In any discussion with a Muslim about the obvious shortcomings of the Quran, a Christian apologist will be confronted with a blizzard of biblical passages that show how evil, depraved, and violent the Judeo-Christian tradition is. Muslims do this in an attempt to deflect the obvious passages in the Quran that give lie to Islam as “The Religion of Peace”, as well as other claims that Allah is the God of Abraham and Jacob. There are a number of logical problems with this tactic of Muslims, however.

One critical point is how the proponents of each religious tradition apply their scripture? We have ample evidence that Jesus never killed anyone. He never stole anything. He never used his position for his own enrichment or self-aggrandizement. There’s no evidence that he fornicated or even had sexual relations with anyone. He forgave his persecutors, even as they killed him. When confronted with situations where the scripture dictated a death sentence, he taught forgiveness and tolerance. One critical point about Jesus is that he operated within the existing framework of religious law as passed down from Moses and previous prophets.

Muhammad, on the other hand, wasn’t constrained by previous law or scripture. He freely made it up as he went along to suit himself. He paid lip service to whatever Judeo-Christian scripture suited him, although he always failed to understand the underlying lessons, and frequently mis-stated the stories in ways that directly contradicted the written scriptures of Judaism and Christianity. He routinely killed those who disagreed with him. He assassinated critics, and presided over massacres such as that of the helpless Banu Qarayza tribe of Jews in Medina. He and his followers made a life of banditry and looting, and justified it on the basis of religious commandments from Allah, with whom only Muhammad could communicate. Muhammad got a 20% cut of all the loot collected, which he distributed in the form of bribes to ensure the loyalty of his followers. He condemned everyone who disagreed with him, and extracted vicious and cruel revenge. He tortured people, building a fire on one man, and ordering an old woman to be dismembered by tying her limbs to camels. He was a sexual libertine, having relations with any woman who struck his fancy. This is dismissed by Muslims as they point out that he was married to them, which was not always true. The Muslims who support this morality fail to tell you that marriage in Muhammad’s cult took no consideration of the woman’s desires. Muhammad had no qualms about taking a “wife” to his tent before the dead bodies of her murdered father and husband were even cold.

A fundamental basis of both Christianity and Islam is that the adherents of each seek to emulate the example set by the founder of each religion. Christians who engage in violence and atrocities are not doing so because they’re following the example of Christ.  On the contrary, Christ never did these things, so one cannot condemn Christianity as the source of such acts of evil. Muslims on the other hand can and do justify their actions by pointing out that their prophet behaved in a similar fashion. This behavior on the part of their prophet is conveniently ignored by the more moderate, “peaceful” Muslims.

Islam on the other hand, has a point source in history. It was revealed in its entirety in the space of twenty years to a single man. It has no precedent, and no modifying antecedent. Moreover, tradition holds that the entirety of the Quran was recorded in Heaven before the universe was created (There are obvious problems with this supposition, but they’re outside the scope of this discussion). Therefore the Law as given to Muhammad is the law for all time, past, present and future, and immutable (well, Muhammad could modify it, and often did, because he was making it up. But no one else had that privilege).   Islamic scholars have no basis on which to justify any claim that parts of the Quranic law may be ignored today. This is borne out when one examines sharia law, which so many Muslims are pressing to be implemented in the west. Sharia calls for a positively medieval approach to justice, and anyone who subscribes to it cannot in any way be considered a “peaceful” Muslim.

Taken as a whole, the Judeo-Christian scripture is a promise of hope and salvation; of enlightenment and the love of God for mankind. Sure, there are violent, harsh passages.  But they're the exception, not the rule, and they usually derive from the most ancient texts.  The Quran is a testament of pettiness and inconsistency, about a hateful, spiteful, tyrannical, self-absorbed deity who has little or no regard for the fruits of his creation except as they can serve him as slaves. The Quran is consistently harsh, with seeming every declarative ending in hellfire for the infidels and self-congratulation on how great and beneficent Allah is.  It gets pretty old, pretty quick.

In Islamic scripture, the situation is reversed. Muslims are quick to quote peaceful sounding, conciliatory passages from the Quran which seem to speak to the general welfare of mankind. They use these passages especially when courting a potential convert to the faith. Islam is peaceful. Islam is tolerant. The problem is that all of these passages were “revealed” to Muhammad during his time in Mecca, when Islam was no more than two dozen adherents, and he had no political power. There are a plethora of contradictory passages which advocate the death of infidels and non-believers, and assign such to some pretty imaginative punishments in Hell. All of these harsh, intolerant passages were revealed in the later period in Medina, where Muhammad had fashioned himself into a warlord. Islamic scholars have been forced to reconcile these contradictions through a school of abrogation, where later revelations supercede earlier. In fact, Muhammad himself was buttonholed on this point by followers who remembered what he said. Consequently “Allah” revealed that he will make Muhammad forget a surah, and replace it with a better one.

Now stop and think about this for a second. . . .The Quran was recorded before time began, and Muhammad was made to memorize it. That’s Muslim tradition. Yet in the space of the twenty years of revelation, Allah made Muhammad forget parts, and then replaced them with better parts. With a story like this, you expect anyone to believe that a deity who indulges in this sort of tomfoolery is actually the author of creation? I don’t buy it. I don’t see how anyone possibly can.

It’s a fundamental tenet of Islam that the Christian Gospel and the Jewish Torah are corrupted scripture. This is so fundamental that one would think that it comes straight out of Islamic scripture. The interesting thing is, that it doesn’t. In fact, the Koran is very clear that it confirms what has already been revealed in scripture in many places:

When before it there was the Scripture of Moses, an example and a mercy; and this is a confirming Scripture in the Arabic language, that it may warn those who do wrong and bring good tidings for the righteous. -- The Koran (Pickthall tr), Sura 46:12 - The Sandhills

This theme is repeated in many places: 2:89, 2:91, 2:97, 2:101, 3:3, 4:47, 5:48, 6:92, 35:31, 37:37, 46:12, 46:30, 61:6.

So it’s clear the Muhammad held the Gospel and the Torah in high regard. He seemed oblivious to the Tanakh, either he wasn’t aware of it, or lumped it with the Torah (a common mistake for a Gentile), or he didn’t consider it relevant.

It’s obvious from much of the style of the Koran, the many appropriated stories from the Judeo-Christian tradition, and outright statements to the effect, that Muhammad fancied himself an heir to a long line of Jewish prophets. His endorsement of Judeo-Christian scripture seemed to bolster that argument. His teaching even raised speculation among the Jews that he may have been the messiah, and among the Christians that perhaps he was the second coming. In the seventh century, both faiths were eagerly awaiting these events.

The student of Islam has to keep in mind some essential facts at this point: During Muhammad’s day, the Koran was not written down! It was memorized by heart by the followers of Muhammad, in what is today considered an archaic form of the Arabic language -- a language not known beyond the bounds of Arabia, Jordan and southeastern Syria. Now some might scoff at this, thinking that such a feat stretches the bounds of reason, that people could memorize such a vast tract. It’s not that out of the ordinary. First the Koran is presented as a poem, in a rhythmic, rhyming cadence that lends itself well to memorization. It is highly repetitive, themes are repeated many times in various surahs, so the feat isn’t quite as vast as one would imagine at first glance. Memorization of huge stories is quite common among peoples with no written language. Illiteracy does not mean people are stupid or cannot manipulate the language. Socrates himself bemoaned the advent of writing, for fear that it would erode the memory.

