Islam and the Freedom of Conscience — Page 129
~ 129 ~ nor, do I believe, put to death in a time of peace for simply not embracing the religion of Islam. '' 76 Edward Gibbon In History of the Saracen Empire , Edward Gibbon wrote: ''It is not the propagation but the permanency of his religion [that it has always remained established] that deserves our wonder, the same pure and perfect impression which he engraved at Mecca and Medina, is preserved after the revolutions of twelve centuries by the Indian, the African and the Turkish proselytes of the Koran. . . . The Mahometans have uniformly withstood the temptation of reducing the object of their faith and devotion to a level with the senses and imagination of man. ‘I believe in One God and Mahomet the Apostle of God’ is the simple and invariable profession of Islam [that is, there is none worthy of worship except Allah and Muhammad is His Messenger]. The intellectual image of the Deity has never been degraded by any visible idol [in other words, this was the image of God which the Muslims never formed into an idol]. ; the honours of the prophet have never transgressed the measure of human 76 Ibid, P. 52 (1829)