As American leftists find increasing common ground with Islamists, some conservative commentators — most notably Tucker Carlson — have praised Islam, presenting it as a natural ally for Christians and traditionalists against what they view as a corrupt imperialist system led by Western elites and Israel.
While Carlson’s shift began in 2024, it has accelerated noticeably over the past year amid repeated trips to Gulf states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, where he announced he was purchasing a home in December of last year.
In recent months, Carlson has extolled Muslim societies governed by Sharia law, claimed that Muslims love Jesus (while ignoring centuries of warfare directed at Christians), asserted that past Islamic regimes treated Christians well, and downplayed the threat of Islamic jihad.
Let’s look at how Carlson is distorting the record in four specific ways.
1) Were the Ottomans “very kind” to Christians?
In a June interview with JD Hall on Christian Zionism, Tucker Carlson’s guest made the following claim: “The Muslim rulers didn’t tax churches during the Ottoman period. They were very kind to Christians. As a matter of fact, they took care of our holy sites. Islamic authorities rebuilt the Church of the Sepulcher three different times over the centuries.”
While Carlson appeared to agree, the historical record paints a contrary and far more troubling picture.
Churches may not have been directly taxed, but Christians were. Many who did not convert to Islam were treated as second-class citizens, or “dhimmis,” and required by their Muslim overlords to pay the jizya tax with severe consequences if they failed to comply, up to enslavement or even execution.
Under the Ottomans, thousands of churches were either destroyed or converted into mosques, with the most prominent example being the Hagia Sophia, the world’s largest church, which was turned into a mosque after Sultan Mehmed II sacked Constantinople in 1453.
During the Ottoman conquest of Christian lands, hundreds of thousands of Christians were raped, massacred, and enslaved. The most beautiful girls were given up as sex slaves, while the strongest boys were kidnapped from their families, forcibly Islamized, and turned into jihadists.
2) Has Sharia Law made Islamic societies more advanced than the West?
In March 2026, Tucker Carlson stated, “There’s not a single Western city that’s thriving, and they’re all degrading in exactly the same way… I travel a lot in the Middle East. It’s amazing.” Carlson praised the Muslims of the Gulf states as “tolerant of diversity” while also noting that they are “governed by Sharia law.”
While Carlson’s assessment of American cities could arguably be applied to some leftist-run cities, it is simply unfair to apply his broad characterization to all Western cities. The Gulf State monarchies Carlson praises do not tolerate freedom of religion, speech, or association as enshrined in America’s Constitution. Further, these societies suffer from the most severe income inequality worldwide, with much of the wealth concentrated among a small elite.
Carlson failed to explain why the “tolerant” Gulf states discriminate against Christians. There are no Christian churches in Saudi Arabia or Jewish synagogues in Qatar. In Saudi Arabia, those who seek to publicly worship Jesus suffer imprisonment or death. And in Jordan, Muslims who convert to Christianity face persecution, remain under the jurisdiction of Sharia courts, and effectively lose their civil rights.
He simply ignored that Sharia law, by some standards, treats adultery as a capital offense, allows husbands to beat their wives, punishes female rape victims, and allows girls to be married as young as eight or nine.
3) Do Muslims love Jesus?
In April 2026, Tucker Carlson responded to a controversial AI image reposted by President Trump that appeared to depict the President as Jesus. He said, “The people in charge don’t want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus.
Islam reveres Him as a major prophet and messenger of the Lord, believes He performed miracles, and states that He will return to Earth to defeat the Antichrist...” Carlson called Trump’s post “an attack” on the religion of the president of Iran “as well as Christianity.”
While Carlson had already suggested that Trump could be the “Antichrist,” he did not add that some of the Shia hardliners running Iran’s government also believe Trump to be the “al-Dajjal,” the Islamic equivalent.
Theologically speaking, while some Muslims claim to revere Jesus, the Quran’s depiction of Christ is markedly different from the Biblical version. In Islam, Jesus is presented, not as the New Testament Son of God and the resurrected Savior of the world, but rather as a mortal Muslim prophet who avoided sacrifice.
Mohammed instructed his followers to fight all who “do not believe in Allah,” which would include Christians who believe Allah is a false prophet and Jesus is God. This is why many Muslims despise the symbol of the cross and why Christians in Africa and the Middle East, including Iran, risk harassment or death every day for their faith.
4) Is Islamic jihad a “psyop”?
In December, Tucker Carlson alleged that a TPUSA AmericaFest poll of young conservatives that placed “Radical Islam” as the top threat to America was a psychological operation from “the Israeli government” and its US defenders. He neglected a more logical answer: that the results could be attributed to Charlie Kirk’s increasing warnings about Islam in his final months.
In March, Carlson said terrorist groups only exist because they come from “collapsed, pathetic societies dominated by colonial powers.” In May, he claimed those who voted against Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) in his unsuccessful primary election were concerned about defeating “Islamic jihad, whatever that is…”
In June, Carlson encapsulated his evolution from his time at Fox News with these words: “Many times, I said on television, ‘The problem is Islam. The problem is Muslims. They all want to kill us. They're all crazy. They're all in this lunatic suicide cult created by Muhammad in the 7th century.’ And I believed that. I was hysterical. I believed that. Now, that's not true. Nothing about that is true, but I believed it.”
With these last remarks, Carlson asserted that everything he once believed negatively about Islam was untrue, that Islam is a force for good, and that all who criticize Islam or Sharia are “hysterical” and guilty of hating all Muslims.
The motivation for violent jihad is found in the example of Mohammed, the Quran, and the Hadiths, even if the definition of jihad is contested by some Islamic scholars.
And the evidence of jihad is clear from the rapid militant expansion of Islam across once Christian lands, to terrorist attacks on US soil and around the globe, to the Muslim Brotherhood’s invasive civilizational jihad in the West, and to Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran’s religious war against Israel and the United States.
