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Originally Posted by Rehmat  The western non-Muslim – both historians and intellectuals are at loss to prove that Islam was spread - not by PEACEFUL MEANS but by SWORD.
Allow me to expose this Jewish Myth in detail: |
A Jewish myth? Technically it is a Protestant myth, but no matter. Why do you think it is a Jewish myth?
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Each and every human being in this world is not in favour of maintaining peace and harmony. There are many, who would disrupt it for their own vested interests. Sometimes force has to be used to maintain peace. It is precisely for this reason that we have the police who use force against criminals and anti-social elements to maintain peace in the country. Islam promotes peace. At the same time, Islam exhorts it followers to fight where there is oppression. The fight against oppression may, at times, require the use of force. In Islam force can only be used to promote peace and justice.
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So may I ask how you define "peace" and "justice"? Would it be fair to say that I would have a different view of what "peace" and "justice" are than you would? That you, essentially, are only interested in "Islamic peace" and "Islamic justice"?
So force has to be used sometimes. To fight oppression. What does that oppression consist of? Would it consist of, perhaps, polytheism? Is that a form of oppression? Would it consist of, say, refusing to let Muslims preach in non-Muslim countries? Who defines this oppression? Can you think of a single case in the entire history of the Muslim world where Muslims fought non-Muslims, and won, but where Islamic scholars condemned the Muslims for starting a war unjustly where there was no oppression etc?
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The best reply to the misconception that Islam was spread by the sword is given by the noted historian De Lacy O’Leary in the book "Islam at the cross road" -: "History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myth that historians have ever repeated."
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Well it is not entirely fantastically absurd, but can we agree you have blurred the line between his claim - that Muslims forced Islam on conquered people - with the less extreme claim - that Islam relied on the use of force to spread? If Muslims had not conquered, say, Egypt and imposed a jizyah and a kharaj, do you think it would be reasonable to say that Egypt would still be a mainly Christian country? After all Egyptians did not start to convert in large numbers until their last major rebellion failed in the mid-9th century. Would you agree that the main cause of that conversion was, as it happens, the Muslim conquest?
Maududi is clear on this: as he points out, when Muhammed was in Mecca and only preached he coverted very few people. Once he moved to Medina and picked up the sword, he converted thousands. Do you agree that the use of force in Medina was vital to the growth of Islam?
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Muslims ruled Spain for about 800 years. The Muslims in Spain never used the sword to force the Christian and Jew SERFS (Slaves) to convert. Later the Christian Crusaders came to Spain and wiped out over five million Muslims and Jews. There was not a single Muslim in Spain who could openly give the Adhan.
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No serfs in Spain I expect. Can we agree that while the Muslims did not use the sword to force Christians and Jews (in any large numbers) to convert, in fact the conversion of any number of Spanish people was determined by the Muslim conquest? No conquest, no converts?
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Muslims were the lords of Arabia for a long time. For a few century the British and the French ruled. Overall, the Muslims ruled Arabia for 1400 years. Yet today, there are 20 million Arabs who are Coptic Christians. If the Muslims had used the sword there would not have been a single Arab who would have remained a Christian.
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This is a problem with cut-and-pasting. Bad mistakes get passed around. By Arabia whoever wrote this clearly means the Arab world as whole because those Copts live in Egypt. And this claim is wrong. If the Muslims had used the sword for force every single Copt to convert, there would be no Copts left in Egypt. But if they had not used to sword to conquer Egypt and reduce the Copts to second-class citizens, there would be no Arabs and no Muslims in Egypt today. Does anyone disagree with that?
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Indonesia is a country that has the maximum number of Muslims in the world. The majority of people in Malaysia are Muslims. May one ask, "Which Muslim army went to Indonesia and Malaysia?"
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By all means. The Muslims converted a few local leaders and then they forced, by means of war, Islam on the rest of the Malay world. Europeans actually turneed up in time to see the last of the Buddhist Javanese states destroyed and just in time to save Bali.
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Today the fastest growing religion in America is Islam. The fastest growing religion in Europe in Islam - Which sword is forcing people in the West to accept Islam in such large numbers?
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That is still not true in either case. Wicca is growing faster. And it is growing because of, in the main part, immigration. There is no sword there yet.
Le coeur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connait pas. - Blaise Pascal