fbpixel

Take 30 seconds to give for 30 days.

Spread of Islam

S1E2 - Did Islam Spread by the Sword? | DoubleTake

March 11, 2021Hassam Munir

The question of how Islam started from a small desert city in the Arabian Peninsula to eventually reach Spain and China is sometimes reduced to the faith being “spread by the sword.” In this episode, host Mohamad Zaoud talks to Hassam Munir, author of the Yaqeen Institute paper “Did Islam Spread by the Sword? A Critical Look at Forced Conversions,” to deconstruct this narrative.

Read the publication here.

Listen on:
Apple
Google
Spotify

Don't forget to follow us @yaqeenpodcast

Transcript

This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings.
So apparently some people think that you and I and many other Muslims are only Muslims because our ancestors were forced into Islam. That is, that Islam was spread by the sword. Or was it? Welcome to Double Take, a podcast by Yaqeen Institute, where the only thing we're going to force you to do is to subscribe. No, I'm just joking. Double Take is a podcast about questions and issues in Islam that give us pause. And today on the show we have the self-proclaimed professor in Islamic history, Brother Hassam Munir, who wrote an article, Did Islam Spread by the Sword? Brother Hassam is a fellow at Yaqeen Institute and I'm really, really excited to have him on the show today. Brother Hassam, Salamualaikum and welcome to the show. Waalaikumussalam, shazakallah khairan for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Thank you so much. So go back to the beginning. What made you go and write an article about Islam being spread by the sword? What was that point where you had to put pen to paper? So I was an undergraduate student at a university here in Canada and I was studying media studies and history. And I had a friend who was studying economics. Now, my friend's professor, who was a senior professor in the Department of Economics, one day says to him, as they're having an after class discussion about Islam and history and these kinds of things. But the professor basically says that the reason that most people, the implication being him as well, my friend, are Muslim today is because their ancestors at some point were forced to convert to Islam. And this causes sort of some doubt in my friend's mind as well, because, of course, we want to be able to respond to that. And our inclination is that of all, no. Right. It must have been a choice.
That's what we want to say. But ultimately, what he needed to do was present sort of an academic argument to respond to this high ranking professor. So he came to me. He knew I had an interest in history. And the question sparked my curiosity as well. That's something that we need to address. So I started researching it a little bit and ultimately came up with this academic article, which we presented to the professor. And he was actually very engaging with it. He actually read it and he did say that it did shift his perspective. It did make him question himself. And ultimately, we don't know to what extent his views of Islam changed. But certainly he acknowledged that it did have an impact on him. And that's why I realized the value of this kind of work. And ultimately, I was able to contribute that research to Yakeen Institute as well. MashaAllah. MashaAllah. So did you invite him to Islam? I'm just joking. No, like if I was if I was the professor, right, and I attended the MSA khutbas, for example, I'd hear most weeks or many weeks, the khateeb talking about the Battle of Badr and the Battle of Uhud. And we hear in Islam that, you know, the Prophet ﷺ, for example, would say, whoever prepares man jahaza jaysh al usrati walahu al jannah, you know, there's a direct correlation between he who prepares the Islamic army or the Muslim army and Jannah, for example. So war, battles, the Battle of Badr, it's very much entrenched in our religion. So how did you kind of present it to this professor? Because, you know, you and I know that in our religion, there were battles, especially early on. Well, what I certainly wasn't trying to express to the professor or what I think Muslims shouldn't be trying to express is to kind of downplay the role that battles,
wars, violent conflicts have played in Islamic history, including in early Islamic history, which is sort of the model during the life of the Prophet ﷺ that all Muslims turn to. There were certainly battles. There were certain acts of violence. Right. And in every society, in every worldview, in every deen, there is a sort of set of criteria of what is justified war, what is justified violence for the greater good of society, right? For the establishment of justice, these kinds of things have to be done and practiced. So in Islam, there is certainly conflict. There are limitations on conflict. There are very specific reasons why conflict can occur. And the battles of Uhud and Badr did occur. But, you know, I think the way to think about this is, for example, in a modern crime scene. Right. Let's take that as an example. Even if it's very, very abundantly clear