But that is the thing; it wasn't a two-way street. When a country/culture is conquered by the sword, they don't have a say in how their culture is suppressed/destroyed/distorted; the conqueror can rewrite history as he chooses and that is exactly what has happened with Islam. In fact some folks have called Islam as merely an "Intermediate Civilization" between Greek/Roman and Renaissance periods (see Between Hellenism and Renaissance—Islam, The Intermediate Civilization by S.D.Goitein).
An analogy that i make is - Arabs : 7th-12th centuries :: Mongols : 13th-15th centuries.
Both were "primitive" in comparison to the cultures they conquered, but were indispensable in acting as a conduit for the spread of ideas from one part of the world to another.
Two-way can come in the sense as the main thing conquests spread was dominance of Islamic religion in a region, even if conversions didn’t not occur until later. The conquest of the Sassanian Empire for example would later lead to things like the prolific grammarian of Arabic Sibawayh, a Muslim of descent from what is now Iran. While he was not even from Arabic nor a native speaker of Arabic, he became one of the best Arabic grammarians in his quest for Islamic knowledge. Without the expansion of the Islamic nations, we would not expect to see this. Ultimately religion became a uniting force among disparate peoples, binding them into one Muslim nation.
Islamic religion had become a uniting force only by "spreading by the sword" since in the original form as conceived by the Arabs it was merely a simplistic dogma tuned to their needs, times and culture.
It was the conquered cultures which brought in a huge Knowledge Base into it which was then sold under the Islamic/Arabic banner.
But because of the inherent intolerant nature of Islam (as the linked article in my previous comment points out about the rejection of Mutazilism - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mu%27tazilism) Islam inevitably declined into the mess that it is today. Contrast it against the spread, stability and popularity of Buddhism and you can see the stark difference. The latter is constructive while the former is destructive, the latter harmoniously marries Native culture to Religion (eg. Buddhism in Sri Lanka vs. China vs. Japan etc.) while the former is consumed by hatred, infighting and identity crisis.
You are sorely wrong and ignorant as to the topics you discuss. To wallow in bias is to stay lost.
Conversions to Islam under Islamic empires like Umayyads and Abbasids did not in general occur by the “sword”. You can look up the historical demographics, it took a long time for some areas like the Levant and even Egypt for a majority of the population to convert. Conversions occurred for a variety of reasons, but being force by the sword is definitely not a major factor. Even still today many places retained their minority religion populations. As for blend of culture and religion, you can easily say same for Islamic cultures which harmonized with cultures as widely as Indonesia to West and South Asian under its fold.
As for mutazilism, that has nothing to do with the topic, and the mutazilites themselves had people killed for not following their beliefs when they influenced the ruler, so their downfall was only by what they perpetuated.
Next you sell Buddhism as perfect at peace, yet there is well known infighting between various branches in Buddhism. Not to mention it does not end ethnic strife (see the genocide of Rohingya in Burma).
As expected, you are merely a "Islamic Apologist" with little knowledge of History and the usual twisting of facts to suit your agenda. There is so much to be said here that entire books have been written on the subject (i.e. on its backwardness and destructiveness) and enlightened individuals from the Islamic community itself are calling for reform if it is to stay relevant. Instead of regurgitating the details from the many sources, i will list a few sources themselves for you to study and educate yourself.
5) Tons of Youtube videos on this subject which you can search for yourself (start with Pervez Hoodbhoy). If i start listing them here it might go against HN guidelines and get me banned.
Finally, coming to your specific comment i will just highlight a few points;
>Conversions occurred for a variety of reasons, but being force by the sword is definitely not a major factor.
Absolutely wrong; it was the single biggest factor in the spread of Islam; even today forced conversions are a reality in Islamic countries.
>Even still today many places retained their minority religion populations.
Laughable! In every Muslim majority state, minorities have been persecuted/forcibly converted almost to extinction. You just have to look at the data for some Islamic countries.
>Next you sell Buddhism as perfect at peace, yet there is well known infighting between various branches in Buddhism.
Nothing close to what happens between sects within Islam and between Islam and other religions.
In today's world and times, Islam has become a byword for Extremism/Terrorism/Intellectual backwardness/Lack of Scientific temper/Lack of development in all factors and in general everything negative. Many Muslim intellectuals are themselves fighting against this and you would do well to read their works/sayings instead of living in a fantasy world.
