The reference to the quote from Sir George Bernard Shaw, I presented in my post of the 19th, is from ‘The Genuine Islam, Vol 1, No: 8, 1936’.

There are dozens of similar views on Muhammad from the learned men of conscience from the west and elsewhere. The views will show those still engaged with the vicious campaign of misinformation in this age that their statements, in the worlds of Thomas Carlyle (my post of the 18th), are “disgraceful to (themselves)” only.

Those who have carefully studied the life of Muhammad with an unbiased mind have only one response to him: An absolute respect. The fact shows up even in the secular take of rational minds like Karen Armstrong who is regarded as a current authority on history of religions. Her book “Muhammad” sits on the Amazon website with following introduction:

“Muhammad's story is more relevant than ever ……..Countering those who dismiss Islam as fanatical and violent, Armstrong offers a clear, accessible, and balanced portrait of the central figure of one of the world's great religions.”

Here is another view of an unbiased mind, Annie Besant (1847-1933), a British Socialist from page 4 of her book entitled “The Life and Teachings of Muhammad”.

“It is impossible for anyone who studies the life and character of the great Prophet of Arabia, who knows how he taught and how he lived, to feel anything but reverence for that mighty Prophet, one of the great messengers of the Supreme. And although in what I put to you I shall say many things which may be familiar to many, yet I myself feel whenever I re-read them, a new way of admiration, a new sense of reverence for that mighty Arabian teacher.”

On the main subject of this discussion, I note with comfort a sensible advice in today’s post (by DonMega).

“I would hope to think we are all on the one side, Muslim Australians along with all other Australians and we can work together to stamp out bigotry on both sides.”

Yes, bigotry on both sides must be stamped out.

Continued

Continued from previous post……

The peripheral issues in the first post of today took up most of the space I wanted for the focus of my posts, hence the second post of the day.

This view about Muhammad is from Lamartine (1790-1869), a French writer and poet. The reference is from pages 276-77 of his book “Histoire de la Turquie, Pans 1854, Vol. 11”.

“If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great man in modem history with Muhammad? The most famous men created arms, laws and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislation, empires, peoples and dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the then-inhabited world; and more than that he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and souls.... His forbearance in victory, his ambition which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire, his endless prayers, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death-all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction which gave him the power to restore a dogma. This dogma was twofold: the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is, the latter telling what God is not; the one overthrowing false gods with the sword, the other starting an idea with the words. Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images; 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, we may well ask, is there any man greater than he?”

So NC have you converted to Islam or were you borne a Muslim? If you truly believe that which you have posted then there is no greater person or prophet than Muhammad and you really have no excuse for not being a follower. If you are not a follower of Islam you must either be a hypocrite or just playing devil' advocate (no pun intended).

Whilst Lamartine's description of Muhammad is very flattering it does include a particular phrase that could hint at the problem many of us feel he created... "restorer of rational dogmas". The Quran may be a lot of things but rational is a big stretch.

Is the reason you are spending so much time defending the Prophet because you cannot defend the questionable passages in the Quran? Muslims tell us the Quran is pure and comes directly from of Muhammad's teachings because it is in the original language he spoke (actually that's debateable but you can't tell a Muslim that and survive); Muslims believe the verses have not been polluted or interpreted. So it follows that the more violent and questionable verses are indeed Muhammad's words. Why is it these defender's of Muhammad haven't addressed the violence in his teaching/Quran?

Can you please provide us with your understanding on any of the passages from the Quran that Kactus shared with us. It's my understanding the verses in the Quran are not there for the followers to cherry-pick, the whole Quran is the message, right?

An intelligent and insightful article, this is the sort of writing and opinion that should be in the papers to balance the fear mongering that has become the norm - disappointing to see comments taking personal shots at the author instead making a reasoned debate about this though am I wrong to have expected better? If we scratch under the surface of the stories that the media feed we see unfounded claims of beheading plots in sydney to justify police raids that the media were prearranged to 'accompany' them on, a Young man shot at point blank range and no one questions it... It seems that claims of 'terror' all over the front page and the media frenzy happens only when people involved are Muslim.The question has to be why..

NC,

Truly amazing that so many great minds can be so wrong, but then they didn't have the benefit of 9/11 or of the school children murdered in Pakistan only a few days ago

Wonder what they would have thought about Muslims forceably closing girls schools?.

MikMik asks "It seems that claims of 'terror' all over the front page and the media frenzy happens only when people involved are Muslim. The question has to be why"

Could it be because 99.9% of the terrorists and terrorism related violence in the world is committed by Muslims?

Can you provide us with even one example in Australia over the past five years where a person held hostages, threatened violence, made political demands, whilst displaying an Islamic flag that involves a person that isn't a Muslim?

Why do you pretend the Sydney siege wasn't a terrorist act? How does that improve your life? The perpetrator certainly believed he was demonstrating on behalf of Islam.