idolatry and of Ishmaelite superstition, setting from every quarter with an unbroken and
unebbing surge towards the Ka’ba, gave ample evidence that the faith and worship of Mak-
kah held the Arab mind in a thralldom, rigorous and undisputed."
R. Bosworth Smith is another European biographer of the Prophet (r) who has also
reached the same conclusion.
"One of the most philosophical of historians has remarked that of all the revolutions
which have had a permanent influence upon the civil history of mankind, none could so
little be anticipated by human prudence as that effected by the religion of Arabia. And
at first sight it must be confessed that the science of History, if indeed there be such a
science, is at a loss to find the sequence of cause and effect which it is the object and the
test of all history, which is worthy of the name, to trace it."