The Misconception that Islam was spread by Force (3/4)

The rightly-guided Caliphs, companions and righteous predecessors followed the example of the Prophet after his demise, defending the Islamic State from its enemies, conquering the surrounding tyrannical empires which threatened their existence and spreading Islam by the zeal of their faith and missionary activity and with their excellent upright morals and just relations. These individuals were, by no standards, equal in number or war equipment, preparations, and professional military skills, to the people they vanquished, but the vitality of their divine faith and mission and moral superiority of their characters conquered the common people’s hearts and minds before there was a need to vanquish the corrupt tyrannical armies whose oppression of the masses was unbearable.

One of the new converts (reverts) to Islam in our time, named Basheer Ahmad, said in reflection on this issue: “One of the most puzzling questions to me, and one of my most serious concerns prior to accepting Islam and embracing it as a way of life, was that we Christians claim that Islam spread by the edge of sword. Therefore, I posed the following question to myself: If that claim is true, why, then, do we notice that many people, in every corner of the world, still adhere to Islam and embrace it, join it, and accept it as a way of life? Why do we notice people come to join Islam daily, without any compulsion or force by anyone?” [Paraphrased from Dr. Imad-du-Deen Khalil: “What Do They Say about Islam?” p.295]

Norman A. Daniel says on the origins of the fabrication of this myth “… West formed a more or less invariable canon of beliefs about Islam; it decided for itself what Islam was... The important thing was it suited the West... it gave Christendom self-respect in dealing with a civilization in many ways its superior.” [Islam and the West: The Making of an Image, p. 270]

De Lacy O'Leary comments on this fallacy: “History makes it clear, however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.” [Islam at the Crossroads, London, 1923, p. 8]

Dr. Gustav LeBon states in his book “Civilization of the Arabs [p.127–128]: “...force was never a factor in the spread of the Koranic teachings, and that the Arabs left those they had subdued free to exercise their religious beliefs. If it happened that some Christian peoples embraced Islam and adopted Arabic as their language, it was mainly due to the various kinds of justice on the part of the Arab victors, with the like of which the non-Moslems were not acquainted. It was also due to the tolerance and leniency of Islam, which was unknown to the other religions.” [Paraphrased from Dr.Imad-du-Deen Khalil: “What Do They Say about Islam? p.314]

He also says: “…the early Caliphs… were remarkably kind in the way they treated the peoples of Syria, Egypt, Spain and every other country they subdued, leaving them to practice 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 Arabs."

If Islam did spread as a consequence to the wars imposed on the Muslims from those enemies threatening their survival, and the conquests of these oppressive and corrupt regimes that followed consequently, is this unique and unknown in history, especially when compared to other civilizations? What is truly unique of the Islamic conquests is that they are generally liberation from oppression, as in the famous answers that the companions of the Prophet (sallAllahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) gave to the Emperor of Persia when he asked them what had brought the Muslims to their lands, as mentioned in the history books:

“Allah has sent us to take whoever wishes from the slavery of mankind to other men, to the servitude and worship of Allah, from the confines of this world to the expanse (which Islam brings to this world and the Hereafter), and from the injustice of the ways of life (of the worldly rulers) to the justice of Islam.” [see Ibn Katheer, Bidayah wa Nihayah].

In direct contrast to the many examples of massacres, rapes and pillaging, and injustices in history mentioned in the preface, we do not find comparable accounts in the history of these early Islamic conquests.

Thomas Carlyle, in his famous series of lectures, commented on the spread of Islam with the following words:

“Much has been said of Mahomet’s propagating his Religion by the sword. It is no doubt far nobler what we have to boast of the Christian Religion, that it propagated itself peaceably in the way of preaching and conviction. Yet with all, if we take this for an argument of the truth or falsehood of a religion, there is a radical mistake in it. 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_ take a sword, and try to propagate with that, will do little for him. You must first get your sword! On the whole, a thing will propagate itself as it can. We do not find, of the Christian Religion either, that it always disdained the sword, when once it had got one. Charlemagne’s conversion of the Saxons was not by preaching. I care little about the sword: I will allow a thing to struggle for itself in this world, with any sword or tongue or implement it has, or can lay hold of. We will let it preach, and pamphleteer, and fight, and to the uttermost bestir itself, and do, beak and claws, whatsoever is in it; very sure that it will, in the long-run, conquer nothing which does not deserve to be conquered. What is better than itself, it cannot put away, but only what is worse. In this great Duel, Nature herself is umpire, and can do no wrong: the thing which is deepest-rooted in Nature, what we call _truest_, that thing and not the other will be found growing at last.” [‘Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History,’ Lecture 2, Friday, 8th May 1840]

(Continued)