Peace All
A library of sources from non-Muslims speaking about the person of Muhammad (SAW) … courtesy of research of quotes goes to a dear friend whose pen name is Mithridates … Please read below:
But first watch these videos:
Conquest of Makkah:
"The day of Mohammad’s greatest triumph over his enemies was also the day of his grandest victory over himself. He freely forgave the Koraysh all the years of sorrow and cruel scorn in which they had afflicted him and gave an amnesty to the whole population of Mekka. Four criminals whom justice condemned made up Mohammad’s proscription list when he entered as a conqueror to the city of his bitterest enemies. The army followed his example, and entered quietly and peacefully: no house was robbed, no women insulted. One thing alone suffered destruction. Going to the Kaaba, Mohammad stood before each of the three hundred and sixty idols, and pointed to it with his staff, saying, ‘Truth is come and falsehood is fled away!’, and at these words his attendants hewed them down, and all the idols and household gods of Mekka and round about were destroyed.
“It was thus Mohammad entered again his native city. Through all the annals of conquest there is no triumphant entry comparable to this one.”
Stanley Lane-Poole:
The Speeches and Table-Talk of the Prophet Mohammad,
London 1882, Introduction, pp. 46,47.
"… In comparison, for example, with the cruelty of the Crusaders, who, in 1099, put seventy thousand Muslims, men, women and helpless children to death when Jerusalem fell into their hands: or with that of the English army, also fighting under the Cross, which in the year of grace 1874 burned an African capital, in its war on the Gold Coast. Muhammad’s victory was in very truth one of religion and not of politics; he rejected every token of personal homage, and declined all regal authority: and when the haughty chiefs of the Korei****es appeared before him he asked:
"What can you expect at my hands?
"Mercy O generous brother!
“Be it so; you are free! He exclaimed.”
Arthur Gliman:
The Saracens, London 1887 pp. 184, 185.
“This deep-hearted Son of the Wilderness, with his beaming black eyes and open social deep soul, had other thoughts than ambition. A silent great man; he was one of those who cannot BUT be in earnest; whom Nature herself has appointed to be sincere. While others walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell there, this man could not screen himself in formulas; he was alone with his own soul and the reality of things. The great mystery of Existence, as I said, glared in upon him, with its terrors, with its splendors; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact. The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart. Men do and must listen to that as to nothing else; all else is wind, in comparison. From of old, a thousand thoughts, in his pilgrimings and wanderings, had been in this man. What am I? What is this unfathomable Thing I live in, which men name Universe? What is Life? What is Death? What am I to believe? What am I to do? The grim rocks of Mount Hira, of Mount Sinai, the stern sandy solitudes, answered not. The great Heaven rolling silent overhead with its blue-glancing stars, answered not. There was no answer. The man’s own soul, and what of God’s inspiration dwelt there, had to answer.”
Thomas Carlyle:
On Heroes, Hero-Worship and the Heroic in History, London 1888.
"Certainly he had two of the most important characteristics of the prophetic order. He saw truth about God which his fellowmen did not see, and he had an irresistible inward impulse to publish this truth. In respect of this latter qualification, Mohammed may stand in comparison with the most courageous of the heroic prophets of Israel. For the truth’s sake he risked his life, he suffered daily persecution for years, and eventually banishment, the loss of property, of the goodwill of his fellow-citizens, and of the confidence of his friends; he suffered, in short, as much as any man can suffer short of death, which he only escaped by flight, and yet he unflinchingly proclaimed his message. No bribe, threat or inducement, could silence him. ‘Though they array against me the sun on the right hand and the moon on the left, I cannot renounce my purpose.’ And it was this persistency, this belief in his call, to proclaim the unity or God, which was the making of Islam.
"Other men have been monotheists in the midst or idolators, but no other man has rounded a strong and enduring monotheistic religion. The distinction in his case was his resolution that other men should believe. If we ask what it was that made Mohammed proselytizing where other men had been content to cherish a solitary faith, we must answer that it was nothing else than the depth and force of his own conviction of the truth. To himself the difference between one God and many, between the unseen Creator and those ugly lumps of stone or wood, was simply infinite. The one creed was death and darkness to him, the other life and light… Who can doubt the earnestness of that search after truth and the living God, that drove the affluent merchant from his comfortable home and his fond wife, to make his abode for months at a time in the dismal cave of Mount Hira-
Dr. Marcus Dods:
Mohammed, Buddha, and Christ, pp. 17, 18.
“… We feel that the words which he (Muhammad) speaks are not the words of an ordinary man. They have their immediate source in the inner reality of things, since he lives in constant fellowship with this reality.”
Tor Andrae:
Mohammad, London 1936, p. 247.
“It is strongly corroborative of Mohammed’s sincerity that the earliest converts to Islam were his bosom friends and the people of his household, who, all intimately acquainted with his private life, could not fail to have detected those discrepancies which more or less invariably exist between the pretensions of the hypocritical deceiver and his actions at home.”
John Davenport:
An Apology for Mohammed and the Koran, P. 17.
“In little more than a year he was actually the spiritual, nominal and temporal ruler of Medina, with his hand on the lever that was to shake the world.”
John Austin: Muhammad the Prophet of Allah,
in “T.P’s and Cassels’ Weekly” for 24th September 1927.
“… He became head of the state and the testimony even of his enemies is that he administered wisely. The wisdom he displayed in judging intricate cases became the basis for the religious law that governs Islam today.”
“… Forced now to fight in defence of the freedom of conscience which he preached, he became an accomplished military leader. Although he repeatedly went into battle outnumbered and out-speared as much as five to one, he won some spectacular victories.”
James A. Michener: op. cit.