This lack of a written Koran in Muhammad’s time made it very difficult for the scholar to compare the revelations of Muhammad with Judeo-Christian scripture. Nevertheless, it was done. The Jews of Medina listened to Muhammad. As residents of the area, they well understood the Arabic that Muhammad spoke. They compared it to their (Hebrew) scriptures available in their synagogue, and found that the two did not correlate. They rejected Muhammad, which subsequently led to their downfall as he turned his wrath on them. The details of their objection was not recorded. Muhammad spoke of their dissention as if they were lying to him:

And lo! there is a party of them who distort the Scripture with their tongues, that ye may think that what they say is from the Scripture, when it is not from the Scripture. And they say: It is from Allah, when it is not from Allah; and they speak a lie concerning Allah knowingly. - The Koran (Pickthall tr), Sura 3: 78 - The Family Of Imran

Even at this point, Muhammad was holding onto the idea that the Judeo Christian scriptures were reliable.

To understand this, you have to recognize the roots of Muhammad’s association with Monotheism. He was raised a polytheist in Mecca, but had traveled in the employ of his first wife to southern Syria on trade missions. It’s said that he was a student of a Nestorian monk in the trade city of Bosra named Bahira. None of the Christian scriptures had yet been translated into Arabic, and of course neither had any of the Jewish scriptures. If we assume that Muhammad was interested in Christianity, we can speculate that he heard many tales by oral transmission. Lacking a dedicated scholarly approach to translation, there is no way of knowing the quality of the translations from the extent Greek texts then available and the Arabic that Muhammad received. There is no way of knowing if Muhammad was exposed to the entire old and new testaments, but it’s highly unlikely. More likely, the high points were passed to him, as evaluated by the person who was instructing him. It’s also plain from the Koran that many apocryphal stories were also related to him. Lacking the ability to discern for himself, he had no way of knowing that many of these stories were fanciful, and not accepted even then as canonical. It’s clear from his own “revelations” that he was captivated by the stories, but missed much of the underlying meaning and theological implications.

The motivations for his acceptance of the Judeo-Christian writings as legitimate was plain. No one was going to believe someone who invented his own monotheistic religion from whole cloth (Actually, he was probably wrong on this point, and it may have been better for Islam in the long run if he had done so). By taking up the mantle of Judeo-Christianity, he could appeal to a huge population of already practicing monotheists, and thereby gain legitimacy among his own people as well.

The problem came after Muhammad was long dead, when Islamic scholars who could read in several languages, and had a printed codex of the Koran to use as a gold standard, began to definitively tie the Judeo-Christian scriptures to the Koran.

The problem was, they didn’t match. In fact they contradicted each other at almost every turn. Muslims scholars could not accept that their Koran was in error. After all, it was the direct Word of God, dictated word for word to Muhammad was it not? Therefore the Judeo-Christian scriptures must have been tampered with, and were declared corrupt.

Today, it is not allowed in most Islamic countries for Muslims to read the Bible. Consequently, all they know of it is what they are taught in Islamic schools. Much of what they are taught is incorrect.

The contradictions between the Bible and the Koran are myriad, and I won’t go into them here. If you’re interested in the details, you can find some places to start here and here. It was these contradictions, among others that led Muslim scholars to conclude that the Bible was corrupted.

The interesting thing about this claim is that Muslims never say when this corruption took place!

Well, it either happened before Muhammad, or after him. We’ve already established that Muhammad accepted the Bible as legitimate in his time. This is a theme that is prevalent throughout the Koran. So, one could argue that it’s safe to assume that the Bible was uncorrupted in the time of Muhammad. I mean, if it was corrupted, you think he would say something to that effect, right? But no, he said it confirms the Bible!

So by this logic, the Bible was corrupted after Muhammad. Those dirty Christians must have corrupted it just to spite Islam! One Islamic way of looking at it is that the Bible has been translated so many times that it could not have helped but be corrupted.

Well, there are problems with this. Most Bibles today are translated from and checked against the Latin Vulgate codex. This is the authoritative Bible of the Roman Catholic Church, compiled by Jerome in the early fifth century from the Septuagint and Hebrew texts. It was completed in the year 405, a full two hundred years before Muhammad’s revelations. Some Bibles, such as the New American Standard, choose to go back to earlier known codices in the original Greek and Aramaic, when available. All of these sources predate Muhammad by centuries, and are still available today. There is little difference between them and the Bibles we use today.

Moreover, we have the writings of the early church fathers from the second and third centuries. These letters and epistles, sent between far flung congregations of early Christians, were used to teach and answer questions. The early church fathers were fond of quoting scripture. If you compile all the scraps of scripture quoted in their many letters and documents and pasted it together in the proper order, you could completely reproduce the New Testament except for 27 verses! And guess what? It was the same then as it is today!

By Muhammad’s time, there were more than fifty thousand lectionaries in use in the Christian world. To have corrupted the Bible at this point would have been a monumental effort, involving the gathering and replacement of every lectionary and every codex in existence. This in a time when all copying had to be performed by hand, making a single lectionary a thing of such high value that it was often the most prized thing in the community. The wildest conspiracy theory in history would be dwarfed by this event. Only a Muslim would see this as anything but impossible.

This means that if the Bible was corrupted, it had to happen before Muhammad. Let’s examine this. In the first place, Muhammad never hinted at such a thing. But let’s say he managed to miss it, or was just being polite. If we consider the New testament, the corruption must have happened very early. The Latin Vulgate was codified in 405. The content of the Latin Vulgate agrees with that found in the Chester Beatty Papyri, dated to the third century. This leaves a mere two hundred years between Christ and the earliest known texts of the New Testament.   Most scholars place the earliest dates for the Gospels to have been written at around 60-100 AD . . . within the lifetime of the eyewitnesses to Christ. This further narrows the window in which corruption might have crept in. The earliest known texts confirm our Bible today. It’s unlikely for the Bible to have been corrupted in the time of the living memory of the men who actually wrote it. The time frame that this corruption could have taken place means that men who had living memories of the authors were still alive (Think about this for a second. My grandmother, aged 92, knew people in her childhood who had fought in the Civil War, 140 years ago!). 

The problem is even worse for the Old Testament. The discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls confirms the Old Testament of today, and dates back to 250 BC.

Jewish scribes were meticulous about their transcriptions. There was a set of rules that had to be adhered to. Letters were to be printed literally on a grid, like a courier font today, and the resulting text was examined vertically as well as horizontally to ensure through this sort of primitive “checksum” that no errors had crept in.

There is no basis for the Muslim claim that the written Bible is corrupt. Any claims of corruption before the scripture was written are irrelevant, and can be just as easily leveled at the Koran as at the Bible. In fact there is plenty of scriptural reference in Islam that suggests that the Koran is neither complete or pristine. But that is the subject of another article.

