Forced conversion

Forced conversion is adoption of a different religion or irreligion under duress.

Quotes

• Let there be no compulsion in religion
  • The Quran, 2:256, translation of Yusuf Ali

• To begin with, there was no forced conversion, no choice between ‘Islam and the sword’. Islamic law, following a clear Quranic principle, prohibited any such things: dhimmis must be allowed to practice their religion.
  • Michael Bonner, (2006) Jihad in Islamic History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 89-90.

• No compulsion in religion’ (2:256) was a Qur'anic command revealed in Medina when a child from one of the Muslim families who had been educated in the town's Jewish schools decided to depart with the Jewish tribe being expelled from Medina. His distraught parents were told by God and the Prophet in this verse that they could not compel their son to stay. The verse, however, has been understood over the centuries as a general command that people cannot be forced to convert to Islam.
  • A.C. Brown, Jonathan (2014). "3. The Fragile Truth Of Scripture". Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy. Oneworld Publications. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-78074-420-9.

• Allah said,
  (There is no compulsion in religion), meaning, "Do not force anyone to become Muslim, for Islam is plain and clear, and its proofs and evidence are plain and clear. Therefore, there is no need to force anyone to embrace Islam. Rather, whoever Allah directs to Islam, opens his heart for it and enlightens his mind, will embrace Islam with certainty. Whoever Allah blinds his heart and seals his hearing and sight, then he will not benefit from being forced to embrace Islam."
  • Ismail ibn Kathir, Tafsir Ibn Kathir all 10 volumes, p. 30, published by Darussalam

• Now be it known, that Allah most high bath willed, that the faith of Islamism should flourish throughout the chief of the inhabited regions of the earth; in some countries making the sword and compulsion the means of its dissemination, in others preaching and exhortation…’
  • Tuhafat Ul Mujahideen by Zainuddin Makhdoom. Introduction, Tuhfat-ul-Mujahideen translated from Arabic by M.J. Rowlandson, London, 1933, pp. 3-5. Quoted from S. R. Goel, The Calcutta Quran Petition (1999) Chapter 5 ISBN 9788185990583 [1]

• It has been proven throughout history that religions cannot be imposed by force. When the Christians conquered the Arabs of Andalusia, the Arabs favored to be killed and driven out entirely rather than to leave Islam. Nevertheless, the Qur’an did not spread by the sword. On the contrary, it spread only by invitation and by invitation alone was it embraced by different peoples who later conquered the Arabs, like the Turks and Mongols.
  • Gustave Le Bon, The World of Islamic Civilization (La Civilisation des Arabes, 1884).

• The Hindus were offered the choice between death and Islam and if they chose the latter, the conversions cannot be termed as forced.
  • Hasrat Mohani, when conversions during Moplah riots of 1922 were debated. quoted in Lal, K. S. (2002). Return to roots: Emancipation of Indian Muslims. New Delhi: Radha.(57)

• At the first establishment of Islam in India the Christians of the East were very ostentatious (estoient fort superbes) but not very devout, and the Idolaters were effeminate people unable to make much resistance. Thus it was easy for the Musalmans to subject both by force of arms. This they did with so much success that many Christians and Idolaters embraced the Law of Muhammad.
  • Tavernier, Jean-Baptiste, Travels in India, Ed., William Crooke, Low Price Publications, 2000. III:137ff quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume III Chapter 15

• Again, the vast majority of Hindu perverts to Islam and Christianity are perverts by the sword, or the descendants of these.
  • Swami Vivekananda. Complete Works (5.233)

• There is no compulsion for the sake of religion, that is, the doctrine of Islam has been demonstrated. Hence it is not tantamount to compulsion, as it were, though compulsion it is on the whole.
  • Shah Waliullah , Tafsir-i-FAth-ur Rahaman, in Lal, K. S. (2002). Return to roots: Emancipation of Indian Muslims. New Delhi: Radha.(57)

• It is no mercy to them to stop at intellectually establishing the truth of Religion to them. Rather, true mercy towards them is to compel them so that Faith finds a way to their minds despite themselves. It is like a bitter medicine administered to a sick man. Moreover, there can be no compulsion without eliminating those who are a source of great harm or aggression, or liquidating their force, and capturing their riches, so as to render them incapable of posing any challenge to Religion. Thus their followers and progeny are able to enter the faith with free and conscious submission...
  • Shah Waliullah Dehlawi. Quoted in Bonney, Jihad from Qur’an to bin Laden, 101-3 Quoted from Spencer, Robert (2018). The history of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS.

• Well, and how was this done? Without the shedding of one drop of blood! With all your brags and boastings, where has your Christianity succeeded without the sword? Show me one place in the whole world. One, I say, throughout the history of the Christian religion — one; I do not want two. I know how your forefathers were converted. They had to be converted or killed; that was all. What can you do better than Mohammedanism, with all your bragging?
  • Vivekananda, CW 8, HINDUS AND CHRISTIANS (A lecture delivered at Detroit on February 21, 1894, and reported in the Detroit Free Press)