Islamic Conquest of Spain

This is an account of how Islam gained control of Spain. It is admitted that both fact and myth are mixed together in this account which was written about 150 years after it happened. There are no accounts of the Islamic conquest of Spain that are known to be totally accurate. This legend states that Tarik was in command of an army. Tarik be-friended Ilyan, Lord of Septa. Ilyan was a subject of Roderic, king of Spain. Ilyan sent one of his daughters to Roderic to be educated but she became pregnant by him. Ilyan wanted revenge on Roderik and helped Tarik invade Spain. On the island of Umm-Hakim the Moslems took the vinedressers captive and butchered one of them and boiled his flesh. They also boiled meat. They threw away the flesh of the man when no one was looking and ate the meat, but the other prisoners thought that the Moslems ate human flesh. Roderoc was defeated and Spain was conquered.

Many people wonder if the reason for the conquest was really Ilyan wanting revenge against Roderic. Many suspect that the Muslim people wanted to enlarge their territory. Perhaps Ilyan wanted the throne as well. As the Muslims conquered many countries, they were much more generous to the people they conquered than other rulers in the past.

The portion of the reading that stood out to me was the portion about the Moslems making it look like they feasted on human flesh to intimidate the other prisoners. While some sources say the Moslems were more generous to captive people than others in the past, this suggestion of having the reputation of eating human flesh seems less than gentle (whether they did it or not). The part of the Jihad to wage war on unbelievers with the sword is a less than gentle approach.

At the very beginning of the reading it says that they were waging holy war. I wanted to find out more about this, and I looked into what this really refers to. Non-Muslims often translate the term jihad as holy war, but Islamic people want people to know these terms are not the same. The Quran never uses the term jihad for fighting and combat in the name of Allah. Jihad is a term meaning a struggle of any kind, whether it be internal, religious, violent, etc. There are many misunderstandings about jihad and "holy war". Many Muslims claim that the greatest jihad is an internal struggle to live the Muslim life and that violence and terrorism are not their goals. However, there are others who say that to wage war on unbelievers is the highest form of jihad and should be pursued.

In current times Islamic people have come to be viewed as a dangerous militant minority that could disrupt society through terrorism. Some articles say that Muslims will fight for world domination, and that they expect to be dominant in Europe within thirty years and become the largest religion in the world during that time. Mosques are being erected all over the United States more and more as well. If non-Muslims will be viewed as infidels, then this potential spread could be very dangerous. Just as Islam was conquering in the past, they are still trying to conquer today.

Sources:

Text book
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania
http://www.sunnahonline.com/ilm/seerah/0075_popup9.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/spain_1.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad
http://www.cqpress.com/context/articles/epr_islam.html
http://blogs.christianpost.com/christianity/2010/07/countering-the-spread-of-islam-08/