Page 190 - Seekers Guide Book

Peace: The Summum Bonum
the fold of Islam. Sir Arthur Keith, while studying the
phenomenon remarked:

Egyptians were conquered not by sword but
by the Quran. (‘A New Theory of Human
Evolution’, p. 303. ed. 1948)

Let me quote an example of how deep this misconception
of forceful spread of Islam has been. I happened to
correspond with a person from a different faith who
hailed from Hyderabad. He was quite adamant in his
belief that Islam spread through violence in India and
he shared the reference of a book in this regard. It was
titled, The Indian Musalmans by William Wilson Hunter.
I read this book myself and found out that it actually
talked about the peaceful penetration of Islam in India.
I wrote back to him with the clipping and thereafter he
did not revert.

History does not prove that sword was used for the
religious expansion of Islam. Political expansion was
a different case, specific to individuals and dynasties.
Owing to this mistaken notion, political expansion is
seen as an act of forced religious expansion. In reality,
Islam spread on the basis of the ideology of tawhid (the
oneness of God) and it were the Sufis who played a major
role in the spread of Islam. The Sufis, as is well known,
did not make any use of force; they were simply spiritual
guides.

Often quoted in arguments are the wars and fights with
the Byzantine and Persian Empire during the reign of the
rightly guided caliphs. I have addressed this in great detail
in my book, The Prophet of Peace (Penguin publication).

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