this only happened when they were forced to pick their arms to defend themselves. this may be potrayed differently in the western history ( which part of the western propagation ).
the moslim conquered large area's in europe in a short period the people became Muslim not by force of the sword but by the appeal of the new religion. i wonder if you can say the same about the Crusaders that killed millions of muslims and jews, or the russia's that killed thousands of mulims while the world watched and still turned a blind eye to it.

one thing that most people don't know is that moslims were known for their scientific research and they established relation with other western scientist to slove problems that faced them at that time.

examples:

Western Europeans learned their algebra from the works of the Arab mathematician Muhammed ibn Musa al-Khowarizmi. The word, algebra, is a corruption of al-jabr which is
part of the title of his treatise, Hisab al-jabr w'al muqabalah which means something like, "the science of reunion and reduction".without this fital information the world would have been not as we know it


The Abbasids, who succeeded the Umayyads, shifted the capital to Baghdad which soon developed into an incomparable center of learning and culture as well as the administrative and political heart of a vast world.


there is too much to say, this is just a brief summary. for more information visit http://www.barkati.net/english/#09 .


i wonder what is meant by DARK AGES ?