Everything this sheikh says is a lie, and you can see here how these lies are used in order to advance a contemporary political agenda. In my new book The History of Jihad, I show that many, many times Muslims conquered people in order to collect the jizya. Nor did the Byzantines attack the Muslims first. And the Armenian Genocide is most certainly not a lie. As I show in the book, on August 18, 1894, the Ottoman authorities began a massacre of Armenians in the Sassoun region of eastern Asia Minor that lasted a full twenty-four days, until September 10. British vice consul Cecil M. Hallward investigated the massacre and reported to the British crown that “a large majority of the population of some twenty-five villages perished, and some of the villages were unusually large for this country.” At Geliguzan, “a number of young men were bound hand and foot, laid out in a row, had brushwood piled on them, and were burned alive.” And “many other disgusting barbarities are said to have been committed, such as ripping open pregnant women, tearing children to pieces by main force.” At yet another Armenian village, “some sixty young women and girls were driven into a church, where some soldiers were ordered to do as they liked with them and afterwards kill them, which order was carried out.” Hallward noted that he collected these details largely from “soldiers who took part in the massacre.”

“Egyptian Cleric Sheikh Sharif Abadi: The Armenian Genocide Is a Lie Fabricated by the British, the Muslims Never Perpetrated a Racial Massacre,” MEMRI, May 28, 2018:

Egyptian cleric Sheikh Sharif Abadi said that throughout history, the Muslims never fought peoples, never conquered in order to collect the jizya poll tax, never forced people to convert to Islam, and never perpetrated a racial massacre. According to Sheikh Abadi, the Armenian massacre was “a lie fabricated by the British in order to topple the Ottoman Caliphate.” He further said that when the Jews were banished from England, they came to the Ottoman Empire. “If we really wanted to kill them all, we would have done it then,” he said. The interview with Sheikh Abadi aired on May 28 on the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood Watan TV channel, which broadcasts from Turkey.

Sharif Abadi: “The Muslims have refrained from doing three things that all the other nations did.”

Interviewer: “The Muslims did not do those things, but all the other nations did?”

Sharif Abadi: “All the nations did it, except for us.”

Interviewer: “What are these things?”

Sharif Abadi: “First of all, we never fought peoples. Whoever says that we conquered in order to collect the jizya poll tax is lying. We have never fought any people.

[…]

“Who started the fight? Us or the Byzantines? In Mu’tah [629 CE], who started the fight?”

Interviewer: “The Byzantines or the Persians?”

Sharif Abadi: “It was the Byzantines who started the fight in the Battle of Mu’tah.

[…]

“When we fought the Byzantines, we fought their emperor.”

Interviewer: “Right.”

Sharif Abadi: “When the emperor fell, did we fight the people or did we let them be? We fought the emperor and his brutal soldiers, but did we force people [to convert] after we won?

[…]

“The second thing is that we have never perpetrated a racial massacre. We have never laid siege on a certain group and kill, let’s say, all the Jews.”

Interviewer: “So why do people say that the Ottoman Caliphate perpetrated a massacre against the Armenians?”

Sharif Abadi: “It is a lie.”

Interviewer: “Why?”

Sharif Abadi: “The Armenians are the ones who betrayed [the Ottomans]. There is a historical story behind it, but [the massacre] never happened. It is a lie fabricated by the British in order to topple the Ottoman Caliphate. Are you saying that we had refrained from perpetrating racial massacres for 14 centuries, just to carry one out in the final two years of the Caliphate? Does this even make sense? It’s a lie. There was no racial massacre of the Armenians. They are the ones who started it. They are the ones who betrayed us. They are the ones who killed Muslims and burned mosques.

[…]

“When the Jews found themselves under pressure in Europe, and England prevented them from entering London for 350 years…”

Interviewer: “So where did they live?”

Sharif Abadi: “They came to us, to the Ottoman Empire. If we really wanted to kill them all, we would have done it then, right? Have we ever massacred Christians? Have we ever massacred the Amazigh, the Berbers, anyone? We have never perpetrated a racial massacre or killed women and children.

[…]

“The third thing is that we have never forced anyone to convert to Islam.”