• My God does not endorse the assassination of people who speak out against him.  (Ibn Ishaq 676)
• My God does not permit you to rape your captive females.  (Tabari IX:25)
• My God did not endorse his prophets to  take slaves and "marry" (read: Rape with legitimacy) them hours after publicly executing their fathers.  (Quran 50-51, Ibn Ishaq 466)
• My God does not share his glory with his two sister goddesses (oops, sorry, Satan dictated that part of the Quran, according to Muhammad.  My bad . . . or his. . .. whatever).  (Ibn Ishaq 165)
• My God does not endorse 57 year old prophets to have intercourse with 9 year old brides.  (Bukhari:V7B62N64)
• My God did not advocate his prophet to wage a campaign of banditry from which the prophet got 20% of all the booty.  (Quran 8:41, Bukhari:V1B2N50)
• My God did not reverse his teachings. (Quran 2:106)
• My God does not deny the immaculate conception, the divinity of Jesus or that Jesus died on the cross, let alone rose from the dead. (Quran 4:157)
• My God does not teach that a woman is worth half of a man.  (Quran 2:282)
• My God does not require that you be killed if you leave the faith.  (Quran 4:89)
• My God does not consider the mindless recital of scripture in an archaic language that the penitent doesn't even understand as prayer.  (Bukhari:V2B16N108)
• My God does not instruct the sons of prophets to divorce their wives so that the prophet can marry them. (Tabari VIII:1-3)
• My God does not instruct his prophets to renounce the trinity. (Quran 5:73)

All of these things are documented in the Koran and hadith. 

In actual fact, Islam is primarily based on the polytheistic traditions of the ancient Arabs of Mecca, with a large dose of tortured Torah and fractured New Testament, and a huge serving of self-serving pablum to cement the power of the messenger.  Many passages are contradictory, most of the parallels to the Torah are just plain wrong.  It's plain that the Koran was developed by someone who had heard bible stories, but is not intimately familiar with them. 

2. The conflict between the Muslims and the Jews is a recent one over land rights in Israel.  FALSE. This is only correct in that the conflict is over land rights.  Remember that Mohammed drove out three of the Jewish tribes that had originally welcomed him in Medina, and put the fourth one to the sword,  butchering all the men who had been taken captive, and raping their women that same night.  One of Mohammed's 22 wives was "wedded" the night of the massacre.

3. Muslims are tolerant.  FALSE.  Try to enter Saudi Arabia with a Bible.  They will confiscate it from you and feed it into a shredder right as you process customs.  You cannot enter Saudi Arabia if you are Jewish. Please look at some of these pictures to see the tolerance of these people.

4. Muslims are peaceful. FALSE!  Well, "good" Muslims aren't.  A common argument for Muslim atrocities is to turn it back on the accuser.  "Think of all the murder and atrocities committed in the name of Christianity during the Crusades."  Yes, but there is a big difference between committing an atrocity in violation of your holy teachings, and committing an atrocity because your holy book specifically advocates and in many instances requires it of you!  Ironically the "best" Muslims are the radical terrorists.  They are the ones who are following the core teachings laid out in the Koran. The Muslims community routinely turns the discussion of Islamic Jihad back to a critique of the Crusades.  This argument doesn't wash.  The Crusades were a direct result of the brutal attack on Christianity carried out between the seventh and tenth centuries.  Muslims today are taught that Islam spread peacefully.  I have documented a timeline of this spread of Islam and invite you to review it to see how "peacefully" this cult spread.  I would like to draw your attention particularly to the battle of Ullais, where the Muslim General Khalid spent two and a half days executing more than seven thousand Persian prisoners in an attempt to make the Euphrates run red with blood. Also pay close attention to the fate of the refugees who were allowed to leave Damascus under a truce in the Battle of Battle of Marj-ud-Deebaj

5. Muslim science contributed to today's civilization.  FALSE.  Nothing new developed under Islamic rule.  They stole art and technology from other civilizations.  The "Muslim" shrine of the Taj Mahal?  Predates Islamic India by a couple hundred years.  They only contribution that can be accredited here is the cross-pollination of ideas, as the stolen technologies were consolidated.  Anything to the contrary is misinformation promulgated by Muslims.  Yes, even zero was invented by the Indians.

Below I am providing you with some links.  One of the most interesting of these is the Free Baha'i Library project "Ocean".  In this is a searchable database containing numerous religious texts from Islam (4 translations of the Koran and the Bukhari Hadith), Zoroastrian, Christianity, Bahuallah, Mormon, Sikh, Tao and Hindu.  An invaluable tool for anyone interested in comparative religion. 

I also invite you to study the various critiques of Islam.  Use the Ocean database for reference.  You will quickly come to the realization that I did, that Mohammed was a schizophrenic, homicidal pedophile and rapist, who used a cult belief to control his followers that was no different than Jim Jones or Bagwan Shree Rajneesh.  The only difference was that Mohammed's followers had the historical good fortune to wage a war of conquest that was little different from those of the Huns or the Mongols.  A fringe barbarian race had a population explosion backed by cavalry.  The Christian world was in disarray and war-weary from the recent Sassanid wars against the Persians, and was in no condition militarily to turn back the Arab hordes.  A relatively minor cult that should have burned out after the death of it's founder was spread by force of arms and promulgated by mutual fear of the consequences of apostasy.

There are numerous accounts of miraculous visions and tales of the Holy Spirit at work in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Muslim world today.  The interesting thing about Islam is that those most vulnerable to conversion to Christianity seem to be the most devout Muslims.  Most Muslims don't try to read the Koran, because it's pretty much incomprehensible.  It isn't arranged in any sort of order, except that the longest surahs are first.  A devout Muslim who wants to be the best Muslim he can be will try to read and understand the Koran, and feel that he is not worthy, because no matter how deeply he studies it, it's contradictory and makes little sense.  Give that man the book of John, and it is like a veil lifted from his eyes.  He can read a compelling narrative that confirms everything that he hoped the Koran would say, but it never quite did.  Bam.  Instant Christian.  This is why the Bible is banned in Saudi.

Here are some additional links for you to check out:

World religions free research library. - a downloadable tool that provides all the major writings of the world religions. 
Prophet of Doom - I am providing a link here to the annotated P.O.D. Koran, but this site has so much more to explore. . . .
Muhammad, Terrorist or Prophet?
Answering Islam  - excellent, well organized site.  I especially endorse the section of testimonials of converted Muslims from around the world -- The Holy Spirit IS working!
FaithFreedom.org - a website by, for and dedicated to former muslims who risked death to leave Islam
A Hindu take on Islam
This one will make you cry

I would be more than happy to discuss this further if you wish. I would appreciate it if you would modulate your discussions of Islam to the children and teach the truth, that it's claim of being an Abrahamic religion is questionable.  Teach that Islam's ultimate goal is to enforce Sharia law under a worldwide Islamic theocracy.  This is what Muslim children are taught, it's a disservice not to teach it to our children. Teach that the primary victims of Islam are the peaceful Muslims, who would leave Islam happily if it was not a death sentence.

All of these things are obvious to anyone who takes the time to actually seek the knowledge, instead of relying on the modern day Goebbels' to paint the world the way they want you to think.  Some of your children will find this knowledge.  I hope when they do that they don't look back and think that their teacher misled them.

Yours,

It’s a fundamental precept of Islam that Islam is an Abrahamic tradition in the same vein as Judaism and Christianity.  This fiction serves to legitimize Islam and raise it to equivalency with the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Muslims believe that Muhammad was a descendant of Abraham through Ishmael.  In Islamic tradition, Adam built the original Ka’aba in Mecca.  When Hagar and Ishmael were turned out into the desert of Paran by Abraham, they wandered  the desert and were on the verge of death when Hagar discovered the well of zam-zam, which saved their life.  Later, Ishmael and Abraham were to have gone to Mecca to rebuild the Ka’aba. 

