing the two cultures closer to one another. it was a branch of scholarship instituted only to provide more efficient means and more skillful tools to penetrate deeper into the islamic world. there is indeed a whole cultural operation that is at once veiled, sly and hypocritical. no wonder muslims remain suspicious of whatever is said about them in the west." (b. scarcia-amoretti, the islamic world and its historical issues, translated into arabic by s. saad, beirut: dar ibn khaldoun, 1984, p. 214.)