It would be wrong to attribute the rapid expansion of Islam to any single cause. The weakness of Byzantine and Sassanids empires as a result of their mutual territorial conflicts and political conflicts was offset by lack of Arab conquerors in the matter of equipment, organization and other material resources. The Muslim could never spread en masse from Medina to China to Spain, as there were not many Arabs to be distributed over all the immense territory. In the beginning, these wars were rather political and there was absolute no desire on the part of the Muslims to impose religion by force which also is totally prohibited in Islam. If we read history with impartial eye and not with blindfolds of ignorance as demonstrated by many western scholars, at no time in Islamic civilization compulsion was employed to convert the subjugated peoples. The Islamic law recognizes liberty for the non-Muslims to preserve their beliefs and forbids all recourse to compulsion for converting others to Islam. The simplicity and reasonableness of Muslims religious doctrines together with practical example of life of piety and righteousness attracted proselytes to Islam. Plunder and economic gain are baseless and mendacious accusations levied against Islams spreading so rapidly to all corners of the earth and it is a repugnant attempt to put Islamic civilization on the same pedestal as the barbaric and lewd Christendom with its heinous record of expansion purely for greed in the disguise of white skin Christianity of whit mans god of Bible.
We have just to open look around at pages of history and learn that hundreds of millions of non- Christians were killed or massacred by the European Christains in their lust for power and greed in North and South America, Africa, SE Asia, Middle East and the Australia continent. On the other hand, Islam was a sigh of relief for the vanquished and they considered it a change for better, protection of their civil rights, freedom to worship their religions as they wished without any compulsion. Hardly fifteen years had passed after the death of Prophet Mohammed that the East West Muslim expansion spread from the Atlantic to the approaches of the pacific and what is surprising that in this lightning conquests that the nowhere the conquered discontented but instead in many cases welcoming and cooperative. This is also proved by the fact that in 656 when the Muslims were torn by the first conflict, no internal uprising took place; and the Byzantine Emperor could not trust or count on his former subjects to rebel against their Muslim ruler and was paid off by Muslim governor of Syria. I would like to refer to\a document written by a Nestorian bishop addressed to his friend which is still preserved and wrote: These Tayites (Arabs), to whom God has accorded domination in our days, have also become our masters; yet they do not combat at all Christian religion; on the contrary, they even protect our faith, respect our priests and our saints and make donation to our churches and our convents. Westerners lack of knowledge about Islam emanates from ignorance and being ignorant is no excuse for anyone to sully Islam for the sake of perfidious mentality and evil intent to misrepresent it. If an evil-doer brings you a piece of news, inquire first into its truth, lest you should wrong others unwittingly and repent of what you have done. The basic of Islamic nationality is religious and not ethnic, linguistic or regional. At end, could Veri tell me if any Muslim army went into Malaysia, Maldives, Indonesia, Bali, Philippines and SE coast of China? It was the dynamism of Islam, which began spreading rapidly to all corners of the globe, and was accepted by the locals with open arms and hearts.
In the forty years before he attained prophethood, Prophet Mohammed (SAW) had never once betrayed a trust. He was strictly honest in his dealings, true to his world, and deeply compassionate towards the human beings all around him. Most important of all, he had a profound desire for the truth, which went far and beyond all craving for profit. Even from a very early age he was given the affectionate name of As Sadiq al Amin, the truthful and trustworthy and even those who opposed him never accused him of dishonesty or lying. His most notable qualities were his honest, mercy, kindness, generosity and compassion. In Mohammed (SAW), God found a pure soul, untarnished by self-interest, and totally uncompromising on the question of right and wrong. Allah saw in him a man selflessly devoted to his duties, and one who would never stoop to idolatrous belief. Most important, Allah had found a seeker after the truth and someone who would appreciate in full the divine revelations with which he would be entrusted, and who would fully live to the resultant obligation. It was because this most perfect man has shown himself to be consistently virtuous over the first forty year saw of his life that Allah chose him as His final Prophet for all mankind. Mohammed (SAW) proved that Gods trust in him had not been misplaced for he carried out his prophetic duties with the highest imaginable degree of integrity.
Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was the most pious, truthful, honest, loving and humble man that has ever lived. At the end of his, he was the ruler of whole of the Saudi Arabia, Yemen and parts of Syria and Palestine but lived on his meagre salary in a small rented house with no servants, helped his wives with domestic chores, never knew if he would have food to eat in the next meal because he was so charitable that if a guest or a hungry man visited his house, he would feed them first and felt content whatever was left and often went hungry. When he died, he did not have one penny or owned a brick to give in inheritance. I often feel so sad when people with malice and prejudice in hearts attack Islam without knowing or learning its true message of love, peace and harmony, which Prophet Mohammed (SAW) conveyed to the mankind.
The Islamic law recognizes liberty for the non-Muslims to preserve their beliefs and forbids all recourse to compulsion for converting others to Islam. The simplicity and reasonableness of Muslims religious doctrines together with practical example of life of piety and righteousness attracted proselytes to Islam. Plunder and economic gain are baseless and mendacious accusations levied against Islams spreading so rapidly to all corners of the earth and it is a repugnant attempt to put Islamic civilization on the same pedestal as the barbaric and lewd Christendom with its heinous record of expansion purely for greed in the disguise of white skin Christianity of whit mans god of Bible. We have just to open look around at pages of history and learn that hundreds of millions of non- Christians were killed or massacred by the European Christians in their lust for power and greed in North and South America, Africa, SE Asia, Middle East and the Australia continent.
On the other hand, Islam was a sigh of relief for the vanquished and they considered it a change for better, protection of their civil rights, freedom to worship their religions as they wished without any compulsion. Hardly fifteen years had passed after the death of Prophet Mohammed that the East West Muslim expansion spread from the Atlantic to the approaches of the pacific and what is surprising that in this lightning conquests that the nowhere the conquered discontented but instead in many cases welcoming and cooperative. This is also proved by the fact that in 656 when the Muslims were torn by the first conflict, no internal uprising took place; and the Byzantine Emperor could not trust or count on his former subjects to rebel against their Muslim ruler and was paid off by Muslim governor of Syria. I would like to refer to\a document written by a Nestorian bishop addressed to his friend which is still preserved and wrote: These Tayites (Arabs), to whom God has accorded domination in our days, have also become our masters; yet they do not combat at all Christian religion; on the contrary, they even protect our faith, respect our priests and our saints and make donation to our churches and our convents. Your lack of knowledge about Islam emanates from ignorance and being ignorant is no excuse for anyone to sully Islam for the sake of perfidious mentality and evil intent to misrepresent it. If an evil-doer brings you a piece of news, inquire first into its truth, lest you should wrong others unwittingly and repent of what you have done. The basic of Islamic nationality is religious and not ethnic, linguistic or regional. At end, could you tell me if any Muslim army went into Malaysia, Maldives, Indonesia, and Bali, Philippines and SE coast of China?
In fact, it was the dynamism of Islam, which began spreading rapidly to all corners of the globe, and was accepted by the locals with open arms and hearts. In the forty years before he attained prophet hood, he had never once betrayed a trust. He was strictly honest in his dealings, true to his world, and deeply compassionate towards the human beings all around him. Most important of all, he had a profound desire for the truth, which went far and beyond all craving for profit. Even from a very early age he was given the affectionate name of As Sadiq al Amin, the truthful and trustworthy and even those who opposed him never accused him of dishonesty or lying. His most notable qualities were his honest, mercy, kindness, generosity and compassion. In Mohammed, God found a pure soul, untarnished by self-interest, and totally uncompromising on the question of right and wrong. God saw in him a man selflessly devoted to his duties, and one who would never stoop to idolatrous belief. Most important, God had found a seeker after the truth and someone who would appreciate in full the divine revelations with which he would be entrusted, and who would fully live to the resultant obligation. It was because this most perfect man has shown himself to be consistently virtuous over the first forty year saw of his life that God chose him as His final Prophet for all mankind. Mohammed proved that Gods trust in him had not been misplaced for he carried out his prophetic duties with the highest imaginable degree of integrity
The Islamic world has its own features and uniqueness. It should be kept in mind that the Islamic world is also not homogenised one. One comes across fundamental differences in Islamic countries from Algeria to Indonesia though all of them follow Deen of Islam. Commonality of religion does not necessarily mean commonality of social or political traditions. These traditions are as different as their societies and social realities. Secularism is a non-religious, if not altogether anti-religious philosophy. A secular political philosophy should have nothing to do with any religious tenets or doctrines. A secular state then would not take any religious beliefs or practices into account while legislating on any issue and in some extreme cases even citizens would not be free to have religious faith and declare it, and practice it publicly as it was in the Soviet Union and is still the government policy of Republic of China.