Abrahamic Descent
Of the descendants of Ishmael, we are told that they will be too many to count, and that his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand will be against him (Genesis 16).  The claim of Abrahamic descent through Ishmael may very well be valid, but without any evidence to support it.  Such a claim would not have any weight in a court of inheritance law, given that there is no documented chain of descent.  There are no records of Mecca or the Meccans that predate Islam.  There is a rich, detailed, continuous tradition and genealogy  of the descendents of Isaac documented in the Old Testament, but nothing but roaring silence regarding those of Ishmael throughout the entire 2000 years that the old testament covers between Abraham and Christ.  Nothing is known of these people, what trials they endured, what victories they celebrated, what gods they worshipped for 2 millennia. Without any documentary evidence to substantiate it, Islamic claims to Abrahamic blood descent are circumstantial at best, and more likely completely specious. 

Islam claims that the covenant of Abraham belongs to the heirs of Ishmael, not the heirs of Isaac.  Ishmael was indeed the firstborn, but was only a recognized heir in Isaac’s absence, since Isaac was the firstborn legitimate heir.  God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 15 was by implication to him and his children through his wife Sarah.  Since Sarah was childless, they became impatient for God to fulfill his promise, and Sarah offered her Egyptian servant Hagar as a surrogate.  When Hagar became pregnant, she began to deem herself superior for being able to provide an heir.  Sarah realized her mistake and banished Hagar. Hagar returned and submitted to Sarah.  When Isaac was born it became clear that the presence of Ishmael and Hagar would be a potential threat to Isaac, because his legitimacy usurped the illegitimate Ishmael’s claim to be heir to Abraham.  They were banished again, this time permanently.  This banishment, never disputed in Islamic scripture, clearly demonstrates Ishmael’s inferior claim to be the heir of Abraham.  This inferiority is confirmed, as Ishmael’s descendents failed to record their history, and effectively disappeared from history until Muhammad resurrected them for his own purposes.

The Life of Ishmael
According to Islamic sources, Hagar was turned out into the desert of Paran, with the suckling Ishmael at her breast.  Accounts differ whether she was on her own or accompanied by Abraham to Mecca.  Regardless, she was left alone near Mecca, and in desperation for her child dying of thirst she ran back and forth between the hills of Safa and Marwan seven times.  Allah took pity on her and sent an angel to dig the well of zam-zam with his heel.  The water allowed her to live in Mecca, and she was joined by a tribe of Jurhum.  Ishmael grew up there and learned Arabic. Later, he married a Jurham woman.  Abraham visited him, and advised him to put his Jurham wife away.  He did so, and married another one. Abraham came back, approved of the second wife, and together he and Ishmael built, or re-built, the Ka’aba.

There are some practical problems with this story.  The most obvious is that Mecca is in a basically uninhabitable valley, in the middle of a sun blasted desert, a thousand miles from the promised land where Abraham lived.  A thousand miles through the Arabian desert is not something to take lightly, and not something to be done without a very good reason.  Given that there would be no sustenance for any pack animals used, everything must be carried on such a trek.  It would take at least two months of hard, constant travel to make this trip, assuming you had a good idea of where you were going and how to get there.  There is no practical reason why Abraham would travel so far, nor is there any evidence or indication that he ever did so.  Abraham was a herdsman, and the only times when he is depicted in the Bible as being away from his herds for any length of time is when he was on a military campaign, which this obviously wasn’t.  Moreover, it has him making this trip not once, but at least twice, and perhaps more.

Ibn Ishaq records that when Muhammad helped restore the Ka’aba, it was barely head-high, and had no roof.  Much was made of putting a roof on the Ka’aba during Muhammad’s time, using timber from a shipwreck discovered near Jedda, because some offerings had been pilfered from the unprotected shrine.  The account details placing of stones, and no mention is made of mortar.  So we are to believe that Abraham made a four-month round trip journey through trackless desert wastes in order to build a head high pile of rocks and call it a shrine?

Sorry, I don’t get it.

Muslims would be quick to point out that Abraham obviously made this trip because Mecca is a holy place.  My question is then why didn’t he stay there?  Surely a man of Abraham’s obvious devotion to God would want to reside close to the holiest place on Earth.  Further, if Mecca is so holy, why didn’t Moses lead his people there after they left Egypt?  Why were the ten commandments delivered on Mt Sinai, instead of at Mecca?

Genesis Chapter 21 details Hagar’s exile to the desert.  This is done shortly after Isaac’s birth.  Genesis 16:16 tells us that Abraham was 86 years old when Ishmael was born, and 21:5 states he was 100 when Isaac was born.  If Ishmael was a suckling babe at the age of 14 as Islam has us believe, it’s no wonder that Abraham cast him out!

Genesis 21:21 tells us that Ishmael was raised in Paran, and took an Egyptian wife.  This makes sense, since Paran is the desert area just south of Judah, and north of Midian.  Genesis 16:1 tells us that Hagar was an Egyptian, so she would have naturally sought one of her people for a daughter in law.

Further, we know that Ishmael lived and settled not far from Hebron, where Abraham and Sarah were buried, because in Genesis 25:9 he helps Isaac bury Abraham.  At this time Isaac was 75 years old, and Ishmael was 90.  (Genesis 25:7-9). 

Ishmael’s descendants lived not far from the promised land, either, for we find in Gen 28:9 that Isaac’s son Esau was forbidden to take a wife from among the Canaanite women, and married one of Ishmael’s daughters, Mahalath.

None of these would have been possible if Ishmael’s base of operations was Mecca, which was a thousand miles from the Hebron valley.  There is no case in history of non-seafaring peoples carrying on social and economic intercourse at a distance of a thousand miles that early in history.  This is pure fantasy on behalf of Muhammad and his credulous followers.

Theology
Islam claims that Abraham was a Muslim.  What does it mean to be a Muslim?  The common definition of a Muslim is “One who submits.”  Abraham had a close relationship with God, in fact he frequently demonstrated through sacrifice that nothing was more important in his life than God.  But this was not blind submission as a slave, as Muslims understand the word.  Abraham frequently questioned God, and in fact boldly negotiated with him regarding the fate of Sodom and Gomorra (Genesis 18:23-32). 

The statement of conversion, the Shahada, requires that for one to become a Muslim, one to state that “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his messenger.”  How could a person who lived before Muhammad be a Muslim, since the Shahada would have been nonsense beforehand?

The hallmarks of Islam can be found in the five pillars of Islam: Monotheism, observance of Ramadan, daily prostration in prayer, paying the Zakat, and the Hajj.  Of these, only monotheism was practiced by Abraham.  He observed no holy months, he paid no temple tax, because there was no temple.  I have already demonstrated that he never made the hajj, for there was no reason to before the Ka’aba was built, and no reason to suggest that Abraham built the Ka’aba and then for some reason returned to Hebron.  He prayed constantly, but did so in reverence, only prostrating himself when overwhelmed by the presence of God.  There is no record that he prayed in any particular direction.

If any of these things were part of Abraham’s theology, there would have been some mention of them in Judeo-Christian scripture.  There would have been some remnant of these observances left over and continued.  Moses, who was given a very detailed and precise set of laws filled with exhaustive minutiae, has no record or even trace of four of the five pillars of Islam. 

We know from Biblical history that the ancient Israelites were very susceptible to seduction by other forms of worship, and pagan belief systems.  Only reference to the written scripture was able to draw them back to God in many cases.  There are many records in Hebrew scripture that detail how difficult it was for the Hebrews to keep faithful to the God of Abraham.  What is the possibility that the  Meccans could have done so with no scripture with which to guide them, no written tradition, no record of any prophets, judges or Kings?