that one person has, for example, murdered another person, there is still a recognition that for the sake of justice, for the sake of getting the complete picture, for the sake of understanding, for the purpose of ultimately making sure that we prevent such things from happening again, if that's at all possible or helpful, we want to try to make sure all relevant details are considered, which is why people commit horrific crimes and then trials will go on for years. All the evidence is being considered, acknowledged, all the contexts are being discussed, etc. If you take an example like the Crusades, right, which is, again, a clear cut example or is often presented as a clear cut example. Well, this is clearly a clash of civilizations. You have Muslims, you have Christians. There are conflicts going on. And on the Muslim side, this is I guess the rules are kind of reversed here. Oftentimes, our descriptions focused very narrowly on the fall of Jerusalem to the Crusaders in the first crusade,
how horrifically they were murdering people in Masjid al-Aqsa, in the Dome of the Rock, etc. Not saying all of those things didn't happen. All of those things certainly happened and they played an important role in the picture. But it's not the full picture. You had Muslims serving in Christian armies. You had Christians serving in Muslim armies. You had Christians being treated, Crusaders being treated for PTSD that they got by killing Muslims, but they were being treated in Muslim mental health hospitals. You had Christians and Muslims falling in love, Crusaders and local Muslims. You had them having lunch with each other. These are very complex events, very complex processes. So, yes, there's a battle of Badr, there's the Battle of Uhud. There is a very, very long list of battles that Muslims have fought. But the important thing that I was trying to get across to the professor and to the general public is that we have to look at the bigger picture. We have to get the full picture because that is more likely to be closer to a fair representation than very narrowly focusing on what may be the most shocking elements to our sensitivities. Fair enough. JazakAllah khair. So, we're going to look at the full picture in a few moments. We'll talk about the other ways that Islam spread. But there's a certain thing that you said earlier to me that I really think is important to kind of clarify. You often make a distinction between Islam as a religion and the spread of Islam as a religion and the Muslim empire. Can you just talk to that and explain why you've separated the two and how both spread? Yes, absolutely. So, you know, you'll often see in these digital animated maps and things like that that go around on the Internet. You'll see like this religion at a certain point of time, Islam suddenly appears on the map in Arabia, like a small little blip. And then all of a sudden, boom, it's everywhere. It's in Spain. It's in India. It's in West Africa.
It's just moving very, very rapidly. Right. And people often interpret that as, well, this must be showing that everyone in these regions was becoming Muslim. And the only way that could have happened so quickly is if there's some kind of force or coercion or some kind of violence involved. Right. And that's the misleading part, because this is showing the spread of the Muslim empire, not the spread of the faith itself, such as the fact that, you know, ideologies can spread. Right. So, you know, a certain country, for example, today in the modern day, to give a modern day example, might have like a democratic government. That does not mean that every person in that country agrees to democracy or has accepted democracy as their personal way that they believe that society should be organized. Right. As an example, as a sort of parallel. So if you take many historical examples, another famous example that you'll often hear about, and I think it's very clear cut, is the Battle of Manzikert or Malazgirt by Sultan of Arsalan of the Seljuk Empire in 1071. Now, this battle is always said the first thing you hear is the name of the battle. The next thing you hear is that it opened Anatolia, what is modern day Turkey, to the Turkish people. That became the battle was the turning point after which Turkish, Turkic people began to settle in what is now Turkey and today Turkey is, of course, a Muslim state. Right. But again, it can be very misleading. That was one particular battle with one particular context. There were reasons why it was fought by both sides, a very complicated situation. Yes, it had a certain effect. Yes, it did facilitate to some extent the mobilization of Turkic tribes into Anatolia. But the process of Anatolia becoming the Muslim land that we know it as today was so complex.
