One of the bizarre myths perpetuated about Islam is that Muslim
armies forced people to accept Islam at the point of the sword.
Unfortunately this myth survives among Islamophobes and ignorant disbelievers to this day.
Many Western scholars have now repudiated this myth.
The historian De Lacy O’Leary wrote in “Islam At the Cross-roads”:
“With the flourishing of Arab civilization, religious toleration was absolute – a fact for which we have brought more than one indication. It would not be verbose to refer to what is translated by monsieur Dousi about one of the Arab scholars who devoted himself in Baghdad to many lessons in philosophy attended by Jews, atheists, Magians, Muslims, Christians and others. Whenever anyone of them spoke, attention would be paid to him with great respect and he would be asked to rely only on a logical rather than textual proof. Such toleration had not been attained in Europe even after suffering along one-thousand years of destructive wars, deep-rooted resentments and bloody carnages.”[2]
They have never seen its like
“The reader will see, in our discussion of the conquests of the Arabs and the causes of their victory, that force was not the main factor of the spread of the Qur’an. The Arabs left the conquered free to practice their religions. If it happened that some Christians embraced Islam and took Arabic as their language, this was due to the justice they saw from the victorious Arabs the like of which they did not see from their previous masters, in addition to the ease of Islam which they knew not before.”[3]
Religions could not be imposed by force
“It has been proven throughout history that religions cannot be imposed by force. When the Christians conquered the Arabs of Andalusia, the Arabs favored to be killed and driven out entirely rather than to leave Islam. Nevertheless, the Qur’an did not spread by the sword. On the contrary, it spread only by invitation and by invitation alone was it embraced by different peoples who later conquered the Arabs, like the Turks and Mongols.”[4]
Many Western scholars have now repudiated this myth.
The historian De Lacy O’Leary wrote in “Islam At the Cross-roads”:
Gustave le Bon
He was a French Orientalist and researcher in sociology and psychology. Among his famous books is La Civilization des Arabes (The Civilization of the Arabs), one of the most fundamental books written in Europe in the modern age.
He wrote:
Absolute toleration“With the flourishing of Arab civilization, religious toleration was absolute – a fact for which we have brought more than one indication. It would not be verbose to refer to what is translated by monsieur Dousi about one of the Arab scholars who devoted himself in Baghdad to many lessons in philosophy attended by Jews, atheists, Magians, Muslims, Christians and others. Whenever anyone of them spoke, attention would be paid to him with great respect and he would be asked to rely only on a logical rather than textual proof. Such toleration had not been attained in Europe even after suffering along one-thousand years of destructive wars, deep-rooted resentments and bloody carnages.”[2]
They have never seen its like
“The reader will see, in our discussion of the conquests of the Arabs and the causes of their victory, that force was not the main factor of the spread of the Qur’an. The Arabs left the conquered free to practice their religions. If it happened that some Christians embraced Islam and took Arabic as their language, this was due to the justice they saw from the victorious Arabs the like of which they did not see from their previous masters, in addition to the ease of Islam which they knew not before.”[3]
Religions could not be imposed by force
“It has been proven throughout history that religions cannot be imposed by force. When the Christians conquered the Arabs of Andalusia, the Arabs favored to be killed and driven out entirely rather than to leave Islam. Nevertheless, the Qur’an did not spread by the sword. On the contrary, it spread only by invitation and by invitation alone was it embraced by different peoples who later conquered the Arabs, like the Turks and Mongols.”[4]
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