While early Islamic states engaged in military campaigns to remove oppressive empires (like the Byzantines and Sassanids) and establish justice, these campaigns were not aimed at forcing individuals to convert. Non-Muslims were allowed to practice their faiths under Islamic rule as Ahl al-Dhimmah (protected citizens).
Many prominent non-Muslim historians and scholars have thoroughly studied the spread of Islam and concluded that it spread primarily through practical demonstration of justice, kindness and honesty of Islamic system of governance, preaching, business interactions with upright Muslim traders, Sufi saints and the appeal of its laws and doctrines, rather than through coercion. Here are several notable quotes from twenty two non-Muslim scholars:
1. De Lacy O’Leary (British Orientalist)
In his book Islam at the Cross Roads), O’Leary famously wrote:
“History makes it clear however, that the legend of fanatical Muslims sweeping through the world and forcing Islam at the point of the sword upon conquered races is one of the most fantastically absurd myths that historians have ever repeated.”
(De Lacy O’Leary, Islam at the Cross Roads (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co., 1923), P,8.)
2. Sir Thomas Walker Arnold (British Orientalist and Historian)
In his definitive work The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith (1896), Arnold extensively documents the peaceful missionary nature of Islam. He states:
“Of any organized attempt to force the acceptance of Islam on the non-Muslim population, or of any systematic persecution intended to stamp out the Christian religion, 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… The very survival of these churches to the present day is a strong proof of the generally tolerant attitude of the Muhammadan governments towards them.”
(The Preaching of Islam: A History of the Propagation of the Muslim Faith, page 80, chapter III of the original 1896 edition)
3. Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Historian and Philosopher)
In his book On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History (Lecture II), Carlyle addressed the “sword” argument, pointing out that an idea must first win the hearts of people before a “sword” can even be wielded:
“The sword indeed: but where will you get your sword! Every new opinion, at its starting, is precisely in a minority of one. In one man’s head alone, there it dwells as yet. One man alone of the whole world believes it; there is one man against all men. That he take a physical sword, and try to propagate with that, will do little for him.”
(On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and The Heroic in History, Lecture II, P.97 of 1841 Edition)
4. A.S. Tritton (British Historian)
Tritton notes the historical reality of Muslim tolerance:
“The picture of the Muslim soldier advancing with a sword in one hand and the Quran in the other is quite false.”
(Islam P. 21, 1951 Ed)
5. Marshall Hodgson (American Historian)
In his acclaimed multi-volume work The Venture of Islam, Hodgson points out that the demographic majority of Muslims in conquered lands took centuries to achieve, demonstrating a gradual, societal conversion rather than immediate forced conversions by conquering armies.
(Marshall G. Hodgson, The Venture of Islam, Volume 1: The Classical Age of Islam (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), 199.)
6. M.K. Gandhi famously refuted the idea that Islam was spread by the sword. After reading a biography of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), he wrote about the qualities that truly won people’s hearts:
“I wanted to know the best of the life of one who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind… I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet, the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle.”
(Young India (Gandhi’s weekly journal), published on September 11, 1924, Volume 6)
7. Swami Vivekananda (Hindu Monk, Philosopher, and Scholar)
“Why amongst the poor of India so many are Mohammedans? It is nonsense to say they were converted by the sword. It was to gain their liberty from the… zamindars and from the… priest, and as a consequence you find in Bengal there are more Mohammedans than Hindus amongst the cultivators, because there were so many zamindars there.”
(The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, Volume 8, From his letters/epistles written in the late 19th century)
8. K.S. Ramakrishna Rao (Indian Professor of Philosophy)
In his booklet about the life of the Prophet, Professor Rao addressed the “sword” myth directly:
“The theory of Islam and Sword is not heard now in any quarter worth the name. The principle of Islam that there is no compulsion in religion is well known.”
(Muhammad: The Prophet of Islam, first published in 1978)
9. Ira Lapidus wrote in A History of Islamic Societies that:
“European scholars believed that conversions to Islam were made at the point of the sword and that conquered peoples were given the choice of conversion or death. It is now apparent that conversion by force, while not unknown in Muslim countries, was, in fact, rare. Muslim conquerors ordinarily wished to dominate rather than convert, and most conversions to Islam were voluntary.”
(Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014), P.271.)
10. Rowena Robinson has argued that:
“The argument that Islam in India spread everywhere by ‘force’ or the ‘sword’ is almost too hackneyed, apart from being in most cases plainly untrue, to be dwelt upon.”
(Rowena Robinson, “Modes of Conversion to Islam”, in Religious Conversion in India: Modes, Motivations, and Meanings, eds. Rowena Robinson and Sathianathan Clarke (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2003), 23.)
11. Rowena Robinson points out that Richard M. Eaton has also convincingly argued that:
“Islam spread among Bengali cultivators during a period when the [Muslim] rulers were actually opposed to conversion.”
