OUT REACH FOR ISLAM

Islam is not spread by the sword. The laws of muslim warfare forbid any forced conversion. The political sway of muslim rulers have sometimes been achieved through warfare, but this must be distinguished from the spiritual expansion of the islamic religion. Islam teaches that war is only waged on those who attack the muslims and obstruct the out reach of islam.

The purpose of muslim rule is not to impose islam, but to bring about freedom of worship for muslims and for others within the established framework. While Islamic tradition recognizes the advent of over 124,000 religious prophets inspired by god over the ages, the Qur’an  recognizes the paticular truth of the original revelations given by God to the Jews and Christians. Muslim see it as a form of “liberation theology”. The early muslims liberated the Near east, and brought religious tolerance to many Jewish and sectarian Christian minorities which had fomerly been the victims of bitter persecution either in the byzantine empire or the persian dominious. Later on, history was to witness the slaughter  by  the Crusaders of thousands of muslims and jews when they captured Jerussalem in 1099, which contrasts sharply with saladin’s recapture of the city in 1187.

And the tolerance he displayed towards the Christian population, as well as his permission for the Jews to return.

The difference between  Islam’s political and spiritual growth may again be highlighted in another way. In many countries including Indonesia, which states muslim political authority was established only after the population had embraced Islam at the hands of traders and preachers, and not as a sequel to military conquest. A further comparison could be made be recalling the intolerance and persecution of the Jews and muslims in Catholic Spain with the tolerance Jews and Christians experienced under eight centuries of Muslim rule in Andalusia.