An Invitation to Peace

fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These
and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted
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every obstacle.”
“It goes greatly against the impostor theory, the fact that he lived in
this entirely unexceptionable, entirely quiet and common place way,
till the heat of his years was done. He was forty before he talked of any
mission from heaven… All his ‘ambition,’ seemingly, had been,
hitherto, to live an honest life; his ‘fame,’ the mere good opinion of
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neighbours that knew him...”
Then they called him a madman. Since it was too clear that this man
believed firmly in what he called others towards and was prepared to
sacrifice everything for it, it was too obvious that he wasn’t a liar. So
those that would not accept his call said he must have been sincere but
deluded, insane. Yet the clarity of his call, the simple straightforwardness
and plain commonsense that he preached, as well as the
unparalleled success of his mission, all belie the work of a madman. In
fact, this is how a leading US Jewish psychoanalyst evaluated him:
“Leaders must fulfil three functions – provide for the well-being of
the led, provide a social organization in which people feel relatively
secure, and provide them with one set of beliefs. 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 Mohammed, who combined all three functions. To a
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lesser degree Moses did the same.
And he wasn’t the only one to think that:
An Invitation to Peace
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Mahatma Gandhi speaking on the character of Muhammad in Young India.
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Thomas Carlyle, Heroes and Hero-Worship, 8th May, 1840, p. 70
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Professor Jules Masserman, quoted in TIME magazine, July 15, 1974.
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