Islam and Napoleon

• Religions are all founded on miracles â" on things we cannot understand, such as the Trinity. Jesus calls himself the Son of God, and yet is descended from David. I prefer the religion of Muhammad â" it is less ridiculous than ours.
  • Letter from St. Helena (28 August 1817); as quoted in The St. Helena Journal of General Baron Gourgaud, 1815-1818 : Being a Diary written at St. Helena during a part of Napoleon's Captivity (1932) as translated by Norman Edwards, a translation of Journal de Sainte-Hélène 1815-1818 by General Gaspard Gourgaud, t.2, p.226
  
  
• Muhammad was a great man, fearless soldier; with a handful of men he triumphed at the battle of Badr, great captain, eloquent, a great man of state, it regenerated his homeland, and created in the middle of the deserts of Arabia a new people and a new power.
  • Statement of 1817 quoted in Précis des guerres de César, écrit à Sainte-Hélène sous la dictée de l'empereur (1836) edited by Comte Marchand, p. 237