Throughout 1,400 years since Prophet Muhammad began preaching in 610 CE, multiple major powers launched campaigns explicitly aimed at eradicating or severely weakening Islam as a faith and civilization, yet every one ultimately failed and often backfired. The Crusades (1095–1291) sought to wrest the Holy Land from Muslim control but collapsed after two centuries, instead unifying Muslim forces under leaders like Saladin and accelerating Islam’s spread into new regions. The 13th-century Mongol invasions devastated Baghdad and the Abbasid Caliphate, yet the conquerors themselves converted en masse, becoming patrons who carried Islam deeper into Asia. Spain’s Reconquista (completed 1492) and subsequent Inquisition expelled or forcibly converted Muslims from Iberia—the only clear regional success—but could not touch the faith’s heartlands or prevent its expansion into Africa and Asia. European colonial empires (19th–20th centuries) imposed secular rule across much of the Muslim world, while 20th-century atheist regimes in the Soviet Union and China suppressed mosques and clergy, yet Islam survived underground and surged after those empires fell. Post-9/11 Western interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq likewise aimed to reshape Muslim societies but did not diminish global adherence. The consistent result has been resilience: from a handful of followers in Arabia, Islam has grown uninterrupted into the world’s second-largest religion with over two billion adherents across every continent today, demonstrating that repeated attempts to uproot it have instead highlighted its enduring appeal and adaptability.