"Islam NEVER spread by the SWORD"...or the history happened in a better way than the kafirs say...

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Dec 26, 2005 at 18:54

Assim , you wrote :

> This myth, which was made popular in Europe during the Crusades,about spraeding of islam by sword, is totally baseless.

The Jews of Yathrib were never exterminated by Muhammed, their wives and children never enslaved .The battle of the Yarmuk never took place. The same is valid about Qadisya and Nehavend as Persia remained free and never converted at the point of the sword to Islam. Islam was so fashionable in Persia from 610 that everyone wanted to enjoy it to the full . Constantinople was never besieged by the Arabs and particularly the year 717 A.D. was one of the happiest in Byzantine history because the Byzantines saved a lot of money not having to waste their expensive Greek fire on Allah's peaceful missionaries and preachers. Charles Martel was a minor figure in the history of the world and he had never seen a single Arab beduin in his life although some of his libels on them have been preserved now banned throughout Chirac's France. Spain just by accident became Muslim with the Visigoth kings voluntarily embracing Islam and dispatching en masse the most beautiful Gothic ladies to the harems of their Islamic advisors and elder brothers. The raids on the south coasts of Italy and France are never mentioned in any original annals of the 9th or 10th century...Any opinions different from these have long been proved by Islamic scholars and some of the more tolerant and open-minded Western historians as "totally baseless".

You write :
" In debunking the myth that Islam was "spread by the sword", the (non-Muslim) historian De Lacy O'Leary wrote:

"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 accepted." (Islam at the Crossroads, London, 1923, p. 8.)

I wonder which "history" your author is talking about. As far as I know he was well versed in Semitic languages, ecclesiastical history and history of ideas. He was lucky enough to deal with ideas or languages that noticeably don't suffer physical pains and humiliations so much as humans do when a land is invaded and conquered by semi-literate ruthless robbers and greedy desert barbarians. It sounds also nice to read that historians are so prone to "accept the most fantastically absurd myths'.

But, by Jove, what does he mean ? He suggests that either he is not a historian (not in the sense that he would care about what e.g. Theophanes had written about the Arab conquests and their concomittments ) or he knows better.

If he cares about traditional (human) history, may I ask you, Assim, how many times he quotes Theophanes in the work you cited ?
If he doesn't - as I surmise - then I would like to know where he found that miraculous mirror of truth all the other historians were so eager to hide from the world in order to spread 'the most fantastically absurd myths' about Islam's advent and expansion ? ...

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".