shafique wrote:The premise of this thread though is to explore whether Islam - i.e. the religion- was spread by the sword.
you yourself just said muhammad spared someone's life - ie not killed him, on the condition of paying him some gold coins?
so the sword would have been to his throat, with someone forcing him to pay up.
anyway, i will take excerpts from teh above video or summerize rather i wont type word for word - because you to have not watched it, since you havent commented on its contents.
PS - the word jizya in arabic, literally means penalty, so his description as penalty is 100% accurate..
"we are going to read the muslims explaination (Sura 9 verse 29) of ibn kathir - the prophet says that these jews and christians have to pay the penalty if they refuse to convert to islam - it is a punishment, thats why its called a jizya, it comes from the word Jaza'a - which means penalty or punishment, not as some muslims claim it means tax, that is a false argument"
"muslims say it was you paid if you didnt join the army"
"but islam was an occupation, they will not let the locals they just occupied join their army - so they force you to pay money, not because you wouldnt join the army, because you're a christian and you refuse to convert"
makes all the sense in the world i must say, if i was a commander of an army, i wouldnt let some people i just conquered come into my ranks - they'd be morons otherwise.
"and this is what the prophet is saying according to sahih muslim - he is saying, the prophet said do not ever say salam aleikom, do not start every saying shalom or hello to a christian or a jew, and if you see them in the street, force him to go into the most narrow, ugly, bad road - you have to himiliate him, and insult them, with no respect, because they refused to convert to islam"
"on top of that you must pay nearly 3 quarters your income to keep your faith and stay alive - if you stop paying you have 2 choices, to convert or die. this is from the book of ibn kathir, this is quoted from an official government website of saudia arabia"
*scrolls up*
"as you can see, this is from the website as it says (now in arabic) "al mamlaka el arabia el seeoodeya, wezaret el awkaf, kesm el da3aya wel ershad..... "
as i already mentioned, no one knows islam better than the saudi's... so this is no hoax, or made up information, this is straight out of their website translated word for word by the speaker.