I'm not sure where you get this changing of dates by the salafists. Every source I've ever read sees it exactly opposite. Before he gained military power was when he said "respect the peoples of the book". After gaining military strength came the forced conversions and slaughter.
From the known history of Muhammad.
Muhammad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Around 613, Muhammad began to preach to the public (Quran 26:214).[12][78] Most Meccans ignored him and mocked him,[76] though a few became his followers. There were three main groups of early converts to Islam: younger brothers and sons of great merchants; people who had fallen out of the first rank in their tribe or failed to attain it; and the weak, mostly unprotected foreigners.[79]
According to Ibn Saad, opposition in Mecca started when Muhammad delivered verses that condemned idol worship and the polytheism practiced by the Meccan forefathers.[76][80] However, the Quranic exegesis maintains that it began as Muhammad started public preaching.[81] As his followers increased, Muhammad became a threat to the local tribes and rulers of the city, whose wealth rested upon the Ka'aba, the focal point of Meccan religious life that Muhammad threatened to overthrow. Muhammad's denunciation of the Meccan traditional religion was especially offensive to his own tribe, the Quraysh, as they were the guardians of the Ka'aba.[79] Powerful merchants attempted to convince Muhammad to abandon his preaching; he was offered admission to the inner circle of merchants, as well as an advantageous marriage. He refused both of these offers.[79]
Tradition records at great length the persecution and ill-treatment towards Muhammad and his followers.[15][76] Sumayyah bint Khabbab, a slave of a prominent Meccan leader Abu Jahl, is famous as the first martyr of Islam; killed with a spear by her master when she refused to give up her faith. Bilal, another Muslim slave, was tortured by Umayyah ibn Khalaf who placed a heavy rock on his chest to force his conversion.[82][83]...
The Hijra is the migration of Muhammad and his followers from Mecca to Medina in 622 CE. In June 622, warned of a plot to assassinate him, Muhammad secretly slipped out of Mecca and moved his followers to Medina,[96][99] 450 kilometres (280 miles) north of Mecca.[100]...
A delegation, consisting of the representatives of the twelve important clans of Medina, invited Muhammad to serve as chief arbitrator for the entire community; due to his status as a neutral outsider.[101][102] There was fighting in Yathrib: primarily the dispute involved its Arab and Jewish inhabitants, and was estimated to have lasted for around a hundred years before 620.[101] The recurring slaughters and disagreements over the resulting claims, especially after the Battle of Bu'ath in which all clans were involved, made it obvious to them that the tribal concept of blood-feud and an eye for an eye were no longer workable unless there was one man with authority to adjudicate in disputed cases.[101] The delegation from Medina pledged themselves and their fellow-citizens to accept Muhammad into their community and physically protect him as one of themselves.[15]
Muhammad instructed his followers to emigrate to Medina, until nearly all his followers left Mecca. Being alarmed at the departure, according to tradition, the Meccans plotted to assassinate Muhammad. With the help of Ali, Muhammad fooled the Meccans watching him, and secretly slipped away from the town with Abu Bakr.[96][103] By 622, Muhammad emigrated to Medina, a large agricultural oasis....
Among the first things Muhammad did to ease the longstanding grievances among the tribes of Medina was to draft a document known as the Constitution of Medina, "establishing a kind of alliance or federation" among the eight Medinan tribes and Muslim emigrants from Mecca; this specified rights and duties of all citizens, and the relationship of the different communities in Medina (including the Muslim community to other communities, specifically the Jews and other "Peoples of the Book").[101][102] The community defined in the Constitution of Medina, Ummah, had a religious outlook, also shaped by practical considerations and substantially preserved the legal forms of the old Arab tribes.[15]
Several ordinances were proclaimed to win over the numerous and wealthy Jewish population. These were soon rescinded as the Jews insisted on preserving the entire Mosaic law, and did not recognize him as a prophet because he was not of the race of David.[96]
The first group of converts to Islam in Medina were the clans without great leaders; these clans had been subjugated by hostile leaders from outside.[104] This was followed by the general acceptance of Islam by the pagan population of Medina, with some exceptions. According to Ibn Ishaq, this was influenced by the conversion of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh (a prominent Medinan leader) to Islam.[105] Medinans who converted to Islam and helped the Muslim emigrants find shelter became known as the ansar (supporters).[15] Then Muhammad instituted brotherhood between the emigrants and the supporters and he chose Ali as his own brother....
