An Invitation to Peace

An Invitation to Peace
“It (Islam) replaced monkishness by manliness. It gives hope to the
slave, brotherhood to mankind, and recognition of the fundamental
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facts of human nature.”
“The word of such a man [Muhammad] is a voice direct from
nature's own heart. Men do and must listen to that as to nothing else, –
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all else is wind in comparison.”
“It was obvious to me that the decline of the Muslims was not due
to any shortcomings in Islam but rather to their own failure to live up to
it.
“For, indeed, it was Islam that had carried the early Muslims to
tremendous cultural heights by directing all their energies toward
conscious thought as the only means to understanding the nature of
God’s creation and, thus, of His will. No demand had been made of
them to believe in dogmas difficult or even impossible of intellectual
comprehension; in fact, no dogma whatsoever was to be found in the
Prophet’s message: and, thus, the thirst after knowledge which
distinguished early Muslim history had not been forced, as elsewhere
in the world, to assert itself in a painful struggle against the traditional
faith. On the contrary, it had stemmed exclusively from that faith. The
Arabian Prophet had declared Striving after knowledge is a most sacred
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duty for every Muslim : and his followers were led to understand that
only by acquiring knowledge could they fully worship the Lord. When
they pondered the Prophet’s saying, God creates no disease without
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creating a cure for it as well , they realized that by searching for
unknown cures they would contribute to a fulfilment of God’s will on
earth: and so medical research became invested with the holiness of a
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Canon Taylor, Paper read before the Church Congress, Oct. 7 1887,
quoted by Arnoud in The Preaching of Islam, pp. 71-72
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Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 1840, p. 71
25
Ibn Majah, v. 1, p. 81
26
Saying of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) related by al-Hakim, v. 4, p. 218
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