Did Islam force conversions at the point of the sword?

[jakasaki]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Age_of_Caliphs.png
Muhammed had unified the Arabian penninsula at his death in 632 AD.
In 29 years, Islam conquered and incorporated everything in orange into its religious network. Conversion by the sword works and people in this region were the first victims of this assimilation. Islam is a violent religion right from it’s birth. All of its first and earliest rulers took power and lost power through murder.
In the next 89 years, Islam spread to all through Spain and into the Indian subcontinent (all the yellow areas on the map). The Hindu Kush mountains are named after Islam’s entry into the Indian subcontinent through conversion by the sword. Hindu Kush literally means slaughter of Hindus. However conversion by the sword killed many Hindus but did not convert them so Muslims resorted to taxing and ruling over the majority Hindus. Tamerlane, the Mongol Muslim invader of India, boasts in his own writings, of slaughtering 100,000 Hindus when he conquered Delhi.

Welcome to CAF forum - looking forward to your posts…

Interesting post… Thank you!..

 

[jakasaki]

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/20/Age_of_Caliphs.png
Muhammed had unified the Arabian penninsula at his death in 632 AD.
In 29 years, Islam conquered and incorporated everything in orange into its religious network. Conversion by the sword works and people in this region were the first victims of this assimilation. Islam is a violent religion right from it’s birth. All of its first and earliest rulers took power and lost power through murder.
In the next 89 years, Islam spread to all through Spain and into the Indian subcontinent (all the yellow areas on the map). The Hindu Kush mountains are named after Islam’s entry into the Indian subcontinent through conversion by the sword. Hindu Kush literally means slaughter of Hindus. However conversion by the sword killed many Hindus but did not convert them so Muslims resorted to taxing and ruling over the majority Hindus. Tamerlane, the Mongol Muslim invader of India, boasts in his own writings, of slaughtering 100,000 Hindus when he conquered Delhi.

Also… to add… besides the pic you posted… perhaps you can post links regarding the Hindu Kush statement. I’d like to read more about it.

We are very well aware about the muslims placing a tax over the Christians once they took over lands, but once again, can you link some internet sites regarding the taxing of the Indian people once conquered by islam…

Thanks much!

 

[sedonaman]

… can you link some internet sites regarding the taxing of the Indian people once conquered by islam…

Thanks much!

Here’s one:

It should be said at the outset that Islamic judiciary divides non-Muslim population in such a country into two categories: zimmis [dhimmis] and kafirs. The groups of monotheistic non-Muslims – having their own prophets and revealed books, such as Jews and Christians etc. – are called zimmis; the rest are kafirs. According to Islamic law, the zimmis in a dar-ul-Islam can earn the rights of safety of their lives and properties by paying poll-tax (jizya). Are the kafirs entitled to enjoy such a right? Islamic law-givers are of divided opinion on this question. The Hanafi School approves such a right and allows kafirs in a dar-ul-Islam to earn the safety of their life and property by paying jizya. All other Schools forbid such a right; according to those schools, kafirs in a dar-ul-Islam have only two options: acceptance of Islam or death.

An example from history can be cited here to enlighten readers in this regard. The incident is recorded by Muslim historian and scholar Zia-ud-din Barni in his Tarikh-I-Firozshahi. He narrates a dialogue between Sultan Alauddin Khilji (1296–1316) and a Qazi (Islamic judge), named Mughisuddin. One day the Sultan asked the Qazi: “How are the Hindus designated in the Islamic law, as payers of poll-tax (kharaj din) and the givers of tribute or land-tax (kharaz ghauzar)?” The Qazi replied,
“They are called payers of tribute. When the revenue officer demands silver from them, they should, without question and with all humility and respect, tender gold. If the officer throws dirt in their mouth, they must, without reluctance, open their mouth wide to receive it. The due subordination of the zimmis (the tribute payers) is exhibited by this throwing of dust in their mouth. The glorification of Islam is a duty. Allah holds them in contempt, for he says, ‘Keep them in subjection’. To keep the Hindus in abasement is especially a religious duty, because they are the most inveterate enemies of the prophet and because the prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them, enslave them and spoil their wealth and property.” The great doctor (Abu Hanifa), to whose school we belong, has asserted to the imposition of zejya and 19 other disabilities on the Hindus. Doctors of other schools allow no other alternative but death or Islam”.“The Decrees of Islam”
by Dr. Radhasyam Brahmachari
31 Dec, 2008

 

[KathleenGee]

From what I have studied, the Indian Hindus and Sikhs suffered the worst from Islam conquest. The battle for the Holy Land in Israel happened outside the city of Jerusalem.
The conquest of the Byzantine was very bloody, especially in Constantinople.

Only Spain, Sardinia, Sicily, and SE Italy later in the late 1500’s through the help of King Frederick, were able to fight off the Muslim yoke.

