William Montgomery Watt (1909 – 2006) was a Scottish historian, Orientalist, Anglican priest, and academic. He was Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Montgomery Watt was one of the foremost non-Muslim interpreters of Islam in the west.
He has written numerous books on Islam including ‘Islam and the Integration of Society‘, ‘What is Islam!‘, ‘The Formative Period of Islamic Thought‘, etc.
Professor Watt is considered to be a leading authority in the English speaking world on the life of the holy prophet of Islam and the early history of Islamic Theology.
However, we must mention that most of the works by Prof. Watt on Islam and the life of the Prophet of Islam prove him to be not sympathetic to Islam and in some places he has made very adverse remarks about Islam. These problems can be seen in his famous book, ‘Muhammad at Medina‘.
His book ‘Islam and Christianity Today‘ is an exception in this matter and Prof. Montgomery Watt says:
“I am not a Muslim in the usual sense, though I hope I am a Muslim as one surrendered to God,
but I believe that embedded in the Quran and other expressions of the Islamic vision are vast stores of divine truth from which I and other occidentals have still much to learn,
and Islam is certainly a strong contender for the supplying of the basic framework of the one religion of the future.”1
1. Montgomery Watt, Islam and Christianity Today, London, 1983, page 9