Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 465
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 465 750 Muslims pitted against 3,000 Quraish for the purpose of forcing them to accept Islam at the point of the sword? Two years later, did a Confederate force of 20,000 besiege Medina because the Muslims under the command of the Holy Prophet had been forcing them to accept Islam at the point of the sword? Later, at Hudaibiyya, was it the Holy Prophet who was anxious to secure a truce with Quraish and to put an end to fighting, or was it Quraish who sought an end to the use of the sword? The Holy Prophet was s o keen that the sword be sheathed between him and Quraish that, in order to secure his purpose, he accepted every reasonable and unreasonable condition proposed on behalf of Quraish, so much so that the Muslims felt that the terms of the treaty were humili ating. Is it or is it not a fact that once fighting was ended between Quraish and the Muslims, Islam began to make much faster progress than it had made during the years of conflict? At Hudaibiyya, the Holy Prophet was accompanied by 1,500 Muslims; in less than two years when a flagrant breach by Quraish of the treaty forced the Holy Prophet to march on Mecca, he was followed by 10,000 devoted Muslims. What is it then on the basis of which the West has persisted in charging the Holy Prophet with having spre ad his faith by the sword? Sir Thomas W. Arnold, a well - known and highly respected orientalist, at one time Professor of Arabic in the University of London, made a thorough research into this question and in his outstanding work, The Preaching of Islam, first published in 1896, established beyond a doubt that the sword had nothing to do with the spread of Islam. De L. O’Leary has affirmed ( Islam at the Crossroads, p. 8):