This book discussed the historicity of Islam in propagating its faith over a vast portion of the world. This book was written by British Orientalist, Sir Walker Arnold and was published in 1896, hence, the historical fact and analysis were based until the early 19th century.
This is an extremely captivating book as it not only illustrated the spreading of Islam but also how it impacted the people including non-Muslim throughout the civilisation. The principal objective of this book was to demonstrate the missionary activity that was put forth by Muslim. I believe it was intended to give a balanced view and/or to counter-argue the claim ‘Islam is spread by the sword’. This topic was very well-written and it’s no doubt that this book should be made well-known to the masses. Specifically, as we are in the midst of growing Islamophobia. As we all know, the claim that ‘Islam is spread by the sword’ is one of the tenets of Islamophobia. This claim implies that Islam ONLY spreads by military and ‘conversion or death’. It’s easier to erase centuries of history and jump from ISIS (ISIL) to the 6th-century medieval without understanding the social setting and context. The author used the medieval lens and reasoning when discussing the veracity of the conquest and land expansion during the reign of the Islamic empire. As mentioned in the book, the conquest also means to liberate a land that was being oppressed. It’s also important to note that during the medieval period, a community was willing to be governed under or come into a treaty with a certain empire as long as they can live safely and secure. There were many pieces of evidence and historical records that support this statement.
“This same sense of security of religious life under Muslim rule led many Christians of Asia Minor also about the same time to welcome the advent of the Seljuq Turks as their deliverer from hated Byzantine government not only on account of its oppressive system of taxation…”
The simplicity of Islamic creed compared to other religion (i.e Christianity and Roman Catholic), as well as Muslims' proper conduct, played instrumental roles in spreading Islam. This case wasn’t only occurred when Muslims were in power (i.e under the Islamic empire), but also when Muslims came to foreign lands (i.e as merchants). Muslims were regarded as highly civilised people because of their piety, cleanliness, literate and well-informed in faith as compared to other people in faith.
The Islamic teaching that promotes co-existence and toleration were also the factors that led to rapid conversion to Islam. The book provided the data that under Muslim rule, non-muslims could practice their belief, churches were built and being hired in a government position. The context of jizyah (yearly tax paid by non-muslim who live under Muslim rule) also being discussed in this book which certainly refuted the claim that jizyah was oppressive.
Certainly, there were cases throughout the Islamic history where the ruler/sultan imposed religion toward their people, forced conversion or treated non-Muslim badly. But this was clearly against the teaching of the Islam which stated ‘no compulsion in religion’. In comparison, there were more records existed to support the toleration non-muslim experienced especially when Muslim in power.
“ A further proof that their sufferings have been due to misgovernment rather than their religions persecution is the fact that Muslim and Christan suffered alike.”
“But of any organised attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim populations, or any systematic persecution, 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.”
Many gems can be found in this book that makes it hard for me to trivially mention one by one since every chapter needs a long discussion and contemplation. The fact that this topic had been academically addressed more than 100 years ago is very telling. This is an important book to be read this day and age to heighten the understanding of this topic for Muslim and non-Muslim alike. We must educate ourselves with correct understanding so that we won’t be misinformed which then resulted in misbehaving and prejudice.