Christians in the eleventh century were not paranoid fanatics. Muslims really were gunning for them. While Muslims can be peaceful, Islam was born in war and grew the same way. From the time of Mohammed, the means of Muslim expansion was always the sword.

"O King of Abyssinia! We worshipped idols in the past and let our lives be consumed by fun and sport. To inflict cruelty upon the weak and the poor was our pastime. We were wrapped in abysmal darkness when Muhammad (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)" bin Abdullah was born among us. He led us to righteousness and instructed us to shun idolatry. He called us to Allah Almighty. He showed us to be merciful and told us to abstain from evil and shelter the weak and poor".

"O King, we were a people steeped in ignorance, worshipping idols, eating un-sacrificed carrion, committing abominations, and harming the weak without reason until Allah sent us a Messenger from out of our midst, one whose lineage we knew well. His veracity, worthiness of trust and his integrity was also known to us. He called us unto Allah, that we should testify to His Oneness and worship Him and renounce what we and our fathers had worshipped in the way of stones and idols; and he commanded us to speak truly, to fulfil our promises, to respect the ties of kinship and the rights of our neighbours, and to refrain from crimes and from bloodshed. So we worship Allah alone, setting naught beside Him, counting as forbidden what He hath forbidden and as licit what He hath allowed. Our people turned against us, and have persecuted us to make us forsake our religion and revert from the worship of Allah to the worship of idols.

"We believed him, but O King! these, who have come to arrest us are idol-worshippers. They worship idols of stone and wood, inflict barbarism upon the weak. These people have persecuted, pelted and injured our Prophet (Peace and blessings of Allah be upon him)".

No other religion in history spread so rapidly as Islam. The West has widely believed that this surge of religion was made possible by the sword. But no modern scholar accepts this idea, and the Qur’an is explicit in the support of the freedom of conscience.[1]

My problem to write this monograph is easier, because we are not generally fed now on that (distorted) kind of history and much time need not be spent on pointing out our misrepresentations of Islam. The theory of Islam and sword, for instance, is not heard now in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam that “there is no compulsion in religion” is well known.[2]

Incidentally these well-established facts dispose of the idea so widely fostered in Christian writings that the Muslims, wherever they went, forced people to accept Islam at the point of the sword.[3]

To give any account of these campaigns is beyond the scope of the present work, but it is important to show that Muhammad, when he found himself at the head of a band of armed followers, was not transformed at once, as some would have us believe, from a peaceful preacher into a fanatic, sword in hand, forcing his religion on whomsoever he could.[4]

Christianity has largely misunderstood the nature of Islamic militancy. The fiction that Islam was preached by the sword and Christianity by the lamb and the dove appeared early in Christian writings and still exercises a powerful influence upon the popular perception of Islam. Christian polemicists were quick to contrast the idealized life of Christ with that of Muhammad and his followers, ‘who ceased not to go forth in battle and rapine, to smite with the sword, to seize the little ones, and ravish wives and maidens’.[5]

It is unfortunate that Islam has been stereotyped as the 'religion of the sword' or that Islam was 'spread by the sword.' The historical reality is that the expansion of Islam was usually by persuasion and not by military power. In any case, Islam cannot be forced on anyone; if profession of the shahadah [i.e. the declaration of Islam] is forced on someone, it is not true Islam.[6]

But, in traditional Islam, Christian and Jewish states must be destroyed and their lands conquered. When Mohammed was waging war against Mecca in the seventh century, Christianity was the dominant religion of power and wealth. As the faith of the Roman Empire, it spanned the entire Mediterranean, including the Middle East, where it was born. The Christian world, therefore, was a prime target for the earliest caliphs, and it would remain so for Muslim leaders for the next thousand years.

one of the most memorable revolutions which has impressed a new and lasting character on the nations of the globe.[7]

"The early Muslim conquests might have blurred their common sense and made them commit the sorts of oppression which conquerors usually commit, and thus ill-treat the subdued and compel them to embrace the Faith they wanted to spread all over the globe. Had they done so, all nations, which were still not under their control, might have turned against them, and they might have suffered what had befallen the Crusaders in their conquest of Syria lately. However, the early Caliphs, who enjoyed a rare ingenuity which was unavailable to the propagandists of new faiths, realized that laws and religion cannot be imposed by force. Hence they were remarkably kind in the way they treated the peoples ofSyria, Egypt, Spain and every other country they subdued, leaving them to practise their laws and regulations and beliefs and imposing only a small Jizya in return for their protection and keeping peace among them. In truth, nations have never known merciful and tolerant conquerors like the Muslims."[8]

