I find it interesting that Charlemagne and the Islamic powers of his age were expanding or consolidating at roughly the same time, but in very different ways. Christians like to act like they are on the high ground while Islam is violent and spread by the sword. But that is actually the opposite, it is a projection.

Islamic armies conquered territory. That is true. But conquest is not the same thing as mass forced conversion. Non-Muslim subjects, especially Jews and Christians, were not normally murdered simply because they refused to become Muslim. They could live under Muslim rule, keep their churches and religious communities, and pay the jizya as protected but second-class subjects. That is not modern religious liberty, obviously, but it is also not “convert or die.” Hugh Kennedy summarizes the early Islamic pattern clearly: the alternatives were conversion, submission with taxes, or continued war, not simple conversion or death. He also notes that Muslim authorities did not force people to convert, though the system encouraged conversion over time.

Charlemagne’s Saxon campaign is much closer to what people claim Islam did everywhere. His wars against the Saxons lasted from 772 to 804, involved 18 campaigns, and ended with the forced Christianization of Saxony. His Saxon laws made refusal of baptism punishable by death. The Saxon Wars included the execution of reportedly 4,500 Saxons at Verden, at least 10,000 Saxons killed between 772 and 782, thousands more by 800, and 10,000 Saxons deported in 804.

So if someone wants to talk about religion “spread by the sword,” they need to be honest. Early Islamic expansion involved conquest, taxation, and political submission. Charlemagne’s expansion into Saxony involved forced baptism backed by death penalties. That is not a footnote. That is Christianity marching into Europe with a sword in one hand and a baptismal font in the other.