I hate seeing "the religion of peace" bullshit here.

[rogerashton]

59. self defense

According to the tradition (and anything that happened more than 1000 years ago is uncertain), Mohammad resorted to violence only in self-defense, after the leaders of Mecca -- who saw his monotheism as a threat to their commercial interests in pagan pilgrimage -- attempted to assassinate him and drove his followers out of Mecca. From the beginning, Islam was opposed to the Arab tradition of vendetta and clan warfare. To that extent, the prior post is a distortion.

That said, it is true that Islam was a religion of rulers right from the first, and Christianity only from the time of Constantine.

All of the Abrahamic religions originated in "tributary" societies -- that is, societies based on the extortion of agricultural surplus by a dominant minority by means of threats of violence -- and in which enslavement and the massacre of defeated enemies were routine. And all of them show signs of this.