The Spread of Religion

I think that one important point to make about the spread of religion is the importance of missionaries in its spread. Christianity and Islam, the world's two largest religions, are both missionary faiths which engage and have engaged extensively in conversion activities. Both faiths were successful, I believe, in large part due to the fact that they were ready and willing to send emmissaries of their religion to convert people in new areas. Buddhism also did this, but with a lesser degree of success. Christianity and Islam both became the official religions of large empires, which often forced the people in the areas they conquered to convert to their respective religion or suffer. With Buddhism this was never so, which I believe at least partially explains the discrepancy. Judaism, which is NOT a missionary religion, remains very small today when compared to Islam, Christianity, or even Buddhism. While this is also due to centuries of persecution by various groups, there has never been any significant comeback by Judaism due to the fact that it has never actively sought to convert new believers to their faith.