The الفتوحات الاسلامية or Islamic expansions is something we celebrate in our religion classes. What we learn is that Islam expanded to Iraq, Palestine, Syria,Turkey, Russia north, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Morocco, and Spain West, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, parts of India and China – East. What these lessons never talk about is the brutality, human costs, and unnecessary suffering.
What motivated these expansion is ultimately wealth and sex – more than faith!! Here is why…Islamic fighters would go into a battle believing with full certainty that if they die, they go to heaven with palaces and countless mindless virgin – this promise comes in the Quran itself! And should they survive? They get a bounty share of the the wealth as well as women slaves as sex bounty known as ملك اليمين “What your right hand possess”. What was the human cost of Islamic expansions? Most historian would not dared to put full estimate for fear of being labeled “Islamophobic”.
The one historian who dared is Kishori Saran Lal in a book titled “Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (1000-1800) published in 1973.
The book assesses the demographics of India between 1000 CE and 1500 CE and concludesthat the population of Indian subcontinent in 1000 was about 200 million and in 1500 was about 170 million. Thus, Lal estimates that about 60 to 80 million people died in India between 1000 and 1525 as a result of the Islamic invasion of Indian subcontinent. He concluded that about 2 million people died during Mahmud of Ghazni’s invasions of India alone!
This is just estimate of just 500 years of failed invasions of India! Can anyone help me guess what is the human costs for the other places? That is before we add to it the constant infighting between different fractions of Islam.
Don’t get angry with me for sharing our history! Go read it for yourself from any source you like…but remember the human costs for the nations that lost are not no-bodies. These were civilisations with diverse cultures and traditions, languages, and art. Wipped out with a black flag of “No god but Allah!”
We need to face up to our faith….it is far from being anything but a religion of peace!