There is something deeply contradictory about one of the most popular accusations directed at Israel today.

Jews are increasingly described as colonizers in their own ancestral homeland, while the enormous historical expansion of Arab and Islamic civilization across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond is rarely discussed in the same terminology.

That does not mean Muslims living in those countries today are colonizers. They are not. People cannot be held personally responsible for conquests that happened centuries ago. But if we want to use historical arguments to judge Israel, then history has to be examined consistently.

And history tells a much more complicated story than the slogans shouted on Western streets.

Islam originated in Arabia in the seventh century. Within little more than a century, Muslim ruled territory had expanded extraordinarily far beyond the Arabian Peninsula. Syria, the Land of Israel, Egypt, Persia, North Africa and eventually parts of the Iberian Peninsula came under Muslim rule.

Some of this expansion occurred through military conquest. Islam also spread through trade, migration, missionary activity, intermarriage, political influence and gradual conversion. Indonesia, today home to one of the world’s largest Muslim populations, is an obvious example of a region where Islamization cannot simply be explained by Arab military conquest.

The Quran itself contains passages that Muslims interpret in different ways. Quran 16:125 calls believers to invite others to God’s path through wisdom and good instruction. Quran 2:256 famously declares that there should be no compulsion in religion. Other passages, including 9:29, concern fighting and the payment of jizya, while 9:33, 48:28 and 61:9 speak of the religion of truth prevailing over other religions.

These verses have generated centuries of theological debate. It would therefore be inaccurate to reduce more than a billion Muslims, living in radically different societies, to a single political objective.

But there is no denying the historical result of centuries of Islamic expansion.

Today Islam is one of the world’s........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)