Why Did They Become Muslims

een the case with Jews, but, on the contrary, Christianity spread all
the wider. Despite all the Muslims’ efforts, massacres and churchdestructions,
(for instance, four thousand churches were destroyed in
the time of caliph ’Umar,) Christians are daily increasing in number
and improving in welfare, whereas Muslims are suffering indignities,
becoming poorer and poorer, and losing their value and importance
world-wide.”
Is-haq Efendi ‘rahmatullâhi ’aleyh’ gives the following answer to
the priest’s denigrations:
First of all, the information and the numerical figures provided by
the priest run counter to facts. Qur’ân al-kerîm, Islam’s Holy Book,
contains the injunction, “There is no compulsion in the religion.”
Although Muhammad ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ never had
recourse to compulsion or threat as he communicated the Islamic
religion, the number of people who embraced Islam willingly and of
their own accord increased in a short time. The statements made by
SALE, a Christian historian and a translator of the Qur’ân al-kerîm,
corroborate our argument. [George Sale died in 1149 [1736 C.E.]. He
was a British priest. He translated the Qur’ân al-kerîm into English in
1734. He gave detailed information about Islam in the introduction of
his work.] He states as follows in his Translation of the Koran, which
was printed in 1266 [1850 C.E.]: “The Hegira had not taken place yet
when Medina already did not contain a house without Muslim
residents.” That means to say that urban people who had not even
seen the face of a sword accepted Islam willingly only owing to the
greatness and trueness of this religion and the nonpareil literary
perfection of the Qur’ân al-kerîm. The following numerical figures
are an indication of Islam’s rapid spread. By the time Muhammad
‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ passed away, the number of Muslims
was one hundred and twenty-four thousand (124,000). Four years
after the passing away of the Messenger of Allah ‘sall-Allâhu ta’âlâ
’alaihi wa sallam’, ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’ sent a forty-thousandstrong
Muslim army, and that army conquered Iran, Syria, a part of
Anatolia up to Konya, and Egypt. ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ta’âlâ ’anh’
never had recourse to tyranny. He never displayed cruelty to those
Christians and fire-worshippers living in the countries that he
captured from cruel dictators. His justice is acknowledged by the
entire world, friend and foe alike. Most of the people living in these
countries saw the justice and the ethical perfection inherent in the
Islamic religion and became Muslims willingly. Very few of them
remained in their former religions, such as Christianity, Judaism and
Magi. Thus, as historians unanimously acknowledge, the number of
Muslims living in Muslim countries reached twenty or thirty million in
ten years, which is a comparatively short period in the context of its
time. ’Umar ‘radiy-Allâhu ’anh’, let alone destroying four thousand
– 267 –