You have traveling scholars playing role like Jalaluddin Rumi, like Ibn Battuta. Right. You have poets like Yunus Emre playing a role. You have organizations like the Ahi societies. Like if you actually go into this Turkish history, this is such a complicated and long drawn out process. It's just very unfair to kind of imply that, oh, yes, there was a battle after which the battle enabled the spread of Islam in that region, which means that that entire spread of Islam must now be reduced back to that battle, which is something that people might use as justification. Well, there's a clear example, right? Islam spread by the sword. But this is a very misleading slogan for that reason. So Muslim empire spreading for a variety of reasons, whether they were justified or not, that is a separate question. In my opinion, what I try to focus on is making that distinction. Muslim empire spreading is not the acceptance of Islam by the people in those regions. You know, thank you. Thank you for making that distinction. In 2019, I live in Australia and in 2019, there's a huge event in New Zealand, just in our neighboring country, which is the Christchurch massacres. And there was so much hate, you know, towards Islam from the Shura. And, you know, I often say that, you know, the Christchurch massacre, there was life before it and after it. And even kind of some of the staunchest enemies towards the Muslim community in Australia, for example, really changed their tone. They outreached to the Muslim community. So it was a huge, huge pivotal moment for the two countries. But if you kind of go deeper into some of the motivations of the Shura and people who commit crimes against Muslims,
these days, there's fear. There's fear of the spread of Islam. And when I read your paper and I looked into the topic a little bit more, I realized there were moments in our history where Muslims forced people to become Muslim. There were specific instances I read about the Dawshirma system in the Ottoman Empire, where the Ottomans or the Sultan had taken young boys, Christian boys, from Eastern Europe, from the Balkans, forced them to become Muslim. And then they became kind of his, you know, inner circle. There were moments in our history, and that was kind of like a serious realization for me. So do you mind talking to that? And, you know, is this just an exception to the rule or did it happen often in our history? I think the first thing to keep in mind there is in the Quran, which is the ultimate source of guidance for Muslims, it's very explicitly stated, it's very clear that there is no compulsion in religion, right, that religion is not something that you should be compelling people to, whether it's through violence or force or any form of coercion. Religion is something that if somebody truly wants to ascribe to, they should be accepting it wholeheartedly out of their own will. Right, because that's the only way they would really fully ascribe to it. Now, certainly in Islamic history, there are exceptional cases of forced conversion to Islam, certainly. And I think it's very important for us as Muslims to acknowledge those kinds of instances, those kinds of tragic situations which have had lasting consequences.
Right. So one of the examples that you just mentioned, the Devshirme system in the Ottoman Empire, was certainly such a case. Right. And the young Christian boys, like you said, would be taken from their families, from the villages in the Balkans in Eastern Europe. On a regular basis, they would be essentially converted to Islam in Istanbul, in the capital or one of the other imperial cities, raised up as Muslims so they could serve the purpose being so they could serve in the sultan's personal guard. So even when you just discuss that much of the purpose, you get some relevant detail that the actual purpose of the system was not just to try to force conversion on people who weren't Muslim. But they were actually, there was a specific goal for which their conversion to Islam was thought to be like a part of the process. So it's still a horrible thing, still not something that is actually allowed in Islam. But when you look at it from a historical lens, when you look at it from all of the context... There was a political motivation, there was serious context that led to that. Fair enough. Were there other instances? Yes, absolutely. You have cases such as the orphans decree in Yemen just in the previous century, in the 20th century, which involved in theory, in law, in writing, I should say, the forced conversion of Jewish orphans to Islam. Although it was not something that was very rigorously implemented. Right. So this is the kind of thing that you have to keep in mind that reality is very complex always. Right. We know this. We live on this planet. We live in this world. We live in societies. There's all kinds of things happen. But it's not just a pushover all the time. As things happen, they're also being challenged. Things are being changed. A lot is happening. Society is constantly in flux.