Following the emigration, the people of Mecca seized property of Muslim emigrants to Medina.[107] Armed conflict would later break out between the Meccan pagans and the Muslims. Muhammad delivered Quranic verses permitting Muslims to fight the Meccans ...
In March 624, Muhammad led some three hundred warriors in a raid on a Meccan merchant caravan. The Muslims set an ambush for the caravan at Badr.[110] Aware of the plan, the Meccan caravan eluded the Muslims.[111] A Meccan force was sent to protect the caravan, and went on to confront the Muslims upon receiving word that the caravan was safe. The Battle of Badr commenced.[112] Though outnumbered more than three to one, the Muslims won the battle, killing at least forty-five Meccans with fourteen Muslims dead. They also succeeded in killing many Meccan leaders, including Abu Jahl.[113] Seventy prisoners had been acquired, many of whom were ransomed in return for wealth or freed.[111][114][115][116] Muhammad and his followers saw the victory as confirmation of their faith[15] and Muhammad ascribed the victory as assisted from an invisible host of angels.[117] The Quranic verses of this period, unlike the Meccan verses, dealt with practical problems of government and issues like the distribution of spoils.[118][119]
The victory strengthened Muhammad's position in Medina and dispelled earlier doubts among his followers.[120] As a result, the opposition to him became less vocal. Pagans who had not yet converted were very bitter about the advance of Islam. Two pagans, Asma bint Marwan of the Aws Manat tribe and Abu 'Afak of the 'Amr b. 'Awf tribe, had composed verses taunting and insulting the Muslims.[121] They were killed by people belonging to their own or related clans, and Muhammad did not disapprove of the killings....
So the summary of which is that it was early on that Muhammad had the closest brush with annihilation and the enemies in Meccah provoked his most virulent rage. Many of these early enemies were Jews and Christian merchants wanting to prevent disruption to the trade business that kept everyone in cash in the local area.
Jewish religious leaders of the time typically referred to Muhhamad as a prophet sent to the Ishmaelites and there is nothing like the enmity between them back then that they have now. For centuries the Jewish community in Istanbul aided the Ottoman Sultan against Christian Europe as they considered Islam more tolerant and beneficial than Christianity.
Many seem to take a different view.
"According to Muslim historians, the Meccans were actually quite tolerant of Muhammad preaching his new religion. Mecca was an open society where different religions were respected. Polytheists, Jews and Christians lived and worshipped side-by-side, especially during the holy months, when pagan pilgrims would travel long distances from beyond the city to perform their rituals at the Kaaba.
Muhammad
brought on the resentment of the local people not by preaching Islam, but by breaking with Meccan tradition and
cursing other religions:
When the apostle openly displayed Islam as Allah ordered him, his people did not withdraw or turn against him, so far as I have heard, until he spoke disparagingly of their gods. When he did that, they took great offence and resolved unanimously to treat him as an enemy. (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 167), "[Muhammad]
declared Islam publicly to his fellow tribesmen. When he did so, they did not withdraw from him or reject him in any way, as far as I have heard, until he spoke of their gods and denounced them." (al-Tabari Vol.VI, p.93)
Although asked to stop, Muhammad continued to stir up trouble by “condemning” the local religion, causing the Meccans great anxiety:[The Meccans]
said they had never known anything like the trouble they had endured from this fellow. He had declared their mode of life foolish, insulted their forefathers, reviled their religion, divided the community and cursed their gods (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 183)."
We [the Meccans]
have never seen the like of what we have endured from this man [Muhammad].
