Generator said:
I was under the impression that there was no such distinction in Islam (Mohammad being a prophet and politician, after all)?
In fact Generator and nekkid you are both spot on! while Hotshot is utterly wrong. This is becuase Islam makes no distinction whatsoever with politics and the law. In fact in Islam the law is shariah and politics as anyone who has read Islamic history will tell you, were an important part of the lives of most companions and Prophets (peace be upon them all). In the Western sphere, law is an autocratic entity and with secularism its means that law, religion and politics are all separate in the Western world. This is not the case in Islam hence you will find countries like Saudia Arabic or Pakistan follow an Islamic law and Islamic political science, These laws can never be changed becuase these laws are NOT posited (positivism) like the Western laws, these laws are natural laws, made by the Almighty and are eterenal.
I'll quote a few famous paragraphs by Michael Hart who wrote the Book- (1978)‑ The
100: A Ranking of the most Influential Persons in History. Carol Publishing Group, New York, USA. In this quote Hart justifies why he ranked Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) the worlds MOST influential man in history and why he rated Jesus (pbuh) second.
"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 s
upremely successful on both the religious and secular levels"
"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.
"Nothing similar [like the Arab conquests] 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 Moslem 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.
So, if anyone actually reads the life history of the Prophet pbuh (apparently Generator has
) is is quite obvious that Muhammad (pbuh) was a religious leader as well as a wise politican.
