234 ISLAM AT WAR
The concept of jihad served the early Islamic states well, but only for
a time. In a few short years after the death of Muhammad, politics and
greed—the normal corrupters of man—were as much at work in Islamic
countries as they have always been elsewhere. In the modern world, re-
ligious imperialism is as dead as national imperialism. Simply put, the
world is no longer available for armed conquest. However, much of the
world is still certainly available to teaching and conversion, and Muslims
have not been backward in these endeavors. It is sad that the fundamen-
talist Muslim world is trying to wage armed jihad against the free states
of the Western world, when it is in just those states—those that practice
freedom of religion—that the peaceful jihad of conversion might be most
successfully waged.