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Muslims are not to be feared. If you can quote exact parts of the Qur'an which worry you, please post them and we may clarify for you.

Also, there is no "holy war" in Islam, that is a Christian term from the Crusades.

What about ghazis?

I'm sure there are many peoples in history who would beg to differ, namely the Persians, Romans, and a few of the Indians. (Not that Persia and India, and those parts of the Roman Empire that were conquered didn't benefit from Islamic conquest and recieve good treatment despite religious differences!)

I am familiar with ghazis. Strangely enough, in high school & college history I never heard a word of Muslim's position in the Ottoman Empire (which is why the crecent star & moon often represent the Middle East now) or in the rule of Spain.

Can you name particular times in history when Muslims were barbaric or went to war without being provoked? I am still in the process of learning Islamic history, It's very long & detailed (Well, at least my resources are)

So far, I've not came to anything that can even compare to the Christian crusades. Of course Muslims went to war with the name of Islam, but at the time of the Prophet (peace be upon him) Muslims were shunned and stoned for what they believed. I believe Muhammad (peace be upon him) was even shunned by most of his own family over it...

So did Muslims go to war for Islam? Yes.
But in NO way would I call it a holy war.

No. People who say that have obviously never read the Qu'ran.
And Obama isn't Muslim. Even if he was, why would that matter?

Al-Andalus was a rather successful Muslim state in Hispania and for many years was the most cultured and civilized part of Europe, indeed. But I don't recall hearing that the earlier Visigoths ever provoked the Muslims into attacking them, rather, it was zealous recent converts to Islam who rode rafts across the strait and had almost an entire nation immediately surrender to them (as, it is believed, they saw more in the coming new order than they did in the corrupt Visgothic Kings). The captures of cities were simple and (as it has been suggested by recent archaeological digs) bloodless. But that's irrelevant. The Visigoths in no way provoked the Ummayad caliphate into attacking them. The Romans, for their part, did not directly provoke Muhammed into sending an early army against them (however, Muslim conquest could have been justified if the Qur'anic account is proper, as it explains that these peoples preferred Muslim rule to Roman). However, there is no such explanation for the conquest of the Persian Empire, which hadn't even communicated with the Muslims in any degree. Islam, however, does not have a history in general of being what we would consider barbaric at all. But unprovoked war is something more arguable.

I also don't understand the negative connotations of the expression holy war. Were there not many wars even in biblical accounts where God himself approved of them, thus making them Holy? As far as I can imagine, if a war is truly a holy war, there is no war more just than it. Thus, to have a war be styled as a holy war makes it better than a mere war of expansion.

Edit: IT should be noted that this is more just questioning the caliphates as legitimate successors of Muhammed, and whether or not they did or did not wage aggressive wars. The Qur'an in no way (as far as I know) promotes violence.

What? No, the Muslims invaded Persia and it's population remained largely Zoroastrian for like 200 years. The Persian royal family, for their part, took up residence in China because it wasn't safe for them to be in Persia.

The emigration of the Persian royal family to China is covered in the book "A History of Chinese Civilization" by Jacques Gernet, as it is mentioned that the Persians became trusted lieutenants within the Chinese state at the time (I believe Song dynasty?). The slow conversion of the Persians to Islam is something I was more under the impression of, but it is true that the nobility converted to Islam first. It's just suggested if not utterly stated that the peasantry either slowly converted, or mass-emigrated out of Persia to India, where they became the Parsis and the Iranis. I'll try to find a book that will agree with that statement.

However, that Muslims have gone to war unprovoked is as easy as stating one of the most famous warlords in history: Tamerlane. This was a fellow who rather cruelly massacred his fellow Muslims and built pyramids of their skulls, who styled himself a Ghazi even as he killed his own comrades in faith under false pretenses that only barely veiled his true intents. However, I regretted to state him as he did not represent Islam as a faith in the same way the Caliphates did. I'm still not entirely sure the caliphates didn't go to war unprovoked against the Visigoths, the Vandals ((Not sure about this one, the Vandals were defeated by Belisarius but they could have been back in Carthage (Tunis) by the time the Caliphates rolled around)), the Romans and the Persians. Islam isn't accountable for all these minor Sultans, Shahs and other lesser leaders, as Islam historically did not even acknowledge their existence as legitimate, as it was believed (I'm under the impression) that the Muslims should be under a Caliphate. You'd know more about that than I would.