So that was the case in the orphans decree as well. Again, something that is not allowed in Islam, but something that was tried to be implemented. And you find other cases in the Indian subcontinent. You find other cases in different isolated pockets here and there. But again, instead of going into the details of each particular case, the point I'm trying to emphasize is that there are details to each particular case. That's the point I want to get across. When you hear something that there was forced conversion, especially when you see it being politically manipulated. So, you know, if a government official somewhere in a country is reminding you, hey, remember, these people came and they tried to force us to convert, like, you know, however many centuries ago. And that's why we must now not let them in, even if they're refugees. They are Muslims. They are the same people who tried to do this and that to us. Like, especially if it's being used and abused, that narrative is clearly being used to oppress people in the present day, whether they are Muslim or not Muslim, whether Muslims are being projected that way or non-Muslims are. We should challenge that. There's a more complex reality. And the only way we're going to avoid further conflicts, further divisions. And the only way we're going to learn to understand each other is if we start to pay attention to the details. The details do matter very much. You know, I had a colleague in Al Jazeera a few years ago. Every time he felt the conversation was getting, you know, really dense and heavy, he would always say to me, cut, cut, cut, cut. So I'm going to cut, cut, cut. And just summarize what I took away from what you're saying now. Was Islam spread by the sword? It's important to separate the Muslim empire, which grew, you know, within a century grew from east to west, mashallah.
And the Islam as a religion. And Islam as a religion was never spread by the sword, as I understood. There were specific instances where people were forced into Islam. That is, you know, the Ottoman Dohsh-e-Sharma system. There was the orphan decree in Yemen. But Islam as a religion was never forced onto a nation or forced onto a people. And the proof of that is that as the Muslim empire grew, Islam as a religion didn't penetrate those nations and countries until way later. And in some instances, it just didn't, you know, reach or people just didn't take it on. You know, I'm Lebanese and there are many non-Muslims in Lebanon, even though the whole region was in the control of the Ottoman Empire. So that's what I've taken so far. And correct me if I've misunderstood you. If you were to write a book and dial up the other ways that Islam as a religion grew and even the Muslim empire, how it grew, what would you shine light on? You know, what is it that you feel is missing when we talk about Islamic history being spread? That's a really good question. I think the first thing I would try to address actually is why is this question being asked? Right. Which is something that is important to interrogate. I think when this question is being asked, when this narrative is being circulated, why? The second or I guess after that, what I would discuss is a series of factors that I believe, based on the historical research that I've done and also based on the historical research of many other historians,
are the key factors that have helped Islam spread to different regions of the world. These would include intermarriage. These would include trade. These would include the role of social influencers. These would include migration. And certainly these would include that what itself, this kind of beautiful part of the Islamic tradition of inviting non-Muslims and Muslims as well to engage with the message of Islam and to try to choose it for themselves, to accept it for themselves as something that will bring them benefit in this life after death. So Muslims have always been encouraged to do that. It's considered a very meritorious deed. And in many different roles, in many different ways, like almost as a way to say countless different ways, they've tried to do that within their own lives. So I'm a Muslim in Indonesia, say, and I'm listening to this vodcast and I'm asking myself, how did my ancestors become Muslim? So what's your answer to that? Like, I know the Arab Peninsula, you know, in the first hundred years after the Prophet ﷺ, you know, was spread very, very quickly. There were battles and whatnot. How about outside of the Arab Peninsula? In Indonesia, for example, what would you say to that young person in Indonesia, trying to, you know, recall from their ancestors how they became Muslim? I would certainly point out to them the importance of trade, Muslim merchants going to Indonesia, the spice trade. You know, the Indian Ocean especially is often been called by historians as the Muslim Lake for much of history because it was sort of bordered on all sides by Muslim majority societies and something that was dominated by Muslim merchants, seafaring Muslim merchants. So certainly trade, I think, more than any other factor.