Prophet Mohammed when he settled in Medina with his followers was to constitute a city-state in which Muslims, Jews, Christians, pagan Arabs all entered into a social contract. The constitutional law of the first Muslim state succeeded in was a confederacy as a sequence of the multiplicity of the population groups which meant: To Muslims their religion and to the Jews their religion; to Christians their religion, and there would be benevolence and justice to all. This also meant that the non-Muslims possessed the right to vote in the election of the head of the state as they elected Prophet Mohammed as their political head. In Islamic states, non-Muslim communities had always enjoyed a judicial autonomy, not only for personal status but also for all affairs of life including civil, penal and others. Judicial powers were delegated to Christian priests and the Jewish hakham in the reign of many caliphs. In the time of Prophet Mohammed, the Jews of Medina had their synagogue and educational institute and in the treaty with the Christians of Narjan, Prophet gave a guarantee not only for the security of person and property of the inhabitants but left the nomination of bishops and priests to the Christian community itself.
In an Islamic state, non-Muslims constitute a protected community and it is therefore the duty of the governments to protect their legitimate interests and only thing that they are not permitted is to interfere in the Islamic jurisprudence.
The spirit finds its opportunity in the natural, the material and even in the secular; there is no such thing as a profane in the world. As Prophet Mohammed (SAW) so beautifully put it: The Whole world is a mosque. The available record show that Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was always especially tolerant of Christians and in 628 in Median, he granted a Charter to the Monastery of ST. Catherine, guaranteeing the safety of their persons, houses and in places of worship. They were not to be converted to Islam by force as conversion is forbidden and was detested by the Prophet. Christian women married to Muslims could follow their own religion and Muslims were encouraged to help in the repair of their churches. The Jews however received a different treatment since they had always conspired, created insidious troubles (fitna) and sided with the Querish of Mecca and supported them in contravention of earlier treaty obligation with Prophet (pubh) in attacking Muslims settled in Medina. These Jews were deeply distrusted and strongly resented for their inherent hatred and treachery against Islam and Muslims. But they were free In the 7th century because of Islams magnanimity and equity in justice to all its citizens of the expanding caliphate, Nestorians and Monophysite Christians of Egypt and Syria embraced Islam because of the prejudicial and racist treatment of the treatment of the Romans.
The Qur'an, in fact, directly encourages pluralism in the Ayat 5:48. It clearly states that every people have their own law and a way i.e. every nation is unique in its way of life, its rules etc. It also says that if Allah had pleased, He would have created all human beings a single people but He did not do so in order to test them (whether they can live in harmony with each other despite their differences in laws and way of life). Thus it is clear assertion of pluralism. One must respect the others faith and live in harmony with him/her. For every age there are some keys which help us understand the scripture in our own age. Also, a commentator should have a vision of society and this vision evolves from ones own social situation. Allah's creative power cannot be treated as static any way. The Qur'an also refers to His dynamism when it states "....every day He manifests Himself in yet another (wondrous) way. Which, then, of your Sustainer's powers can you disavow?" (29:55). This Allah manifests Himself every day in new state (sha'n). And the word yaum literally means day but figuratively it can also mean a whole epoch, a period. Taking the word yam in this sense, the verse will mean Allah manifests His Glories in new ways from period to period, from epoch to epoch.
