One of the interesting things about Islam in our day is that most Muslims have never read the Qur’an. They also know little or nothing about Muhammad and the history of Islam.
Muhammad was born in Arabia in 570 when the region had many Christian and Jewish towns. There were even several large Jewish communities in Mecca and Medina. Muhammad believed that both Christians and Jews would accept him as a prophet who fulfilled both faiths. When they rejected him, he attacked the Jews in Mecca and Medina. He forced the male members of the Jewish group in Medina to dig a mass grave and then beheaded six- to nine hundred of them and sold the women and children into slavery.
Shortly before Muhammad’s death in 632, he began attacks on Byzantine Syria and Persia. In his farewell address, Muhammad said, “I was ordered to fight all men until they say ‘There is no god but Allah.’” Qur’an 9:5 says, “Slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush.”
The rest of the story of Islam was one of war, with Muhammad’s followers killing all the Jews and Christians they could find in the Mediterranean area. In 711, Muslim forces invaded Spain and later Italy. Most of my Muslim friends are quiet people who would never want to resort to war or force to establish Islam in America. The reality is that Muslims in America have set up their own communities, putting fences around them and not allowing other belief systems in – not even police, fire, or military personnel.
Contrast Muhammad and the history of Islam with that of Jesus Christ and Christianity. Jesus did not allow his followers to use military force to establish His Church. When Peter cut off the ear of Malcus, the servant of the high priest, Jesus healed the wound and said, “Put your sword in its place: for all they who take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matthew 26:51, Luke 22:50-51 and John 18:26). The difference between the history of Islam and Christianity is huge. We still see it today in the “Holy Land” and in the lives of those who follow Christ in America.
For those who wish to explore Muhammad and the history of Islam more deeply, we recommend Dr. Rodney Stark’s book The Triumph of Christianity: How the Jesus Movement Became the World’s Largest Religion, pages 200-211 (ISBN 978-0062007698).
— John N. Clayton © 2025