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

In comparison to the above, let us take some passages from the Holy Bible and read what the Jews and Christians hold as sacred and divine guidance about the conduct of war, and which has lead them in times of their expansions and conquests.

We read in the Book of Deuteronomy:

“10) When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.

11) And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.

12) And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it:

13) And when the LORD thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword:

14) But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the LORD thy God hath given thee.

15) Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of these nations.

16) But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth:

17) But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee…” [Deuteronomy 20: 10-17].

On the conquest of the city of Jericho and the fate of the indigenous inhabitants therein we read: "The people called and used the trumpets so the wall fell in its place, they entered the city and murdered all its people, males, females, children, and the old people, even the cows, goats, and donkeys, using swords." [Yusha' 6/20]

In the towns of Muqeideh and Labneh, they did the same as in Jericho. [Yusha' 10/28].

A perplexing passage of the Gospel of Mathew on a statement of Jesus (‘alaihis salam) reads: “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth, I came not to send peace, but a sword." [Matt. 10:35-37; and compare Luke 22:36]

What is this sword? Who has the authority to raise it? This is not clear and is hotly contested. Perhaps it will be raised upon his second coming. Until Constantine the early Christians were a persecuted minority apparently committed to non-violence and waiting for his imminent return, but thereafter, when Trinitarian Christianity became the official state religion in the era after Constantine, the sword was welded by the State, and Christian rulers down through history conducted numerous wars and conquests in the name of religion. The Christian principle of obedience to any authority in power is based upon the purported statement of Jesus (‘alaihis salam) to “render unto Caesar.” This was increasingly extended by the Christian theologians to rationalize and legitimize the right of divine rule and then, even national and secular rule, on the basis of Pauline doctrine as enshrined in his decree: “Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.” [(NIV) Romans 13:1]

The statements and facts above will be compared with some of the guidance from Allah’s Book, the Qur’an, and the Way of the Prophet, the Sunnah, to provide more proofs that indeed Islam is the religion of peace, despite the fact that some disobedient Muslims have distorted, by word and deed, the image of Islam, and despite the venomous propaganda, slander and ridiculous misinformation fabricated and distributed by the enemies of Islam in their crusades against Islam and the Muslims.

We do not deny that aberrations and injustices took place occasionally by some of the Muslims, but the general sweep of historical trends is our evidence, as noted above. And along these lines it may be pertinent to mention a couple more examples, since they show a general pattern. The Christian conquerors of Jerusalem slaughtered all of its Jewish and Muslim inhabitants, whereas the re-conquest of Jerusalem by Salahudeen al-Ayubi stands as a noteworthy example of magnanimity and generosity. We also have the contrast of Andalus (Muslim Spain) and Anatolia (Asia minor). The Christians expelled the Muslims and Jews from Spain or put them to the sword or forced them to convert to Christianity during the infamous “Inquisition,” the paradigm of the treatment of Muslims under Christian rule. In the same era when the Muslims mostly of Turkish stock conquered what is now Turkey, they were comparatively much more tolerant, and to this day the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church remains in Istanbul (the conquered Constantine). The noted orientalist Sir Thomas Arnold rejects this malicious propaganda about Islam saying: “…of any organized attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion, we hear nothing. Had the caliphs chosen to adopt either course of action, they might have swept away Christianity as easily as Ferdinand and Isabella drove Islam out of Spain, or Louis XIV made Protestantism penal in France, or the Jews were kept out of England for 350 years. The Eastern Churches in Asia were entirely cut off from communion with the rest of Christendom throughout which no one would have been found to lift a finger on their behalf, as heretical communions. So the very survival of these Churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of Muhammadan [sic] governments towards them" [Sir Thomas W. Arnold: The Preaching of Islam, a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith, Westminster A. Constable & Co., London, 1896, p. 80]

The unfortunate reality of history is that European rather than Islamic historical trends have come to dominate the world, and that the reactions against the incessant religious wars among the Christian sects of Europe created the seedbed for the rise of modern European secularism, humanism, nationalism, atheism, and godlessness, and we see that these trends are the roots of the major political and socioeconomic plagues ravishing mankind to this day.