Islam has progressive traditions and Islamic civilization has in the past proved capable of extraordinary feats of tolerance. Under the Muslims, medieval Spain became a haven for diverse religions and sects, and the allegation by some that Islamic civilization is inherently less capable of tolerance is absurd. Magnanimity is very much admired by Muslims and it is considered a sin if we ill-treat or harm an enemy at our mercy; it is our religious and moral duty to protect him from all harm. In Islamic civilization and rules, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus and other people of various beliefs enjoyed religious freedom and equal rights. This reflected the teachings of the Quran, which is pluralistic scripture and affirmation of others' traditions. As far as the secular view, Ottomans were considered history's longest-lasting major dynasty; their long reign must have had some relation to their ability to rule a multi-faith empire when Europe was hanging different varieties of Christian believers. People of different faiths were never forced to accept Islam and we can see the evidence: in India 85% of the population still practice Hinduism and over 95% of the Europeans are Christian, 18 million Coptic Christian still live in Egypt despite ruled by the Muslims for long periods.
We have just to open look around at pages of history and learn that hundreds of millions of non- Christians were killed or massacred by the European Christains in their lust for power and greed in North and South America, Africa, SE Asia, Middle East and the Australia continent. On the other hand, Islam was a sigh of relief for the vanquished and they considered it a change for better, protection of their civil rights, freedom to worship their religions as they wished without any compulsion. Hardly fifteen years had passed after the death of Prophet Mohammed that the East West Muslim expansion spread from the Atlantic to the approaches of the pacific and what is surprising that in this lightning conquests that the nowhere the conquered discontented but instead in many cases welcoming and cooperative. This is also proved by the fact that in 656 when the Muslims were torn by the first conflict, no internal uprising took place; and the Byzantine Emperor could not trust or count on his former subjects to rebel against their Muslim ruler and was paid off by Muslim governor of Syria. I would like to refer to\a document written by a Nestorian bishop addressed to his friend which is still preserved and wrote: These Tayites (Arabs), to whom God has accorded domination in our days, have also become our masters; yet they do not combat at all Christian religion; on the contrary, they even protect our faith, respect our priests and our saints and make donation to our churches and our convents. Westerners lack of knowledge about Islam emanates from ignorance and being ignorant is no excuse for anyone to sully Islam for the sake of perfidious mentality and evil intent to misrepresent it. If an evil-doer brings you a piece of news, inquire first into its truth, lest you should wrong others unwittingly and repent of what you have done. The basic of Islamic nationality is religious and not ethnic, linguistic or regional. At end, could Veri tell me if any Muslim army went into Malaysia, Maldives, Indonesia, Bali, Philippines and SE coast of China? It was the dynamism of Islam, which began spreading rapidly to all corners of the globe, and was accepted by the locals with open arms and hearts.
In the forty years before he attained prophethood, Prophet Mohammed (SAW) had never once betrayed a trust. He was strictly honest in his dealings, true to his world, and deeply compassionate towards the human beings all around him. Most important of all, he had a profound desire for the truth, which went far and beyond all craving for profit. Even from a very early age he was given the affectionate name of As Sadiq al Amin, the truthful and trustworthy and even those who opposed him never accused him of dishonesty or lying. His most notable qualities were his honest, mercy, kindness, generosity and compassion. In Mohammed (SAW), God found a pure soul, untarnished by self-interest, and totally uncompromising on the question of right and wrong. Allah saw in him a man selflessly devoted to his duties, and one who would never stoop to idolatrous belief. Most important, Allah had found a seeker after the truth and someone who would appreciate in full the divine revelations with which he would be entrusted, and who would fully live to the resultant obligation. It was because this most perfect man has shown himself to be consistently virtuous over the first forty year saw of his life that Allah chose him as His final Prophet for all mankind. Mohammed (SAW) proved that Gods trust in him had not been misplaced for he carried out his prophetic duties with the highest imaginable degree of integrity.
Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was the most pious, truthful, honest, loving and humble man that has ever lived. At the end of his, he was the ruler of whole of the Saudi Arabia, Yemen and parts of Syria and Palestine but lived on his meagre salary in a small rented house with no servants, helped his wives with domestic chores, never knew if he would have food to eat in the next meal because he was so charitable that if a guest or a hungry man visited his house, he would feed them first and felt content whatever was left and often went hungry. When he died, he did not have one penny or owned a brick to give in inheritance. I often feel so sad when people with malice and prejudice in hearts attack Islam without knowing or learning its true message of love, peace and harmony, which Prophet Mohammed (SAW) conveyed to the mankind.
