As for the hackneyed “spreading of Islam by the sword argument”, please walk me through the process, step by step, of how this occurs, especially when compelling individuals to become Muslim is clearly forbidden in Islam (10:99-100 and 2:256). So someone holds a sword to your neck and says become a Muslim or die — OK, and then what? What happens one hour later, 24 hours later, one month later, 10 or 100 years later after “converting”? Is the sword at your necks and your family’s necks all this time so that you and your progeny are somehow doing all the practices of Islam out of compulsion, teaching your children Islam and continuing generation upon generation to be Muslims out of fear of a sword? The idea that any individual, let alone entire societies, could be sustainably converted to any religion out of fear is patently absurd. It was tried with utmost vigor during the Inquisitions, but failed miserably (incidentally, I consider the Inquisitions a human failure, not a failure attributable to Christianity, unlike those who attribute terrorism to Islam). The only argument that can be maintained is that a massive number of non-Muslims were killed because they didn’t convert, and that there were a lot of passive zombies left behind who could be reprogrammed to remain Muslims and teach their children Islam for generations to come. Unfortunately, this diverges from historical fact. As a case in point, please read a letter from the Prophet Muhammad to the Christian monks of Saint Catherine’s Monastery in Mount Sinai to get a small flavor for how he supposedly used the sword to make Christians “far and near” convert or suffer death in a rampage of his unquenchable hatred (and I promise you that you will read this letter at least twice):

“This is a message written by Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, far and near. We are behind them. Verily, I defend them by myself, the servants, the helpers, and my followers, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be changed from their jobs, nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they (Christians) are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, this is not to take place without her own wish. She is not to be prevented from going to her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation is to disobey this covenant till the Day of Judgment and the end of the world.”

If you click on the hyperlink on “textbook” you’ll see exactly what book I’m citing. It was written by William L. Cleveland.

I go to Texas A&M University. I very much doubt my professor agrees with the excerpt in this post, but she did select the book.