Preaching of Islam by Arnold History Bites 2

AsSalamu Alaikum everyone Adnan machine back with you again with history bytes remember I promised you that I will be bringing more history related content under a series titled history bytes. Here we are. Today, we will be talking about a very special historic item. Before I do that, I want to remind you to support our work and subscribe, subscribe the channel, and if you like our history related content, please support the work the research the efforts by clicking the link in the description. And you can go to Patreon to support this work. Now to the topic today, Islam spread very, very fast in the seventh century. And Muslim expansion was a phenomenon many historians talked

about it, and many medieval authors writing on Islam and later on in the early modern period, as late as the 19th century, were claiming that Islam was spread by the sword, right. This notion was widely spread throughout

European territories. And also later on during the colonial period. This thought or this perception was resurrected. While this was happening, many colonial scholars are writing books on this topic and claiming that Islam was spread by the sword. There was a British author of philosopher named Professor Thomas Walker, Arnold. Professor Arnold was teaching in India he was a philosopher and he had come across this Orientalist narrative on Islamic history. So he decided that he will go in conduct some research and find responses to this narrative because he had come across some information which wasn't in favor of that particular narrative that Islam was spread by the soul.

And the result of his efforts was this book,

the preaching of Islam, a very, very important book by Professor Thomas honor, you can see it is an old book, it is from the 19th century, published in 1896. And this is the first edition. Why do I show you this book, this is to highlight the fact that there are non Muslim historians who have written on the expansion, the spread of Islam in the seventh century and beyond. And they have shown through research through facts that Islam was not spread by the sword. Rather, it was actually a very good force. For human history, a civilization of a grand scale was created in places like Spain, in North Africa, in places like Iraq, and beyond. So, Professor Thomas Thomas Arnold, in this

very, very extensive book, talks about how Muslims went around taking the land of Persia, taking the land of Syria, and why they did this and why were they successful. He claims that one of the reasons Muslims are successful was because of the support they received from the masses in these lands, the masses of very oppressed

and, and the ruling powers at the time in these lands, like in Persia, the Sassanid Empire, and in the bison territory, the Romans or the Byzantines are very oppressive against the masses. The details are far too long for me to discuss. But let's get to the book. Let's look at the book. If you look at this old book published in the 19th century, in 1896, the preaching of Islam, you can see there, the title, a history of the propagation of the Muslim faith, there is a 19th century signature there, I haven't yet identified the person who signed it, but the author is T w, en route. And this was published in London 1896 For what are the contents like, I mean, he even paid a tribute

to his wife in the Arabic language in this poetry. So let's go, there is a preface and there is a page content page. I don't know what that is, let me quickly find it. I'm wearing these gloves for a reason. The reason why I'm wearing these white gloves is to basically handle these books carefully. There is moisture in our hands, that can damage books, all books like this. So when I handle antique books, I have to wear these gloves so that so that this moisture does not damage these books. And this is one of the things Muslims have to learn when handling books, in particular, all books that we use these gloves, cloth gloves, so that there is no damage. So contents when we read the

contents, it goes as follows A study of the life of Muhammad considered as a preacher of Islam, Chapter three goals, the spread of Islam among the Christian nations of Western Asia. And if you move forward,

then it talks about the reason why I'm sharing this book is so that Muslims can actually go and read it. It's a very powerful defense of the the expansion or the rapid expansion of Islam in the seventh century in the book

just goes to prove as to how Muslims are able to take so much land in such a short span of time and I'm struggling to open the page and now I have it, yes. Then the spread of Islam among the Christian nations of Africa, the spread of Islam among the Christians of Spain, the spread of Islam among the Christian nations in Europe, under the Turks, the spread of Islam in Persia and Central Asia. So the list goes on. This is a very important book, although written quite a while back, but still, the information is very much valid. Historians have written about this information. It is scattered all over

books, in different books, but this is one volume where you can read the history of the expansion of Islam, as far as information is concerned, right? Of course, it's not as academically How can I put it updated as as works are today this is more than 100 years old, his book, and I strongly recommend the second edition, which was published in 1913. Because it was expanded. The second edition 1913 edition was expanded. Professor Thomas Arnold was very sympathetic to Islam. In fact, he is known to be one of the teachers of the famous poets of the East, Muhammad Iqbal, who was appointed from the Indian subcontinent one of the founding fathers of Pakistan.

Arnold was one of his teachers. He taught him philosophy in India and then he encouraged him to study at Cambridge in Britain. So Professor Thomas Arnold had friends like Muslim scholars, such as Shibley Nomani and I'm going to lie lay, and others. So this is a very important book. I have the first edition in my hand, I'm a book collector. And if you like our history work my brothers and sisters and if you'd like this research and effort, then support our work by simply subscribing the channel or subscribing to the channel and support our work following the link in the description patreon link, and you will be part of this work. Thank you so much for listening. Assalamu alaikum I

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