Nineteenth-century Americans and Britons attributed Islam’s spread to coercion rather than persuasion.

Evidence

One answer that most Americans and Britons seemingly accepted was that the inherent fanaticism of (male) Muslims produced their violent success. According to the well respected and widely read Briton Claudius Buchanan (1807), Muslims were a “dagger-drawing people” who maintained a “vindictive spirit.” Smith, in 1835, opined that religious fanaticism was “the strongest principle of obedience in the Turkish citizen, and of bravery in the Turkish soldier.” — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 85 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In 1892, a publication of the Church of England’s Church Missionary Society (CMS) credited the prophet’s success to a combined strategy of carrot and stick, arguing that Muhammad took a decrepit form of Judaism and Christianity and “added to it elements of worldliness and sensuality which rendered it acceptable to the natural mind, and by establishing the principle of enforcing his tenets by the sword, he ensured their zealous propagation.” — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 89 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Anglo-American Islamophobia is not new, its roots demonstrated by an historical exploration of British and American literature between 1690 and 1947.; Britons in India, unlike Americans, faced an active (if exaggerated) Muslim threat to their political order, yet both shared convictions regarding Islam’s coercive proselytizing and violent spread.; Most Americans and Britons seemingly accepted that the inherent fanaticism of (male) Muslims produced their violent success. (+5 more)

Related

• Most Americans and Britons seemingly accepted that the inherent fanaticism of (male) Muslims produced their violent success. (similarity 0.92)
• Anglo-American observers explained Muslim expansion as caused by inherent religious fanaticism. (similarity 0.91)
• Although Britons in India differed from Americans because of the active (if exaggerated) threat to their political order, both shared a conviction regarding two alleged qualities of Islam that… (similarity 0.88)
• Britons in India, unlike Americans, faced an active (if exaggerated) Muslim threat to their political order, yet both shared convictions regarding Islam’s coercive proselytizing and violent spread. (similarity 0.88)
• Anglo-American observers explained Muslim expansion as violent coercion. (similarity 0.88)
• Victorian missionary discourse framed Islam as a synthesis of mundane appeal and coercion. (similarity 0.87)
• Anglo-American Islamophobia is not new, its roots demonstrated by an historical exploration of British and American literature between 1690 and 1947. (similarity 0.83)
• Americans derived much of their Islamophobia from British colonial sources. (similarity 0.83)
• Americans and Britons alike viewed Islam as inherently expansionist and violent. (similarity 0.83)
• American commentators read the 1857 uprising as a religious awakening of Islam against Britain (similarity 0.82)
• Both Americans and Britons held Islam a perennial menace by its proselytizing and violence (similarity 0.81)
• Anglo-American discourse framed Islam as Christianity’s inherent and inexorable nemesis. (similarity 0.81)
• Christians attributed Muslim success to inherent fanaticism rather than their own failures. (similarity 0.81)
• A minority of Americans and Britons valued Islam despite dominant fear-based publications. (similarity 0.79)
• The view of this inherent, ultimate conflict persisted into the twentieth century (and longer), especially in British India where missionaries from throughout the Anglo-American world labored. The… (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Anglo-American observers explained Muslim expansion as caused by inherent religious fanaticism. #corroborates (0.75) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 85
• Victorian missionary discourse framed Islam as a synthesis of mundane appeal and coercion. #expands (0.60) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 89