He had no reputation as a soldier, not to mention of being a great general. He had said nothing about God, angels, revealed Books, early Prophets, bygone nations, the Day of Judgment, life after death, or Heaven and Hell. No doubt he had an excellent character and charming manners and was well-behaved, yet nothing marked him out as one who would accomplish something great and revolutionary. His acquaintances knew him as a sober, calm, gentle, and trustworthy citizen of good nature. But when he left Hira cave with a new message, he was completely transformed.

When he began preaching, his people stood in awe and wonder, bedazzled by his wonderful eloquence and oratory. It was so impressive and captivating that his worst enemies were afraid to listen to it, lest it penetrate their hearts or very being and make them abandon their traditional religion and culture. It was so beyond compare that no Arab poet, preacher, or orator, no matter how good, could equal its beautiful language and splendid diction when he challenged them to do so. Although they put their heads together, they could not produce even one line like the ones he recited.

Facing immediate and severe opposition, he confronted his opponents with a smile and remained undeterred by their criticism and coercion. When the people realized that their threats did not frighten this noble man and that the severest tribulations directed toward him and his followers had no effect, they played another trick—but that too was destined to fail.

A deputation of the leading members of the Quraysh (his tribe) offered him a bribe to abandon his mission: If you want wealth, we will amass for you as much as you wish; if you aspire honor and power, we are prepared to swear allegiance to you as our overlord and king; if you have a fancy for beauty, you shall have the hand of the most beautiful maiden of your choice.

The terms were extremely tempting for any ordinary person, but they had no significance in the Prophet's eyes. His reply fell like a bomb upon the deputation, who thought they had played their trump card: 

I want neither wealth nor power. God has commissioned me to warn humanity. I deliver His message to you. If you accept it, you shall have felicity and joy in this life and eternal bliss in the life hereafter. If you reject it, God will decide between you and me.

On another occasion he said to his uncle, who was being pressured by the tribal leaders to persuade him to abandon his mission: 

O uncle! Should they place the sun in my right hand and the moon in my left so as to make me renounce this mission, I shall not do so. I will never give it up. Either it will please God to make it triumph or I shall perish in the attempt.

The faith, perseverance, and resolution with which he conducted his mission to ultimate success is an eloquent proof of the supreme truth of his cause. Had there been the slightest doubt or uncertainty in his heart, he would never have been able to brave the storm that continued in all its fury for 23 long years. 

The unlettered Prophet spoke with a learning and wisdom that no one had displayed before and none could show after him. He expounded the intricate problems of metaphysics and theology; delivered speeches on why nations and empires rise and fall and supported his thesis with historical examples; taught ethical canons and principles of culture; and formulated such laws of social culture, economic organization, group conduct, and international relations that even eminent thinkers and scholars could grasp their true wisdom only after life-long research and vast experience. Their beauties, indeed, unfold themselves progressively as humanity advances in theoretical knowledge and practical experience.

This silent and peace-loving trader who had never handled a sword, who had no military training, and who had participated in only one battle (as a spectator!), suddenly turned into such a brave soldier that he never retreated in the fiercest battles, and became such a great general that he conquered Arabia in 9 years at a time of primitive weaponry and very poor means of communication. His military acumen and efficiency developed the military spirit to such a high pitch that he infused a motley crowd of Arabs with the training and discipline necessary to overthrow the two superpowers of his day: Sassanid Persia and the Eastern Roman Empire. These Arabs became the masters of the greater part of the then-known world within a few decades.

This reserved and quiet man who, for 40 years, had given no indication of political interest or activity, suddenly appeared on the world stage as such a great statesman that, without the aid of modern media or telecommunications, he united the scattered inhabitants of a 1.2 million square mile desert—a people who were warlike, ignorant, unruly, uncultured, and plunged in internecine tribal warfare—under one banner, law, religion, culture, civilization, and form of government. Sir William Muir, no friend of Islam, admits:

The first peculiarity, then, which attracts our attention is the subdivision of the Arabs into innumerable bodies... each independent of the others: restless and often at war amongst themselves; and even when united by blood or by interest, ever ready on some significant cause to separate and give way to an implacable hostility. Thus at the era of Islam the retrospect of Arabian history exhibits, as in the kaleidoscope, an ever-varying state of combination and repulsion, such as had hitherto rendered abortive any attempt at a general union... The problem had yet to be solved, by what force these tribes could be subdued or drawn to one common center; and it was solved by Muhammad. ² 

He changed people's modes of thought, habits, and morals. He turned the uncouth into the cultured, the barbarous into the civilized, the evildoers and bad characters into pious, God-conscious, and righteous persons. Their unruly and stiff-necked natures were transformed into models of obedience and submission to law and order. A nation that had produced no great figure worth the name for centuries gave birth, under his influence and guidance, to thousands of noble souls who went to far-off lands to preach and teach the principles of religion, morals, and civilization.

