An introspective self-critical turn marked a new era in Christian thought about Islam
Evidence
This explanation, which points inwards at Christians themselves and their own deficiencies as the explanation for their lack of success, and for the persistent deviation of Islam from the truth, is the mark of the new age. — R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle…, 467
Categorization
- SEED: Article angle: how religious communities explain the persistence of other faiths by blaming their own failings, and when that self-critique becomes politically dangerous.
Related
- The medieval Christian image of Islam was self-referential and internally self-correcting (similarity 0.83)
- Medieval thinkers blamed Christians’ own divisions and vices for Islam’s refusal to convert (similarity 0.82)
- Western discourse reduces all Muslim societies to a single malevolent essence (similarity 0.81)
- Christian authors framed new heresies by linking them to earlier discredited errors (similarity 0.81)
- Islam’s military success forced Christians to reinterpret church history as corruption (similarity 0.80)
- Western scholars equated Islamic morality with the possibility of Islamic self-critique (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval Christian critics of Islam lacked Arabic competence and historical perspective (similarity 0.80)
- Christians could only conceive Islam as derivative of Christian truth (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval Christian polemics could only read Islam as affirming or negating Christianity (similarity 0.80)
- Islam’s worldly success made it uniquely impervious to church refutation (similarity 0.80)
- Islam posed the most far-reaching problem medieval Christendom faced (similarity 0.80)
- Radical and subversive thought has always been integral to Islamic history (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval Christian critics mirrored modern assumptions about Muslim shrine devotion (similarity 0.80)
- Islam’s selective agreement with Christianity defied medieval categorization (similarity 0.79)
- Christians attacked Islam by historicizing Muhammad’s revelation to its place and time. (similarity 0.79)