He has derided our traditional values, abused our forefathers, reviled our religion, caused division among us, and insulted our gods. We have endured a great deal from him." (al-Tabari, Vol.VI p.101)
Not only was this an insult to the people and their traditions, but it also threatened the local economy, which depended on the annual pilgrimage. Still, they were so eager to live at peace, that they offered Muhammad money if he would stop stirring up trouble:
They decided to send for Muhammad and to negotiate and argue with him... When he came and sat down with them, they explained that that they had sent for him in order that they could talk together. No Arab had ever treated his tribe as Muhammad had treated them, and they repeated the charges... If it was money he wanted, they would make him the richest of them all; if it was honor, he should be their prince; if it was sovereignty, they would make him king. (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 188)Further proof that the Meccans did not have a problem with Islam existing side-by-side with their own religion is found in the episode known as the Satanic Verses. According to Muslim historians, Muhammad briefly agreed to their demand to cease disparaging the local gods and recognize the rights of others to their religion:
When [the Meccans] heard that, they rejoiced. What he had said about their gods pleased and delighted them, and they gave ear to him… When he came to the prostration and finished the chapter, he prostrated and the Muslims followed their prophet in it, having faith in what he brought them and obeying his command. Those mushrikūn of Quraysh and others who were in the mosque also prostrated on account of what they had heard him say about their gods. In the whole mosque there was no believer or kāfir who did not prostrate. (al-Tabari, the Tarikh Vol. 1)The Meccans were clearly relieved that the unprecedented tension over religious beliefs was broken. They rejoiced by praying alongside the Muslims at the Kaaba. They accepted the Muslims once Muhammad accepted them.
Unfortunately the period of peace and brotherhood was short-lived. Muhammad soon reneged on his words after his own people began to question the contradiction between his previous claims and his new-found tolerance for other faiths. This incident, particularly his about-face, had the effect of ratcheting up the tension and hostility all the more."
The oft-quoted Qur’anic verse
“let there be no compulsion in religion” (
2:256) takes a serious beating against the reality of Muhammad’s later years. The prophet of Islam had no real power when this seemingly tolerant passage was "revealed". Things were much different, however, by the time the ninth Sura was recited, which explicitly calls for forcing others into prayer and paying the
jizya (
9:29).
Examples from Muhammad’s life prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was
not opposed to forcible conversions and even ordered them once he had the military authority to do so,
Continuing the story of Abu Sufyan, when the Meccan leader visited the Muslim army camp in 630 in an attempt to convince Muhammad not to make war, he was chased into their prophet's presence at the point of a sword. There he was “invited” to embrace Islam:
[Muhammad] said, “Woe to you, Abu Sufyan, isn’t it time that you recognize that I am Allah’s apostle?” He (Abu Sufyan) answered, “As to that I still have some doubt.” I (the narrator) said to him, “Submit and testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the apostle of Allah before you lose your head,” so he did so.(Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 814)It is obvious that this "embrace" of Islam was neither genuine nor volitional. Yet, there was no admonishment from Muhammad. The prophet of Islam fully accepted the “conversion” and immediately made use of Abu Sufyan to further his political goals. (Abu Sufyan and his progeny had the last laugh, however, as they went on to inherit the Muslim empire and murder the prophet's favorite grandchildren... but that is a different story).
After he had conquered Mecca, Muhammad began ordering the executions of those who had insulted him or apostatized. One of these was his former scribe, Abdullah bin Sa’d, who transcribed Muhammad's “revelations” from Allah, but lost his faith in the "prophet" when the latter adopted suggested
editing (Allah’s word was supposed to be unalterable). Abdullah saved himself by reverting back to Islam in Muhammad’s presence at Mecca as the prophet of Islam waited for someone to strike off his head:
The apostle remained silent for a long time til finally he said ‘yes.’ When Uthman [and Abdullah] had left, he said to his companions who were sitting around him, “I kept silent so that one of you might get up and strike off his head!” One of the Ansar said, “Then why didn’t you give me a sign, O apostle of Allah?” He answered that a prophet does not kill by pointing. (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 819).Several poets were murdered by Muhammad at Mecca for the crime of having mocked him. Another such poet, named Ka’b bin Zuhayr, saved his own skin by converting to Islam after finding no other way to avoid execution. (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 888-889).
