Hello Daniel,
Welcome to the forum :)!
I am not sure how helpful I am going to be, but regarding your second point above, we may have some relevant threads around the forum - presumably you are referring to Jihad:
http://www.islamicboard.com/396548-post13.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/discover...explained.html
http://www.islamicboard.com/refutati...e-meaning.html
Our sister site, load-islam, has some other articles which might also be useful. The list of articles on this subject is here:
http://www.load-islam.com/classified...assified_id=13
And a useful article might be:
http://www.load-islam.com/artical_de...Misconceptions
Lastly, you mentioned that,
I know that a muslim ruler in the 8th or 9th century was possibly the first to lay down the "no women, no children" rule of war, but have no source material.
This rule of war was taught by the last Prophet of Islam, Muhammad (peace be upon him), and this teaching has been mentioned in numerous narrations from the Prophet - some of which are listed here:
http://www.islamicboard.com/521094-post40.html
The article above about Islam and terrorism also illustrates how the Qur'an and the teachings of Muhammad (peace be upon him) forbade the killing of innocents.
I hope you will find this information useful, and I hope you will stay with us on the forum!
Peace :).