Islamic scripture is very clear that Meccans were polytheist worshippers of a moon god cult which was prevalent throughout Arabia in the 7th century.  It was common practice in Arabia at the time to worship stones, particularly unusual stones.  The rare iron  meteorite would be thought to have particularly special religious significance.  The Ka’aba was a shrine to the rock idols and moon God, not unlike many similar ones found throughout Arabia and Yemen.  The chief deity of the Meccan Ka’aba was Allah, long before Muhammad came along. Circumambulation of a holy structure was a common form of worship in this cult, not unique to Mecca.  There is no similar form of worship anywhere else in Judeo-Christian tradition.

Islam’s claim to Abraham has no basis in scripture, and defies common sense.  There is no evidence or rational reason to place Abraham within 800 miles of Mecca at any time in his life.  Many of the stories of early Mecca may have some root in legend of early Arabian settlers of the area, and Muhammad changed the names to coincide with Biblical characters.  This sort of adoption of Biblical figures is common in  unlettered communicants of early Christianity - witness the local legends of Jesus having visited Cornwall in England before he started his ministry in Palestine.  Muhammad’s claims of Abrahamic descent were designed specifically to lend him legitimacy as a messiah to the Jewish population of Medina.  He routinely adopted Jewish scripture wholesale, and made it part of his Koran.  The problem is that he did not understand the underlying themes of the Jewish scripture, and adopted only the stories, never the meanings.  The Jews, comparing his tortured rendering of their stories to their actual written accounts, recognized that he was a poseur, and rejected him as relevant to their belief system. 

The fundamental problem that all Muslims face with this and many other claims is that the Koran is a record of memorized verse.  The written word will trump oral tradition every time.

Mecca is the most important city in Islam. Mecca is the site of the Ka’aba, the holy temple towards which all Muslims pray daily, and to which each Muslim is obligated to make a pilgrimage at least once in their life. To Muslims, Mecca is the center of Islam, and therefore the center of the universe.

Mecca is a city located approximately 40 miles inland from the modern port city of Jeddah, in the western coastal range of Saudi Arabia. It has very little in the way of natural resources, and a very modest water supply. It has sprawled out from it’s original cradle nestled in a narrow, dry, and stony valley a quarter of a mile wide and a mile and a half long. The mountains on either side are rugged and devoid of vegetation, naked.  Free of human intervention, Mecca is sterile. There was too little water for agriculture.  In the 7th century there were no trees and far too little grass for productive grazing.

The earliest accounts we have of Mecca come from Islamic texts. Ibn Ishaq records the history of Qusay of the Quraysh, who wrested control of the polytheistic temple of the Ka’aba from the Khuza'a tribe sometime in the 4th century CE. The earliest substantiated reference to Mecca outside of Islamic scripture occurs in the Continuatio Byzantia Arabica, which is a source dating from early in the reign of the caliph Hisham, who ruled between 724-743 A.D.

There is no archeological or historical evidence to substantiate continuous human occupation in Mecca prior to the 4th century CE. Much of the archeological value of the site has been lost due to development performed to provide hospitality to the ever increasing millions of Pilgrims who attend the hajj each year. Saudi Arabian antiquities officials prohibit archeological study of the site on the basis that it is a holy place.

Islamic accounts imply that Mecca was an important hub of trade and a crossroads for caravans in Arabia in the 6th century. This view has been accepted uncritically and accepted throughout the west, almost to the point that it is considered a postulate, and not open to examination. This acceptance allows the importance of Mecca to be inflated, and places Mecca on the map as a place to be reckoned with in History.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The only conceivable trade route that may have traversed Arabia is the route from the Greco-Roman empires to the Indian subcontinent. There is simply nothing in southern Arabia, Yemen or Oman that would have attracted enough mercantile interest to cause trade caravans to ply the route through Mecca. All trade from the Mediterranean to India would have doubtless used the sea route down the Red Sea, and circumnavigating Arabia. This route would have been faster, and the conditions predictable. Sandstorms, navigation, and water supply would have made the overland route problematic for the serious merchant. A single ship with a couple of dozen crew would carry far more goods very economically, compared to a string of a hundred camels and their attendant drivers and logistics requirements.

If you look at a map of Southwest Asia, you can easily see that Mecca is on the way to nowhere. It lies in a mountain chain that makes travel difficult, off the beaten path between north and south. Jeddah in the 7th century was not the port city it is today, it was little more than a small fishing village, so there is no east-west imperative to move goods through Mecca.

Mecca had a small spring of fresh water to support it, and did have a local attraction, as it was the local seat of the polytheist Arab religious tradition. It had a modest temple dedicated to the local moon god worship which local Bedouins would periodically come to worship at. The annual Hajj to the temple of Mecca was the only industry in the small village. The temple offerings helped sustain the Quraysh tribe throughout the rest of the year. As one can imagine, this gathering was often the only contact Bedouins would have with other tribes throughout the year. Goods were traded, marriages arranged, and supplies were purchased which were not generally available in Arabia. The Quraysh operated a thriving market during this time, and traded the Bedouins for the textiles, hides, gems, spices and incense gathered or made over the year for products imported from Syria. After the Hajj, the Quraysh would take the goods gathered from the Bedouins and mount a caravan to Syria, where they would exchange them for goods to sell at the next year’s Hajj. Thus, Mecca was the terminus for a small caravan trade route to and from Syria.

Mecca was not unique in this respect. Muslim tradition would have us believe that the Ka’aba of Mecca was the seat of pan-arabic polytheism, but this was certainly not the case.  Every community had a house set aside for housing the local idols. Ibn Ishaq tells us that every family routinely kept a sacred rock-idol in it’s family quarters, and that communities raised small temples to house their communal idols. Meteorites were prized as holy stones, and Mecca’s Black stone was a fine example and held in high regard. The Ka’aba that housed it, however, was unremarkable. Tabari VI:50tells us ". . .  the Quraysh demolished the Ka'aba and then rebuilt it. According to Ibn Ishaq, this was in the Messenger's thirty-fifth year. The reason for demolition of the Ka'aba was that it consisted of loose stones rising to somewhat above a man's height, and they wished to make it higher and put a roof over it, since some men had stolen treasures kept in its interior."

So it was about six feet tall and had no roof. No building in Mecca had a roof, because there was no wood to use as building materials. Meccan dwellings consisted of stone walls with tent coverings as roofs, barely a step above the normal nomadic dwelling of the Bedouin. Other sources tell us that part of this reconstruction effort was a result of a shipwreck found near Jeddah which provided timber for the roof.

The Ka’aba was and remains the sole source of income for Mecca, and in fact was and remains the entire raison d’être for the village/city of Mecca. Control of this temple implied control of the entire economy of Mecca. This made it a highly sought after prize, just out of reach for young Muhammad, who was a member of the family, but not in line for inheritance. If you consider the early years of Islam as a political and military movement to seize control of this economic resource, Islam at once makes more sense and takes on a sinister aspect.

One could make the case that Islam exists primarily for the enrichment of the descendents of Muhammad who control the Ka’aba. To this end, the Islamic movement has been wildly successful!

In a dialogue with a Muslim from Egypt, I was flabbergasted when this person maintained that Islam spread peacefully.  It took awhile to collect my position, because I wanted there to be no room for debate, but I eventually responded.

  XXXX abdullah wrote:
Islam didn't spread by this way .If you read about Islam and its victory, you will find this by peace .When Muslims fight any country, they firstly sent a message to its king and asked him to give him the right to tell people about this religion and when he accepted they started to spread their message.and fight only when the king refused .

