Rattibha

A thread on Islamic conquests: 🧵
Muslims have actually been the only rulers who have allowed the conquered indigenous people to practice and preserve their cultures & traditions.
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Abu Bakr (RA), Islam's first Caliph, told his commanders to let the people freely worship. This was the policy of toleration that became the distinctive feature of Islamic governance for 1200 years.
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Academics have argued that Islamic conquest was entirely different from Euro colonialism. Islam was spread for material and spiritual benefits for mankind. Every region that Islam conquered became the centre of the world.
Read.
academia.edu
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academia.edu/49592178/Were_…

Were the Muslim Arab Conquerors of the Seventh-Century Middle East Colonialists?

Academia.edu is a platform for academics to share research papers.

Spain:
Before Islam it was backwaters. But after, it became the centre of the world. It was a flourishing place for people of all religions, races and classes. Jews, Christians, and Muslims lived and studied together in neutral settings. Forced conversion was not even a thing.
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While Jews surely had their own court system in the Islamic Caliphate (bet din) they were not even afraid to go to Islamic courts to get justice.
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In fact, when Muslims invaded their neighbouring empires, Jews welcomed Muslims as their liberators in Spain as well as in Egypt and Syria.
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Some of the greatest Jewish philosophers, in fact, the greatest Jewish philosopher in Judaism, Maimonides, was also born and flourished under the Islamic Caliphate. One of the reasons for Islam's survival for 1200 years was its openness and diversity in every aspect of life.
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Take India as another example.
Forced conversation was extremely rare. Most of India became Muslim not due to forced conversion via political power but preaching by the Sufis.
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In general Islam's expansion was never as brutal as some people make it out to be.
Today we have archaeological evidence to support this fact. Islamic conquest was never bloody. Ottoman Sultan Beyzid II gave Jews the right to build communities after expulsion from Spain 1492.
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