Why is his question ridiculous?
The centuries to which PM referred were a period during which Islam was often geographically static or actually on the retreat, notably from Western Europe. Compared to the earlier period, there were far fewer conquests. Consequently, the Muslim law ‘of conquest by force of arms’ did not often apply. What applied in the areas that Islam had already conquered, were the laws of ‘dhimmitude’ – the social, political and cultural inferiority imposed upon non-Muslims under Muslim rule. Those latter laws were (and still are) perennially enforced with various degrees of intensity.
There were exception to the above. Islam continued to expand into, for example, sub-Saharran Africa. I gave him the titles of books in which he could investigate those events. Millions of Africans were robbed, enslaved and used for sex. For the particulars of Mahdism in the Sudan there are too many sources to start listing.
But I’ll cite a tiny selection of events from the Medieval period. They are not chosen for any intrinsic merit. They were just the first ones that came into my head / appeared when I opened a few sources. It is a silly list. Almost as silly as PM’s question. But I will cite them to make a point
Conquest of Egypt, 642 – for accounts of conquest and booty (material property and women) see eg John of Nikiou’s account.
Conquest and ravaging of Cyprus and Greek islands (circa 650) – see account of Michael the Syrian.
Conquest of Armenia and resultant booty (material property and women). For raids into Spain and France, rape and pillage, see the Annales of Ibn al Athir.
Anatolia c.840 – the taking of Amorium – there were many nunneries in the city and the virgins were all led off to their fate.
Armenia again, in the mid-C11th – see Samuel of Ani: the women from his town were taken as booty from his town during the Feast of the Virgin.
These raids, conquests and pillages were conducted according to the precepts of Islamic law. But I quote them because, as anyone might rightly note, these events were no worse than those conducted by Christians and others in the period. And I agree entirely. My point has simply been that the rest of the world has tried to move on. The Islamic conquests were conducted according to Islamic law. The same law to which devout Muslims adhere today. A law imposed by God. A law that remains in force for all eternity. The law that Isis are now applying in their Caliphate. A law, the fundamentals of which, is preached and taught in every mosque and madrassa from Raqqa to Rotheram.
More modern ‘stuff’? Is it really necessary? Alphabetically?
Aleppo 1850 – pillage and rape... Armenian massacres of 1890s, the genocide of 1915(16?) …
Of course, the list would not give a remotely balanced reading of Islamic rule. What about the Abbasids. The Ottomans. The Moghuls in India. Great civilizations.
Islamic law technically required the execution of every conquered Hindu – they were not People of the Book, they were pagans and polytheists to whom no mercy should have been extended. But there were not killed: for practical reasons, they were simply subordinated. Because that is the essence of the relations between Dar el Islam and Dar el Harb: the effective subordination of non-Muslims. The law is there to serve the propagation and triumph of Islam and its adherents, not vice versa. (Had it been practicable or beneficial to destroy those populations, they might well have done so – much as Charlemagne and the Franks did during the Christianizing drive in East Germany and the Baltic.) Only historical study will explicate the precise manner by which Islamic supremacy was effectively imposed in any given case.
The sufferings of Islam’s black slaves were usually (excuse the grotesque calculus) less than those of the victims of the Anglo-American slave trade. As I said in my very first post: Islam regulates such things. Shari’a legislates the things Muslims are allowed, and the things they are not allowed, to do with and to their slaves. Christianity offered no legislation on the treatment of slaves. And thus no effective protection. Christians carried out a brutal slave commerce.
Islam has detailed rules. But I think it is legitimate to ask what essential objectives underpin them.
