My choice of Muhammad to lead the list
of the world's most influential persons
may surprise some readers and may be
questioned by others, but he was the only
man in history who was supremely
successful on both the religious and
secular levels. Of humble origins,
Muhammad founded and promulgated
one of the world's great religions, and
became an immensely effective political
leader. Today, thirteen centuries after his
death, his influence is still powerful and
pervasive. The majority of the persons in
this book had the advantage of being born
and raised in centers of civilization, highly
cultured or politically pivotal nations.
Muhammad, however, was born in the
year 570, in the city of Mecca, in southern
Arabia, at that time a backward area of the
world, far from the centers of trade, art,
and learning. Orphaned at age six, he was
reared in modest surroundings. Islamic
tradition tells us that he was illiterate. His
economic position improved when, at age
twenty-five, he married a wealthy widow.
Nevertheless, as he approached forty,
there was little outward indication that he
was a remarkable person. Most Arabs at
that time were pagans, who believed in
many gods. There were, however, in
Mecca, a small number of Jews and
Christians; it was from them no doubt that
Muhammad first learned of a single,
omnipotent God who ruled the entire
universe.
When he was forty years old, Muhammad
became convinced that this one true God
(Allah) was speaking to him, and had
chosen him to spread the
true faith. For three years, Muhammad
preached only to close friends and
associates. Then, about 613, he began
preaching in public. As he slowly gained
converts, the Meccan authorities came to
consider him a dangerous nuisance. In
622, fearing for his safety, Muhammad
fled to Medina (a city some 200 miles
north of Mecca), where he had been
offered a position of considerable
political power.
This flight, called the Hegira, was the
turning point of the Prophet's life. In
Mecca, he had had few followers. In
Medina, he had many more, and he soon
acquired an influence that made him a
virtual dictator. During the next few years,
while Muhammad s following grew
rapidly, a series of battles were fought
between Medina and Mecca. This was
ended in 630 with Muhammad's
triumphant return to Mecca as conqueror.
The remaining two and one-half years of
his life witnessed the rapid conversion of
the Arab tribes to the new religion.
When Muhammad died, in 632, he was
the effective ruler of all of southern
Arabia. The Bedouin tribesmen of Arabia
had a reputation as fierce warriors. But
their number was small; and plagued by
disunity and internecine warfare, they had
been no match for the larger armies of the
kingdoms in the settled agricultural areas
to the north. However, unified by
Muhammad for the first time in history,
and inspired by their fervent belief in the
one true God, these small Arab armies
now embarked upon one of the most
astonishing series of conquests in human
history.
To the northeast of Arabia lay the large
Neo-Persian Empire of the Sassanids; to
the northwest lay the Byzantine, or Eastern
Roman Empire, centered in
Constantinople. Numerically, the Arabs
were no match for their opponents. On
the field of battle, though, the inspired
Arabs rapidly conquered all of
Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. By
642, Egypt had been wrested from the
Byzantine Empire, while the Persian
armies had been crushed at the key
battles of Qadisiya in 637, and Nehavend
in 642.
But even these enormous conquests-
which were made under the leadership of
Muhammad's close friends and
immediate successors, Abu Bakr and
'Umaribn al-Khattab - did not mark the
end of the Arab advance. By 711, the Arab
armies had swept completely across
North Africa to the Atlantic Ocean There
they turned north and, crossing the Strait
of Gibraltar, overwhelmed the Visigothic
kingdom in Spain. For a while, it must
have seemed that the Moslems would
overwhelm all of Christian Europe.
However, in 732, at the famous Battle of
Tours, a Moslem army, which had
advanced into the center of France, was at
last defeated by the Franks. Nevertheless,
in a scant century of fighting, these
Bedouin tribesmen, inspired by the word
of the Prophet, had carved out an empire
stretching from the borders of India to the
Atlantic Ocean-the largest empire that the
world had yet seen. And everywhere that
the armies conquered, large-scale
conversion to the new faith eventually
followed. Now, not all of these conquests
proved permanent.
The Persians, though they have remained
faithful to the religion of the Prophet, have
since regained their independence from
the Arabs. And in Spain, more than seven
centuries of warfare 5 finally resulted in
the Christians reconquering the entire
peninsula. However, Mesopotamia and
Egypt, the two cradles of ancient
civilization, have remained Arab, as has
the entire coast of North Africa. The new
religion, of course, continued to spread,
