Muhammad: Seal of the Prophets — Page 5
MUHAMMAD : SEAL OF THE PROPHETS 5 there any emotional culture that could be brought in to gather mankind once more to unity and to save civilization? It was among the Arabs that the man was born who were to unite the whole known world of the east and south (J. H. Denison , Emotions as the Basis of Civilization , pp. 265 - 9). Muhammad appeared on the scene at one of the darkest periods in all history, when all the civilizations, from Merovingian Gaul to India, were falling to ruin or were in a state of troubled gestation (L. Dermenghem, The Life of Muhammad , p. 171). If the object of religion be the inculcation of morals, the diminution of evil, the promotion of human happiness, the expansion of the human intellect, if the performance of good works will avail in the great day when mankind shall be summoned to its final reckoning, it is neither irreverent nor unreasonable to admit that Muhammad was indeed an Apostle of God (S. P. Scott, History of the Moorish Empire in Europe , p. 126). Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, the founder of twenty terrestrial empires and of one spiritual empire that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, w e may ask, is there any man greater than he? (Lamartine, History of Turkey , p. 276). The more one reflects on the history of Muhammad and of early Islam, the more one is amazed at the vastness of his