A Rejoinder to Pope's Allegations Against Islam — Page 55
George Bernard Shaw wrote: "I have always held the religion of Muhammad in high estimation because of its wonderful vitality. It is the only religion whieh appears to me to possess that assimilating capacity to the changing phase of existence which can make itself appeal to every age. I have studied him - the wonderful man - and in my opinion far from being an anti-Christ, he must be called the Savior of Humanity. " (George Bernard Shaw 'The Genuine Islam'. Vol. 1 No. 8 (1936) Pringle Kennedy wrote: "Muhammad was, to use a striking expression, the man of the hour. In order to understand his wonderful success, one must study the conditions of his times. Five and half centuries and more had elapsed when he was born since Jesus had come into the world. At that time, the old religions of Greece and Rome, and of the hundred and one states along the Mediterranean, had lost their vitality. In their place, Caesarism had come as a living cult. The worship of the state as personified by the reigning Caesar, such was the religion of the Roman Empire. Other religions might exist, it was true; but they had to permit this new cult by the side of them and predominant over them. But Caesarism failed to satisfy. The Eastern religions and superstitions (Egyptian, Syrian, Persian) appealed to many in the Roman world and found numerous votaries. The fatal fault of many of these creeds was that in many respects they were so ignoble. . . When Christianity conquered Caesarism at the commencement of the fourth century, it, in its turn, became Caesarised. No longer was it the pure creed 55