“The character attributed to Muhammad in the biography of Ibn Ishaq is exceedingly unfavorable. In order to gain his ends Muhammad recoils from no expedient, and he approves of similar unscrupulousness on the part of his adherents, when exercised in his interest.

He organizes assassinations and wholesale massacres. His career as the tyrant of Medina is that of a robber chief whose political economy consists of securing and dividing plunder.

He is himself an unbridled libertine and encourages the same passion in his followers. For whatever he does he is prepared to plead the express authorization of his deity.

It is, however, impossible to find any Islamic religious doctrine which he is not prepared to abandon in order to secure a political end. At different points in his career he abandons the unity of God and his claim to the title of Prophet.

This is a disagreeable picture for the founder of a religion, and it cannot be pleaded that it is a picture drawn by an enemy.”