On a recent episode of his show, Tucker Carlson interviewed Christian commentator and theologian J.D. Hall on Christian Zionism, dispensationalism, and related topics.
During the discussion, Hall argued that Islam has historically been “kind” to Christians, especially under the Ottoman Empire.
Allie Beth Stuckey, however, believes this Muslim-sympathic interview is another attempt by Carlson to “whitewash Islam.”
On this episode of “Relatable,” Allie dives into the real history of Islam’s relationship with Christianity.
“When the Ottomans were in control of the promised land for 400 years in the millet system, they didn’t charge churches tax. Israel started just a few years ago,” Hall said, arguing that the Muslim rulers were actually “very kind to Christians.”
Citing the work of Raymond Ibrahim — a prominent historian specializing in Islamic history, the Middle East, and the historical and contemporary interactions between Islam and the West — Allie calls Hall’s claim about the taxes “misleading.”
“Churches weren’t specifically taxed, but Christians … had to pay an extra tax called the jizya that was imposed on non-Muslims. That was the only way to guarantee any kind of protection,” Allie corrects.
“It’s true that the Ottomans allowed religious communities to govern many of their own affairs … but non-Muslims remained second-class subjects. In addition to paying extra taxes, they faced restrictions on churches, on evangelism, legal rights, dress, bearing arms,” she continues.
Hall’s claim that Muslims were kind to Christians, however, “is just not true” at all, says Allie. “The Islamic Ottoman Empire persecuted Christians for centuries, killed them, enslaved them for centuries.”
She then gives the example of the Muslim takeover of Constantinople — “the center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity” and “the last remnant of the Roman Empire.”
“So when the city’s defenses gave way, thousands of civilians crowded into the Hagia Sophia, the city’s largest church, seeking safety, and the Ottoman troops led by Sultan Mehmed II forced their way inside, and the refuge became the scene of looting, enslavement, widespread abuse, including mass rape,” says Allie.
She reads eyewitness accounts from Thomas the Eparch and Joshua Diplovatatzes (two Byzantine figures who witnessed and documented the city’s fall): “Then, he (Sultan Mehmed II) seized one of the grand duke’s daughters, who was quite beautiful, and made her lie on the great altar of the Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped her. Then, the most brutish of the Turks seized the finest noble women, virgins, and nuns of the city and violated them in the presence of the Greeks and in the sacrilege of Christianity.”
“Wow — things haven’t changed in centuries,” says Allie. “This is the same thing that happens to Christians today in very similar manners, certainly in places like Nigeria and Uganda.”
“It is not just the pillaging of Christian women; it is the purposeful blasphemy against the Christian God.”
To hear more of Allie’s rebuttal, watch the episode above.
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