Also, that way itself in the form of traveling scholars and traveling sort of Sufi mystics and other sort of people who were very attached to the religion and really keen on spreading it, they would actually travel with merchants and settle in these areas, often intermarry with the locals, often try to address the local social influencers, the local social influencers. So that played a role as well when leading members of society in some of the islands of the Indomalaya kind of context when they were converting to Islam, that became a form of encouragement for many of the followers of people who looked up to them. So I would say it's a very complex process, but trade, definitely traveling scholars and Sufi mystics, as well as the role of local social influencers were some of the primary factors. And that's where you start looking. Right. It just helps for that person. It's like I'm not giving you the answer. I'm giving you sort of a guidance on how you might look for the answer. So now maybe you want to look into the history of trade between India and Sri Lanka and the people of Indonesia and see how that connection came, etc. Right. Outside of the Arabian Peninsula, when Islam spread, it didn't really change the culture of the people that it spread to. Is there a story or two that comes to mind when you think of Islam spreading beyond the Arab Peninsula? Yes, certainly, Islam has this concept of within it, which sort of indicates that we are cultural beings, human beings always have a culture. We never operate outside of culture. And of course, there's many diverse and beautiful cultures within the world.
So when Islam spread to the people of those cultures, anything that was sort of permissible that was part of that culture was allowed to remain. Right. And in many cases, there was a very interesting fusion between Islamic teachings and local cultures. And so some of the stories that come to mind in terms of what that enables. Right. So you have your own distinct identity, but then you have your Islamic identity, which you share with people in all the different parts of the world where Islam has spread to. So when Muslim Spain was in decline, there was a scholar there. His name was Saad Al-Khair. And he was from the city of Valencia. And when there was a decline happening there, what he decided to do is move with his family all the way from Muslim Spain into China. So he goes, you know, and this is we are talking about, you know, the 12th century, basically 13th century. This is many, many hundred years ago. That would be a big move for somebody to make today in today's world. Right. But they're moving from Spain all the way to China. And there's you know, and what's the implication? They have the same kind of cultural roots that they share with the Muslims in China in the sense that they can easily walk over into a mosque or into a Muslim community in China. Say a salam alaikum and the other people who are there who've never met them before may have nothing else in common. But at the very least, they know what they can. But they will say that. Right. So you have that cultural familiarity. So now this scholar, he moved to Kashgar, which is now in the Uyghur lands, which are occupied by China. Right. And his daughter was born there. Her name is Fatima bin Saad Al-Khair. She's Fatima, the daughter of Saad Al-Khair. And she became a scholar in her own right. So she's raised in Kashgar. She's from Spanish Arab background.
She's raised in Kashgar among the Uyghur Muslims. Then she moves to Persia and Isfahan for her higher studies. And eventually she gets married. She moves to Baghdad. And then from there, she and her husband are both in the service of Salahuddin. Right. In the Levant, basically. And she spends the final years of her life in a Ubud, Cairo. And she passes away in Cairo. And that's where she's buried. Right. So this is kind of like the global interconnection that the spread of Islam created. You have so many other stories. How did Ibn Battuta, who was a lawyer, a jurist, a qadi trained in Morocco, easily as soon as he walked into India, basically. Right. He just gets a job for like the next seven years. He's just a lawyer. It's basically the same law that he is applying. Right. And there's so many other stories of what the spread of Islam has enabled, which is part of, I think, the story that we need to tell. When we see the bigger picture. Yes, it's important to focus on the conflicts and the violence. But as Islam spread, there were fruits that were spreading with it. Right. There were people that were spreading with it. There were places like Mecca and Medina that were becoming the marketplace of ideas. And one of one personal story I'd like to share related to that is I remember when I was very young and I would go to Pakistan, which is where I'm originally from. I remember my grandmother, who's very elderly now, but she would be cooking cornbread, basically. And in Punjabi, in our language, it's called makki de roti. Right. So it's like roti that I didn't understand at the time. I didn't understand until very recently. It literally means roti from Mecca. Right. Which is the name for cornbread in the Punjabi language used not only by Muslims, but also by Sikhs and Hindus. All Punjabis call it the same thing. Roti from Mecca. Right. And the reason for that is where did corn actually originate?
