No Interference

~ 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,