The Islamic law recognizes liberty for the non-Muslims to preserve their beliefs and forbids all recourse to compulsion for converting others to Islam. The simplicity and reasonableness of Muslims religious doctrines together with practical example of life of piety and righteousness attracted proselytes to Islam. Plunder and economic gain are baseless and mendacious accusations levied against Islams spreading so rapidly to all corners of the earth and it is a repugnant attempt to put Islamic civilization on the same pedestal as the barbaric and lewd Christendom with its heinous record of expansion purely for greed in the disguise of white skin Christianity of whit mans god of Bible. We have just to open look around at pages of history and learn that hundreds of millions of non- Christians were killed or massacred by the European Christians in their lust for power and greed in North and South America, Africa, SE Asia, Middle East and the Australia continent.
On the other hand, Islam was a sigh of relief for the vanquished and they considered it a change for better, protection of their civil rights, freedom to worship their religions as they wished without any compulsion. Hardly fifteen years had passed after the death of Prophet Mohammed that the East West Muslim expansion spread from the Atlantic to the approaches of the pacific and what is surprising that in this lightning conquests that the nowhere the conquered discontented but instead in many cases welcoming and cooperative. This is also proved by the fact that in 656 when the Muslims were torn by the first conflict, no internal uprising took place; and the Byzantine Emperor could not trust or count on his former subjects to rebel against their Muslim ruler and was paid off by Muslim governor of Syria. I would like to refer to\a document written by a Nestorian bishop addressed to his friend which is still preserved and wrote: These Tayites (Arabs), to whom God has accorded domination in our days, have also become our masters; yet they do not combat at all Christian religion; on the contrary, they even protect our faith, respect our priests and our saints and make donation to our churches and our convents. Your lack of knowledge about Islam emanates from ignorance and being ignorant is no excuse for anyone to sully Islam for the sake of perfidious mentality and evil intent to misrepresent it. If an evil-doer brings you a piece of news, inquire first into its truth, lest you should wrong others unwittingly and repent of what you have done. The basic of Islamic nationality is religious and not ethnic, linguistic or regional. At end, could you tell me if any Muslim army went into Malaysia, Maldives, Indonesia, and Bali, Philippines and SE coast of China?
In fact, it was the dynamism of Islam, which began spreading rapidly to all corners of the globe, and was accepted by the locals with open arms and hearts. In the forty years before he attained prophet hood, he had never once betrayed a trust. He was strictly honest in his dealings, true to his world, and deeply compassionate towards the human beings all around him. Most important of all, he had a profound desire for the truth, which went far and beyond all craving for profit. Even from a very early age he was given the affectionate name of As Sadiq al Amin, the truthful and trustworthy and even those who opposed him never accused him of dishonesty or lying. His most notable qualities were his honest, mercy, kindness, generosity and compassion. In Mohammed, God found a pure soul, untarnished by self-interest, and totally uncompromising on the question of right and wrong. God saw in him a man selflessly devoted to his duties, and one who would never stoop to idolatrous belief. Most important, God had found a seeker after the truth and someone who would appreciate in full the divine revelations with which he would be entrusted, and who would fully live to the resultant obligation. It was because this most perfect man has shown himself to be consistently virtuous over the first forty year saw of his life that God chose him as His final Prophet for all mankind. Mohammed proved that Gods trust in him had not been misplaced for he carried out his prophetic duties with the highest imaginable degree of integrity
The Islamic world has its own features and uniqueness. It should be kept in mind that the Islamic world is also not homogenised one. One comes across fundamental differences in Islamic countries from Algeria to Indonesia though all of them follow Deen of Islam. Commonality of religion does not necessarily mean commonality of social or political traditions. These traditions are as different as their societies and social realities. Secularism is a non-religious, if not altogether anti-religious philosophy. A secular political philosophy should have nothing to do with any religious tenets or doctrines. A secular state then would not take any religious beliefs or practices into account while legislating on any issue and in some extreme cases even citizens would not be free to have religious faith and declare it, and practice it publicly as it was in the Soviet Union and is still the government policy of Republic of China.
