Who was the most influential person in the whole human history?

[Fdsa]

Muhammad SAW all the way, he is what every leader should be, he was a politician, a military commander and tactician, religious preacher, humanitarian, philanthropist, a businessman, an orator and much more.....
In short he was the most complete leader of all times.....

never heard about him

 

[Vinod2070]

Gautam Buddha all the way...

His impact on the world and humanity was unprecedented and tremendous.

And the great thing about him was that he never claimed anything for himself.

He asked his followers to test the claims for themselves, never claimed himself to be the "best of creation" or things like that...

 

[A.P. Richelieu]

Moses was a religious and secular leader, that brought forth the first set of laws from God.
This includes the ONE GOD concept which is the basis of Judaism, Christendom and finally Islam.

If you believe in the existance of Adam and Eve, then Eve must have had the most influence.

If you argue that Muhammed has the most influence, consider what would have happened
if Muhammeds father would have decided to marry someone else. That is quite an influence,
although not so obvious.

Most people know by heart that the most influential person in history is "Your Wife".

 

[Khan_patriot]

never heard about him

here you go mate....
Muhammad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Dem!god]

most influential person is yet to leave his influence on the mankind......
and that person will be me......
believe it.......

 

[IamBengali]

Prophet Muhammad..by creating the religion of Islam, he created a new schism of conflict between religions. Currently, Islam is a religion which is moulding the world

Prophet Muhammad was not founder of Islam. He is restorer of Islam. Islam was created by God himself. I know non-Muslims consider him founder of Islam but for Muslims he is the restorer of Islam.

Islam (s-l-m) means 'Complete submission to one God'. Muslim (s-l-m) means 'Those who surrender to one God'. Allah is not a specific God for Muslims. Allah (Al-Illah) is the Arabic word for 'The God'. If you are believer of one God and associate no deity or human being with him then you are Muslim. If someone even associates Muhammad (pbuh) with Allah in worship or in equal praise he commits grave sin which can only be pardoned by seeking forgiveness (Tauba). For example, Jews are ethnic group like Tamilians, Bengalis, Punjabis etc. A Jew can also be called Muslim if he is strict monotheist and commit no shirk (associating partner with one God in worship).

 

[Vinod2070]

A Jew can also be called Muslim if he is strict monotheist and commit no shirk (associating partner with one God in worship).

Isn't considering Mohammed the final prophet of God a basic requirement?

 

[PlanetWarrior]

Prophet Muhammad was not founder of Islam. He is restorer of Islam. Islam was created by God himself. I know non-Muslims consider him founder of Islam but for Muslims he is the restorer of Islam.

Islam (s-l-m) means 'Complete submission to one God'. Muslim (s-l-m) means 'Those who surrender to one God'. Allah is not a specific God for Muslims. Allah (Al-Illah) is the Arabic word for 'The God'. If you are believer of one God and associate no deity or human being with him then you are Muslim. If someone even associates Muhammad (pbuh) with Allah in worship or in equal praise he commits grave sin which can only be pardoned by seeking forgiveness (Tauba). For example, Jews are ethnic group like Tamilians, Bengalis, Punjabis etc. A Jew can also be called Muslim if he is strict monotheist and commit no shirk (associating partner with one God in worship).

My apologies. I meant as the messenger and not founder of Islam. No offense meant

 

[Al Bhatti]

Prophet Muhammad PBUH The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I read this book in 1992 or 1993 not exactly sure.


“My choice of Muhammad to lead the list of the world's most influential persons may surprise some readers and may be questioned by others, but he was the only man in history who was supremely successful on both the religious and secular level.”

― Michael H. Hart, The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History

 

[dray]

The man who first created fire was the most influential person in the whole human history.

In short, it is a stupid thread, we barely know 2000-3000 years of recorded history, what was beyond that? There were many influential person in their times and in their places who influenced the course of history, there is no single greatest person. Who can guarantee that all these religions won't vanish from the face of the earth in another 500 or 1000 years and their founders' names won't become irrelevant, and replaced by some new names, just like we forgot about people beyond a certain time period?

 

[surya kiran]

The man who first created fire was the most influential person in the whole human history.

In short, it is a stupid thread, we barely know 2000-3000 years of recorded history, what was beyond that? There were many influential person in their times and in their places who influenced the course of history, there is no single greatest person. Who can guarantee that all these religions won't vanish from the face of the earth in another 500 or 1000 years and their founders' names won't become irrelevant, and replaced by some new names, just like we forgot about people beyond a certain time period?

Exactly, my reason for not naming any religious person. I would rank the 4 people as person who invented the matchstick - freed up the night. Person who linked magnetism and astronomy - freed up travel. Person who contributed electricity - enabled more progress in 100 years than in the past 10,000. Person who laid foundations of the true zero - laid foundation of what we know today.

 

[takeiteasy]

Genghiz khan?
1 in 200 men direct descendants of Genghis Khan - Gene Expression | DiscoverMagazine.com

 

[TeesraIndiotHunter]

Mohammad or Newton certainly.Muhammad one must acknowledge was more influential than christ.Christianity's success came after his death and owed much to his disciples and constantine adopting it.Muhammad laid down the foundations of his success himself,so i agree.I'm not saying greatest,smartest,most powerful but on influential i agree.

The only real competitors except christ are 2 others - First isaac newton.This man changed science inside out.His inventions on every single field are just groundbeaking.Physics was newton,far more influential than einstein.There's a reason Pope wrote in his epitaph -
''Nature and nature's laws hid in night;
God said let newton be,and all was light.''

