Quote Originally Posted by DrZoidberg View Post
um, history. It's not like it's a secret. The reasons for this is slightly more controversial and I'd hate this thread become a discussion on religion. Non-muslims who lived under Muslim rule where called Dhimmis, and where expected and required to keep their original religion and customs. Conversion to Islam by non-Arabs was forbidden. This started happening many hundreds of years later under Ottoman rule.



Cool, I'll check it out.
You are absolutely misinformed regarding this, conversion was not only allowed but loved by muslims, as it is one of the most important duty of a muslim to call others for the religion of Allah. However as it is also stated in the Qur'aan, none can be forced to convert, so those who preferred to not convert from the Christians, Jews and afaik magians were considered as dhimmies, whom the islamic state protected and in return they payed tax (since they anyway did not join the army in case of war).