Pope Benedict was wrong in quoting a 7th century document, which inferred that Islam was spread with the use of sword. Islam never used sword or any force to become a major religion of the world. Here is a brief description of what had happened in its 1,400 years old history.

Muhammad, a Prophet of Allah and the co-founder of Islam (the other founder being Allah Himself), was a peace-loving man. He loved humanity more than anything else. To help the people of Mecca, the city he was born in, out of their sufferings, he, under the direct instruction of Allah, took to preaching Islam among them in a very peaceful and loving manner. Most of the people of his land being Pagans, they refused to accept his good teachings. They not only insulted and harmed him, they also used brute force to torture those people who had responded favorably to his teachings and became Muslims.

Even in the face of their fierce opposition, the kind Prophet of Islam fed his Pagan enemies with food that Allah Himself delivered to him directly from heaven (cf. The Quran; 5:118). Even this most extra-ordinary favor of Allah failed to soften the Pagans, and they continued to oppose the Prophet with all vehemence at their disposal.

Muhammad remained patient and did not react to the Pagans’ insults and tortures. Taking advantage of his peaceful nature, some Pagans went to his house to kill him, while he was asleep. Allah warned him of the impending danger and he escaped to Medina to save his life. Even for this attempt of his enemies, he bore no grudge whatsoever against them.

In Medina, the Pagans gave him a red carpet reception, but the insolent Jews of the city and it neighborhood refused to do so. From the day of his arrival, they looked at him with suspicion.

When he began preaching Islam, the Jews became his vociferous opponents. They opposed everything he preached. They opposed him even when he made Jerusalem the direction of prayer for his followers. They opposed him even when he, following the Jewish tradition, declared that all new-born Muslim male babies must be circumcised.

Impeded by his peaceful nature, Muhammad did not react to the excesses of the Jews. Rather, he continued to treat them kindly. Taking his inaction against them as a weakness, they made his life unbearable. Even then the [mercy for mankind] did not take up sword to show the Jews their right place.

Even after he left his place of birth and took up residence in Medina, the Meccan Pagans kept on hatching conspiracies against him and his followers. For implementing one of their conspiracies, the leader of a richly-laden caravan of the Meccans, escorted by a handful of unarmed men, decided to attack Muhammad and his followers in Medina. With the attack on the Muslims in his mind, the leader of the caravan changed his route, and headed towards his target. He also called for fighting men from Mecca to join him in his bid to eliminate Muhammad and his followers.

When the fighting forces from Mecca reached the place where the leader of the caravan expected to take on Muhammad and his peace-loving followers, he changed his course and reached home without suffering any loss or harm.

Muhammad, even after being informed of the imminent danger to him and his followers, did not consider taking up of arms against his deadly enemy a good option. He counseled patience and peace to his followers. But when the Pagan forces were almost at his door-step, he was forced to take actions to save his and his followers’ lives. In this effort, Allah not only took part, He also helped the Muslims with a large number of angels.

When the peace-loving Prophet of Islam was forced to take up sword to defend himself and his followers, the Pagans stood no chance of winning. Unable to face his valiant men, the Pagans fled. The arms and the personal belongings that the fleeing Pagans were forced to leave behind made Muhammad and his followers very happy.

Following their defeat at the hand of Muhammad, the Pagans launched more attacks on him. In all those attacks, they had full cooperation of the Jews. Despite their treacherous conducts, the Prophet of Islam never turned to violence against the Jews; rather, he embraced them and tried to placate them with kindness and exceptional generosity.

Muhammad lived amongst his Jewish enemies for about ten years. In those years, he never did anything that could harm the interests of the Jews. Impressed by his gentle and godly nature, some of the Jewish girls decided to become his slave. The ungrateful and conspiratorial Jews did not take their action kindly and they became more aggressive towards the kind, gentle, fair and abstemious Prophet of Islam.

Their aggressiveness towards him became unbearable. Even then, the Prophet of Islam took no action against them. He did not kill a single Jew, nor did he expel any one of them from Medina. All the reports about him expelling the Jews from Medina and from its neighborhoods were concocted by his enemies to tarnish his impeccable reputation.

Muhammad did not launch a single raid in his entire life. He hugged and kissed the very Pagans who wanted to kill him. This is proven by the fact that after the Meccan Pagans decided, out of their own volition, to hand over their city to him, he took it over, but then he gave it back into their custody.

Is there a single example in human history when a man returned a highly valuable asset to the very people who gave it to him? Does it not tell us that Muhammad was the greatest human being who walked our earth?

In his own lifetime, his reputation of being a kind and generous person reached many parts of the present-day Middle East. After his death, the people of Syria invited the first Caliph of Islam to take over their country and to teach them how to become, and lead their lives as, Muslims. Following the Syrian example, people of Bahrain, Oman, Yemen, Iraq and Jerusalem also invited the Muslims to help them out of their ignorance.