Corn actually originates in Mexico. Right. And when the inter-Columbian exchange happened right after the Europeans arrival, they brought corn to Europe. It went to the Ottoman Empire. It went to Mecca. And somebody learned of it from Mecca and brought it back to India. And all over South Asia is still referred to as the roti from Mecca. Right. So coffee is another example. Coffee would not have spread to anywhere across the world if it wasn't brought from Ethiopia to Yemen and then to Mecca. And if it wasn't approved sort of by the law, the Muslim jurists in Mecca. Right. So there's all of these different kinds of examples. I'm going to make dua for those Muslim jurists. Alhamdulillah Ya Rabbi. Alhamdulillah. I will as well. Right. But the point being that when we talk about these things, I mean, what are the aspects of modern life that we enjoy today? I mean, your cup of coffee, the tulips is something that the spread of Islam gave to the Europeans. Right. Especially if we focus on the movement of knowledge and ideas and products from the Muslim lands into Europe and from there into what we refer to now as our modern lives. So much of it is also tied to the spread of Islam. So, you know, when we talk about the spread of Islam, why is it always only about the sword? And we're not talking about coffee or tulips or oranges or corn or, you know, medical knowledge or all of these different kinds of things. You know, random, random story. Right. But if you don't mind me sharing it, I was in Kuwait just on a visit to a few friends. And we were walking in the old old town. And then I saw a masjid called Masjid al-Hindi, the Indian mosque. And so I asked my Kuwaiti friend, you know, what's the story behind this mosque?
He said early in the in the 20th century, some Indian traders came to Kuwait and they were giving da'wah to the Kuwaitis and they funded this mosque. And he said the way I found out was I was I was with my grandfather in hospital and he was on his deathbed. And he saw the way I was talking to to one of the I think it was a nurse or one of the helpers. And and he didn't like my tone towards and that guy was from from India. He said, don't you dare talk to them like that. I said, why? He said when when they came in the 40s to Kuwait and I met them, they they came to my home and they brought me bananas. And I was eating the banana. It's the first time I ever saw a banana. And I was eating the banana with with its actual skin on. And the guy taught me how to eat a banana. He said, don't ever look down. They came and gave da'wah to us and they built our mosque. You know, subhanAllah. So like I agree with you that you need to kind of look at the full picture. Look at the ways Islam was spread and trade played a very, very big role. Da'wah played a very big role. The you know, the social influences, the high kind of net worth individuals who donated. They played a big role. So it wasn't Islam as a religion was not spread by the sword. There were some some instances where, you know, there were forced conversions and we've explained those. But Islam as a religion spread by so many different factors.
And I think it's it's time we turn up the volume on on those factors which which led to people becoming Muslim. I have one last question before we wrap up. If you were to speak to my niece, for example, who asked me this question, you know, was Islam spread by the sword? She's only nine years old. OK. And you've got probably, you know, 30 seconds to a minute before she kind of she gets uninterested. What is it that you will say to my niece when someone asks you, was Islam spread by the sword? I would tell her that it's important to never rush to make a judgment. Right. We say don't judge a book by its cover because you might get a certain indication from the cover, but the story itself might be more complicated and very different. So especially if somebody is saying that other people have done very evil things, very bad things, we should stop for a second and make sure that we don't jump to the conclusion that those people are evil and bad. They may have done some bad things. They may have done some good things. It's good to look at everything in its own kind of perspective. Look at the full picture and get a good, fair sense conclusion about the story itself and never just jump to a conclusion. OK, brother Hassam, Jazakallah Khair. Thank you so much. And for me, looking at history in a truly honest way and looking at the ways Islam was spread and the Muslim empire spread, I think it's important to kind of look at the nuances. So thank you for bringing that nuance today. And those who are interested can read brother Hassam's paper on yaqeeninstitute.org. Did Islam spread by the sword? Thank you so much. And inshallah we'll speak soon on your other paper. Jazakallah Khair. Jazakallah Khair. Really appreciate it.
Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next week for another hot topic on Double Take. Don't forget to rate us on your favorite podcast app and make sure you subscribe.
Welcome back!
Bookmark content
Download resources easily
Manage your donations
Track your spiritual growth
Khutbahs

Allah

215 items
Present
1 items