Note 39 — Front matter

I mean "goodness and greatness" as a human being, for Muhammad never said or did anything to show that he was not a human being. The Qur'an commanded him, "Say I am a man like yourself." قل انا بشر مثلكم He therefore insisted that men should attach greater importance to the nature of the message than to the character of the messenger himself. "I am," said he "no more than a man: when I order you anything with respect to religion, receive it, and when I order you about the affairs of the world then I am nothing more than a man."