Dear XXXX,
  It has been a long time since I have written you, but I have not been idle.  This statement above that you made simply shocked me.  It directly denies nearly 1200 years of history, and flies in the face of what I had accepted as common knowledge.  The breadth of this statement, and the sincerity with which you said it, is so contradictory to the facts that my first reaction was that we must not live in the same universe!  Consequently, I wanted my response to be comprehensive.

Below is part of my research in answering this question.  It is by no means complete.  One of the amazing things about the list I have made below is that in the research of any one battle, I would often find references to one or two other battles that weren't on my list, so the thing kept getting bigger.  Much of the history for many of these battles, particularly the early ones, comes from the Tabari Hadiths.

A recurring theme in these histories is that the Muslim army routinely defeated forces many times it's size.  I do not dispute that the Muslims were often numerically inferior, but there's a large probability that the size of the Non-Muslim forces is often inflated to make the victories seem greater than they were.  This tradition started with the "Battle" of Badr, which doesn't even count as a minor skirmish compared to the later wars.

To be sure, there are many cases where cities accepted Islam by treaty and no battle was fought.  Do not whitewash these cases.  Most cities usually had 1000-2000 soldiers as a garrison (2000 soldiers is the size of a US Battalion, the smallest military unit which is independently deployable).  When a force of 15,000 to 20,000 invading soldiers with a history of defeating units twice it's size comes to your city and makes demands, you accept and comply with those demands if you only have a battalion guarding you -- whether you like it or not.
Before we embark on a detailed examination of Islamic conquests, we must be sure we remember that none of the battles described took place in a vacuum. Many Muslims are quick to point out that all their battles were defensive.  Nothing is further from the truth. During Muhammad’s time, only two battles were defensive, and both of those were a result of a pre-emptive or retaliatory attack which was provoked by Islamic behavior or actions.  There were more battles after Muhammad’s death which could be described as defensive within the narrow confines of the battle itself, but were generally defensive battles in a strategically offensive campaign.
The most repulsive events here that I found were the battle of Ullais, where the captives from the battle were massacred in a ritual beheading that took 2 1/2 days, and the battle of Marj-ud-Deebaj, where the refugees who had been allowed to depart the surrendered Damascus were overrun and butchered, their baggage train looted.
I look forward to you re-evaluating your statement that Islam spread peacefully in light of this evidence.  Everything I have presented here is freely available from numerous independent sources on the internet.
I would also like to point out that there is not one recorded battle between Christians and ANYBODY for the first three hundred years of their existence.

