If Islam is a religion of peace why did it expand through military conquests?

[Sword of Christ]

There is no "religion of peace." Religions are inherently belligerent.

Some people who follow religions are belligerent but that doesn't mean the religion itself is meant to be generally they're not supposed to be. Islam is slightly tricky because you do have initial massive conquest of land and people element I can't help noticing. Christianity did this a little bit eventually with the Crusades but that was on a much smaller scale, focused around here.



There was some Jewish conquest in the Old Testament as well of course, though this was just a conquest of a small amount of land for one people. Archaeology doesn't find much evidence evidence for it but if it happened this way.



Then you get to Islam and holy shit. This is seems like a bid at global conquest they didn't quite manage because they were fought back.



I'm interested to know what moderate Muslims would make of all this given that emphasis they place on the peaceful element.