A major twelfth-century Christian polemicist never read the Koran
Evidence
Alan seems to be unaware of the existence of the Koran; indeed he continually puts into the mouths of his Saracen adversaries citations from the Old Testament, with which they are supposed to defend their heretical doctrines. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 883
Categorization
Category: Contrarian or Surprising Claims
- QUESTION: How widespread was ignorance of the actual Koran among Latin medieval polemicists, and when did they first seriously engage the text itself?
Related
- Medieval Christian polemicists attacked Islam without knowing the Koran (similarity 0.91)
- A medieval polemicist could know Muslim doctrine details yet grasp no coherent Islam (similarity 0.84)
- Medieval Christian polemicists wielded Koranic citations to argue against Islam (similarity 0.81)
- Even learned medieval polemicists had to correct the pagan view of Saracens. (similarity 0.81)
- Medieval Christian polemic dismissed the Koran as satanic, not divine (similarity 0.80)
- Peter’s anti-Islamic polemic reached few medieval readers though his Koran translation circulated widely. (similarity 0.80)
- Christian polemicists argued the Koran proves scripture’s divinity through its own claims (similarity 0.79)
- Anti-Islamic polemic froze into its framework by the thirteenth century (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval Christian anti-Islamic polemic relied on the Koran’s own text to refute it (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval Christian polemicists knew Islamic Christology but falsely assumed Muslims accepted the Old Testament (similarity 0.79)
- Latin polemicists escalated earlier Eastern calumnies against Muhammad into Koran-invalidity arguments (similarity 0.79)