Runner says: "grateful,can you name one place on earth where Islam has produced a place where people want to immigrate to?"

Yes I can, but they date back to when Islamic law was implemented. Jews sought refuge from the persecution of Christians in Spain and later in Eygpt.You might recall from your Christian history studies that Christianity was spread by the sword in Europe and Latin American and Jews and Muslims were forced to flee for fear of being put to the sword for no other reason than they would not convert.

On the other hand, while not approving of empirialist aspirations of the Arab rulers or their personal intrigues (although there were outstanding exceptions in Salah ad-Din or Saladin and Omar bin Abdul Aziz), becoming Muslim was a voluntary act under Arab rule, with freedom of religion an integral part of peace treaties. In fact, if you consult the Oxford History of Islam, you'll find that most of the rulers would discourage conversions because it would mean they would no longer be able to levy a special tax (levied in lieu of service in the Arab armies).

In the lectures I recommended to Lucerferace, in my previous post, the professor mentions that he has studied the records of the Islamic courts and can only conclude that the law was implemented fairly without fear or favour. The outcome would not depend on whether you were a king or a peddler, a Muslim or a Jew.

This tradition dates back to the time of the Prophets and Righteous Caliphs that followed him, and as far as I'm aware is undisputed. This is the Islam i was speaking of in the previous post. In contrast, Europeans could not turn to their churches for protection, but rather sought assembles of varying degrees of representation to reign in the power of the kings.

Runner, since your natural predisposition is to dispute anything that paints Islam as anything other than an evil, if you do chose to challenge what I have said, please provide your scholarly evidence. Otherwise don't waste everyone's time (including your own).

Grateful,

Islam was spread by the sword in exactly the same way that Christianity was, the problem is that the intolerance of the conquistadors in Western society has given way to liberal tolerance, whilst for Islam, they are stuck in the middle ages

Shadow Minister:
"Islam was spread by the sword in exactly the same way that Christianity was, the problem is that the intolerance of the conquistadors in Western society has given way to liberal tolerance, whilst for Islam, they are stuck in the middle ages"

Was Islam spread by the sword or not? You say it was, I say it wasn't. When there is a dispute about historical fact then we consult the historians.

In the Oxford History of Islam you will read:

"In many parts of the empire, even those conquered early on, such as Eygpt or Iran, the population remained predominantly non-Muslim for centuries. With time, more of these conquered peoples embraced Islam; estimates suggest that the Near Eastern provinces Muslims became the majority only after about 850 C.E.

In other words, during the golden age of the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphates Muslims were still a minority in the lands they ruled.

The empire’s conquered populations were gradually won over to Islam for various reasons. Forced conversions were rare, but in some cases the imposition of higher taxes on non-Muslims may have created an economic incentive for embracing Islam. For the most part, however, the gradual Islamization of the empire’s populations was part of a complex transformation of the whole social environment, involving many factors that impinged simultaneously on the individual and the family: economic and political advantage, social mobility, linguistic and cultural affinities, marriage and kinship requirements, and, above all, the intrinsic appeal of the Islamic belief.” p22

https://books.google.com.au/books?id=9HUDXkJIE3EC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=snippet&q=spread&f=false

Far from being "exactly the same way that Christianity", it more like what you would call "liberal tolerance".

So what support do you have for your statement?

PS: If you read through this thread, you'll notice that whenever i provide evidence based on eminent historians and asked for sources the response has been to do a runner or to declare historians irrelevant. I'm curious to see whether this trend continues.

Grateful

You seem to very much support 'scholarly' source over truth. I notice U are incapable of naming one Islamic nation where people want to immigrate to. Not surprising the best U can do is draw some very debateable narrative from hundreds of years ago. Are you on the abc payroll by any chance. The scholars they often quote are very loose with the truth.

" ...and, above all, the intrinsic appeal of the Islamic belief."

Really? "Above all"? Now where would a scholar have pulled that one from? Such a rose-coloured religious perspective puts a scholar's objectivity into question, IMO. Whatever

Your reference highlights that extremism has been a part of Islam for centuries. It is good that, finally, a fatwa has been issued that supports the wider Australian community. http://www.smh.com.au/national/muslim-leaders-including-the-grand-mufti-of-australia-back-fatwa-against-isis-20160101-glxtbp.html

At some point here it may be necessary to take the path against extremists that the British took against the IRA (detailed by JoM). Would not the fatwa support such action if it came to it?
That action is now necessary in Europe, IMO. It is, after all, violence in self-defense

Grateful,

The lands that are now Muslim were conquered by warfare, that the populations did not immediately convert does not mean that they were not coerced into doing so.

You happily concede that non muslims paid a punitive tax. In addition practising religions other than Islam was restricted, and non muslims were generally excluded from most forms of government. Churches were demolished and replaced with Mosques etc, and to top it all, anyone that converted to Islam and recanted was executed.To claim that people freely abandoned their religion and embraced Islam is complete BS.

You quote "imminent" historians, that are largely unheard of, and the "Oxford History of Islam" that is not linked to Oxford university in an attempt to appear authoritative, but fail spectacularly