One simplified way of classifying their critique is to divide it into three slightly overlapping stages:
- The Polemic Era: Writers in this group seem to have been motivated by religious prejudices. Their approach did not reflect and honest spirit of enquiry, perhaps because their writings were intended, at least partially, to arouse the feeling of hatred and fury against Muslims. This feeling succeeded in generating a poisonous atmosphere which was exploited to satisfy the needs and aspiration of the secular and/or religious establishments. The crusades against Muslims were perhaps one implication of this attitude. With these mudslinging tendencies, there was hardly any indecent character that was not attributed to Islam and the Prophet of Islam. With feverish and fanatical hatred, no room was left for fact-finding, open-mindedness, or even logic. As such, the ends justified the means; distortions, misrepresentations, half-truths, and at times sheer fabrications were freely used[1].
- Disguised Polemic: As the polemic era lost its momentum, a more careful and disguised Polemic was introduced. Writers in this group criticized their predecessors as extremists, refrained from indecent and open attacks on Islam and Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Yet, their motives were not significantly different from their predecessors'. Most of them apparently realized that due to the forces of history, the masses became more educated, at least to the extent of ruling out sheer fabrications as effective offensive weapons against Islam. Their approach, however, still reflected an earnest endeavor to develop more effective weapons to destroy Islam or at least to belittle it. It is not a coincidence that such motives were often connected with the writers' colonial and/or missionary affiliation and orientation.
- The Inevitable Inconsistency: A more tolerant yet perplexing attitude then came into being. Some writers began even to give credit to Islam as a powerful and viable ideology and to Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) as a man with positive and moral qualities. His sincerity, sacrifices, and the instrumental role he played in bringing about spiritual, moral, and material upliftment to humanity were all admitted. One thing, however, was not admitted as readily: Was Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) a true prophet who received divine revelation from God, and was the Qur'an really a divine book or was it of Muhammad's own making?
No matter how courteous mild or apparently objective these writers may seem to be, a serious question of consistency would inevitably arise here: How consistent is it to admit the sincerity and high moral character of Muhammad (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him), while implying that he was not truthful when he claimed to be a prophet of God, or when he claimed that the Qur'an was not of his own making, or when he claimed that he did not derive his teachings from any human source? It is this latter question that will be explored in some detail in this paper. To do this exploration, however, it would be helpful to clarify the methodology that will be followed.
[1]For some examples of this type of plemic, see Ahmad, Khurshid, Islam and the West, Islamic Publications Ltd., Lahore, Pakistan, 2nd ed., 1967.