Prophet Mohammed when he settled in Medina with his followers was to constitute a city-state in which Muslims, Jews, Christians, pagan Arabs all entered into a social contract. The constitutional law of the first Muslim state succeeded in was a confederacy as a sequence of the multiplicity of the population groups which meant: To Muslims their religion and to the Jews their religion; to Christians their religion, and there would be benevolence and justice to all. This also meant that the non-Muslims possessed the right to vote in the election of the head of the state as they elected Prophet Mohammed as their political head. In Islamic states, non-Muslim communities had always enjoyed a judicial autonomy, not only for personal status but also for all affairs of life including civil, penal and others. Judicial powers were delegated to Christian priests and the Jewish hakham in the reign of many caliphs. In the time of Prophet Mohammed, the Jews of Medina had their synagogue and educational institute and in the treaty with the Christians of Narjan, Prophet gave a guarantee not only for the security of person and property of the inhabitants but left the nomination of bishops and priests to the Christian community itself.
In an Islamic state, non-Muslims constitute a protected community and it is therefore the duty of the governments to protect their legitimate interests and only thing that they are not permitted is to interfere in the Islamic jurisprudence.
The spirit finds its opportunity in the natural, the material and even in the secular; there is no such thing as a profane in the world. As Prophet Mohammed (SAW) so beautifully put it: The Whole world is a mosque. The available record show that Prophet Mohammed (SAW) was always especially tolerant of Christians and in 628 in Median, he granted a Charter to the Monastery of ST. Catherine, guaranteeing the safety of their persons, houses and in places of worship. They were not to be converted to Islam by force as conversion is forbidden and was detested by the Prophet. Christian women married to Muslims could follow their own religion and Muslims were encouraged to help in the repair of their churches. The Jews however received a different treatment since they had always conspired, created insidious troubles (fitna) and sided with the Querish of Mecca and supported them in contravention of earlier treaty obligation with Prophet (pubh) in attacking Muslims settled in Medina. These Jews were deeply distrusted and strongly resented for their inherent hatred and treachery against Islam and Muslims. But they were free In the 7th century because of Islams magnanimity and equity in justice to all its citizens of the expanding caliphate, Nestorians and Monophysite Christians of Egypt and Syria embraced Islam because of the prejudicial and racist treatment of the treatment of the Romans.
The Qur'an, in fact, directly encourages pluralism in the Ayat 5:48. It clearly states that every people have their own law and a way i.e. every nation is unique in its way of life, its rules etc. It also says that if Allah had pleased, He would have created all human beings a single people but He did not do so in order to test them (whether they can live in harmony with each other despite their differences in laws and way of life). Thus it is clear assertion of pluralism. One must respect the others faith and live in harmony with him/her. For every age there are some keys which help us understand the scripture in our own age. Also, a commentator should have a vision of society and this vision evolves from ones own social situation. Allah's creative power cannot be treated as static any way. The Qur'an also refers to His dynamism when it states "....every day He manifests Himself in yet another (wondrous) way. Which, then, of your Sustainer's powers can you disavow?" (29:55). This Allah manifests Himself every day in new state (sha'n). And the word yaum literally means day but figuratively it can also mean a whole epoch, a period. Taking the word yam in this sense, the verse will mean Allah manifests His Glories in new ways from period to period, from epoch to epoch.
Islam has progressive traditions and Islamic civilization has in the past proved capable of extraordinary feats of tolerance. Under the Muslims, medieval Spain became a haven for diverse religions and sects, and the allegation by some that Islamic civilization is inherently less capable of tolerance is absurd. Magnanimity is very much admired by Muslims and it is considered a sin if we ill-treat or harm an enemy at our mercy; it is our religious and moral duty to protect him from all harm. In Islamic civilization and rules, Jews, Christians, Zoroastrians, Hindus and other people of various beliefs enjoyed religious freedom and equal rights. This reflected the teachings of the Quran, which is pluralistic scripture and affirmation of others' traditions. As far as the secular view, Ottomans were considered history's longest-lasting major dynasty; their long reign must have had some relation to their ability to rule a multi-faith empire when Europe was hanging different varieties of Christian believers. People of different faiths were never forced to accept Islam and we can see the evidence: in India 85% of the population still practice Hinduism and over 95% of the Europeans are Christian, 18 million Coptic Christian still live in Egypt despite ruled by the Muslims for long periods.
