114 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 14:1 

Prophet Muhammad and His Western Critics 

By 'Zafar Ali Qureshi. Mansoorah, Pakisan: ldara Ma'arif lslami, 
1992, 2 vols. 

Modem Orientalists generally boast of their objective analysis and impar­
tial approach to problems, but facts belie their loud claims when their research 
comes down to the study of the Prophet. In this case, deep prejudices are re­
flected in their writings. Sometimes they indulge in frontal attacks on him, while 
at other times they hit him below the belt. They tty to give an impression that 
the time in which the message of Islam was spread was ripe for revolution, inde­
pendent of the Prophet. So to them, the Prophet's contribution was to make a 



Book Reviews 115 

correct assessment of the prevailing situation and then make use of the opportu- 
nity provided to project his viewpoint. The ultimate aim of such endeavors on 
the part of Orientalists is to belittle the historic role of the Prophet and to unset- 
tle the Muslim consciousness of its cognitive certainty of the divine revelation 
to the Prophet. 

The author asserts that the Prophet brought about a complete revolution in 
the lives of his early followers. After embracing Islam, they no longer remained 
the old Am& they became God-fearing and pious folk who were very con- 
cerned with the life hereafter rather than riveting their attention on material con- 
siderations. In view of these realities, it is highly callous on the part of Reverend 
Watt to denigrate Muslims for what they sought to accomplish. No fair-minded 
historian would point out any character failing in these noble men. Also, they 
could not simply think of invading neighboring lands, as Watt would have us 
believe. Likewise, Watt’s whole chain of hypotheses about the economic and 
political reasons for the emigration to Abyssinia is without foundation. 

Watt’s attempt to castigate the Prophet, AbO Bakr, and other Muslims fails, 
as does his quest to play down the untold hardships and persecutions suffered 
by Muslims at the hands of the pagan Qwaysh. As is well known, the Qwaysh 
forced the Muslim to emigrate to Abyssinia, which was considered a safe haven 
for the persecuted early Muslim community. 

Watt tries to belittle the revolutionary spirit of the message by relating it to 
mere economic or political considerations. This is indeed a gross distortion of 
history. Likewise, he seeks to downplay the severe persecution perpetrated on 
Muslims and the Prophet. By doing so, Watt indulges in a complete distortion 
of historical realities. Here are a few instances that Watt has quoted, which are 
quite conaadictory in nature. 

The author is convinced that Prophet Muhammad had a universal appeal and 
that his message was not to the people of Makkah alone. He was a Prophet of 
God who was appointed by God to establish His sovereignty. To this end, he had 
devoted all his energies and worked with complete devotion and steadfastness 
until the completion of his mission. Watt knowingly and willfully ignores the 
point that the Prophet’s vocation and mission were the propagation of the unity 
of God and the condemnation of idolatry in every sw and form. He directed 
all his energies to this focal point, not to any idea of nationality or country or race, 
which is suggested by Watt, who consistently seeks to decrease the revolution- 
ary appeal of the Prophet’s mission by stressing material considerations that, in 
reality, had hardly anything to do with the true role of the Prophet. 

The author notes that by their conversion to Islam, a great moral and spiri- 
tual transformation was wrought in the lives of early Muslims and that, after this 
event, they were willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of their faith. In fact, 
they had proved by their actions that they preferred to leave their hearths and 
homes and lead lives of hardship, privation, and misery in foreign places rather 
than compromise in the matter of their faith and the freedom of their coIIscieI1ce. 

Western writers invariably assert that the Prophet used force to propagate 
Islam. These are all false allegations. We are convinced that had the Prophet 
been inclined to follow a policy of forced conversion to Islam, no better oppor- 
tunity could have come his way, at least in the case of the Jewish and Christian 
hibes, than the expedition of TAiik, when he led a formidable force of thirty 
thousand strong waniors-the biggest army ever assembled in Arabia in those 
times-and yet this did not happen. 



116 The American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 14:l 

In sum, Zafar Ali Qw-eshi has refuted convincingly all of the baseless alle­
gations leveled against the Prophet. In the process, he has vindicated success­
fully the Prophet's good name and honor. He has also taken care to follow the 
research methodology according to the exact standards of modern scholarship. 
It is hoped that his work will provide both an opportunity and an incentive to 
Muslims to listen to the revolutionary message of the Prophet 

Col. (Retd.) Ghulam Sarwar 
Rawalpindi, Pakistan 

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