A recent post at Jihad Watch reminds us that Islam has been intolerant of infidels since Muhammad first founded the theology – Muslim ruler in (the 8th century) tells Christians: “You have two options. Either die or convert to our religion” ~

(I)n the late 770s, the Abbasid caliph al-Mahdi traveled to Aleppo, where twelve thousand Christians greeted him with great honor. Al-Mahdi, however, was not disposed to respond in kind, and told them: “You have two options. Either die or convert to our religion.” Most of the Christians chose to die rather than embrace Islam.
 
In and around Baghdad, he noticed that the Assyrian Christians had built new churches since the Muslim conquest, in violation of dhimmi laws; he ordered them destroyed; five thousand Christians in Syria were given the choice of conversion to Islam or death. Many stayed true to their ancestral faith and chose death.

A recent archaeological find confirms that intolerance of other faiths was a central tenet of Islam since its beginning ~ Early Muslim Holy Land Rule Not So Tolerant of Christianity ~

A brass weight weighing approximately 160 grams was discovered in Sussita during excavations led by the University of Haifa. Upon closer inspection, the archaeologists discovered the artifact contained a surprise.
 
 
“More or less by chance, we discovered a stain covering the cross on the obverse of the weight,” said Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, who is the head of the Hippos-Sussita excavations, to The Jerusalem Post. “At first we were convinced that it was just dirt, but in fact the stain was made deliberately to conceal a cross, a Christian religious symbol used by the Christian population, so that they could continue to use the weight in their contacts with the new Muslim rulers. This is the first time that we have found a weight featuring this type of concealed element.”
 
The site overlooking the Sea of Galilee was a Greco-Roman city named Hippos. Hippos was founded in the second century CE, and later became a major conurbation during the Roman and Byzantine periods. The city declined after the Muslim conquest of the region in the seventh century and was abandoned in 749 CE after an earthquake. It is believed to have been referred to several times in the New Testament, though not by name […]
 
 
“The cross was deliberately covered by church officials during the early Islamic period so that they could continue to use the weight, together with other weights in the official city weights set kept at the central church in Hippos, as well as in their contacts with the Muslim administration in Tiberias. This situation offers a precise illustration of the dividing line during this period of regime change between considerable religious and cultural freedom and the point when a Muslim official might be forced to hold an object displaying an overtly Christian emblem,” Eisenberg said.

 
Think things have changed much in the last 13 centuries? Spend some time at The Religion of Peace, World Watch Monitor and Open Doors.