Did Islam spread with sword?
هل انتشر الإسلام بالسيف؟
The greatest crime, the greatest “sin” of Muhammad in the eyes of the Christian West is that he did not allow himself to be slaughtered, to be “crucified” by his enemies. He ably defended himself, his family and his followers; and finally vanquished his enemies. Muhammad’s success is the Christians’ gall of disappointment:
🔹He did not believe in any vicarious sacrifice for the sins of others. He believed and behaved naturally:
“in the state of nature, every one has a right to defend his person and possessions, and extend his hostilities to a reasonable amount of satisfaction and retaliation,” says Gibbon, the master historian in his “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.”
🔹 His struggle and victory over the forces of unbelief and evil made the editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica to exclaim, Muhammad to be “The most successful of all religious personalities.”
🔹How can the enemies of Islam account for Muhammad’s phenomenal achievements except to decry that he spread his religion at the point of the sword?
He forced Islam down peoples’ throats!?
🔸“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 In “Islam At The Crossroads’’ London, 1923,
🔸You do not have to be a historian like O’Leary to know that the Muslims ruled Spain for 736 years. The longest the Christians ever ruled over Muslims was 500 years in Mozambique, a territory captured from an Arab governor by the name of Musa-bin-baique, a name they could not properly pronounce, hence the name Mozambique.
👉🏻Even today, after five centuries of Christian overlordship the country is still 60 percent Muslim.
🔹However, after eight centuries in Spain the Muslims were totally eliminated from that country so that not even one man was left to give the Azan (the Muslim call to prayer). If the Muslims had used force, military or economic there would not have been any Christian left in Spain to have kicked the Muslims out.
🔹One can blame the Muslims for exploitation if you like but one cannot charge them with using the sword to convert Spaniards to the Islam.
⭕️Today, Islam is still spreading all over the world and Muslims have no sword!!
🔹The Muslims were also the masters of India for a thousand years, but eventually when the sub-continent received independence in 1947, the Hindus obtained three quarters of the country and the Muslims the balance of the one-quarter.
🔺Why? Because the Muslims did not force Islam down the Hindus’ throats!
🔹 In Spain and in India, the Muslims were no paragons of virtue, yet they obeyed the Quranic injunction to the letter:
“Let there be no compulsion in religion: for truth stands out distinct from error. (Quran 2:256)
⭕️The Muslim conquerors understood from this command that “compulsion” was incompatible with true religion because:
🔺a) Religion depends on faith and will, and these would be meaningless if induced by force. Force can conquer but cannot convert.
🔺b) Truth and error have been so clearly shown up by the Mercy of God that there should be no doubt in the minds of any person of goodwill as to the fundamentals of faith.
🔺c) God’s protection is continuous and His Plan is always to lead us from the depths of darkness into the clearest light.
⭕️Except for some eccentrics here and there, the Muslims as a whole adhered to the commandment of God in the lands over which they held sway. But what can you say about countries where no single Muslim soldier had set a foot?
⚫️Indonesia:
It is a fact that about two hundred million Indonesians are Muslim, yet no conquering Muslim army ever landed on any of its over two thousand islands.
⚫️Malaysia:
The overwhelming number of its people in this country are Muslims yet no Muslim soldier had landed there either.
⚫️Africa:
The majority of the people on the East coast of Africa as far down as Mozambique, as well as the bulk of the inhabitants on the West coast of the continent are Muslims, but history does not record any invading swords of Muslims from anywhere.
⚫️Verdict of non-Muslim orientals
🔹Almost all the defenders of Muhammad who spoke out against the false theory that he spread his religion at the point of the sword, were Westerners:
🔸1) “The more I study the more I discover that the strength of Islam does not lie in the sword.” Mahatma Gandhi - the father of modern India, in “Young India.”
🔸2) “They (Muhammad’s critics) see fire instead of light, ugliness instead of good. They distort and present every good quality as a great vice. It reflects their own depravity... the critics are blind. They cannot see that the only ‘sword’ Muhammad wielded was the sword of mercy, compassion, friendship and forgiveness - the sword that conquers enemies and purifies their hearts. His sword was sharper than the sword of steel.” (Pandit Gyanandra Dev Sharma Shastri, At A Meeting In Gorakhpur Lndia 1928).
🔸3) “He preferred migration to fighting his own people, but when oppression went beyond the pale of tolerance he took up his sword in self-defence. Those who believe religion can be spread by force are fools who neither know the ways of religion nor the ways of the world. They are proud of this belief because they are a long, long way away from the truth.” A Sikh Journalist In “Nawan Hindustan,” Delhi, 17 November 1947.
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