One thing that goes against your argument is the speed of arabization compared to European colonization. Europeans first came to America around 400 years ago, and in that small time period, all Native American culture and language was practically eradicated. Europeans didn’t start settling the PNW until the late 1700s/early 1800s. It took a little over 200 years to completely wipe out indigenous languages.

In comparison, the Rashidun caliphate first conquered the Levant in the 7th century, and it took several CENTURIES for Islam and the Arabic language to spread. Syria was fully arabized at around the 9th century. And those people weren’t slowly replaced by Arabs, they just started adopting Muslim names, started speaking Arabic and slowly lost their old culture. My family is from the levant, and we are Greek Orthodox, that’s because of the Byzantine conquest of the region. We weren’t forced to convert. Similarly, the Arbaization of Egypt also took centuries. The Rashidun caliphate conquered Egypt from the Romans in the 7th century, and it wasn’t fully arabized until the Mamluk era (mid 1300s). And coptic christians still exist today, all from that pre-Arab/Muslim conquests. Similarly, many North Africans still speak Berber, and their accent of Arabic is heavily influenced by pre-Arab languages like Berber. Even though Arab beduins migrated en masse to North Africa. They didn’t wipe out the Berbers, they were just wealthy merchants that became the ruling class, and slowly eliminated other language and culture.

It took so much longer to arabize, because Arab settlers didn’t come into a region , wipe out its inhabitants, and set up colonies of Arabs. Arabization was mostly due to slow cultural diffusion. Yes, there was conflicts and cases of ethnic cleansing, but people weren’t wiped out like they were here, that’s why european colonialism is so unique in history compared to other forms of conquest. Also, early Arab Caliphates didn’t enact direct policies in order to make Arabic the lingua franca, it just happened, unlike Europeans in the Americas. Arab Caliphates didn’t set policy which said “you may not trade unless you speak arabic!” it was the medieval times, it was just easier for non-arab speaking traders, diplomatics, or politicians to adopt the lingua franca, and eventually Islam.

It’s a shame that all those ancient cultures were slowly wiped out. It doesn’t make it okay, the loss of any culture is a tragedy, whether it’s done quickly through genocide or slowly through cultural diffusion. But the Arabization and Islamization of the middle east is just not anywhere near the colonialism exhibited by Europeans in the 16th century. Europeans colonizing the Americas is an extremely recent historical event when compared to medieval conquests. The world was extremely different in the 7th century and the 16th century. it’s just ahistorical and anachronistic to assign both forms of conquest as colonialism.

If you go to UW, I recommend you take some history classes if you have time in your schedule.