What do Muslims believe about the spread of Islam during the life of the prophet Mohammed, and time period after his death?

Does Islam teach that Christians, Jews, and Pagans were converted by force or by peaceful means?

I've read the article concerning Islamic History on LI http://www.load-islam.com/artical_de...amic%20history. This article contains a lot of good information about some misconceptions regarding Islam. But I have more questions regarding the actual spread of Islam and the decline of other religions.

LAA IQRA HAFFIDEEN!

Islam teaches that there is no compultion in religion and of course if its written in the quran every muslim during the time of rasullulah saws abided by this. Therefore the message was spread and those who liked it, accepted it, those who disliked it, rejected it. There was peace and unity all over. Jews/christians and muslims could co-exist wivout conflict. They followed there ways and we followed ours.

There was conquest but this was just the spead of the islamic empire the people who were conqured were never forced to embrace islam they were treated as equals in the state.

I'm researching this topic now and interested in how you derived this information. Do Islamic articles support this theory? Where can I find it? Thanks

I think any open minded person would come to the conclusion that is a mixture of things.

Surly not all forced, surly all not of free will (Without pressure).

There would be people that cared little about religion and would do what was easiest.
There would also be those that would die before changing.

And as always, there are discrepancies between what Islam says and what some Muslims do.

The article you cited is a totally bias rebuttal of a totally bias book.
I try to get my information from sources whose prime objective is to present historically accurate facts.

Thanks Wilberhum. I'm finding few sources which are unbiased. Logic tells me to examine both sides of the biased information I find, and give each equal worth.

The article is true about the Totally Biased Book though

Which means businesss is poor because people operate by different rules.

Well I guess seeing half of the bias is a start.

Yes islam supports this, the people who retained their faith just pain a tax which was called the "Jizya" which in turn brought them rights such as protection ect.

Did you arrive at this belief from material within the Koran, opinions of other people, or another form information?

It is from the Quran sis

salaam alaikum!

islam is a peacefull religion.... there is no force... so all we can do is try to talk as much about islam... as we can and explain that its religion of peace and show them that! .... it also say so in quran... that we must not force ourselves on anyone ... but try and talk , talk, talk, and explain

One of the commonly misquoted verses of the Qur'an. Please see:
Commonly Misquoted Verses and Narrations - verse 9:29

Muslims should always do proper research rather than cutting and pasting verses from the Qur'an and interpreting them according to their whims.

Astagfirullah... brother i only used that to show that jizya is an order from the quran, not that its an order to attack the people of the book