Another serious competitor and i mean probably even more than newton would be karl marx.This guy is highly controversial and the communist experiment didn't exactly work out.However his observations of capitalist industrialism,the trends of human economic development and mode of production in pastoral,feudal and industrialized societies plus the causes of social inequality are proving more right every day,he also was one of the founders of modern social science,minimum wages etc.As science advances rapidly and religion's future is increasingly uncertain with atheism and materialism expanding in a 100-200 yrs one may have to say he is the one.His writings are very relevant today and is likely to remain so for a long time to come as globalized corporations now control the world economy.Like him,hate him u have to acknowledge him.
BBC News | World | Marx the millennium's 'greatest thinker'
Won a vote in britain of all places,not a place that likes communism.

The final candidate i can think of is darwin.His theory of evolution simply turned the world upside down and gave science its answer versus creationism theory.Completely changed human history evaluation and how man looked at the past.On the negative side his motto 'survival of the fittest' was misused by many dictators/imperialists in the defence of colonialism/racism/lebensraum in the east etc that led to massive numbers of human deaths and suffering.So influence was both positive and negative,but influence nonetheless.He too is thus very influential in the larger scheme of things.

On fire i agree,but i don't think it was one person as such.I think many of the ape-men discovered it seperately in different places -perhaps seperated by years but eventually.

Thanks for the response.

Michael Hart puts Newton above Jesus too.

This is Hart's ranking

1- Muhammad
2- Newton
3- Jesus.

At first, I felt kinda weird that he'd put Jesus below Newton..but then I got to know more about "Principia Mathematica"

Marx is an interesting character too but communism failed. If Soviet Union had won the cold war, Karl Marx would have easily become the strongest contender to Muhammad. Still pretty influential though..

I don't find Darwin to be influential however. Ideas about some-sort of "evolution" of living things from lower-life forms were already there. Darwin's work weren't even revolutionary of that sort. Evolution really got steamed by people like Richard Dawkins and his work on genetic mutation and other scientists.

There are three scholarly works/books that I have seen discussing this topic of most influential man of history.

Two books put Muhammad as number 1

The third book however is not written by historians but rather computer scientists..and they traced "wikipedia" searches and book mentions etc. of people and calculated the influence. The only problem there is that bunch of stupid *** teenage girls will "search" for Justin Beiber much more than they will search on Newton, or the inventor of printing press etc.

So that book gives us gems such as;

Shakespeare ranked higher/more influential than Newton, Alexander, Hitler, Ceasar, Constantine, and pretty much every one else.

Moreover, "George W. Bush of 2003--Iraq war fame" is ranked "more influential" than Changez Khan.

*Facepalm*

After that, I stopped reading the "computer science work" to judge historical influence..

 

[IamBengali]

I always highly respect our Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) but he did a big mistake by treating Banu Quraiza Jews harshly in his lifetime. I don't get why he was so against the Jews. Other than that I feel a person who has atleast 1.5 billion followers in the world must be a man who can only be a true messenger of God. Jesus (pbuh) and Muhammad (pbuh) both are more or less in same status as the most influential persons but if I had to pick one I would always pick Muhammad (pbuh).

 

[TeesraIndiotHunter]

Among Bengalis most influential was Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (Bangladesh founder) according to BBC. Followed by Rabindranath Tagore.

That is sad if he is your most influential historical character.

Anyways,

@TeesraIndiotHunter @al-Hasani @IamBengali


While Muhammad was the most Influential person of his Age without any shred of doubt, in my opinion you people are making a logical error by proclaiming him as most influential person in history of world.

I believe many of you must have heard of butterfly effect. The most popular derivation of this effect is that even small perturbations add up overtime to cause statistically significant effects but one of another derivation of the theory is that; as you go back into history, even small events tend to gain importance by virtue of them being having the ability to influence events that came after them.

It is absurd to Answer the question of "Who is most influential person".

If thought of logically, the most influential person in Human History would be that person who discovered fire which allowed primitive Brains of proto homo-sapiens to develop as cooked meat is more digestible than raw meat.

@AUSTERLITZ

Well the problem here is that we are talking about "single" most influential person of history.

Things like "Fire, seed, invention of agriculture" etc can not be attributed to "one, known man" ...but rather early homo sapiens stumbled upon them. So 'one-man' from early homo sapiens can't be regarded as influential..U see what I'm saying?

Moreover, influence is something that has to be intentional...Newton some-what "intentionally" created his science to discover the secrets of universe...Muhammad intentionally did what he did to achieve certain goals/objectives in particular pivot in history...

Early homo-sapiens didn't intentionally influence anything--including their stumbling upon fire or agriculture. And again, it goes back to the point that it wasn't one-man who invented agriculture or discovered fire from his/her efforts.

In other words, An A priori is always more important than an A prosteriori . Had there been no Moses, there would have been no Muhammad or Christ which would make Moses more influential than Muhammad when compared within Abrahamic Religion.

Not really.

Each human individual is influenced by alot of things. But we have to judge him by the influence he had/has on humanity.

For example, it is quite possible that Bill Gates was influenced by his high school Math teacher..and this led Bill Gates to the path of computer science where he changed the world.

Now, we can't say "Math teacher of Bill Gates was more influential because if he wasn't there, we couldn't have a Bill gates interested in Computer Science" ...You see my point?

It doesn't matter if Moses came first or not---only thing that matters is the influence Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Newton, and others had on the humanity.

And this is where Muhammad easily cruise on the top of the list as I explained in this post