in the intervening centuries, far beyond
the borders of the original Moslem
conquests.
Currently it has tens of millions of
adherents in Africa and Central Asia and
even more in Pakistan and northern India,
and in Indonesia. In Indonesia, the new
faith has been a unifying factor. In the
Indian subcontinent, however, the conflict
between Moslems and Hindus is still a
major obstacle to unity.
How, then, is one to assess the overall
impact of Muhammad on human history?
Like all religions, Islam exerts an
enormous influence upon the lives of its
followers. It is for this reason that the
founders of the world's great religions all
figure prominently in this book . Since
there are roughly twice as many Christians
as Moslems in the world, it may initially
seem strange that Muhammad has been
ranked higher than Jesus.
There are two principal reasons for that
decision.
First, Muhammad played a far more
important role in the development of
Islam than Jesus did in the development
of Christianity. Although Jesus was
responsible for the main ethical and
moral precepts of Christianity (insofar as
these differed from Judaism), St. Paul was
the main developer of Christian theology,
its principal proselytizer, and the author
of a large portion of the New Testament.
Muhammad, however, was responsible
for both the theology of Islam and its
main ethical and moral principles. In
addition, he played the key role in
proselytizing the new faith, and in
establishing the religious practices of
Islam. Moreover, he is the author of the
Moslem holy scriptures, the Koran, a
collection of certain of Muhammad's
insights that he believed had been directly
revealed to him by Allah. Most of these
utterances were copied more or less
faithfully during Muhammad's lifetime
and were collected together in
authoritative form not long after his death.
Webmaster's note: Mr Hart writes, "he is
the author of the Moslem holy scriptures"
which is INCORRECT. Prophet Muhammad
was the person to whom the Quran was
revealed by its Author - God.
The Koran therefore, closely represents
Muhammad's ideas and teachings and to
a considerable extent his exact words. No
such detailed compilation of the teachings
of Christ has survived.
Since the Koran is at least as important to
Moslems as the Bible is to Christians, the
influence of Muhammed through the
medium of the Koran has been enormous
It is probable that the relative influence of
Muhammad on Islam has been larger than
the combined influence of Jesus Christ
and St. Paul on Christianity.
On the purely religious level, then, it
seems likely that Muhammad has been as
influential in human history as Jesus.
Furthermore, Muhammad (unlike Jesus)
was a secular as well as a religious leader.
In fact, as the driving force behind the
Arab conquests, he may well rank as the
most influential political leader of all
time. Of many important historical events,
one might say that they were inevitable
and would have occurred even without the
particular political leader who guided
them.
For example, the South American colonies
would probably have won their
independence from Spain even if Simon
Bolivar had never lived. But this cannot be
said of the Arab conquests.
Nothing similar had occurred before
Muhammad, and there is no reason to
believe that the conquests would have
been achieved without him.
The only comparable conquests in human
history are those of the Mongols in the
thirteenth century, which were primarily
due to the influence of Genghis Khan.
These conquests, however, though more
extensive than those of the Arabs, did not
prove permanent, and today the only
areas occupied by the Mongols are those
that they held prior to the time of Genghis
Khan.
It is far different with the conquests of the
Arabs. From Iraq to Morocco, there
extends a whole chain of Arab nations
united not merely by their faith in Islam,
but also by their Arabic language, history,
and culture. The centrality of the Koran in
the Moslem religion and the fact that it is
written in Arabic have probably prevented
the Arab language from breaking up into
mutually unintelligible dialects, which
might otherwise have occurred in the
intervening thirteen centuries.
Differences and divisions between these
Arab states exist, of course, and they are
considerable, but the partial disunity
should not blind us to the important
elements of unity that have continued to
exist. For instance, neither Iran nor
Indonesia, both oil-producing states and
both Islamic in religion, joined in the oil
embargo of the winter of 1973-74. It is no
coincidence that all of the Arab states, and
only the Arab states, participated in the
embargo. We see, then, that the Arab
conquests of the seventh century have
continued to play an important role in
human history, down to the present day.
It is this unparalleled combination of
secular and religious influence which I
feel entitles Muhammad to be considered
the most influential single figure in
human history.

