The Islamization of the Silk Road

Foltz's argument matches with Bentley's, with both articles having the major points of 1) voluntary association, 2) assimilation, and 3) pressure. The people of the Silk Road welcomed the Islamic peoples because the peoples were pressured by the Sanasid Empire and the Byzantine Empire, as demonstrated in the quote "many locations townspeople threw open the gates to the Arabs and welcomed them as liberators"(228). The assimilation occurred when the Islamic peoples intermarried between religions, and thus Islam was passed down to the children, but non-Islamic traditions were passed down as well, and "pre-Islamic religion survived through transmission by non-Muslim wives of Muslims"(231). The pressure of the caravan  raids also influenced people to change religion, with the Muslims "inflicting damage on their former persecutors".(227)