Did Islam Spread Throughout Africa With The Use of Force?
The myth that the religion of Islam spread rapidly due to the use of force evolved out of the belief that the sword spread Islam. The myth was made in Europe during the crusades. With the introduction of a new religion Europeans had trouble adjusting to the threat of another religion reaching their country. It was only within Arabia that Muslims were forced to war. They fought against tribes that did not accept the message of God. In countries that were under Arab rule people were not forced to accept Islam but they changed because it was appealing. The faith in one god strictly appealed to the people during the vast spread of Islam. Non-Muslims have been able to survive in countries that were ruled by Muslims during the Islamic Empire. If one were to consider the small number of Muslims that initially spread to Africa, they would see that there were too few to force people become members of a religion against there will. In Africa Mongols invaded the Islamic empire and instead of destroying the religion they adopted it. Facts being that the Mongols were the conquerors, they could not have been forced into Islam. The spread into Africa could be attributed to the use of trade. Once Muslims had control of the trade they made the routes direct and began to personally travel the trade routes in Africa. This allowed them to spread the word of Islam to the people on the African continent. It is written in the Qur an that a persons faith must be pure it cannot be forced on someone. Meaning, that to go by the Qur an it was not pure to force the religion on another person. So to spread Islam by force was against the sacred writings of the Qur an.
The Essay on How and Why did Islam spread so quickly
In 610 C.E., a local merchant named Muhammad completely changed all of Middle East through the religion of Islam. He fled to Mecca, in a cave where he was given the words of Allah and by this, introducing the religion. Overtime, the religion continued to attract new followers, which leads to question- how and why did Islam spread so quickly? Three of the reasons to how this happened were due to ...
