Notes: “The Sword of the Cross”
The Light (Pakistan), 16th March 1922 Issue (Vol. 1, No. 7, pp. 1–2)
Dr Zwemer is of those Christian missionaries who have taken upon themselves the sacred duty of making Islam the butt of unfounded charges. He in his Pseudo Muslim World [the magazine, “Moslem World”] has invariably laid stress on the temporal conquest of Islam and has drawn the conclusion that Islam was spread at the point of the sword. Here is a fresh example of his theory:
“The cross was apparently vanished by the sword of Islam in its wide and rapid spread throughout the Near East. Churches became mosques; Christians apostles to Islam; literature and architect bowed down to the genius of Mohammad [Muhammad] and his successors; the Crescent displaced the Cross.”
We think it is the greatest calumny [false accusation] to charge Islam with brutal force. Those who have read the history of Muslim Kings and the annals [historical records] of the missionary activities of the Muslim merchants for the spread of Islam will surely discredit the bold statement made in the above lines. We understand that Dr Zwemer knows Arabic and has read the Holy Quran. If so, he must have come across the well-known verse in which it has been laid down that the Muslims were permitted to take up the sword for the sake of religious liberty and the defence of churches and synagogues. And, yet the Christian missionaries have got the audacity to say that
“Churches became mosques”
under the Muslim rule.