This is a good argument, and one way of seeing that is by contrast with Islam, where the method described is historically much closer to being exhaustive—and in general it was indeed introduced into new areas was by means of swords, and missionaries did take swords with them as standard equipment. (In the future Islam may continue to spread more in the fashion that Christianity did in the past, however.)
This idea seems to be more or less taken for granted by people who oppose either Islam. Is there actually a perspicuous source of data describing in detail how Islam spread, that allows assessments of that kind to be made?
You could start by reading about the topic on Wikipedia (that will also refer you to many other sources.) Of course you could say that probably most of those articles and their sources were written by non-Muslims. But that is like saying that most people who have argued for any position have tended to be people who believe that position, and therefore we should ignore their arguments.
Just because there’s an article on the spread of Islam doesn’t mean that a balanced quantitative analysis on the means of its proliferation either exists or is possible. Usually when someone asserts something to that effect, the onus is on them to support their assertion by referencing a specific source.
This is a good argument, and one way of seeing that is by contrast with Islam, where the method described is historically much closer to being exhaustive—and in general it was indeed introduced into new areas was by means of swords, and missionaries did take swords with them as standard equipment. (In the future Islam may continue to spread more in the fashion that Christianity did in the past, however.)
This idea seems to be more or less taken for granted by people who oppose either Islam. Is there actually a perspicuous source of data describing in detail how Islam spread, that allows assessments of that kind to be made?
You could start by reading about the topic on Wikipedia (that will also refer you to many other sources.) Of course you could say that probably most of those articles and their sources were written by non-Muslims. But that is like saying that most people who have argued for any position have tended to be people who believe that position, and therefore we should ignore their arguments.
reading about the topic on Wikipedia
Just because there’s an article on the spread of Islam doesn’t mean that a balanced quantitative analysis on the means of its proliferation either exists or is possible. Usually when someone asserts something to that effect, the onus is on them to support their assertion by referencing a specific source.