"The mercy and tolerance of the conquerors were among the reasons for the spread of their conquests and for the nations' adoptions of their Faith and regulations and language, which became deeply rooted, resisted all sorts of attack and remained even after the disappearance of the Arabs' control on the world stage, though historians deny the fact. Egypt is the most evident proof of this. It adopted what the Arabs had brought over, and reserved it. Conquerors before the Arabs -- the Persians, Greeks and Byzantines -- could not overthrow the ancient Pharaoh civilization and impose what they had brought instead.[9]

"The spread of Islam and the submission to its authority seem to have another reason in the continents of Asia and North Africa. It was the despotism of Constantinople which exercised extreme tyranny, and the injustice of rulers was too much for people to bear...[10]

"This misinterpretation of the Muslim wars of conquest has arisen from the assumption that wars waged for the extension of Muslim domination over the lands of the unbelievers implied that the aim in view was their conversion."[11]

And why should you not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? Men, women, and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord! Rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from Yourside one who will protect; and raise for us from Your side one who will help!') (An-Nisaa' 4:75).

They knew little about the Byzantine Empire or its religion, Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Few Crusaders understood or had much sympathy for the Eastern Orthodox religion, which did not recognize the pope, used the Greek language rather than Latin, and had very different forms of art and architecture. They knew even less about Islam or Muslim life. For some the First Crusade became an excuse to unleash savage attacks in the name of Christianity on Jewish communities along the Rhine.[12]

wars undertaken in pursuance of a vow, and directed against infidels, i.e. against Mohammedans, pagans, heretics, or those under the ban of excommunication.[13]

For you must hasten to carry aid to your brethren dwelling in the East, who need your help, which they have often asked. For the Turks, a Persian people, have attacked them I exhort you with earnest prayer - not I, but God - that, as heralds of Christ, you urge men by frequent exhortation, men of all ranks, knights as well as foot soldiers, rich as well as poor, to hasten to exterminate this vile race from the lands of your brethren Christ commands it. And if those who set out thither should lose their lives on the way by land, or in crossing the sea, or in fighting the pagans, their sins shall be remitted. Oh what a disgrace, if a race so despised, base, and the instrument of demons, should so overcome a people endowed with faith in the all-powerful God, and resplendent with the name of Christ. Let those who have been accustomed to make private war against the faithful carry on to a successful issue a war against the infidels. Let those who for a long time have been robbers now become soldiers of Christ. Let those who fought against brothers and relatives now fight against these barbarians. Let them zealously undertake the journey under the guidance of the Lord.[14]

It was the Crusaders’ task to defeat and defend against them. That was all. Muslims who lived in Crusader-won territories were generally allowed to retain their property and livelihood, and always their religion.

The scenes of carnage which followed belong to the many dark pages of Jerusalem's history and showed how, in the quality of mercy, the crusading knight was far below the ideal of Christian perfection. The streets were choked with the bodies of the slain. The Jews were burnt with their synagogues.... As if to enhance the spectacle of pitiless barbarity, Saracen (i.e. Muslims) prisoners were forced to clear the streets of the dead bodies and blood to save the city from pestilence. "They wept and transported the dead bodies out of Jerusalem," is the heartless statement of Robert the Monk. ... "They cut down with the sword," said William [archbishop] of Tyre, "every one whom they found in Jerusalem, and spared no one. The victors were covered with blood from head to foot." In the next breath, speaking of the devotion of the Crusaders, the archbishop adds, "It was a most affecting sight which filled the heart with holy joy to see the people tread the holy places in the fervor of an excellent devotion."[15]

The illegitimate offspring of the Crusaders by Moslem women, called pullani, were a degenerate race, marked by avarice, faithlessness, and debauchery.[16]

And, if you desire to know what was done about the enemy whom we found there, know that in the portico of Solomon and his Temple, our men rode in the blood of the Saracens (i.e. Muslims) up to the knees of the horses.[17]

...there [in front of Solomon's temple] was such a carnage that our people were wading ankle-deep in the blood of our foes, and after that "happily and crying for joy" our people marched to our Saviour's tomb, to honour it and to pay off our debt of gratitude.