Muslims walked into all the territories their enemies now allege them to have conquered with the use of sword with bouquets in their hands. Their hosts reciprocated, and they welcomed them with garlands of roses.

The enemies of the Muslims have been fabricating false stories about the Muslims and their alleged atrocities against the Pagans, Jews and the Christians of medieval times. Contrary to the depictions of the Muslims given by their enemies, Muslims had always been kind to all of them. They treated them with great respect, as their religion- Islam- was founded on many religious percepts of the Jews and Christians.

To the Muslims, Moses is a venerated prophet. They venerate him, because Allah had spoken to him directly. Moses is spoken of many times in the Quran. So, the questions one needs to ask: when Moses is venerated by the Muslims, how can they hate and despise his followers? How can they say that the Jews are the descendants of ape, and the worst among the creatures Allah has created? (Cf. The Quran; 7:166 & 98:6).

Muslims bear tremendous respect for the Christians as well, as they are the followers of Jesus Christ, an apostle who occupies an exalted position in the eyes of Allah. Allah was so pleased with him that He revealed a full Sura (chapter) to Muhammad wherein is described in detail how his virgin mother conceived him and how she delivered and presented him to her people. The only [minor] difference that exists between the Muslims and the Christians is the one that raises a question mark on the manner his mother is believed to have conceived him.

Christians believe that Jesus was sired by Allah; the Quran says that his mother was impregnated by angel Gabriel (Soul of Allah in Islamic jargon) on behalf of Allah (The Quran; 19:17). Could this [minor] difference create a serious rift between the Christians and the Muslims?

The answer is: No.

Muslims love the Christians because their Holy Quran speaks so extensively about Jesus Christ. Allah says that the Christians are, in fact, Muslims (The Quran; 5:114). Not only that, Allah Himself made the Christians successful against the fire-worshipping Persians (cf. The Quran; 30:2), after they conquered the Christian dominated territories of Syria and Palestine for the reason that they cared for the safety and well being of Muhammad and the neo-Muslims of the Arabian Peninsula.

Hiding what the Muslims had done in reciprocation of the help the Christians had given them at the nascent stage of Islam, their common enemies sowed seeds of distrust and enmity in them to advance their own causes. In the blind pursuit of their selfish goals, their enemies have invented stories of the Muslims invading the Christian lands, and of humiliating and torturing their people. They have gone so far in their wild accusations as to claim that Muslims spread their religion with the help of sword.

The Christians have failed to realize the plots of their enemies and they got carried away by their mischievous and self-serving propagandas. This failure on their part proved very harmful to Islam and its followers. Being peace-loving humans, Muslims suffered in silence. They did not act violently against the Christians and other non-Muslims, despite the fact that all of them have no right to live on the Planet Earth, as the whole of it belongs to none, but to the Muslims alone.

Muslims have taken thus far all the wild accusations and allegations against their religion by lying low. They hoped that the innuendos against their religion would stop one day, but that has not happened. Instead, the enemies of Islam have intensified their attacks on their peaceful religion. Being peace-loving followers of Islam, Muslims suffered them with smiles on their faces. They did not resort to violence even when some of the western newspapers blasphemed against their Prophet by publishing his cartoons.

Even the Pope has failed to check his temptation to malign Islam, and he joined those who are bent upon harming it.

Enough is enough. Muslims will not tolerate the excesses of the enemies of Islam any further. They have risen up and are now determined to take on the whole non-Muslim world in order to defend their religion. They have also realized that they cannot protect their religion from the attacks of its enemies until all of them are converted to Islam.

So, be aware the non-Muslims of the world! You have provoked the peace-loving Muslims into taking drastic actions against you and all those you love.

To take revenge, Muslims are coming to your door-steps. They will do what their predecessors had never done: they will now use sword, or any weapon that kills, to force you to accept Islam.

If you refuse to follow their orders, they will kill you and convert your sisters, wives and daughters into their slaves. They will ravage everything you have built and then will rebuild them on the pattern described by Islam.

Muslims will remove all the injustices from the face of the earth. They have already done that in the countries they call [Islamic States]. In their states, Muslims have been enjoying all the amenities, and bliss, of heaven. In these states, there is no crime; all the people are equal, and there is no enmity among their inhabitants, for Islam is the only religion that promotes love and affection among its followers.

Before falling on you with all their vengeance, Muslims want to give you a chance: you should listen carefully to their protest against the remarks of the Pope and cave in to their demands. You should do exactly what they want you to do. Your failure to listen to them, and in time, will spell doom for you and for all those who are around you.

If and when you, the non-Muslims of the world, face doom, you will not be able to claim that you were not warned. You have been warned adequately. But you refused to listen. So, whatever happens to you, it will be the consequence of your own misconception, failure and foolishness.

Neither will you be able to blame the Muslims for your plights and sufferings. They, too, have given you enough indications of their intentions. You elected to ignore them. So, be prepared to be killed, or to live as slaves of your Muslim masters.