Muhammad (saw) – The Perfect Man — Page 940
CHAPTER 42 The Greatest and the most Successful Prophet 940 the vulgar theory that the rise of Islam was a triumph of fanaticism over noble and tolerant peoples. The phenomenal success of Islam was primarily due to its revolutionary significance and its ability to lead the masses out of the hopeless situation created by the decay of antique civilizations not only of Greece and Rome but of Persia and China - and of India. " "The basic doctrine of Islam - 'There is but one God' - itself makes for toleration. If the whole world, with its defects and deformities, the entire mankind, with all its follies and frivolities, is admitted as the creation of the self-same God, the believer in this elevating doctrine may deplore the deformities and laugh at what appears to him to be absurdities and perverseness; but the very nature of his faith does not permit him to look upon them as the works or worshippers of some other god of evil, and declare war upon them as such. Those, who worship differently, are for him mistaken and misled brethren, but nonetheless children of the self-same father, to be brought to the right road, or indulgently tolerated, are ready for redemption. " 14