623	Battle of Waddan
623	Battle of Safwan
623	Battle of Dul-'Ashir
624		Muhammad and converts begin raids on caravans to fund the movement. Zakat becomes mandatory
624 March 17	Battle of Badr	Muhammad set out with an band of 314 Muslims reinforced by the Ansar to intercept a Meccan convoy en route from Syria to Mecca. The Meccans heard about this and mounted an counter interception from Mecca that is said to have been about 1,000 strong, although this number is suspect.  Before the battle, the caravan was reported to have made it behind the Meccan force, and they could withdraw. An unknown number did, but others continued on for punitive reasons against the Muslims. The Muslims reached Badr first, and gained control of the water sources, so the Meccans would have to fight with limited water. The Meccans were defeated, losing seventy dead and seventy captured.
624	Battle of Bani Salim
624	Battle of Eid-ul-Fitr
624	Battle of Zakat -ul-Fitr
624	Battle of Bani Qainuqa
624	Battle of Sawiq
624	Battle of Ghatfan
624	Battle of Bahran
625	Battle of Uhud	70 Muslims are killed
625	Battle of Humra-ul-Asad
625	Battle of Banu Nudair
625	Battle of Dhatur-Riqa
626	Battle of Badru-Ukhra
626	Battle of Dumatul-Jandal
626	Battle of Banu Mustalaq Nikah
627	Battle of the Trench
627	Battle of Ahzab
627	Battle of Bani Quraiza
627	Battle of Bani Lahyan
627	Battle of Ghaiba
627	Battle of Khaybar
628		Muhammad signs treaty with Quraish
629	Battle of Mu'tah	The first outright battle between Islam and the Byzantine Christians. Islamic missionaries were said to have been executed when sent to the non-Muslim Arabs living in Jordan., Muhammad dispatched an army of 3000 on a punitive expedition, which met a larger force of 100,000(?) Byzantines. The Muslims declined open battle, but the fighting was intense in the numerous skirmishes. The Muslims, seeing the battle was hopeless, attempted to disengage. Using tactical deception, the Muslims succeeded in disengaging, and returned to Medina, where they were berated for their cowardice.
630		Muhammad conquers Mecca
630	The Battle Of Ta'if
630	Battle of Hunayn.
630	Battle of Autas
630	Battle of Hunsin
630	Battle of Tabuk	This is the kind of “battle” the Muslims enjoyed. The rumor was that the Byzantines were amassing a huge army at Tabuk for the purpose of a pre-emptive expedition into Islamic territory. Muhammad amassed a 30,000 man army and set forth, but never engaged with the enemy. There was no Byzantine army in Tabuk when they got there. It is unclear if there ever was an enemy, or Muhammad was just being paranoid.
632 Dec.	Battle of Yamama/Akriba	Near the plain of Aqraba. Khalid with 13,000 faced self-proclaimed prophet Musailima with 40,000 men of Banu Hanifa (note: estimates of the size of enemy forces may have been inflated by Muslim reports to make their victories seem more spectacular than they were). After two days of battle, the outcome was inconclusive, with an edge to the Apostate army, which had forced the Muslims into flight on the first day. Khalid drew Musailima out with a proposal of negotiation, only to attack him when he drew close enough. Musailima managed to dodge the attack, but this disheartened the apostates, and they withdrew under a general Muslim attack. Surrounded in a walled garden to which he had retreated with 7,000 (?) men, Musailima was killed by a javelin, which ended the apostate resistance.
632	Battle of Zu Qissa	~
632	Battle of Zu Abraq	~
633 sept	Battle of Buzakha	Khalid vs. false prophet, Tulaiha
633	Battle of Zafar	Khalid vs. tribal mistress Salma. Salma died on the battlefield.
633 Oct	Battle of Naqra	Part of Ridda wars.
632	Siege of Juwathah, Bahrain.	Non-Muslim Bahraini tribes led by Hutam were beseiged in Juwathah by Al-Ala' bin Al-Hadhrami for one month. One night the Bahraini forces became drunk, and were overwhelmed and annihilated by the Muslims.
633 April	Battle of Sallasil/Chains/Kazima	Khalid marched into Persia behind his ultimatum: "Submit to Islam and be safe. Or agree to the payment of the Jizya, and you and your people will be under our protection, else you will have only yourself to blame for the consequences, for I bring the men who desire death as ardently as you desire life.” Tabari: Vol. 2, p. 554. Essentially the same message as always: Accept Islam, Pay the Jizya, or die by the sword. The Persians were initially outmaneuvered by the Muslim Cavalry, and reached the battlefield exhausted after a forced march. They chained their soldiers together in the line of battle to prevent a cavalry breakthrough. This also prevented a retreat when the battle turned against them. The Persian Commander, Hormuz, was defeated in a duel by Khalid before the battle began.
633	Battle of Mazar	~
633	Battle at Oman	~
633	Battle at Hadramaut	~
633	Battle of Kazima	~
633 May	Battle of Walaja	The Sassanian Persians, in reaction to their defeat in the battle of Sallasi and the Battle of the river, fielded two armies to stem the Muslim armies advance into Persia towards Hira. Khalid detached his cavalry and encircled the Persians under cover of darkness. A frontal attack by the Muslim infantry fully engaged the Persian army, which was then attacked from the rear flanks by the detached cavalry.
633 May	Battle of Ullais	Survivors of the Battle of Walaja regrouped at Ullais and were reinforced by Christian Arabs and the Imperial Persian army. After a day of Battle, the coalition forces finally collapsed and retreated. Muslim cavalry was given orders to pursue, but to capture the retreating army alive. Persian and Christian Arab warrior groups were isolated and disarmed and marched back to the Muslim camp. Every captive was beheaded at the bank of the river. The slaughter of the captives continued for two and a half days. (Tabari: Vol. 2, p. 561)
633 May	Battle of Hira	Hira, a city of Christian Arabs, was lightly defended as the army fought at Walaja and Ullais. The city quickly surrendered to the advancing Muslims after a brief fight.
	Battle of Al-Anbar	~
	Battle of Ein-ul-tamr	~
633 Aug	Battle of Daumat-ul-jandal ()	Christian Arabs were besieged by Ayadh bin Ghanam. The siege was a stalemate, so the Muslims requested Khalid come with reinforcements from his campaign in Persia. The Christian Arabs responded by requesting reinforcements. Khalid held back his forces, seeing that storming the fortress would be a costly operation. Eventually Judi, in command of the Christian Arabs, tried to break the siege by attacking out of the fort. They were defeated in the open. The commanders were captured and beheaded. The weakened fort was stormed, and most of the garrison was slaughtered.
633 Nov	Battle of Muzayyah	One of three camps made up of survivors from Ullais reinforced by local Christian Arabs.
633 Nov	Battle of Zumail	One of three camps made up of survivors from Ullais reinforced by local Christian Arabs. Khalid’s army attacks a Persian/Arab encampment from three sides at night, effectively ending resistance in present-day iraq.
634	Battle of Firaz	Khalid ibn al-Walid decisively defeats the larger combined forces of the Persian Empire, Roman Empire, and Christian Arabs, completing his conquest of Mesopotamia
634 Feb	Battle of Dathin	~
634 jun	Battle of Qarteen	~
634	Battle of Marj-al-Rahit	Christian Ghassanid Arabs in the town of Marj Rahit were celebrating a summer festival, accompanied by numerous refugees from the surrounding countryside who had sought shelter in the town from the marauding Arab armies. Arab cavalry swept through the screen of warriors and overran the town. A large amount of booty and numerous captives were taken. No negotiations were conducted regarding the fate of the town before the attack.
634	Battle of Busra, Syria	Abu Ubaidah laid siege to Busra in June 634. After three days the garrison came out of the town and engaged the Muslims. The Muslims were almost surrounded and finished when they were relieved by the appearance of cavalry under Khalid ibn al-Walid. The garrison retreated to the fort. The next day the sortied again, and ended by retreating again into the fort. The siege was laid until the surrender of the fort when the Byzantines concluded that no relief was forthcoming.
634 july	Battle of Ajnadayn	32,000 Muslims met 90,000 Byzantines. The battle started with individual duels of champions, where most of the Byzantine champions were defeated. The battle devolved into a general melee until sunset. The second day, an assassination attempt by Theodorus on Khalid was intercepted and killed. Using the stolen uniforms of the killed assassins, the Muslims managed to get close enough to Theodorus and kill him. With the loss of their leader, the Byzantines fled the field in three directions. They were run down by the Muslim cavalry, and lost more in the rout than they did in battle.
634	Battle of Damascus	Khalid surrounded Damascus and sealed off all the approaches. The siege began on August 21, 634. When Heraclius failed to reinforce the city from Antioch, Thomas sallied forth twice in as many days in attempts to break the siege. Losses were high on the Byzantine side, and they retreated back to the city. Khalid infiltrated the city under cover of darkness with a hundred men near the east gate, and intense fighting occurred when they breached the gate. Thomas, realizing that the city was lost, but that the attack was uncoordinated with the rest of the Muslim siege forces around the city, entered negotiations with Abu Ubaidah ibn al-Jarrah, and procured very favorable conditions for the surrender of Damascus. Khalid attempted to claim that the city fell by conquest, but Abu Ubaidah impressed on him that if word got out that the city was looted, residents slaughtered and captives taken after surrendering, no city would ever surrender to Muslims again.
634	Battle of Saniyyat-ul-Uqab	12,000 Byzantines were defeated in an attempt to break the siege of Damascus in a battle 20 miles north of the city
