The Narrative of How Islam Spread (1.5)
Segment 1.5 from my longer 2+ hour movie, "Why I am Leaving Islam and Ahmadiyyat" (publicly). Previous Segment: Critical of Islam (1.4) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Pej3HI1Ec Next segment: Speaking Up (1.6) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er5s3A8b3ro This video is not a treatise on why Islam is false, but I do want sincere Muslims who are watching to consider what they’ve been taught were the reasons for why Islam spread so rapidly. This is important because many of us grow up thinking, “Well, if over a billion people believe in this religion, who am I to question it?” So let’s put the world’s large Muslim population, into perspective. Today, we see some of Islam’s critics claiming that Islam spread by the sword. At the same time, most Muslims and Islamic apologists suggest instead, that all wars fought by the expanding Islamic Empire were defensive in nature, and that Islam spread because it appealed to the hearts and minds of the conquered and liberated nations. Perusing history, we find a more nuanced narrative. Islam’s spread cannot be attributed to the world at large being forced at the sharp edge of a sword, one by one. That didn’t happen. But we do know that Muslim armies had successively taken over more and more territory of the then-known world. The state apparatus favored Islam over other religions which were for the most part, allowed to coexist, albeit under very specific provisions. Islam did spread to some parts of the world without military campaigns involved. People often point to Indonesia as an example of this. That's why we can't say that it was entirely spread by the sword. One thing I don't emphasize enough in this video segment, however, is that the military campaigns, even in the early years, *did* leverage the military even beyond taxation, as when the option to pay the Jizya was offered, it was offered alongside other options which were not so nice. For more on that angle, I direct you to my good friend The Masked Arab, who lays it out more clearly in his video on the Islamic Jizya and the related ultimatums that went with it: ♦ Jizya in Islam - explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5MZPYC-yMg --Resources-- Share the playlist of which this video is a segment: http://bit.ly/leaving-islam-ahmadiyyat. ♦ A full set of resources and references mentioned in this video can be found in the companion blog post, https://ReasonOnFaith.org/coming-out. ♦ For this entire playlist as a single video (the way it was initially released), see: https://ReasonOnFaith.org/video --Following My Work-- ► Website: http://ReasonOnFaith.org ► Microblog: http://ReasonOnFaith.org/microblog ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReasonOnFaith ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReasonOnFaith/ ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ReasonOnFaith ► Reddit - The Questioning Islam/Ahmadiyya forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/islam_ahmadiyya/
Segment 1.5 from my longer 2+ hour movie, "Why I am Leaving Islam and Ahmadiyyat" (publicly). Previous Segment: Critical of Islam (1.4) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=59Pej3HI1Ec Next segment: Speaking Up (1.6) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Er5s3A8b3ro This video is not a treatise on why Islam is false, but I do want sincere Muslims who are watching to consider what they’ve been taught were the reasons for why Islam spread so rapidly. This is important because many of us grow up thinking, “Well, if over a billion people believe in this religion, who am I to question it?” So let’s put the world’s large Muslim population, into perspective. Today, we see some of Islam’s critics claiming that Islam spread by the sword. At the same time, most Muslims and Islamic apologists suggest instead, that all wars fought by the expanding Islamic Empire were defensive in nature, and that Islam spread because it appealed to the hearts and minds of the conquered and liberated nations. Perusing history, we find a more nuanced narrative. Islam’s spread cannot be attributed to the world at large being forced at the sharp edge of a sword, one by one. That didn’t happen. But we do know that Muslim armies had successively taken over more and more territory of the then-known world. The state apparatus favored Islam over other religions which were for the most part, allowed to coexist, albeit under very specific provisions. Islam did spread to some parts of the world without military campaigns involved. People often point to Indonesia as an example of this. That's why we can't say that it was entirely spread by the sword. One thing I don't emphasize enough in this video segment, however, is that the military campaigns, even in the early years, *did* leverage the military even beyond taxation, as when the option to pay the Jizya was offered, it was offered alongside other options which were not so nice. For more on that angle, I direct you to my good friend The Masked Arab, who lays it out more clearly in his video on the Islamic Jizya and the related ultimatums that went with it: ♦ Jizya in Islam - explained: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5MZPYC-yMg --Resources-- Share the playlist of which this video is a segment: http://bit.ly/leaving-islam-ahmadiyyat. ♦ A full set of resources and references mentioned in this video can be found in the companion blog post, https://ReasonOnFaith.org/coming-out. ♦ For this entire playlist as a single video (the way it was initially released), see: https://ReasonOnFaith.org/video --Following My Work-- ► Website: http://ReasonOnFaith.org ► Microblog: http://ReasonOnFaith.org/microblog ► Twitter: https://twitter.com/ReasonOnFaith ► Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReasonOnFaith/ ► YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ReasonOnFaith ► Reddit - The Questioning Islam/Ahmadiyya forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/islam_ahmadiyya/