Was Islam spread by the sword?

Question:
There is currently a propaganda in the West that Islam spread with the sword. We, Muslims, always claim the opposite but find ourselves short of arguments. Issues like the following confuse me:

Why did Abu Bakr Umar (ra) send warriors to different counties?

Why did Tariq bin Zaid go to Spain with an army in order to defeat the local government? Doesn't this speak of the sword culture?

Please help me.

Response:
We should not be influenced by statements like “Islam was spread through the sword" etc. Such statements have the ability of taking away the debate from its proper context. I would say that Islam was spread in the early period of Muslim history through the help of the sword which was used by Muslims because the Almighty wanted to punish those who had been warned adequately (itmame hujjah) through the messenger (rasul) of God. No individual, however, was forced to convert outside the Arabian Peninsula. Within the Arabian Peninsula, the polytheists belonging to the category of Children of Ishmael (Bani Isma’il) had no choice but to convert to Islam or face death. However, the systems of the kingdoms around the Peninsula were forced to be subjugated to the authority of God’s message because the inhabitants of these kingdoms were made to witness the miraculous domination of God’s message through His messenger. The annihilation or subjugation of the peoples who receive God’s message through His messengers directly and go on to deny it is an inviolable law of the Almighty. The polytheists of Arabia who didn’t convert to Islam were thus destined to be killed and the people of the book of the Peninsula were forced to live a life of lesser citizens if they refused to convert to Islam. The latter fate was meant for all those who refused to convert in the surrounding territories of kingdoms where Muslim armies were sent during the times of the companions of the Prophet.

The above-mentioned exercise was undertaken not because the word of Islam was meant to be spread through the sword but because those who received the message of Allah through the messenger were to be punished.

What happened after the days of the companions in the spread of Islam was neither the requirement of the message of Islam nor should we be worried to explain it.

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