The haters of Islam, Muslims, the Prophet Muhammad have been around since the time the message of surrender to the will of Allah was first propagated to the pagan Arabs and to the Christians and Jews living in Arabia.  

All the opponents banded together militarily to no avail and Islam spread (not by the sword as Christianity did in the areas of imperialist conquest or by inheritance as Judaism or Hinduism or other ethnic or racial religions). Of course, there were incidents, as in India where a Moghul emperor tried to impose it on his subjects but this was the exception for the most part as evidenced by the survival of a religion deemed polytheism or idol worship by scholars. The modern stress of Hindu scholars is that it is basically monotheistic but uses images to help the simple worshipper. The history of Muslim rule does have incidents of forced conversion and violence but much less than Christianity. As a missionary religion, it has gained converts more by peaceful means than war. The Turks who conquered the Arabs were conquered themselves peacefully by Islam and though them occupied a large portion of Eastern Europe. However,only Bosnia and Albania had large numbers of converts and only a small minority of Christians became Muslim as the church and the priests controlled the masses and used Christianity as a national identity to preserve their ethnic identity. As the Arabs and Turks gained extra income from non-Muslims because of the "jizya", the capitulation tax, that exempted non-Muslims from military service, there was not a strong campaign to convert them. The strong ethnic/racial component of the adherents of other faiths also was an obstacle in conversion.

The fighting against the unbelievers especially the pagan Arabs was against those who were aggressors out to destroy Islam or to fight Mughal imperialism as with the Punjabi Sikhs who wanted independence and became adherents of a new religion that combined Hinduism and Islam. Sikhism became a warrior religion and a minority have chosen terrorism to try to set up a separate state. Like the Tamils they engaged in suicide bombings and killed civilians.

Christendom was aggressive in trying to counter Islam and to re-conquer the Holy Land which they recently did after WW I and again by supporting the establishment of a Jewish entity there. The Jews also engaged in terrorism before the establishment of Israel and during the ’48 war where they massacred whole villages to drive the Palestinians from their land. One might ask what the Jews would have done if the Arabs had won the war and how much support they would have received from the West to regain what they lost.

After the removal of colonialist control of Muslim lands in the Middle East and Asia after WW II there was a resurgence of Islam that was suppressed by Muslim secular and nationalist rulers with the support of the West who saw a resurgent Islam as a danger to oil interests and the security of the State of Israel which continues its illegal occupation of Palestinian lands through illegal annexation and expansion of settlements..

The strategy of the West is flawed and unbalanced and seeks to avoid the unification and democratization of Muslim countries and the independence of some like Chechnya or Mindano in the Phillipines. A moderate Somali government with the help of the US and Ethiopia receives support to counter the Islamic oriented party. Arab nationalism failed and the Arabs turned to Islam but in Algeria,Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other areas they are suppressed through intimidation, jailing, torture and with the economic and military support of the US.

The political-nationalist form of Islam grew out of this in the formation of Pakistan and its problems with India regarding the Muslim majority state of Kashmir.

Terrorism mixed with genuine freedom fighting insurgency has stained the name of Islam as a religion of peace and provided fuel for the Islam bashers to demonize Islam, Muslims and the Prophet. In one sense, Muslims must accept their share of the responsibility in failing to develop a genuine Isla

I admit I haven't read the Koran, but I have read the Old Testament and its pretty much the story of a bunch of Bronze age Barbarians murdering innocent people in the name of "Yahweh".  There are fundy Muslims just the same as there are fundy Christians, and there are Muslims who belive a literal interpretation of a bunch of random fairy tales written by some dude a couple hundred years ago is asinine just like there are Christians who believe literal interpreation of fairy tales about Bronze age Barbarians is moronic.   Its just that until the 2000 election the most fundy Christians were allowed to rule was a local Sheriff's department, while fundy Muslims were allowed to rule entire nations.  If we decided to keep GWB and company in power for the next 100 years, we'd probably be as messed up as most Muslim counties (he's already out to end stem cell research and the theory of evolution as "Offensive in the eyes of Yahweh"), but unlike them we're gonna kick the fundys out after 8 years instead of letting them rule for generations. 

The reason is in the Quran,  Read Sura 9 of Quran, It give license to Muslims to Kill all non Muslims(Kafirs) or convert them to Islam  till Whole the World converted to Islam and law of Shariyat prevails. This is the start of problem and this is the end of problem. 

Many muslims feel that they are not following islam correctly hence there is a discord between muslims of today and the religion of islam. The big problem in islam is due to the ignorance of muslims who tend to follow what they are told rather than what they understand. The loop being continued due to the censorship of free speech in nearly all muslim nations. Right from the time of islam's origins, freedom of speech and religion has been discouraged. We have now progressed to a new world where information is distributed as opposed to centralised and women are more ambitious. The muslims of today are now trying to reconcile islam of the past with: 1) modern human rights 2) modern banking system 3) modern women's rights 4) modern legal system 5) modern freedoms due to distributed information. I wish them good luck but my opinion is islam can only survive in a backwater and that any country that enters the modern world with islam will be one that is trying to swim with a boulder round their neck. Today's society requires a mindset of flexibility and focus on issues that matter. In islam these issues become secondary and usually ends up causing the collapse of the nation concerned where idiotic subjects drag the whole of that society down. The lesson, if it needs to be learnt is secularism is not an option but an important concept if one is even to start to build a nation or civilisation that can survive in today's world. Muslims who yearn for a fictional past are suffering from mental delusions and will end up cursing generations of their nation to come.

There is a clear agenda on the part of fundamentalist Christians, radical Zionists and neo-cons to demonize Islam. This is to counter any influence of Muslims in the US and to maintain the special relationship it has with Israel.

Shame on Jesus's disciples for converting people by being eaten by lions and running into their swords and spears. Should have killed each over like the followers of Muhamed.

Something wrong about that sentence. Can't quite put my finger on it.....