The Myth of Muslim Conquest


By PATRICK HAENNI and SAMI AMGHAR
CounterPunch
January 13, 2010


A question worries Europe: is Islam inherently expansionist and out to conquer the world? Yes, say those Swiss who voted against the construction of minarets. They see this expansionism underpinned by a desire for political control, sometimes imputed to the nature of Islamic ideology (pro-birth, proselytising, invasive), sometimes to the tactics of its main players (the Islamists and their agendas). Yussuf al-Qaradawi, a well-known moderate Sunni cleric, seemed to endorse this in his Al Jazeera broadcast of December 6, “Sharia and life,â€