Many false ideas are being spread by a handful of popular podcasters. Fortunately, John Stonestreet and Professor Glenn Sunshine answer with a Breakpoint commentary, “No, Islam is Not Kind to Christians.”

For example, they take on the false claim that relations between Islam and the Christian world were peaceful for 500 years. After the death of Mohammad, the Muslim army moved out of Arabia and took “the Holy Land and North Africa from the Christian Byzantine Empire. It had also conquered Spain and advanced into France a few hundred miles from Paris.”  In my presentation on Islam and terrorism, I show a map and the movement of Muslim army across Africa and into Europe until its defeat at the hand of Charles Martel.

Christians in those conquered regions were treated as dhimmis (second class citizens) and required to pay the jizra(special tax and sign of submission). And this leads to another false claim that Muslim leaders protected Christian holy sites. They respond, “nothing could be further from the truth.” Many were demolished. Others were turned into mosques.

They also document the treatment of Christians under the Ottoman Empire. Boys and   girls were often taken into slavery. They also remind us that the “worst violence was the Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek genocides of the early twentieth century” where millions were killed. Today, we still see how difficult it is for Christians to live in a Muslim country, and the news continually reports the ongoing slaughter of Christians in Nigeria and other African countries.

I applaud these two men for setting the record straight. I would encourage you to read their short commentary or get a copy of my book, Understanding Islam and Terrorism: A Biblical Point of View. We cannot let these false ideas go unchallenged.