7. Was Islam spread by the sword?

Human history has witnessed several events of expansion – political, industrial, social and religious. However, political expansion has most often been misconstrued as religious expansion. In the case of Islam, there is no proof that sword or force was used to spread the religion. There were dynasties which in order to fulfil their political ambitions conquered many lands. For instance, the Battle of Chausa was fought between the Mughal emperor Humayun and the Afghan Sher Shah Suri (1539). Both the kings were of the same faith. If the purpose of conquering lands and expanding empires was to spread Islam then there should have been no reason for these two Muslim rulers to engage in military combat. This example shows that conquests by Muslim rulers and emperors in history have been for serving political ends and to expand their dynasties. These were not religiously motivated wars and battles.

Swami Vivekananda, in the book Letters of Swami Vivekananda, wrote;

It is nonsense to say that Hindus were converted to Islam by force.

Similarly, Egypt was a large country to enter within the fold of Islam. Sir Arthur Keith, while studying the phenomenon remarked:

Egyptians were conquered not by sword but by the Quran. (‘A New Theory of Human Evolution’, p. 303. ed. 1948)

Let me quote an example of how deep this misconception of forceful spread of Islam has been. I happened to correspond with a person from a different faith who hailed from Hyderabad. He was quite adamant in his belief that Islam spread through violence in India and he shared the reference of a book in this regard. It was titled, The Indian Musalmans by William Wilson Hunter. I read this book myself and found out that it actually talked about the peaceful penetration of Islam in India. I wrote back to him with the clipping and thereafter he did not revert.

History does not prove that sword was used for the religious expansion of Islam. Political expansion was a different case, specific to individuals and dynasties. Owing to this mistaken notion, political expansion is seen as an act of forced religious expansion. In reality, Islam spread on the basis of the ideology of tawhid (the oneness of God) and it were the Sufis who played a major role in the spread of Islam. The Sufis, as is well known, did not make any use of force; they were simply spiritual guides.

Often quoted in arguments are the wars and fights with the Byzantine and Persian Empire during the reign of the rightly guided caliphs. I have addressed this in great detail in my book, The Prophet of Peace (Penguin publication). Once the tribal communities started accepting Islam and pledging their allegiance to the caliphs, the then superpowers (Byzantine and Persia) felt a sense of threat and declared war on the Muslim community. In their defence, Muslims had to fight back.

In those days, the territory of the vanquished was merged with the territory of the victors. But the inhabitants of the newly merged territories were never forcefully converted to Islam. An example of this can be seen when Umar ibn al-Khattab (the second Muslim caliph) entered the city of Jerusalem. The Patriarch of the city, Sophronius, offered Umar to say his prayers in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, but Umar declined the offer. Upon being enquired, Umar said that he had declined so that later on Muslims do not claim their right on the land saying that their caliph had prayed there, and thus take away from the Christians what was rightfully theirs. In doing so, the caliph Umar demonstrated the Islamic teachings of well-wishing, co-existence and peace for all mankind.