Sir Thomas Arnold, an English Orientalist, wrote about the history of tolerance of Islam and Muslim:

‘We never heard of a report of any planned attempt to compel non-Muslim minorities to accept Islam or any organized persecution aimed at uprooting the Christian religion.  If any of the caliphs had chosen any of these policies, they would have overwhelmed Christianity with the same ease with which Ferdinand and Isabella exiled Islam from Spain or with which Louis XIV made following Protestantism a punishable crime in France, or with which the Jews were exiled from England for 350 years.  That time Eastern churches have been entirely isolated from the rest of the Christian world.  They had no supporters in the world as they were considered heretical sects of Christianity.  Their very existence to this day is the strongest evidence of the policy of Islamic government’s tolerance towards them. (Arnold, Thomas, ‘Invitation To Islam,’ p. 98-99)