The Hadith also records that many other Meccans converted to Islam under obvious duress. As one apprehensive observer noted to Muhammad at the time:
(They embraced Islam because) they were defeated at your hands (and as such their Islam is not dependable). (Sahih Muslim
4453)These sorts of conversions were fully recognized by Muhammad, as proven by this hadith, in which he rebukes a soldier for killing a person who had "converted" merely to save his life:
Allah's Apostle sent us towards Al-Huruqa, and in the morning we attacked them and defeated them. I and an Ansari man followed a man from among them and when we took him over, he said, "La ilaha illal-Lah." On hearing that, the Ansari man stopped, but I killed him by stabbing him with my spear. When we returned, the Prophet came to know about that and he said, "O Usama! Did you kill him after he had said "La ilaha ilal-Lah?" I said, "But he said so only to save himself." The Prophet kept on repeating that so often that I wished I had not embraced Islam before that day. (Bukhari
59:568)(Note that Muhammad was not in the least bit concerned that the victims were slaughtered while fleeing the Muslim army. This is another strike against the myth that Muslims are only supposed to fight in
self-defense).
By this time Muhammad was spreading Islam by any means necessary. He was even using captured wealth to
buy loyalty:
Allah's Apostle gave (gifts) to some people to the exclusion of some others. The latter seemed to be displeased by that. The Prophet said, "I give to some people, lest they should deviate from True Faith” (Bukhari
53:373).Muhammad actually captured a man’s wife and children, then used them as
leverage to force his conversion:
The apostle told them to tell Malik that if he came to him as a Muslim he would return his family and property to him and give him a hundred camels. (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 879)Islam was being cheapened. It was no longer a religion, but rather a political allegiance established by force. Muhammad sent one of his men to Yemen with a military force, where a local pagan leader was told,
“Testify that none has the right to be worshipped except Allah, or else I will chop off your neck." (Bukhari
59:643)
Neither was there any heartfelt religious conviction in the reluctant “conversion” of the Thaqif tribe, for example:
[The Thaqif leaders said to one another] “We are in an impasse. You have seen how the affair of this man [Muhammad] has progressed. All the Arabs have accepted Islam and you lack the power to fight them… don’t you see that your herds are not safe; none of you can go out without being cut off.” (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 915)Their solution was to “accept Islam,” and so they sent their couriers to Muhammad to announce their conversion, ask for a promise that they would no longer by harassed by the Muslims, and request a grace period before they had to 'give up' their old religion:
The riders of Thaqif had come to make their submission and accept Islam on the apostle’s conditions provided that they could get a document guaranteeing their people and their land and animals… Among the things they asked the apostle was that they should be allowed to retain their idol al-Lat undestroyed for three years. The apostle refused, and they continued to ask him for a year or two and he refused… (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 916)Obviously the Thaqif were not acting out of a true belief in Islam, but rather from the desperation in which non-Muslims Arabs were finding themselves in the wake of Muslim aggression. Muhammad had the power and he was directing his armies to wipe out those who would not submit to Islam.
“Fight everyone in the way of Allah and kill those who disbelieve in Allah,” were his instructions to one of his military leaders (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 992). Muhammad also congratulated a faraway king on accepting Islam and “killing the polytheists” under his reign, even as he directed another military leader to “invite” a neighboring tribe to Islam and then slaughter them if they refused:
Then the apostle sent Khalid bin Walid… to the Banu al-Harith and ordered him to invite them to Islam three days before he attacked them. If they accepted then he was to accept it from them; and if they declined he was to fight them. (Ibn Ishaq/Hisham 959)Khalid’s famous pronouncement,
“If you accept Islam then you will be safe,” is echoed by Jihadists like Osama bin Laden to this day.