If it weren’t for the Battle of Lepanto and the intercession of the Blessed Mother, Europe would be Islam, and America would not be here.

I pray for the Holy Land and Constantinople. After what happened to our country 10 years ago, and learning about Islam, I noted the painting in my doctors’ office…the cathedral of St. Sophia with Islam stakes around it, and I then found it afflicting to look at, almost wanted them to take it down.

The majority of Egyptian Muslims believe in religious tolerance, but want death for any Muslim wanting to convert to another religion.

Too much emphasis on taking the life of another human being in the name of God and this sense of superiority…pride. Satan is a liar and a thief and a murderer from the beginning.

 

[ibneahmad]

Hey everyone. I have often heard from pro-Islamic sources that Islam did not force conversions at the point of the sword. They often quote the verse from the Koran that says there is no compulsion in religion. However, I am not sure whether to believe them or not. Were people forced to convert to Islam at the point of the sword or not? Please provide sources.

Muhammad did not force anybody to convert by sword to Islam; it were the Meccans who forced , persecuted and used sword agressively to convert Muslims back to their faith.

 

[sedonaman]

Muhammad did not force anybody to convert by sword to Islam; it were the Meccans who forced , persecuted and used sword agressively to convert Muslims back to their faith.

Endless ink and CPU time have been wasted on what Islam says. “Kafir logic is based upon Aristotelian law of non-contradiction. If two statements contradict each other, then at least one of them must be false. Islamic logic is dualistic. The Koran establishes the logic of Islam. The Koran of Mecca contradicts the Koran of Medina, but since both Korans are perfect, both sides of the contradiction are true. Dualistic logic allows two contradictory ‘facts’ to be true at the same time. Islamic logic is built on contradiction.”

So, did Mohammed force conversion by the sword? Yes and no. It’s only a question of how much “yes” and how much “no”. One argument for “no” used by Muslims on this forum is the claim that the word “sword” does not appear in the Koran. You decide.

 

[ibneahmad]

So, did Mohammed force conversion by the sword?

Please name the first individual who was converted by Muhammad by sword to start with.

 

[sedonaman]

Please name the first individual who was converted by Muhammad by sword to start with.

Since you made the initial charge,

… it were [sic] the Meccans who forced , persecuted and used sword agressively to convert Muslims back to their faith.

you go first and name the first Meccan who forced a Muslim to convert back. Also name the Muslim. Provide an independent, verifiable reference also.

 

[sedonaman]

Not to mention the question of whether a forced conversion is binding on the person.

 

[Quizlnix]

Yes, yes they did, but before we start feeling all superior and smug, we did the same thing in Spain (circa 1400 to 1500’s) massive expultions of “jews and moores, (today we call it ethnic cleansing) there were also forced conversions, including but not limited to, child abductions - heck one even became a saint. The only biblical quote that seems appropreate " Let him without sin cast the first stone”

 

[KathleenGee]

Spain was under dhimmitude for some time…Jews and Catholics had to wear green, badges, have little rights, not share their faith…

Spain was plundered for 700 years…I grew up with these concepts of Spain…but it is she who went out to found the New World…

Monsignor Kelly has a book out, ‘Blood Drenched Altars’…

Spain made Mexico the center of learning, Indians professors at Mexican universities, the right of women and girls to an education in the 1500’s, several hundred years before the English speaking Americas.

 

[Jborgen]

The Islam religion used to have slaves, but their religion also teaches you cannot own another Muslim as a slave, thus, to avoid slavery, Christians only had to convert to Islam.

 

[KathleenGee]

What is not being noted either is how many Muslims are converting to Christianity.

 

[Mariusioannesp]

I said “justified to a certain level”, not completely justified.

*During the reign of Ferdinand and Isabela, there were a number of Jews and Moors who were baptized catholic and risen to high positions in the goverment and the church (without believing in christian doctrine). These false converts were a huge threat to Spain. Isabel needed to differentiate true christians from the fakes and due to this, the Inquisition was founded. The inquistion was solely founded with good intentions, supposedly, it was a court which would examine evidence and judge whether the person was a faithful christian or a heretic. However, at the beginning of the Inquisition, abuses were made. Innocent people suffered and torture was used frequently. Because of this, the pope appointed a new grand inquisitor named Tomas de Torquemada who made procedures more lenient, improved conditions of the prisons, personally examined appeals and even gave money to help the families of those on trial.

Under Torquemada, torture was reduced significantly. The church has always condemned torture. However, at the time, torture was routinely used by all* goverments as a means of extracting confessions. People who were found guilty in the Inquisition were considered traitors to the state and the church with the penalty of execution. However those found guilty were always given a chance to repent. It was only if they refused to repent or if they relapsed into their crimes were they executed.** Also, out of the 100,000 put on trial, only 2000 were executed.** In addition to the above, people charged of regular crimnes would even pretend to be heretics so they would be transferred to the custody of the inquisition since prisoners were treated so much better in the Inquisition in comparison to other courts. In conclusion, while the inquisition was not perfect, it was a more just court than most.

