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:

Islam comes from the root word ‘salaam’, which means peace. It also means submitting one’s will to Allah. Thus Islam is a religion of peace, which is acquired by submitting one’s will to the will of the Supreme Creator.

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.

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."

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.

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.

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?"
The famous historian, Thomas Carlyle, in his book "Heroes and Hero worship", refers to this misconception about the spread of Islam: "The sword indeed, but where will you get your sword?

Every new opinion, at its starting is precisely in a minority of one. In one man’s head alone. There it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole world believes it, there is one man against all men. That he takes a sword and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You must get your sword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can."

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?

At times YES!

:applaud: mashallah
Thanks for this interesting article. May Allah reward you for this interesting and knowledgeable article.
Keep up what you are doing

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 ?

BOOOYAH!
*gives hi-five to Celestial*

One ayah is sufficient to refute the myth that islam was spread by the sword:



2:256 Let there be no compulsion in religion: Truth stands out clear from Error: whoever rejects evil and believes in Allah hath grasped the most trustworthy hand-hold, that never breaks. And Allah heareth and knoweth all things.

Muslims cannot convert people by force, hence we find it useless to try!

Any historical examination of events is actually secondary to this verse. And of course we can use statistics like Islam is the fastest growing religion in America.

Where are the muslims with swords in america?!?!

I heard a lecture given by Dr. Zakir Naik a few months back.

Inshallah if som1 cud post that, it wud b gr8!

Really? So Muslims have always, everywhere, all the time, only use violence to defend themselves? Never once, ever, attacked anyone? You have to admit, looking at the hundreds of major Christian religious sites that are now Muslim ones, and the handful of Muslim ones that are not Christian ones, the Muslims have been awfully successful for peaceful people who never pick up a sword except in self-defence?

Can we agree that the appeal, and hence the converts, would not have been there if not for the fact that the Muslims conquered those parts of Europe?

Crusader did not kill millions of Muslims or Jews.

A Jewish myth? Technically it is a Protestant myth, but no matter. Why do you think it is a Jewish myth?

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?

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?

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?

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?

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.

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.

Land was conquered by the sword, then islam was used as a weapon against the non-believers, approah the study this way and you will understand alot more.

What they did in the name of islam:

http://www.punjab2000.com/Martyrdom.html

WARNING NOT FOR THE FAINT HEARTED.

ISDhillon

I, as a Bosnian and European, am proud of being a "product of Jihad", in the sense that I'm a Muslim today because Muslims conquered Bosnia. The Muslims conquered Bosnia and let the people stay Christians. However, a lot of the people in Bosnia became Muslims including my ancestors.
Islam started out with the Prophet salallahu 'alayhi wa sallam, Khadeejah, Abu Bakr, 'Ali may God be pleased with them, and spread all the way to Bosnia.
I'm very proud of this.

Muslims don't wage Jihad to get oil or because of racism like some did/still do.
Jihad is to make God's word supreme.

Although would you agree that a fair number of Muslims managed to acquire a fair amount of wealth along the way?