Alfred von Kremer (1828 – 1889) was born in Vienna and was an Austrian Orientalist and politician. The major emphasis of Kremer’s work was the history of Islam.
According to Kremer, in order to be able to judge about modern Islam, it is necessary to take the cultural history of Arabs into consideration. Western Orientalists have devoted a special place to Kremer’s work. According to Goldziher, a new era began in the treatment of Islam with works of Kremer.
Kremer writes about impact of Prophet Muhammad on Arabs:
“Even before his death almost all Arabia had submitted to him; Arabia that had never before obeyed one prince, suddenly exhibits a political unity and swears allegiance to the will of an absolute ruler.
Out of the numerous tribes, big and small, of a hundred different kinds that were incessantly at feud with one another, Muhammad’s word created a nation.
The idea of a common religion under one common head bound the different tribes together into one political organism which developed its peculiar characteristics with surprising rapidity”.
Alfred von Kremer further says:
“The clan-system was thus for the first time, if not entirely crushed yet made subordinate to the feeling of religious unity.
The great work succeeded, and when Muhammad died there prevailed over by far the greater part of Arabia a peace of God such as the Arab tribes, with their love of plunder and revenge, had never known; it was the religion of Islam that had brought about this reconciliation.”1
1 Alfred von Kremer (3), pp. 309, 310.