The claim that Islam was spread through war in the initial stages after its emergence in Arabia is indeed accurate. In the two decades after the Prophet's death in 632 CE, Muslim armies defeated its two great neighbors, the Byzantine and Persian (Sassanid) Empires, conquered large segments of their land, and set up an Islamic empire. They were able to defeat these two powerful empires because constant warfare between the Byzantines and the Persians over the previous century had left the people war-weary. In other words, war was a constant fact of life at the time. In fact, some villages welcomed the Muslim armies. Once in power the Muslim invaders gave their subjects the choice of either converting to Islam or paying a tax (unlike their Orthodox Christian counterparts, who persecuted heretics and ruled through fear, intimidation, and terror).

XREF: Connects to broader counter-narratives about Islamic expansion and the myth of forced conversion by the sword.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 195