Spread of Islam

format_quote Originally Posted by wilberhum

I don't think any Non-Muslim would think that Islam was not spread by sword/violence.

Think again ! There are actually a great many non-muslim historians and writers who have said it was not spread by the sword - here are a few quotations:

“The Christian World came to wage crusades against Muslims but eventually knelt before them to gain knowledge. They were spellbound to see that Muslims were owners of a culture that was far superior to their own. The Dark Ages of Europe were illuminated by nothing but the beacon of Muslim Civilization.” (F.J.C Hearushaw, The Science of History)

"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 myths that historians have ever repeated." (De Lacy O'Leary, ISLAM AT THE CROSSROADS, London, 1923, p. 8)

“The Renaissance of Europe did not take place in the 15th century. Rather it began when Europe learned from the culture of the Arabs. The cradle of European awakening is not Italy. It is the Muslim Spain.” (Robert Briffault, The Making Of Mankind)

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.(Lawrence E. Browne,‘The Prospects of Islam,’ 1944)

Despite the growth of antagonism, Moslem (Muslim) rulers seldom made their Christian subjects suffer for the Crusades. When the Saracens finally resumed the full control of Palestine the Christians were given their former status as dhimmis. The Coptic Church, too had little cause for complaint under Saladin's (Salahuddin) strong government, and during the time of the earlier Mameluke sultans who succeeded him the Copts experienced more enlightened justice than they had hitherto known. The only effect of the Crusaders upon Egyptian Christians was to keep them for a while from pilgrimage to Jerusalem, for as long as the Frank were in charge heretics were forbidden access to the shrines. Not until the Moslem victories could they enjoy their rights as Christians. (James Addison, 'The Christian Approach to the Moslem,' p. 35)

The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand and the Qur'an in the other is quite false.(A. S. Tritton, in 'Islam,' 195)

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. (James Michener, ‘Islam: The Misunderstood Religion,’ Reader’s Digest, May 1955, pp. 68-70)

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. (K. S. Ramakrishna Rao, 'Mohammed: The Prophet of Islam,' 1989)

When Pococke inquired of Grotius, where the proof was of that story of the pigeon, trained to pick peas from Mahomet's (Muhammad's) ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him? Grotius answered that there was no proof!..

A greater number of God's creatures believe in Mahomet's word at this hour than in any other word whatever. Are we to suppose that it was a miserable piece of spiritual legerdemain, this which so many creatures of the almighty have lived by and died by?... (Thomas Carlyle, ‘Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History,’ Lecture 2, Friday, 8th May 1840)

“A rugged, strife-torn and mountaineering people...were suddenly turned into an indomitable Arab force, which achieved a series of splendid victories unparalleled in the history of nations, for in the short space of ninety years that mighty range of Saracenic (i.e. Muslim) conquest embraced a wider extent of territory than Rome had mastered in the course of eight hundred.”(Simon Ockley, in 'History of the Saracens')

We have never heard about any attempt to compel Non-Muslim parties to adopt Islam or about any organized persecution aiming at exterminating Christianity. If the Caliphs had chosen one of these plans, they would have wiped out Christianity as easily as what happened to Islam during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella in Spain; by the same method which Louis XIV followed to make Protestantism a creed whose followers were to be sentenced to death; or with the same ease of keeping the Jews away from Britain for a period of three hundred fifty years. (Thomas Arnold, in 'The Call to Islam.')

Regards