(Robinson, “Modes of Conversion to Islam”, 26.)
12. Richard M. Eaton points out that if the spread-by-the-sword position were accurate,
“One would expect that those areas exposed most intensively and over the longest period to rule by Muslim dynasties—that is, those that were most fully exposed to the ‘sword’—would today contain the greatest number of Muslims. However, according to the earliest reliable census data, the proportion of Muslims was significantly higher in Punjab and Bengal (around 70–90%), both historically on the fringes of Indo-Muslim rule, than in the Gangetic Plain (around 10–15%), which was the heartland of Muslim political rule."
(Eaton, The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 115.)
13. Jonathan Berkey challenged and discredited the “spread-by-the-sword” narrative.
(Jonathan Berkey, The Formation of Islam: Religion and Society in the Near East, 600-1800 (New York: Cambridge University Press), 162)
14. Kevin Barrett is among the many other historians who have challenged and discredited the “spread-by-the-sword” narrative
(“Is Islam Reasonable?,” in Reasonable Perspectives on Religion, ed. Richard Curtis (Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2010), 204.)
15. Franz Rosenthal:
“The more important factor for the spread of Islam is religious law of Islam (Sharia which is an inclusive, all-embracing, all-comprehensive way of thinking and living) which was designed to cover all manifestations of life.”
(Franz Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1958), 21.)
16. Carl Brockelman (Noted Orientalist historian):
Carl Brockelmann, despite his generally critical approach to Islamic history, regarded the religious force and appeal of Islam itself as a significant factor in its expansion, rather than reducing its spread solely to conquest.
(see Carl Brockelman, History of the Islamic Peoples (London: Routledge & K. Paul, 1949), 37.)
17. Edward Gibbon:
"The greatest success of Mohammed's life was effected by sheer moral force without the stroke of a sword."
(History of the Saracen Empire, London 1870.)
18. James A. Michener:
"No other religion in history spread so rapidly as Islam...The West has widely believed that this surge of religion was made possible by the sword. But no modern scholar accepts that idea, and the Quran is explicit in support of the freedom of conscience".
(Islam- The Misunderstood Religion, Readers' Digest (American Edition ) May 1955.)
19. Lawrence E. Browne:
"Incidentally these well-established facts dispose of the idea so widely fostered in Christian writings that the Muslims, wherever they went, forced people to accept Islam at the point of the sword."
(The Prospects Of Islam, London 1944.)
20. Leopold Weiss: Austrian statesman, journalist, former foreign correspondent for the Frankfuerter Zeitung; author of ISLAM AT THE CROSSROADS and ROAD TO MECCA and translator of the Qur'an. He embraced Islam after deep study in 1926.
"Islam appears to me like a perfect work of Architecture. All its parts are harmoniously conceived to complement and support each other. Nothing is superfluous and nothing lacking, with the result of an absolute balance and solid composure."
(Islam at the Crossroads (New Era Pubs.: 1982), P.5)
21. Elisee Reclus, a nineteenth-century French traveler:
He wrote that the Muslim Turks allowed all non-Muslims to observe their religious duties and rituals, and that the sultan’s Christian subjects were freer to live their own lives than those Christians whose lands were ruled by a member of a rival Christian sect.
(Elisee Reclus, Nouvelle Geographie Universelle, vol. IX.)
22. Popescu Ciocanel pays tribute to the Muslim Turks by stating that the Romanians were lucky to have Turkish, instead of Russian and Austrian, rulers. Otherwise, he points out, “no trace of the Romanian nation would have remained.”
(Popescu Ciocanel, La Crise de l’Orient.)
An historical episode, recorded by the famous Muslim historian Baladhuri in his Futuh al-Buldan, tells how pleased the non-Muslim indigenous peoples were with their Muslim conquerors and is of great significance:
When Heraclius, Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire (610-41), massed his troops against the Muslims, and the Muslims heard that they were coming to meet them, they refunded the tribute they had taken from the inhabitants of Hims, saying: “We are too busy to support and protect you. Take care of yourselves.” But the people of Hims replied: “We like your rule and justice far better than our former state of oppression and tyranny. We shall indeed, with your help, repulse Heraclius’ army from the city.” The Jews rose and said: “We swear by the Torah, no governor of Heraclius shall enter Hims unless we are first vanquished and exhausted.” Saying this, they closed and guarded the city gates. The Christians and Jews of cities that had capitulated did the same. When, by God’s help, Heraclius’ army was defeated and the Muslims won, they opened the gates of their cities, went out with singers and musicians, and paid the tribute.
Summary:
While Islamic empires expanded politically and militarily to secure borders and establish governance, the faith of Islam itself was embraced by populations over centuries due to the ethical conduct of Muslim traders, the efforts of scholars, and the clear, uncompromising monotheism of the religion. The Quranic mandate that there is “no compulsion in religion” was historically upheld, allowing diverse religious communities to thrive under Islamic governance.
