Is it possible to conceive, we may ask, that the man who directed such  great and lasting reforms in his own country by substituting the worship of the  one only true God for the gross and debasing idolatry in which his countrymen  had been plunged for ages; who abolished infanticide, prohibited the use of  spirituos liquors and games of chance (those sources of moral depravity),  who restricted within comparatively narrow limits the unrestrained polygamy  which he found in existence and practice—can we, we repeat, conceive so great  and zealous a reformer to have been a mere impostor, or that his whole career  was one of sheer hypocrisy? Can we imagine that his divine mission was a mere  invention of his own of whose falsehood he was conscious throughout? No, surely,  nothing but a consciousness of really righteous intentions could have carried  Mohammed so steadily and constantly without ever flinching or wavering, without  ever betraying himself to his most intimate connections and companions, from his  first revelation to Khadijah to his last agony in the arms of Ayesha.

Surely a good and sincere man, full of confidence in his Creator, who makes  an immense reform both in faith and practice, is truly a direct instrument in  the hands of God, and may be said to have a commission from Him. Why may  not Mohammed be recognized, no less than other faithful, though imperfect  servants of God, as truly a servant of God, serving him faithfully though  imperfectly? Why may it not be believed that he was, in his own age and country,  a preacher of truth and righteousness sent to teach his own people the unity and  righteousness of God, to give them civil and moral precepts suited to their  condition.

The Muslims, however, believe that the Prophet Muhammad did serve his God  perfectly.  Having said that, any Muslim cannot but help being grateful to  John Davenport for his eloquence in the defense of Islam.

In another place John Davenport beautifully explains that the religion  of Islam is a continuation of the religion of all the previous  prophets:

It has also been objected that Mohammed, while pretending not to deliver any  new religion to the Arabians, but only to revive that old one which God had  revealed to Abraham, and Abraham had delivered to Ishmael, the founder of their  nation, actually did found a new religion, and, consequently, spake that which  was false. But, if that only be a new religion which differs from the former in  the object of its worship, and the moral duties imposed by it, then, certainly  neither that of Moses, nor that of Jesus Christ, nor that of Mohammed, were new  religions. That of Moses was no more than the renewal and enforcement by laws of  that religion which Adam, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Ishmael professed, and  which was to adore the one only God, and Him to love and obey with their whole  soul, and to practise those moral duties which the necessity of human  society as well as the will of God imposed upon mankind. Thus, Jesus Christ  tells us that to love God above all things and our neighbour as ourselves was  the whole law and the prophets, that is, that Moses and the prophets taught  the Israelites a religion which entirely consisted in the love and adoration of  one eternal God, and an extensive love of one another; and hence the doctrine of  Jesus Christ himself was not new, but the same that Moses had taught before,  with this only difference, that our moral duties to one another were  commanded with more force than before, and this admirable and divine  rule set down, by which the meanest and most ignorant of mankind might know with  almost certainty when he offended against these moral duties and when not, as  the precept ’do unto others as you would they should do unto you’ clearly  shows.

At the appearance of Jesus, the Jews inhabiting Judea were extremely  corrupt in their morals, and a criminal self love and egotism having been  long spread among them, both priests and people, there was nothing to  be found but avarice, rapine, injustice and oppression, for, placing their  righteousness in the rigid observance of some ceremonies and formulas of  religion, they had entirely lost its real substance. To restore this seems to  have been the whole aim, drift and design of the mission of Christ,  for to that all his doctrines plainly tend—a consideration sufficient to  show that the Christian religion in its foundation was but the renewing of that  of Moses. The business of Mohammed was not only to enforce moral doctrines, but  also to establish the adoration of one God, for the people among whom  it was his lot to be cast were gone vastly astray in both; it was,  therefore, his intent to revive the religion of Ishmael the founder of his  nation—namely, the worship of one God; and this is enough to prove that Mohammed  did but speak the truth when he told the Arabians that he did not preach to them  a new religion, but only the ancient one which their forefather Ishmael had  proposed many ages before.

Mohammed, then, was doubtless fully convinced of his own mission, as well as  that in the name of God, and in the character of his Apostle he wrought a great,  albeit perhaps an imperfect reform, in his own country. Nor was his belief in  his own mission ill founded. Through mockery and persecution the Prophet kept  unflinchingly his path; no threats, no injuries hinder him from still preaching  to his people the unity and the righteousness of God, and exhorting to a far  better and purer morality than had ever up to his time been set before them. He  claimed no temporal power, no spiritual domination, he asked but for simple  toleration, free permission to win men by persuasion into the way of truth. He  required that men should do justice and love mercy, and walk humbly before their  God, and, as the sanction of all, he taught that there will be a  resurrection of the dead as well of the just and the unjust.

Compare Mohammed with his own degenerate followers, with Timour at Ispahan,  and Nadir Shah at Delhi, with the wretches who, in our times, have desolated  Chios and Cyprus, and Kassandra. The entry of an Eastern victor is ordinarily  the signal for murder and massacre alike of the armed and unarmed, of the  innocent and the guilty. Mohammed had his wrongs to avenge, but they are  satisfied by a handful of exceptions to a general amnesty, and the  majority, even of these, are ultimately forgiven. It is the temple of God  desecrated by idols, which he had come to ransom. With the sublime  words, ‘Truth is come, let falsehood disappear,’ he shivers, in  succession, the 360 abominations which were standing erect, in the holy place,  and his work once accomplished, he did not, like his victorious namesake, in  later times, fix his throne in the city he had won. He reared no palace for his  own honour by the side of the temple which he had recovered to the honour of  God. The city of his fathers, the metropolis of his race, the shrine of his  religion, was again deserted for his humble dwelling among those who had stood  by him in the day of trial.

Prof. Laura Veccia Vaglieri contributed several articles to the Encyclopedia of Islam. She was a pioneer of Arabic and Islamic studies in Italy, Veccia Vaglieri served as professor at the Naples Eastern University and was the author of books on the historical and institutional analysis of the Arab and Muslim world.  She is certainly deserving of joining an august list of Orientalists, who overcame their received biases and presented a positive picture of Islam and its Founder the Holy Prophet Muhammad, may peace be on him!

Laura Veccia Vaglieri (1893 – 1989) was an Italian orientalist.  Her works include

1. A textbook on the grammar of the Arabic language (Grammatica teorico-pratica della lingua araba (Istituto per l’Oriente, Rome, 1937, 2 voll.))
2. Apologia dell’ Islamismo (Rome, A. F. Formiggini, 1925). An Interpretation of Islam. Zurich: Islamic Foundation. Translated from Italian by Dr. Aldo Caselli, Haverford College, Pennsylvania. 1980.
3. A synthesis on the classical Islam (L’Islam da Maometto al secolo XVI, in: Storia Universale (dir. Ernesto Pontieri), Milan, F. Vallardi, 1963))

and a number of articles on the early Islam. She also contributed several articles to the Encyclopaedia of Islam.