> Absolutely wrong; it was the single biggest factor in the spread of Islam; even today forced conversions are a reality in Islamic countries.
Perhaps you do not know so I will give you a history lesson.
Firstly, some of the early Umayyads were reluctant to encourage conversion to Islam for tax reasons, as a tax was levied on the non-Muslim minorities under protection of the Umayyad empire. The concept of Dhimmah let non-Muslims live peacefully under protection of the empire in exchange for recognizing their authority and paying a poll tax, jizyah. However, many people willingly converted to Islam, and the result is that some of the greatest Islamic scholars came from non-Arab lineage.
Next, Islamic conversions occurred in the Indian subcontinent in large part due to Sufis and merchants. This is similar for Indonesia and China which contacts with Islam came through merchants.
Next, the much of the Middle East converted to Islam far later than the original conquests by Islamic empires. You can read more here in this Oxford news article, so certainly you won’t be making accusations of apologism: https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/arts-blog/how-did-christian-middle...
> Laughable! In every Muslim majority state, minorities have been persecuted/forcibly converted almost to extinction. You just have to look at the data for some Islamic countries.
The fact that religious minorities survived to the modern day in the Middle East is proof that Islamic conversions by and large did not happen by force. Nearly 20% of Egypt is Christian, as a result of the Coptic community that remains in Egypt. You can compare this to European conquests of the Americas, where indigenous religions were nearly wiped out forcibly. Or see the Spanish Inquisition where Spain expelled, interrogated, and executed Jews and Muslims.
Similarly, in the Balkans ruled by the Ottomans, there was no large scale systematic genocide of non-Muslims over hundreds of years of history. Early nationalism caused a lot of strife in the region and ethnic cleansing, but the fact that Balkan Christians remained is because forced conversion to Islam was not the primary cause of conversion to Islam. In fact, Bosnians converted to Islam probably because their form of Christianity was closer to Islamic teachings, compared to the others Balkan folk around them.
Yes, there were cases of forced conversion in different places, but in no way was this the primary way for people to become Muslims over history.
Anyways, your main argument was based around forced conversion being the primary way people entered Islam, but this is without a doubt false.
As for the sources you sent, these are very biased sources and this is outside of the topic at hand. Islam has remained relevant for hundreds of years, and will remain relevant for Muslims, regardless of what some people engaged in presentism will say.
I hope you can learn to leave your ignorance and accept truth, I think I have decisively sent you a lot of examples on why forced conversions were not the main cause to enter Islam. Let’s be honest.
It is breathtaking to see Islamic Apologists tying themselves into knots to try and cherry-pick only those articles/quotes which is favorable to their agenda. The reality is far more complex and not favorable to Islam.
The sources i have quoted are mainly from Wikipedia which is a collection of data with no bias on its own. The fact that you chose to dismiss it completely says a lot about your agenda and ignorance.
At the same time, however, the Islamic tradition records that Muhammad gave the pagans of Mecca and later all of Arabia only two choices: conversion to Islam or the sword. As such, people not considered "people of the book", id est Jews or Christians, are on this example to be given the choice of conversion to Islam or death. In many cases, such as when Muslims found themselves ruling over a polytheist population in India, the forced conversion of so many people has been seen to be impossible, and in its place these people have been offered dhimmitude. These practical exceptions did not, however, change the opinion of the fuquhaa' that all non-believers who are not Jews or Christians ought to be given the choice of Islam or death, forced conversion in effect.
And there is more on that page; Nevertheless the relationship between Islam and Christianity (i consider Christian Sahner as trying to whitewash this relationship since his chair/research is funded by Islamic countries) was quite different than between Islam and Other religions and it is in the latter accounts (mainly from the Indian subcontinent) that one can see the full horrors of Islam on display (start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus).
None of your data points hold up to scrutiny, you have merely stated what you believe, while the evidence from the other side is what i have listed in my comments. You need to go through the sources and then change your worldview w.r.t. Islam if at all you care for the Truth.
An analogy that i make is - Arabs : 7th-12th centuries :: Mongols : 13th-15th centuries.
Both were "primitive" in comparison to the cultures they conquered, but were indispensable in acting as a conduit for the spread of ideas from one part of the world to another.
See also:
1) http://hist.science.online.fr/storie/IERI/Myth_islams_contri...
2) Jack Weatherford's Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.