For Muslims of the era, the events of the conquest period were recalled as a series of monumental episodes that located contemporary Islam and its adherents within an overarching narrative of prophecy, revelation, and salvation. In tandem with its theological implications, this Christian author's critique of Islam's use of the sword also seems to have taken aim at the early Muslim community or umma's organizing historical narratives about the origins of the Islamic community itself.

1 However much we may doubt the assertion that late ancient and early medieval Christians scrupulously abstained from the use of the sword in spreading their religion, the Christian apologist clearly meant to suggest that Islam's history of faith-driven conquest had made moot any claims that Muslims may have advanced concerning the status of their religion as the one true religion of God upon the Earth. ˁAmmār al-Baṣrī wrote that Islam, like the religion of the Banū Isrāˀīl (roughly “the Sons of Israel”), had been spread by the sword, whereas Christianity forbade the use of the sword as a means of promulgating the faith. I n the ninth century of the C ommon Era, a Christian apologist living and writing under Muslim rule in Iraq repeated a very old critique of Islam.

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