You don't suppose to bring up this type of topic knowing too well that you can never be able to handle the out come.

If by influential you mean, being able to make others commit suicide and kill innocent...
Muhammed ofcourse!

if we judge by the number of violence and innocent blood that has been shed.
if we judge by the fact that Jesus was a peaceful man and took on the nature of God.
if we judge by the fact that muhammed was a bloody and violent man whose nature agree with the very nature of satan.
if we judge by the fact that muhammed was a pedophile, a womanizer, a looter who died of gonorrhea.
if we judge by the fact that muhammed was a deceiver, a murderer, a man who practice violence while preaching peace. a man who stole all his ideas and preaching from the Jews only to mix it up with falsehood from the devil.
then of course muhammed is the man. welldone

This is definitely the most stupiid post I've ever seen on NL, what kind of comparison is this? Learn how not to involve your hare brain in matters beyond your scope of reasoning

Bélla3: If by influential you mean, being able to make others commit suicide and kill innocent...
Muhammed ofcourse!

History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam a the point of a sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.
-De lacy O’Leary “Islam at the crossroads” pg.8

Never has a man set for himself, voluntarily or
involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim
was superhuman: to subvert superstitions which
had been interposed between man and his
creator, to render God unto man and man unto
God; to restore the rational and sacred idea of
divinity amidst the chaos of the material and
disfigured gods of idolatry, then existing. Never
has a man undertaken a work so far beyond
human power with so feeble means, for he
(Muhammad) had in the conception as well as in
the execution of such a great design no other
instrument than himself, and no other aid, except
a handful of men living in a corner of the desert.
Finally, never has a man accomplished such a
huge and lasting revolution in the world, because
in less than two centuries after its appearance,
Islam, in faith and in arms, reigned over the
whole of Arabia, and conquered, in God's name,
Persia, Khorasan, Transoxania, Western India,
Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, all the known continent of
Northern Africa, numerous islands of the
Mediterranean, Spain, and a part of Gaul.
If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and
astounding results are the true criteria of human
genius, who could dare to compare any great
man in modern 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, legislations, empires, peoples and
dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the
inhabited world; and more than that, he moved
the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the
beliefs and the souls.
On the basis of a Book, every letter of which has
become law, he created a spiritual nationality
which blended together peoples of every tongue
and of every race. He has left us as the indelible
characteristic of this Muslim nationality the
hatred of false gods and the passion for the One
and Immaterial God. This avenging patriotism
against the profanation of Heaven formed the
virtue of the followers of Muhammad; the
conquest of one-third of the earth to his dogma
was his miracle; or rather it was not the miracle
of a man but that of reason.
The idea of the Unity of God, proclaimed amidst
the exhaustion of fabulous theogonies, was in
itself such a miracle that upon its utterance from
his lips it destroyed all the ancient temples of
idols and set on fire one-third of the world. His
life, his meditations, his heroic revilings against
the superstitions of his country, and his
boldness in defying the furies of idolatry, his
firmness in enduring them for fifteen years at
Mecca, his acceptance of the role of public scorn
and almost of being a victim of his fellow
countrymen: all these and, finally, his flight, his
incessant preaching, his wars against odds, his
faith in his success and his superhuman security
in misfortune, 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 affirm
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?

memud6: Never has a man set for himself, voluntarily or
involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim
was superhuman: to subvert superstitions which
had been interposed between man and his
creator, to render God unto man and man unto
God; to restore the rational and sacred idea of
divinity amidst the chaos of the material and
disfigured gods of idolatry, then existing. Never
has a man undertaken a work so far beyond
human power with so feeble means, for he
(Muhammad) had in the conception as well as in
the execution of such a great design no other
instrument than himself, and no other aid, except
a handful of men living in a corner of the desert.
Finally, never has a man accomplished such a
huge and lasting revolution in the world, because
in less than two centuries after its appearance,
Islam, in faith and in arms, reigned over the
whole of Arabia, and conquered, in God's name,
Persia, Khorasan, Transoxania, Western India,
Syria, Egypt, Abyssinia, all the known continent of
Northern Africa, numerous islands of the
Mediterranean, Spain, and a part of Gaul.
If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and
astounding results are the true criteria of human
genius, who could dare to compare any great
man in modern 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, legislations, empires, peoples and
dynasties, but millions of men in one-third of the
inhabited world; and more than that, he moved
the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the
beliefs and the souls.
On the basis of a Book, every letter of which has
become law, he created a spiritual nationality
which blended together peoples of every tongue
and of every race. He has left us as the indelible
characteristic of this Muslim nationality the
hatred of false gods and the passion for the One
and Immaterial God. This avenging patriotism
against the profanation of Heaven formed the
virtue of the followers of Muhammad; the
conquest of one-third of the earth to his dogma
was his miracle; or rather it was not the miracle
of a man but that of reason.
The idea of the Unity of God, proclaimed amidst
the exhaustion of fabulous theogonies, was in
itself such a miracle that upon its utterance from
his lips it destroyed all the ancient temples of
idols and set on fire one-third of the world. His
life, his meditations, his heroic revilings against
the superstitions of his country, and his
boldness in defying the furies of idolatry, his
firmness in enduring them for fifteen years at
Mecca, his acceptance of the role of public scorn
and almost of being a victim of his fellow
countrymen: all these and, finally, his flight, his
incessant preaching, his wars against odds, his
faith in his success and his superhuman security
in misfortune, 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 affirm
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?

people will die of hatred

Muslim programming demands love for uncle moh, this is normal behavior.

Op, I'll say uncle moh may have been more influential than jesus in the same way hitler, stalin, or genghis khan may have been more influential gandhi. In other words, his influence does not necessarily portray him in good light. Particularly this, what was he doing mixing religion and politics?

wiegraf:
Op, I'll say uncle moh may have been more influential than jesus in the same way hitler, stalin, or genghis khan may have been more influential gandhi...

wise man once said, nothing leads us to blunder quicker than illogical comparisons

F00028:

wise man once said, nothing leads us to blunder quicker than illogical comparisons

Which poor soul do you consider wise?