634	Battle of Marj-ud-Deebaj	Thousands of refugees and byzantine commanders who had departed from Damascus under the terms of surrender were followed by Khalid. The terms declared that they would be allowed to peacefully depart and that a guarantee of peace would be in place for three days. When the guarantee expired, Khalid’s cavalry descended on the column in the rain just outside of Antioch and surrounded it. There were far too many Byzantines for the four thousand cavalry to contain, and many made it through the encirclement to the safety of Antioch. The Muslims captured all of the baggage and numerous captives, both men and women. The Byzantine commander Thomas was killed in a duel with Khalid.
634		Death of Hadrat Abu Bakr. Hadrat Umar Farooq becomes the Caliph. Khalid is recalled by the new Caliph
634 Sept	Battle of Namaraq	near modern day Kufa
634	Battle of Saqatia	~
634	Battle of Namraq	~
634	Battle of Kasker	~
634 Nov 28	Battle of the Bridge (Al Jisr)	Abu Ubaid crossed the Euphrates on a pontoon bridge. Initial contact with the Persian forces and their war elephants caused a loss of cohesion in the Muslim ranks. Abu Ubaid was killed and 2/3 of his force killed or dispersed. The Persian exploitation of this victory was halted by a coup in the Persian capitol.
635	Battle of Buwaib	~
635 Jan	Battle of Fahl	Jordan valley of Syria
635-636	Siege of Emesa	Emperor Heraclius reinforced the garrison at Emesa and Qinnasrin, repudiating the agreement the governors had made to pay the Jizya in return for peace. The Muslims lad siege to the city for four months. In March, the Byzantine general Harbees attacked out of the city and initially routed the Muslims. They regrouped and drove him back to the city. The following day the City forces were lured out of the city by the ruse of the Muslims looking as if they were retreating, and were defeated in detail. The city surrendered.
636 Aug	Battle of Yarmouk	Decisive battle against a Byzantine coalition army 65km from the Golan heights. 6 days of battle, ending in a Muslim cavalry flank attack that routed the Byzantines. As the shattered Byzantine formations quit the field, they were pursued by the Muslims and slaughtered. No prisoners were taken.
636	Conquest of Madain	~
637 april	Conquest of Jerusalem	Jerusalem was besieged for four months. Patriarch of Jerusalem Sophronius agreed to surrender the city and pay the Jizya. He negotiated the surrender directly with Caliph Umar.
637	Battle of Hazir	Khalid marched with 17,000 men on Qinnasrin in Syria. Meenas of the Byzantines recognized that he would be besieged and eventually have to surrender if he remained it he city, and met Khalid at Hazir, 3 miles west of Qinnasrin. Meenas was killed early on, and the Byzantine infantry was quickly outmaneuvered by the Muslims, and the entire force lost.
637	Battle of Aleppo	After meeting the advancing Muslim army 6 miles south of the city and being bested, Byzantine general Joachim retreated to the fortifications at Aleppo. After a four-month siege, and realizing that Heraclius was not going to be able to relieve the garrison, the Byzantines surrendered on terms. The garrison departed freely.
637	Battle of Iron Bridge	The defenders of Antioch met the advancing Muslim armies at the river Orontes, and were defeated. The defenders retreated to Antioch, where they were besieged until they surrendered on Oct 30.
637 july-oct	Battle of Qadisiyyah	Sa`d ibn Abi Waqqas of the Quraysh commanding a force of approximately 25,000 Muslims. Ordered by Caliph Umar to halt at al-Qadisiyyah, 30 miles away from Kufah. Ambassadors were sent forth to meet with Emperor Yazdgerd III to invite the Persians to Islam. Insults were exchanged, and Yazdgerd sent them packing. As preparations for battle commenced on both sides, more peace negotiations were opened. At the height of tensions, in discussions between Rostam Farrokhzad and Mughirah bin Zurarah, the Persians intimated that a remuneration might be made if the Arabs went back the way they came. Mughirah refused, and was adamant that the only acceptable response from the Persians was to accept Islam or pay the jizhya. The next morning the Muslims attacked the Persians, who were deployed in battle order on the field. The Persians employed war elephants, which made up for their numerical inferiority. The battle lasted for four days. Muslim reinforcements arrived from Syria on the second and third days. By the fourth day the battle was a draw, when the Muslims mounted a desperate push to seize the commander, Rostam Farrokhzad. The push worked. The Muslims cut off his head and displayed it, causing the Persians to break and flee.
637	Battle of Jalula	~
638	Conquest of Jazirah
639	Conquest of Khuizistan	Entry to Egypt
640 6 April	Battle of Babylon	Muslims under Amr laid siege to Babylon (a city in Byzantine Egypt), which after a small effort at negotiation, was taken by storm on Good Friday.
640 July	Battle of Heliopolis	Theodore of the Byzantines is defeated by the superior maneuverability of Amr’s cavalry, sealing the fate of Byzantine Egypt.
642	Battle of Rayy	in Persia
642	Battle of Nihawand	Persian King Yazdgerd III had about 150,000 men, versus a Muslim army about 30,000. The Persians were outmaneuvered, trapped in a narrow mountain valley, and lost approximately 100,000 men in the ensuing rout. Yazdgerd hurriedly fled to the Merv area, but was unable to raise another substantial army.
643	Conquest of Azarbaijan
644	Conquest of Fars
644	Conquest of Kharan.
647	Conquest of the island of Cypress
	Battle of Jasr
	Battle of Caesarea	Here the Arab Muslims who had besieged the city had observed that some men furtively made their way from the city walls during some nights. The Muslims waylaid these men and to their delight they turned out to be Bedouins who although non-Muslims were of the same ethnic stock as the Muslim Arabs. These Bedouins were in the employ of the Byzantines had as sweepers at Caesarea. Now as captives in the hands of their Arab compatriots, they did not take long to crack and fall prey to the threats and bribes of their Arab compatriots. These sweepers decided to betray their Byzantine masters and showed the Arab Muslim besiegers the way to infiltrate into Caesarea through its sewers. The Byzantine Christian city of Caesarea had walls that were sixteen feet high with many turrets and had withstood the Arab Muslim siege for more than eight months, so the Muslims used this devious way to infiltrate the city and once inside they ruthlessly slaughtered its determined inhabitants to the last man, except for a few who managed to reach the port and board the ships and flee to safety.
	Battle of Alexandria
644		Uman dies and is succeeded by Caliph Uthman.
648	Campaign against the Byzantines.
651		Naval battle against the Byzantines.
654		Islam spreads into North Africa
656		Uthman is murdered. Ali become Caliph.
656	Battle of the Camel/Bassorah/Jamal	Muslim civil war, fought over the assassination of the caliph Uthmaan and the succession
657	Battle of Siffin	Muawiyah, the governor of Syria, fought Ali for the Caliphate in Iraq.
658	Battle of Nahrawan.
659		Conquest of Egypt
661		Ali is murdered
662		Egypt falls to Islam rule.
666	Sicily is attacked by Muslims
674-678	First Arab siege of Constantinople
687	Battle of Kufa
691	Battle of Deir ul Jaliq
692	Battle of Sevastopol	Battle between the Byzantines and the Muslim Umayyad Arabs.
698	Battle of Carthage	Byzantines under Ioannes the Patrician and the strategos Tiberias Apsimar recaptured Carthage and were welcomed by rejoicing citizens. The Muslim commander, Hassan, enraged at having to retake a city that had not resisted the Byzantine takeover, offered no terms except to surrender or die. The determination of the two forces resulted in the total destruction of Carthage.
700		Sufism takes root as a sect of Islam. Military campaigns in North Africa
702	Battle of Deir ul Jamira
711	Muslims invade Gibraltar
711 July 9	Battle of Guadalete	Defeat of Roderic the Visigoth in the southern tip of the Spanish peninsula during the invasion of Spain.
711	Conquest of Spain
713	Conquest of Multan
716	Invasion of Constantinople
717-718	Second Arab Siege of Constantinople	The effect of the Greek Fire can be gauged by the fact that out of the more than three hundred thousand Arabs who attacked Constantinople, only about twenty thousand returned
732	Battle of Covadonga	Spanish Christians defeat Moors for the first time (date uncertain 718 - 725)
721	Battle of Toulouse	Moors lose to Odo of Aquitaine
732	Battle of Tours	Moors lose to Charles Martel near Poitiers
737	Battle of the River Berre
738	Battle of Navsari	Junaid’s southern army invading India was repulsed at Navsari by the Solankis and Rashtrakutas
738	Battle of Avanti	Junaid’s eastern army invading India was defeated by Nagabhatta Pratihara and forced to flee.
738	Battle of Rajasthan	Tamin’s army was intercepted before it could penetrate the Sindh frontier and the Arabs were routed, retreating to the west of the Indus river.
739	Battle of Akroinon	In a decisive victory Leo expelled the Arab forces from Asia Minor
740	Battle of the Nobles
741	Battle of Bagdoura	in North Africa
744	Battle of Ain al Jurr.
746	Battle of Rupar Thutha
748	Battle of Rayy.
749	Battle of lsfahan
749	Battle of Nihawand
750	Battle of Zab	Muslim civil war – the fall of the Umayyads
751 July 10th	Battle of the Talas river	the Arab and Chinese armies took to the field in Aulie-Ata on the backs of the Talas river
772	Battle of Janbi	in North Africa
777	Battle of Saragossa	in Spain
811	Battle of Rayy	in Persia
1001	Gandhara	Sultan Mahmud defeats Jayapala at Peshawar and Jayapala defects and commits suicide.
1008	India	Mahmud defeats the Rajput Confederacy
1013	Bulnat, India	Mahmud defeats Trilochanpala
1040	Battle of Dandanaqan
1024	Somnath	Mahmud sacked the temple and is reported to have personally hammered the temple's gilded lingam to pieces and the stone fragments were carted back to Ghazni, where they were incorporated into the steps of the city's new Jamiah Masjid (Friday mosque) in 1026
1071 Aug 26	Battle of Manzikert	The Seljuk Muslim invasion of Armenia was contested by the Byzantines. The Byzantine defeat here paved the way for Turkish settlement of Anatolia.
1086	Battle of Zallakha.