People rightfully criticize European colonialism and imperialism, but Islamic imperialism also caused lots of cultural assimilation and exploitation in non-Arab countries in East Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia but no one talks about how Islam has been weaponized as a tool to destroy cultures in these places.

I am not South Asian but I was talking to a Muslim who said "South Asian countries were miserable before lots of people became Muslim. Islam brought civilization to those lands." and I was bothered by how racist, disrespectful and also historically inaccurate it sounds. And as someone from a non-Arab Muslim majority country, I realized this person would probably say the same thing about my country, that we were "not civilized" before Islam. This is the exact same way European colonizers talk about Native Americans and sub Saharan Africans to justify imperialism.

Then when these non-Arab countries become Muslim, everything integral to their culture is suddenly seen as a sin, it becomes illegal, people start giving themselves Arabic names, uttering Arabic prayers from hundreds of years ago that they have no understanding of