How do we understand things today.

To understand things today, we have to begin with the uncontroversial-fact-on-the-ground that everyone has missed or everyone insist to NOT SEE.

As a result there is all this voluminous mass of verbiage to prove that Islam is a peaceful religion.

Islam had its beginnings in Mecca and in Medina. The former was a town of some 20,000 at its wildest best. The other was village of some 2,000 at wildest best.

It was as with 3 years after the death of the Holy Prophet, Muhammad that the first Caliph, Abu Bakr was the master of an Empire.

Now, as Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Hitler will tell you that:

You do now win an Empire unless you WAR.

What we do not have is the stats of the killed in its victorious battles to win its empire.

For the size of the Islamic Empire of the Abbasid Caliphate - from the Atlantic to the Indus River, what is your guess. It was certainly greater that what Napoleon managed to get for himself; and he cost the lives of million upon millions.

Of course once you have an Empire you must rule it and that is the time of peace. But to get the Empire:

YOU MUST KILL and CONQUER. 

So is Islam a peaceful religion in its roots and in its nature?

You, be the judge.

So, in the name of the Holy Prophet, Islam, BY WAR