It was impossible to look upon the vast numbers of the slain without horror; everywhere lay fragments of human bodies, and the very ground was covered with the blood of the slain. It was not alone the spectacle of headless bodies and mutilated limbs strewn in all directions that roused the horror of all who looked upon them. Still more dreadful was it to gaze upon the victors themselves, dripping with blood from head to foot, an ominous sight which brought terror to all who met them. It is reported that within the Temple enclosure alone about ten thousand infidels perished.[18]

The Christian occupation of Palestine did not bring with it a reign of peace. The kingdom was torn by the bitter intrigues of barons and ecclesiastics, while it was being constantly threatened from without. The inner strife was the chief source of weakness.[19]

The great Muslim sanctuaries became Christian churches, and in 1149 the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as it exists today was consecrated. Muslims and Jews were barred from living in the city.[20]

God aroused the spirit of the prince of the Ishmaelites [Saladin], a prudent and courageous man, who came with his entire army, besieged Jerusalem, took it and had it proclaimed throughout the country that he would receive and accept the entire race of Ephraim, wherever they came from. And so we came from all comers of the world to take up residence here. We now live here in the shadow of peace.[22]

On 2 October 1187 Saladin and his army entered Jerusalem as conquerors and for the next 800 years Jerusalem would remain a Muslim city... Saladin kept his word, and conquered the city according to the highest Islamic ideals. He did not take revenge for the 1099 massacre, as the Koran advised (16:127), and now that hostilities had ceased he ended the killing (2:193-194). Not a single Christian was killed and there was no plunder. The ransoms were deliberately very low...[23]

The Crusades were fascinated by a Muslim leader who possessed virtues they assumed were Christian. To them to his Muslim contemporaries and to us, it still remains remarkable that in times as harsh and bloody as these a man of great power should have been so little corrupted by it."[24]

This was a quasi-ecclesiastical tribunal established in 1478 by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella primarily to examine converted Jews, and later converted Muslims, and punish those who were insincere in the conversion.... The Spanish Inquisition was much harsher than the medieval Inquisition and the death penalty was more often exacted, sometimes in mass autos-da-fe. It judged cases of bigamy, seduction, usury, and other crimes, and was active in Spain and her colonies. Estimates of its victims vary widely, ranging from less than 4,000 to more than 30,000 during its existence...[26]

The Inquisition's secret procedures, its eagerness to accept denunciations, its use of torture, the absence of counsel for the accused, the lack of any right to confront hostile witnesses, and the practice of confiscating the property of those who were condemned and sharing it between the Inquisition, the crown, and the accusers—all this inspired great terror, as indeed it was meant to do.[27]

As a result of his endeavours, it is reported that on 8th December 1499 about three thousand Moors were baptized by him and a leading mosque in Granada was converted into a church. 'Converts' were encouraged to surrender their Islamic books, several thousands of which were destroyed by Ximenes in a public bonfire. A few rare books on medicine were kept aside for the University of Alcala.[28]

Ximenes immediately denounced the uprising as a rebellion, and claimed that by this the Moors had forfeited all their rights under the terms of capitulation. They should therefore be given the choice between baptism and expulsion. The government agreed with his arguments, and Ximenes then began the mass baptism of the population of Granada, most of whom preferred this fate to the more hazardous one of deportation to Africa. The speed with which the baptisms were carried out meant that there was no time in which to instruct the Moors in the fundamentals of their new religion, so that inevitably most of the new converts became Christian only in name.[29]

Since the majority of Muslims had been 'converted', the offer of emigration was an empty one, and the 'legal equality' granted by Ferdinand was but a mockery of the terms of the Treaty of Granada which he had so blatantly permitted to be broken. Behind the words of conciliation and peace, the general intention of the Church to eliminate the practice of Islam was unmistakable, and now that the Muslims of southern Andalusia, or the Moriscos as they were called, were within the jurisdiction of the Spanish Inquisition, the Inquisitors embarked on the task of detecting 'relapsed heretics' and secret Muslims. The communities of Muslims which had survived the suppression of the rebellion, or reformed after it, were repeatedly harassed by the Inquisitors.[30]

The ancient faith of Christianity, with its respect for women and antipathy toward slavery, not only survived but flourished.

Judaic and Islamic canonical texts refer frequently to slavery and treat it as a natural condition that might befall anyone. But they view it as a condition that should be gotten over quickly. Islamic practice was based on the assumption that the outsider rapidly became an insider and consequently had to be manumitted after six years. New Testament Christianity, on the other hand, had no prescriptions that slaves be manumitted. Canon law sanctioned slavery. This was attributable at least partially to Christianity's primary focus on spiritual values and salvation after death rather than on temporal conditions and the present life. Under such a regime it mattered little whether someone was a slave or a free person while living on earth.[31]