It is interesting to me that Orientalists have influenced the way we understand our own religion, and our own history, to such an extent that we ourselves have started to claim that Islam didn’t really spread until Rasulullah ï·º took up the sword.
As if Yathrib was conquered and turned into Madinah by force.
As if the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah was not the turning point that allowed Islam to spread throughout the peninsula.
Even if you want to talk about how Islam spread into the wider world…you have to distinguish between the expansion of Muslim power and the spread of Islam itself. Conquest did not result in conversion; interaction with righteous Muslims in peace time led to conversion.