>>4006318>who try to syncretize a radically traditionalist religionYou're letting modern Islamic fundamentalism paint your view of Islam, when it's no more or less revisionist than this preface you're describing. For most of its history Islam was giving way to racial/ethnic traditions and its courts fought a continuous and uphill battle with syncretization.
>paints Islamic expansionism as 100% self defense situation You'll have to clarify what he meant by expansionism, but assuming a standard Sunni position he'd most likely refer to Muhammad and the Rashidun, who conquered Arabia, North Africa up to Libya, and Western Iran. The usual narrative is that Muhammad fought the Meccans for survival, and both the Byzantines and Persians were hostile to a united Arabia, which isn't a big stretch considering the various invasions from both empires and their proxies. IIRC the Quran even mentions one of these.
>Arab Pagans were all just evil monsters who couldn't help themselves oppress Muslim dindu nuffinsIt's hardly surprising considering the usual relationship between early Abrahamic faiths and others. Not a few early Islamic martyrs are counted as being slaves and the like who converted and were punished by their masters for it. If this is an issue with only surviving Muslim texts presenting the story, we could always look to contemporary non-Muslim sources from the 5th-7th century, few of which had anything positive to say about the Arabian tribes of their time.
>unironically 'Look how tolerant we are to other religions! You can pay the Jizya in Islamic countries! We want to marry your women as interfaith dialogue!'For Classical times, it's not that special. At the time however, the Christianized Romans were harsh towards pagans, and while the Persians were more open they were not without their brutal religious strife and suppression either. For a while, a religiously enshrined recognition of other religious communities was as good as it got.
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