Muhammad (saw) – The Perfect Man — Page 928
CHAPTER 42 The Greatest and the most Successful Prophet 928 then, is one to assess the over all impact of Muhammad on human history. Like all religions, Islam exerts an enormous influence upon the lives of its followers. It is for this reason that the founders of the world's great religions all figure prominently in this book. Since there are roughly twice as many Christians as Muslims in the world, it may initially seem strange that Muhammad has been ranked higher than Jesus. There are two principal reasons for this decision. First, Muhammad played a far more important role in the development of Islam than Jesus did in the development of Christianity…. Furthermore, Muhammad (unlike Jesus) was a secular as well as a religious leader. In fact, as the driving force behind the Arab conquests, he may well rank as the most influential political leader of all time……. Of many important historical events, one might say that they were inevitable and would have occurred even without the particular political leader who guided them……But this cannot be said of the Arab conquests. Nothing similar had occurred before Mu h ammad, and there is no reason to believe that the conquests would have been achieved without him. " 4