islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

Propagation of Islam: By Force or Peacefully?impact, because ‘from the fourteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century, the (Indonesian)archipelago saw almost no organised Muslim missionary activity.’ 332 Historians, like Eaton, should take noteof this fact before drawing their conclusions based on vague, unsubstantiated historical legends. This meansthat there was no organized missionary activity (the same is the case in India), conducted by either the Sufisor the Ulema; therefore, very few conversions occurred through such persuasive means. Conversion musthave come predominantly through the exertion of the state: by the sword, large-scale enslavement and othermeans of coercive compulsion, as happened in India.When Muslims came and settled in Southeast Asia, they obviously could convert the local peoplefreely, such as through intermarriage or business contact. Unlike Muslims, who never allow theircoreligionists to leave Islam, the converted infidels or their Muslim converters never faced persecution fromthe generally tolerant local people. Under such a conducive environment, if Islam’s message had such a greatappeal, the persuasive preaching by Sufis, traders or whosoever should have been almost as successful prior toMuslim conquest, as it became after. The fact that conversion through preaching was negligible prior to theconquest, the triumph of the sword undoubtedly became the primary weapon in converting Southeast Asia’sinfidels to Islam.The same paradigm applies to India. Al-Masudi’s record clearly suggests that, prior to the arrival ofthe Muslim invaders, expansion of the Muslim population were mainly through procreation aided byintermarriages in the tolerant culture of India. Al-Masudi suggests that conversion, other than throughintermarriage, was rare. But after Muslim invaders brought the sword of Islam to India in three waves: first inearly eighth century by Muhammad bin Qasim, then in the early eleventh century by Sultan Mahmud andfinally in the late twelfth century by Sultan Ghauri, the Muslim population grew in leaps and bounds throughlarge-scale conversion of native Indians in the face of brutal Muslim assaults, through their enslavement enmasse and other forms of coercion.CONCLUSIONHistorian De Lacy O’Leary writes on the subject of conversion of non-Muslims to Islam that,‘History makes it clear however that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world andforcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd mythsthat historians have ever repeated.’ 333If history is about studying factual evidence left to posterity in the records of scholars and chroniclers of thetime, then O’Leary could not possibly consider this notion about the spread of Islam to be "the mostfantastically absurd myth". Of course, he would be correct, if myths and facts were synonymous. LikeO’Leary, there are far too many modern Muslim historians and their fellow travelers of non-Muslim variety—particularly of the leftist-Marxist leaning—who think that investigating history is not about enumerating andunearthing facts, but about hiding them while writing sophistry. This becomes the trend particularly when itcomes to writing the history of Islam. But those, who wish to find unvarnished truth about Islamic history, sayin India, they should go back to the writings of Al-Kufi (Chachnama), Al-Biladuri, Alberuni, Ibn Asir, al-Utbi, Hasan Nizami, Amir Khasrau, Ziauddin Barrani, Sultan Firoz Tughlaq, Emperor Babur and Jahangir,Badaoni, Abul Fazl, Muhammad Ferishtah and many more such medieval historians.Dr Ali Issa Othman, a reputed Palestinian sociologist and advisor to the United Nations Relief andWorks Agency (UNRAWA) on Education, said on the propagation of Islam that, ‘‘The spread of Islam was332. Van Nieuwenhuijze CAO (1958) Aspects of Islam in Post-Colonial Indonesia, W. van Hoeve Ltd, The Hague, p.35333. O’Leary DL (1923) Islam at the Cross Roads, E. P. Dutton and Co, New York, p. 8108