Thread by @Aabhas24

SR Goel also said:

"The Arya Samaj was the first Hindu movement to take up a bold stand in this context. Maharshi Dayanand himself had showed up Muhammad for the sort of man he was."

in his book, "Freedom of expression: Secular theocracy versus liberal democracy."

SR Goel writes, "He (Dayanand) made a positive contribution when he pointed out that India had inherited a spirituality and a culture which were not only indigenous but also intrinsically superior to the imported creeds and cultures...

...He encouraged and enabled his people to reawaken to their own inner sources of strength, and hold their heads high in the face of foreign invaders. He was the first to use the terms Swadeshi and Swarajya.

...At the same time, the Maharshi restored the Veda to its rightful place as the permanent and profound centre of Indian spirituality, culture and social philosophy.

His people had lost consciousness of this centre when they had started drawing a sharp line between nishreyasa (highest good) and abhyudaya (worldly welfare), between here and hereafter, between spirituality and science.

They had become dwarfed in mind and emaciated in body because, to start with, they had separated these two from their unity in the Spirit.
He did something more.

He raised an accusing finger against the heavy weight of empty rituals and outmoded social traditions which were smothering India’s indigenous society. ...

The Maharshi appealed to his people to throw away all this dead wood, and start breathing again in the unpolluted air of that spirituality and science for which India had been famous in ages past."

Quoted from book "Muslim Separatism - Causes and Consequences" by SR Goel

Sr Goel showers praises for Dayanand in his book, "How I became Hindu" and says as below:

"It was years later when I read Sri Aurobindo's Bankim, Tilak, Dayananda that I bowed, in repentance and renewed reverence, before that fearless lion of a man who tried his best to ...

...rescue and revive the Vedic vision among the Hindus. A true understanding and appreciation of the crucial cultural role which the Arya Samaj played at a critical juncture in our national life dawned on me simultaneously."

I have seen this trend to quote Sita Ram Goel ji.

But people miss that his words can bring disappointment to even those who have begun to see him as Traditionalist as they are.

Point is that I personally have very strong idagreemnets with many Arya Samajis, when it comes to they declaring Vedas as non-Historical Document, Puranas as complete "Pakhand" and etc etc.

But It will be naive of me to declare Arya Samaj directly non-Hindu.