Edited sentence: Islām’s essential egalitarianism within the community of the faithful and its official discrimination against the followers of other religions won rapid converts.Jews and Christians were assigned a special status as communities possessing scriptures and called “Peoples of the Book” (ahl al-kitāb) and therefore allowed religious autonomy.The dual religious and social character [requiring governing control] of Islām , expressing itself in one way as a religious community commissioned by God to bring its own value system to the world through jihad (“holy war” or “holy struggle”), explains the astonishing success of the early generations of Muslims.The same status of “Peoples of the Book” was later extended to Zoroastrians and Hindus [after many killings], but many “people of the Book” joined Islām in order to escape the disability of the jizyah.They were however required to pay a per capita tax called jizyah [Muslims had no such discriminatory tax], as opposed pagans, who were required to accept Islām or die.… The period of Islāmic conquests and empire building marks the first phase of the expansion of Islām as a religion