Of course, when Hindus fought Hindus they observed these restraints because they shared the same values: both sides revered the same temples, monaste… - Robert Bruce Spencer

In July 751, at the Talas River on the border of present-day Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the forces of the new caliphate met those of the Chinese Tang dynasty, in what was to be the decisive battle for hegemony over Central Asia. China’s Westward expansion was stopped, and the region was definitively secured for Islam. The Buddhist and Christian presence in Central Asia went into rapid decline. The area would be Islamic ever after.

Whatever the wisdom of the Calcutta petition, it was a sincere attempt to address a problem that has existed since the first days of Muhammad’s prophecy, and that will undoubtedly continue to exist as long as there are people who believe the Koran contains the unadulterated words of the one, true God: Muslims will commit violence against non-Muslims, believing that they have been ordered to do so by Allah in the Koran.

While human nature is everywhere the same and Muslims can, of course, act as tolerantly as anyone else, the example of Muhammad, the highest model for human behavior, constantly pulls them in a different direction.