The Call of the Quran
5. The call of da‘wah in the modern age
~ 96 ~
Finally he resorted to the study of Islam. And he
was astonished to find that the teachings of Islam
were still preserved in their original form. The
Islamic personalities, far from being mythological
characters, were genuinely historical figures. He
writes:
In the Prophet of Islam there is nothing vague
and shadowy, mythical or mysterious, as, for
instance, in Zoroaster and Sri Krishna, or in
Buddha and Christ. The very existence of
those prophets has been seriously doubted
and even totally denied; but nobody, as far as
I am aware, has ever ventured to reduce the
Prophet of Islam either into a “solar myth” or
into a “fairy tale.” Then he goes on to observe,
“Oh, what a relief to find, after all, a truly
historical prophet to believe in.” (From
Why
Have I accepted Islam
? A lecture delivered on
the 26th August 1904, in Hyderabad).
This is the status described in the Qur’an as the
‘position of praise and glory’ (17:79), that is, the
position of historical prophethood. This verse of
the Qur’an indicates that the Prophet of Islam,
