BOOK I.
Mohammed viewed in the Daylight of history.
As every man, in his place and degree, is an architect
of the world's history, and contributes his share, great
or small, for good or for evil, to the work of his time:
so also is every one the child of the age in which he
lives, and bears the impress of the generation to which
he belongs. This becomes all the more manifest, the
greater the power he wields and the closer the contact
he experiences amongst his fellow-men. No man can be
fully understood, nor his character duly appreciated,
without regard to the family in which he was born, the
circumstances under which he grew up, the social organism
of which he was a member, not even without a reference
to the country which furnished him with a home. In like
manner, any age can only be rightly estimated, if considered
as the result of previous ages; and any nation, if viewed
in the light of its own past history and in its relation
to other nations.
If, therefore, we undertake to form a true estimate
of the character and work of Mohammed,1
who was so prominent a figure of his age, and left such
deep and strongly marked
|
