Churchill did write disparagingly about Islam and Muslims. However …
… he did not use those exact words. Churchill compared fanaticism in Islam to rabies in a dog. Churchill wrote, "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy."
A viral quote about Muslims has frequently been attributed to Winston Churchill, Britain's prime minister during World War II. According to many posts, Churchill once compared Islam to rabies.
The posts claimed Churchill said, "Islam is as dangerous in a man as rabies in a dog."
(X user @benonwine)
However, Churchill did not use those exact words. He did, however, compare fanaticism — which he considered a part of Islam — to rabies in a dog. He wrote in his 1899 book, "The River War": "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia [rabies] in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy." As such, we rate the above claim as a mixture of truth and falsehood.
Churchill also was referring to the Mahdists of Sudan when writing the book. He wrote "The River War" after fighting in a war in Sudan. He also wrote admiringly of some Muslims, but disparaged the community at large (emphasis ours):
How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property — either as a child, a wife, or a concubine — must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the Queen: all know how to die: but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science—the science against which it had vainly struggled—the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome.
"Hydrophobia," per Merriam-Webster, also means rabies.
As we have written before on Snopes, the above-quoted passage appeared in "The River War" when it was first published as a two-volume set in 1899. The book was condensed and republished in 1902 and the section was removed. We previously reported, while the one-volume abridged edition of "The River War" was readily available, the original two-volume 1899 version was harder to find, which may have led to confusion about the origins of the quote in question.
The Churchill Project at Hillsdale College confirmed these words were written by Winston Churchill.
John Charmley, author of "Churchill: The End of Glory" told the BBC that Churchill believed in racial hierarchies and eugenics: "That was probably the most common view shared by British people of Churchill's era and I've no doubt that he believed exactly that."
Some historians have said Churchill's views on Islam were more complex than what his early writings indicated. Warren Dockter, author of "Winston Churchill and the Islamic World" told the BBC that Churchill frequently vacationed in Istanbul and played polo with Muslims in India. Per Dockter, Churchill was so fascinated by Islam that some of his family worried he would convert.
Dockter also claimed to have discovered a 1907 letter to Churchill from his sister, which said, "Please don't become converted to Islam; I have noticed in your disposition a tendency to orientalise [fascination with the Orient and Islam], Pasha-like tendencies, I really have." However, The Churchill Project noted that the same letter was published by Martin Gilbert in 1969, in the second companion volume of Churchill's official biography. Their analysis of her letter and Churchill's subsequent writings also suggested that his sister was writing this with lighthearted intentions and Churchill had no serious desire to convert to Islam.
The Churchill Project wrote of the statesman:
We cannot judge him simply by his criticisms, or his Victorian imperialism. It is inappropriate to quote him out of context. He was, remember, confronting Muslim warriors at the reaches of the British Empire over a century ago. And there was more to their culture than Islam: tribalism, for example, played an important role. His broad reflections are nevertheless worth considering, as a commentary on the nature of man, which never changes.