(1 minute 53 second read)
You may have an idea how Islam started, but I bet you didn't know this:
In 610 AD, when Muhammad, the founder of Islam was 40ish years old, he began telling his tribesmen in Mecca that Gabriel the angel appeared to him and called him to be Allah’s messenger.
The whole idea was “submission” - to Allah’s commandments as delivered to and by Muhammad.
Islam means “submission.”
And muslim means “one who submits.”
After 12 years of peaceful preaching, Muhammad had won over some one-hundred converts, who were mostly his relatives at the time.
After these 12 years, he was kicked out of Mecca into the desert Oasis by the tribal elites called the “Quraysh.”
Now with a considerable force of men under his control…
Muhammad began to launch raids everywhere.
There was only one way to avoid the sword (or rather, scimitar) of Muhammad.
To quote what he told his warriors: “Fight them [non-muslims] until they testify that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger; if they do so, then their blood [lives] and possessions are denied you.”
Muhammad’s following grew quickly as there were only 2 types of people he came across.
Those who either chose Islam over slavery and death, and those impressed by Muhammad who chose Islam to join his bandwagon and reap the rewards.
All that either one had to do was recite this “There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the messenger of Allah.”
And if they didn’t… well… they were either taken as slaves or killed.
The first 12 years of peaceful preaching and gaining a little over 100 followers…
And within the next 10 years… Muhammad and his followers took over nearly all of Arabia.
Muhammad could now march 10,000 armed Muslims into Mecca, which he had so ignominiously (shamefully) been driven out 8 years earlier.
He sent an ultimatum to the the tribal chieftain:
"Embrace Islam and you shall be safe. You have been surrounded on all sides. You are confronted by a hard case that is beyond your power." When the Quraysh chieftain of Mecca—who, since Muhammad began preaching some two decades earlier, had only mocked and persecuted him as a false prophet—came to parley, Muhammad trumpeted, "Woe to you, Abu Sufyan; isn't it time that you recognize that I am Allah's apostle?" "As to that," replied the crestfallen pagan, "I still have some doubt." One of Muhammad's raiders instantly ordered him to "submit and testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the apostle of Allah before you lose your head!" Abu Sufyan, followed by the Meccans, proclaimed the shahada to resounding cries of "Allahu Akbar!" - Sword and Scimitar (pg 3.)
The chieftain of Mecca submitted to Islam, and so did the rest of his men.
Such is the bare-bones, summary of Muhammad's rise from obscurity to power.
And this was just the beginning of centuries of conflict between Islam and the West.
Thanks for reading!
-Nils
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Source: Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West by Raymond Ibrahim