Question by a Non Muslim : How are Muslims conquests different from Roman conquests or any other conquest pattern by any civilization ? Both begin at the notion of usurping vast swaths of lands and end up in blood shed?
Answer the questioner here seems to have either sincerely made a mistake in framing his question or has resorted to deception and trickery because by the apparent wordings of his question 1, it seems that he is linking Islam with what the Muslims in general did over centuries . While this is a very flawed approach because what Muslims do or did is not necessarily a reflection of what Islamic law prescribes. Even if we assume that a portion of the Muslims transgressed and did what the questioner is asking, how is this a proof against Islam ?!!
So instead of me giving in to the cunning question and thereby delving into the infinite loop of defending 13 centuries of Muslim kingdoms and rulers , i would rather politely correct him and answer clarifying what actually matters, which is "the position of Islam and how islamic teachings are different in pattern from the roman or non Islamic civilizations" . And will be dividing my answer into two umbrellas namely Islamic and Non Islamic. The Non Islamic one's may also include certain Muslim dynasties if their case is proven to be from it. And for the sake of brevity i will abstain from quoting Islamic texts .
(i) An Islamic conquest has to abide by the permanent islamic protocols.
the very first difference between Islamic notion of war vs Non Islamic conquests is that in Islam, the principle laws are permanent and do not change with the arrival of new ruler/caliph . The new ruler has no option but to abide by the very same laws which Islam dictates even if it were 500 years old. Comparing this with the Non Islamic conquests, then the conquests, and their motto were not controlled nor checked the way they are required to by the Islam shar`iah
The high priests and church never restricted nor dictated the do's and don't of the battles , nor the policies of the ruler or any other protocol which the ruler was to abide by. They were mostly used for carols, blessings, omens and instigating emotions or support.
But Islamic law not only restricts but also regulates the policies of the ruler and he has no option but to abide by it. He cannot do like his roman counterparts did that as the king changes, the policies and rules and code of honour all are subject to change. No, this is not what Islam dictates. The code of honour, the principle protocols of communication etiquettes and even the rules of warfare remain the same until the day of judgement with respect to how to share the war booty, or the manners of capturing slaves and likewise other factors which are ABSOLUTELY ABSENT in Non Islamic conquests.
(ii) A conquest based on anything other than for the sake of God is not what the Islamic conquests define as a legitimate conquest.
The second difference between what Islam defines or classifies as a conquest vs non Islamic one is that the islamic conquests CANNOT EVER take shape or emerge based on Lust or desire of conquests and thus it offers many outcomes to take place without bloodshed such as tax or Jizyah in exchange for their safety and property . Something which the Non Islamic conquests totally lack.
Conquests due to power greed or lust opposes the de-facto position of Islam which is that Jihad is to be done only
for the sake of Allah and
to spread the message of Allah so as to achieve good and forbid and stop all evil .
And all this is to be done ONLY by traversing upon the permanent principle guidelines put forward by Islam.
Comparing this to the Non Islamic conquests, then i take the liberty to "assume" the questioner is intelligent enough to - by now - grasp the major difference that the Non Islamic conquests lack adhering to the above mentioned codes of Islam .
(iii) Muslim conquests in comparison to Non Muslim conquests were more sympathetic to Jews and other Non Muslims than Romans or Mongols combined
For the sake of argument if i were to even take up the task of defending Muslim rulership, then i would first begin with how the Muslim kingdoms of the past were more sympathetic to jews and christians than the Christians, Mongols and pagan romans were combined. The barbarity of what the Christian kingdoms did to their own people and to other lands including England until the recent independence of India is far more atrocious than Muslim history multiplied 3 times.
This is something well known to a student of history who is not blinded by bias
Following this my second argument would be how European dark ages was vanquished thanks to the Muslim civilization and how Muslims were heading in a lot of mathematical, medicinal and physics related discoveries and these developments were harboured , nourished and championed in the Muslim heartlands, especially the famous Baghdad. So the very Muslim conquests saved Europe from its unhygienic dark ages atleast twice. From paper factories to numericals - alot was taken, learnt and copied from the Muslim world.
Followed by this, i would perhaps even indulge into intrinsic details of how the europeans boasted about their slaughtering and decapitating by building famous statues, still standing to this date in Eu
See: http://whytheshariah.blogspot.com/2014/11/sneak-peak-into-barbaric-past-of.html
Then perhaps i would discuss the position of women housewives in england even until the recent early 20th century where selling your wife was easier than selling a chair http://whytheshariah.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-position-of-women-in-england-vs.html
And now that i am begining to get tired, i would like to demolish this false notion of Muslim or Islamic conquests bringing about only havoc by quoting the following passage from an author of comparative studies on history
In her book Min al-riqq ila'l-sayadah, Samihah A. Wirdi says:
"There is no need for us to go back to the time of the Crusades in order to know the level of civilization in Europe at that time. We need go back no further than a few hundred years, to the days of the Ottoman Empire, and compare between the Ottomans and the Europeans to see what level the Ottoman civilization had reached.
"In 1624, Prince Brandeboug wrote the following on the invitations to a banquet that he
sent to other princes and nobles: Guests are requested not to plunge their hands up to the elbow in the dishes; not to throw food behind them; not to lick their fingers; not to spit on their plates; and not to blow their noses on the edges of the tablecloths.'"
The author adds:
"These words clearly indicate the level of civilization, culture, knowledge and manners among the Europeans. At the same time, in another part of Europe, the situation was not much different. In the palace of the King of England (George I), the ugly smell emanating from the persons of the King and his family overpowered the grandeur of their fine, lace-edged French clothes. This is what was happening in Europe. Meanwhile in Istanbul, the seat of the khilafah, it is well-known that the European ambassadors who were authorized by the Ottoman state be thrown into baths before they could approach the sultan. Sometime around 1730, during the reign of Sultan Ahmad III, when the Ottoman state entered its political and military decline, the wife of the English ambassador in Istanbul, Lady Montague, wrote many letters which were later published, in which she described the level of cleanliness, good manners and high standards among the Muslims.
In one of her memoirs she wrote that the Ottoman princess Hafizah had given her a gift of a towel that had been hand-embroidered; she liked it so much that she could not even bear to wipe her mouth with it. The Europeans were particularly astounded by the fact that the Muslims used to wash their hands before and after every meal. It is enough to read the words of the famous English nurse Florence Nightingale, describing English hospitals in the mid-nineteenth century, where she describes how these hospitals were full of squalor, negligence and moral decay, and the wings of these hospitals were full of sick people who could not help answering the call of nature on their beds . . .
[Ref: Samihah A. Wirdi, Min al-riqq il'al'sayadah, Damla Yayinevi No. 89, p. 28ff.]
Read more of where this quote came from : http://whytheshariah.blogspot.com/2015/01/question-and-answer-series-part-5.html#ixzz3XZl2hEzY
This website simply clarifies the allegations against islam and its working principle (aka shar`iah) by touching sensitive but famous topics like women rights, human rights, etc.
