Islam and the Freedom of Conscience — Page 113
~ 113 ~ the most recent and exhaustive writer on the subject, has shown that for some hundred years before Mohammed the advent of another prophet had been expected and even predicted. '' 56 ''On the whole, the wonder is to me not how much, but how little, under different circumstances, Mohammed differed from himself. In the shepherd of the desert [when he tended sheep], in the Syrian trader, in the solitary of Mount Hira, in the reformer in the minority of one, in the exile of Medina, in the acknowledged conqueror, in the equal of the Persian Chosroes and the Greek Heraclius, we can still trace a substantial unity. I doubt whether any other man, whose external conditions changed so much, ever himself changed less to meet them: the accidents are changed, the essence seems to me to be the same in all. '' 57 Washington Irving Washington Irving, in his book Life of Muhammad, wrote: ''His military triumphs awakened no pride, nor vain glory, as they would have done had they been effected for selfish purposes. In the time of his greatest power he maintained the same simplicity of manner and appearance 56 Ibid, p. 133 57 Ibid, p. 133