(August 14, 2016 at 5:01 pm)Jehanne Wrote: Here's a great article that should eviscerate any notion that Islam was (or is) a "peaceful" religion:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Muslim_conquests
Quote:In late 620s Muhammad had already managed to conquer and unify much of Arabia under Muslim rule, and it was under his leadership that the first Muslim-Byzantine skirmishes took place. Just a few months after Heraclius and the Persian general Shahrbaraz agreed on terms for the withdrawal of Persian troops from occupied Byzantine eastern provinces in 629, Arab and Byzantine troops confronted each other at the Mu'tah. Muhammad died in 632 and was succeeded by Abu Bakr, the first Caliph with undisputed control of the entire Arab peninsula after the successful Ridda Wars, which resulted in the consolidation of a powerful Muslim state throughout the peninsula.
I don't have enough knowledge to respond to such specifics, but that's irrelevant anyway. Muslims are generally going to look to their interpretation of what the Qur'an says, not necessarily to what Muhammad did in history past.