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

[Sword of Christ]

The Umayyads were, in my opinion, a fine, grand empire, that was built on militarism.
As all empires, their policies were expansionist, and like all expansionist empires, they had an ideal behind their expansionism. To spread the religion. Yes indeed, Islam can be a warlike religion, but nothing like the wannabes of today. The Umayyads were good warriors, strong and resolute, and frankly, they were the last Islamic empire which employed a pure-conquest based religious policy. Though to be honest, if not for the Umayyad, Islam may have had never been a far reaching religion. Their successors, the Abbasids, employed a much more milder approach, and the spread of Islam in the Abbasid period usually occured through the missions of Iranian and Turkish dervishes and sufi sheikhs, and it was them who converted my ancestors, we weren't converted through conquest. However, after the conversion, my ancestors became staunch warriors of the faith. I take pride in the martial history of our family and I'm proud to say that they were all descendants of Ghazis and frontiersman, however after they abandoned the nomadic lifestyle, they became sedentary and peaceful.

And I think the aggressive and peaceful periods of Islamic history are marked by mostly lifestyle changes of muslims.
During the Rashidun Umayyad periods, the Arabs had a nomadic and semi-nomadic bedoin presence within their ranks. As they progressed they met the nomadic Turks, that converted. In the Abbasid period, most of the Arab population had become sedentary and urbanized, and have busied themselves with the core tenets of the faith, praying, fasting and etc, while the spread of the religion by the sword passed to the hands of the then nomadic population of the Turks.

These continued to spread the faith through conquest, up until the Ottoman policies regarding the settlement of Turkoman clans took hold. Much stuff happened through this period, as many clans preferred a nomadic lifestlye yet still, but after settlement, many lost their warlike habits, and became peaceful peasantry and farmers, rather than warlike raiders bent on venturing deep into enemy lines for plunder and recoinassance. And to be honest, it had both its ups and downs.

But it's not that Islam began purely peacefully and then had military conquest/empire building period at a later date when it was incorporated into a political entity. Rather it began with a conquest/political stage from the very start with it's founder and this continued after his death up until a point when it ran out of steam and then it was spread peacefully. So any Muslims who seek to impose Islamic rule by supporting acts of military aggression/terrorism have a valid historical foundation they can claim to be upholding. It's a small nitpick as far as modern/Western Islam is concerned but it is still ideally supposed to be a political entity of government over a people as well as a religion. Like Communism an entirely new political system normally has to be imposed upon a people via armed conflict/conquest or revolution/uprising against the established system. In some cases it can be a voluntary change see the Germans did voting Hitler into power but historically Islam would fit the general mold and patterns of a global political movement.

Today Islam tends to just be spread more like a conventional religion via cultural transmission or recruiting new converts, some Dawah here for instance.






Most of his theological points are very good and it goes to show that even atheists can be reasoned with and they can come to understand the eternal reality of God. I don't know about the point of the Quran being so tremendous a work of literature no-one can replicate it though, it's not like anyone could replicate something Shakespeare wrote there is such as thing as a natural literary talent and it isn't something you can necessarily can learn so Mohammed being unlettered is a non-point.