I'm doing a studies on the silk trade...back centuries ago, even before Christ entered earth to give us a wakeup call, and despite that, we still sinned, he died for our sins.
but after 507AD, most muslims claim that mohummed existed before Christianity and Jesus....which is plain ridiculous, and also shows the amount of intelligence they have, including the drive by shootings in Sydney.
Islam spread rapidly along the silk road, where the trade from China to Persia and eventually reach the romans. It spread so fast because of it's use as a military force which forced the persians to submit to islam, and consequently the rest of the middle east.
China and Rome stopped trading with each other, because islam was a great problem, which had very little philosophies, less reasoning, more military and essentially they feared it'd spread like a plague into china. If you look at the tribes or cities in the middle east, they use to be filled with merchants, who are willing to accept all kinds of religions, even a heretic christian belief spread right to japan....and a church was recently found in both Japan and China. In otherwords, you might call that city "a prostitute". However for China and Rome, they like arguing with philosophy, about Religion, morality....etc.....
Islam however, leaves no room for that, it's either than or execution. So you can see why China and the west, didn't like islam, and saw it as a threat.
In otherwords, in islam, theres no room for free speech or debate....some would argue otherwise.....
The thing is, I will always view islam as a heretic religion. Their ideas, I believe were taken from a heretic Christian that was kicked out of Greece...and when he spread the news, mohummed heard of it, and took it on his own. Which is why islam is such a screwed up religion.