As for the abuses done during the crusades, such as the sack of Jerusalem and Constantinople. An immoral action during a war does not detract from the justice of the cause of war. The immoral action should be condemned, as Godfrey de Boullion condemned the sack of jerusalem and Simon de Montfort condemned the sack of constantinople. However, the war itself remains just. because:

1. The moslems were the aggresors
2. The Christians had every right to re-take christian lands conquered by the moslems.

Also, at no point did the crusaders attack the Moslem homeland, Arabia, but only those orignally Christian territories that the Moslems had conquered

- School handouts (Handouts were photocopied by the chapter, no mention of any author as only the Chapter titles were shown).

The Catholic League once put out a press release pointing out that in the 250 years of the Inquisition, only 1,394 were killed, compared to the approximately 12 million under Hitler, 67 million under Stalin, and 77 million under Mao. This made me think that the one thing Catholics are really bad at is killing people. As you can see, it took two centuries for the Inquisiton to kill such a meager number while those fueled by radical atheism are much more efficient; killing millions upon millions of people in the span of approximately two to three decades.

I can’t remember how many people died on 9/11, but it was certainly more than 2,000.

catholicleague.org/release.php?id=1978

 

[KathleenGee]

It took the Church 400 years to finally respond to the deaths of pilgrims and the takeover of the Holy Land, noting here that there had been as well just sultans.

The point is that only Islam has no shame in its ambition and methods in taking over other religions by murder and destruction.

 

[Defender1]

Er, okay. Killing innocent people is fine for your religion but not for Muslims? How can you possibly justify the torture and death of tens of thousands of people “on a certain level”?

I bet if the subject was the Catholic church making people convert you would never have graced us with your presence but since Muslims were at the topic as the forcers of conversion you decide to step into the ring (because in reality as an atheist activist you hate Christianity worse then anything )

 

[Defender1]

The Islam religion used to have slaves, but their religion also teaches you cannot own another Muslim as a slave, thus, to avoid slavery, Christians only had to convert to Islam.

I am debating a muslim in these past days and flat out condoned the violence promotion and was proud of it . He is an American muslim .(Nation of Islam )I cited a number of sura in the Quran that promoted violence and he was proud to admit that and called himself a real man ,

 

[KathleenGee]

Good to know, Jharek…Jewish people who have worked very hard for civil rights in regards to race, have commented on their own profound sense of betrayal by this crowd and their terrible bigotry against the Jews.

 

[daniel1212]

The church has always condemned torture…

I believe you are in error.

In times past, cruel practices were commonly used by legitimate governments to maintain law and order, often without protest from the Pastors of the Church, who themselves adopted in their own tribunals the prescriptions of Roman law concerning torture. - Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992), on “Respect for bodily integrity”.
#2298.

The papal bull Ad extirpanda (named for its Latin incipit) by Pope Innocent IV, promulgated on May 15, 1252 explicitly authorized (and defined the appropriate circumstances for) the use of torture by the Inquisition for eliciting confessions from heretics.

"Innocent’s Bull prescribes that captured heretics, being “murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith, . . . are to be coerced – as are thieves and bandits – into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb.” — Bull Ad Extirpanda (Bullarium Romanorum Pontificum, vol. 3 [Turin: Franco, Fory & Dalmazzo, 1858], Lex 25, p. 556a.)

(Translation of Ad extirpanda: userwww.sfsu.edu/~draker/history/Ad_Extirpanda.html)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_extirpanda: The bull was issued in the wake of the murder of the papal inquisitor of Lombardy, St. Peter of Verona, who was killed by a conspiracy of Cathar sympathizers on 6 April 1252.
The bull argued that as heretics are “murderers of souls as well as robbers of God’s sacraments and of the Christian faith …”, they are “to be coerced—as are thieves and bandits—into confessing their errors and accusing others, although one must stop short of danger to life or limb.” The following parameters were placed on the use of torture:
that it did not cause loss of life or limb (citra membri diminutionem et mortis periculum)
that it was used only once, and that the Inquisitor deemed the evidence against the accused to be virtually certain.

