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

Islamic Jihadweapon in the propagation of Islam: the sword was applied first; the propagation of Islam came next—thelatter, they claim, came through peaceful means. A couple of questions need to be asked in this regard:1. How peaceful was the propagation phase of Islam?2. Didn’t the initial sword-phase played any role in the spread of Islam?The answer to these questions will be found as one goes through this book. It will be demonstrated, based onthe records of Muslim historians, that the conversion of the vanquished to Islam started rights on the battlefieldon a grand scale. Let us now address the following two issues concerning the claims of these Muslimscholars:1. First, did non-Muslims rush to the umbrella of Islam upon realizing that the message ofIslam was one of peace and justice?2. Second, if Islam was spread by the sword, why are there still fourteen million non-Muslimsin the Middle East and 80 percent of the people are Hindus in India after about fourteen andten centuries of Islamic rule, respectively?A brief account of what had descended upon the people of the Middle East and India in the initial Muslimassaults has already been described. Sultan Mahmud made seventeen devastating assaults in Northern Indiabetween 1000 and 1027 CE. Three decades after Sultan Mahmud’s first assault, Alberuni recorded in hisbook, Alberuni’s India (Indica, 1030 CE), that the Hindus had become "atoms of dust" in the lands conqueredby Muslims; and those, who survived, cherished ‘the most inveterate aversion towards all Muslims.’ Alberunifurther wrote that the Hindus ‘frighten their children with us (Muslims), our dress and our ways and customs’and decry us as "devil’s breed" and that they regard ‘everything we do as opposite of all that is good andproper.’ 160 The reason for the Hindu repugnance toward Arab Muslims were the complete banishment ofBuddhists from countries like Khurasan, Persia, Iraq, Mosul and Syria, first by the Zoroastrians and then byMuslims. And then Muhammad bin Qasim forayed into India, conquered the cities of Brahmanabad andMultan, and went as far as Kanauj. And ‘all these events planted a deeply rooted hatred in their hearts,’ addsAlberuni. Ibn Battutah witnessed many Hindu rebels and warriors, who, instead of submitting to Muslim rulesor converting to Islam, had taken refuge in inaccessible mountains near Multan and Aligarh, while MughalEmperor Babur, late in the Muslim rule in India, noted the same in Agra (see below). In the reign of ratherkind-hearted Jahangir (d. 1627), hundreds of thousands, probably millions, of Hindus had taken refuge injungles across India and taken to rebellion; Jahangir hunted down 200,000 of them in 1619–20 and sold themin Iran. 161 Alberuni proves that, some three decades after Sultan Mahmud’s first invasion, India’s Hindus failedto see the message of peace and justice in Islam. If they did, they would have rushed to embrace Islam,instead of showing "inveterate aversion" and "deeply rooted hatred" against Muslims. Other Muslim scholars,travelers and merchants, who visited India during the early centuries of Islam, also expressed similarfrustrations. Islamic rule came to the India proper in 712 and it appears that the Hindus did not grasp Islam’sappealing message of peace and justice for centuries, as Prof. Habibullah writes, ‘direct conversions at thebeginning must have been rare; an early report, quoted by a tenth-century Arab geographer, complains thatIslam had not made a single convert in India.’ 162 Merchant Sulaiman (851), who traveled to India and China,stated: ‘In his time, he knew neither Indian nor Chinese who had accepted Islam or spoke Arabic.’ 163 Ibn160. Sachau EC (1993) Alberuni’s India, Low Price Publications, New Delhi, p. 20–21161. Elliot & Downson, Vol. VI, p. 516; Levi (2002) Hindus Beyond the Hindu Kush: Indian in the Central Asian SlaveTrades, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 12(3), p. 283–84162. Habibullah ABM (1976) The Foundations of Muslim Rule in India, Central Book Depot, Allahabad, p. 1163. Sharma, p. 11069