In the cavalcade of world history, this sublime figure towers high above all the great people and heroes of all nations. None of them possessed the degree of genius that would allow them to make a deep impression on more than one or two aspects of human life. Some are exponents of theories and ideas but deficient in practical action, people of action who suffered from paucity of knowledge, or renowned only as statesmen; others were masters of strategy and maneuvering, totally focused on one aspect of social life so that others were overlooked, devoted their energies to ethical and spiritual verities but ignored economics and politics, or took to economics and politics but neglected morals and spirituality. 

In short, one comes across heroes who are adepts and experts in one walk of life only. Prophet Muhammad is the only person in which all excellences are blended into one personality. He is a man of wisdom, a seer, and a living embodiment of his own teachings; a great statesman as well as a military genius; a legislator and a teacher of morals; and a spiritual luminary as well as a religious guide.

His vision penetrates every aspect of life, and he adorns whatever he touches. His orders and commandments cover a vast field, from regulating international relations to such daily habits as eating, drinking, and cleanliness. On the foundations of his teaching, he established a civilization and a culture and produced such a fine equilibrium among life's conflicting aspects that no flaw, deficiency, or incompleteness can be found therein. Can anyone point to another example of such a perfect personality?

He ruled his country, but was so selfless and modest that he remained very simple and sparing in his habits. He continued to live poorly in his humble thatch-and-mud cottage, sleeping on a mattress, wearing coarse clothes, eating the simplest food of the poor, and sometimes experiencing the pangs of hunger. He spent whole nights standing in prayer before his Lord, helped the destitute and penniless, and worked like a laborer when necessary, never considering it beneath his dignity.

Even when he lay dying, he showed not the slightest taint of royal pomp or hauteur so enjoyed by the rich. Like an ordinary man, he sat and walked with people and shared their joys and sorrows. He mixed and mingled with crowds so easily and naturally that a stranger or an outsider found it hard to recognize him as his nation's leader and ruler. Once a Bedouin came and asked for Muhammad while he was serving his Companions. His answer enshrines an eternal principle: "The master of the nation is the one who serves it."

This is the tribute of Lamartine, the French historian to the person of the Holy Prophet of Islam: 

Never a man set himself, voluntarily or involuntarily, a more sublime aim, since this aim was superhuman: to subvert superstitions which had been interposed between man and his Creator, to render God unto man and man unto God; to restore the rational and sacred idea of divinity amidst the chaos of the material and disfigured gods of idolatry then existing. Never has a man undertaken a work so far beyond human power with so feeble means, for he had in the conception as well as in the execution of such a great design no other instrument than himself, and no other aid, except a handful of men living in a corner of desert. Finally, never has a man accomplished such a huge and lasting revolution in the world, because in less than two centuries after its appearance, Islam, in faith and arms, reigned over the whole of Arabia, and conquered in God's name Persia, Khorasan, Western India, Syria, Abyssinia, all the known continent of Northern Africa, numerous islands of the Mediterranean, Spain, and a part of Gaul.

If greatness of purpose, smallness of means, and astounding results are the three criteria of human genius, who could dare to compare any great men to Muhammad? The most famous men created arms, laws, and empires only. They founded, if anything at all, no more than material powers which often crumbled away before their eyes. This man moved not only armies, legislation, empires, peoples, and dynasties, but millions of men [and women] in one-third of the then inhabited world; and more than that, he moved the altars, the gods, the religions, the ideas, the beliefs and the souls. On the basis of a Book, every letter of which has become law, he created a spiritual nationality which has blended together peoples of every tongue and of every race. He has left to us as the indelible characteristic of this Muslim nationality, the hatred of false gods and the passion for the One and immaterial God. This avenging patriotism against the profanation of Heaven formed the virtue of the followers of Muhammad: the conquest of one-third of the earth to his creed was his miracle. The idea of the unity of God proclaimed amidst the exhaustion of fabulous theogenies, was in itself such a miracle that upon its utterance from his lips it destroyed all the ancient temples of idols and set on fire one-third of the world. His life, his meditations, his heroic revilings against the superstitions of his country, and his boldness in defying the furies of idolatry; his firmness in enduring them for thirteen years at Mecca, his acceptance of the role of public scorn and almost of being a victim of his fellow-countrymen: all these and, finally his incessant preaching, his wars against odds, his faith in his success and his superhuman security in misfortune, his forbearance in victory, his ambition which was entirely devoted to one idea and in no manner striving for an empire; his endless prayer, his mystic conversations with God, his death and his triumph after death; all these attest not to an imposture but to a firm conviction. It was his conviction which gave him the power to restore a creed. This creed was two-fold, the unity of God and the immateriality of God; the former telling what God is; the latter telling what God is not. Philosopher, orator, apostle, legislator, warrior, conqueror of ideas, restorer of rational dogmas, of a cult without images; the founder of twenty terrestrial states and of one spiritual state, that is Muhammad. As regards all standards by which human greatness may be measured, we may well ask: Is there any man greater than he?³