The requirement that torture only be used once was effectively meaningless in practice as it was interpreted as authorizing torture with each new piece of evidence that was produced and by considering most practices to be a continuation (rather than repetition) of the torture session (non ad modum iterationis sed continuationis)

The bull conceded to the State a portion of the property to be confiscated from convicted heretics.[3] The State in return assumed the burden of carrying out the penalty.

http://www.rtforum.org/lt/lt119.html: St. Thomas Aquinas (13th century). The Angelic Doctor never treats of torture in secular judicial inquiries. However, without mentioning the word, he does justify the contemporary Inquisition’s use of torture (recently introduced in 1252 by Pope Innocent IV… in considering whether unbelievers may be “compelled” to the faith, he first acknowledges that those who have never been Christians (i.e., Jews, pagans and Muslims) may not be forced to embrace the faith, but then continues: “On the other hand, there are unbelievers who at some time have accepted the faith, and professed it, such as heretics and all apostates: such should be submitted even to bodily compulsion, that they may fulfil what they have promised, and hold what they, at one time, received”.

Cardinal Juan De Lugo (17th century). Nevertheless, against the kinds of arguments advanced by the aforesaid writers, this renowned Spanish Jesuit – possibly the most respected Catholic moral theologian of his century – maintains in his 1642 treatise De iustitia et iure (37: 13) that worse evils to the common good would follow if torture were not allowed. (Many other lesser known Catholic writers of this period continue to argue on similar lines.)…

Catholicism has now been explicitly and emphatically the Roman state religion since the imperial edict of February 28, 380,6 but the laws remain to a great extent in fundamental continuity with the old pagan legislation – including its reliance on interrogatory torture (quaestio) as a standard part of judicial practice for serious crimes. It was even prescribed, under certain circumstances, for witnesses, not just those accused of a crime.

By the time Augustine wrote The City of God (between 413 and 427), Catholic Christianity had been emancipated for over a century and had been the official and dominant religion of the Empire for nearly half of that period. In trying to discern what, if anything, the Church’s magisterium said about torture in the patristic era, we must add to Augustine’s explicit shoulder-shrugging resignation the silence of other successors of the Apostles before and after him, including, it seems, all the Bishops of Rome for as long as the abominable practice remained legal.

Pope Benedict XVI, in a speech of 6 September 2007…“In this regard, I reiterate that the prohibition against torture ‘cannot be contravened under any circumstances’”. — Torture and corporal punishment as a problem in catholic theology, September 2005: Living Tradition ORGAN OF THE ROMAN THEOLOGICAL FORUM, Editor: Msgr. John F. McCarthy, J.C.D., S.T.D., Living Tradition, Oblates of Wisdom, P.O. Box 13230, St. Louis, MO 63157, USA

 

[daniel1212]

The Christians had every right to re-take christian lands conquered by the moslems.

The issue is that of the church raising physical armies to wage war after the flesh.

As the kingdom of Christ is not a theocracy as in Islam, being not of this world, else would His servants fight after its manner, (Jn. 18:36) thus the N.T. church did seek to rule over those without, (1Cor. 5:12) and did not wage war after the flesh, (2Cor. 10:3) and as it is not constituted to wage its battles by physical force, and when it does it leaves a negative legacy, whether in Catholicism or Protestantism.

Instead New Testament Christianity ultimately does not wrestle against flesh and blood (Eph. 6:12) and thus “the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;” (2Cor. 10:4) “By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left.” (2Cor. 6:6,7)

The Holy Spirit does sanction the just use of the sword of men however, (Rm. 13:1-7; 1Pet. 2:13,14) and its morality cannot be antiseptically disassociated from religious moral beliefs, as hyper separatists strive for, esp. as regards Christian faith, but in general it will reflect the morality of the general beliefs if primarily holds to. But although some Popes condemned that the state should be separate from the church, and even that the former is not obligated to financially support the latter*, there is a difference btwn outlawing polygamy and punishing people for not formally belonging to a church, or for holding theological views at variance with it.

*"[It is error to believe that] The Church ought to be separated from the State, and the State from the Church." - Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus Issued in 1864, Section VI, Errors About Civil Society, Considered Both in Itself and in its Relation to the Church, #55. ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM

When the law, by the suppression of the Budget of Public Worship, exonerates the State from the obligation of providing for the expenses of worship, it violates an engagement contracted in a diplomatic convention, and at the same time commits a great injustice. - Pope Pius X VEHEMENTER NOS, Encyclical promulgated on February 11, 1906. papalencyclicals.net/Pius10/p10law.htm

Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, 1302: Certainly the one who denies that the temporal sword is in the power of Peter has not listened well to the word of the Lord commanding: ‘Put up thy sword into thy scabbard’ [Mt 26:52]. Both, therefore, are in the power of the Church, that is to say, the spiritual and the material sword, but the former is to be administered for the Church but the latter by the Church; the former in the hands of the priest; the latter by the hands of kings and soldiers, but at the will and sufferance of the priest. Boniface VIII, Unam Sanctam, 1302 fordham.edu/halsall/source/b8-unam.html

Pope Pius IX, The Syllabus (of Errors): “[It is error to believe that] The (Catholic) Church has not the power of using force, nor has she any temporal power, direct or indirect.” Section V, Errors Concerning the Church and Her Rights, #24. ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P9SYLL.HTM