Anti-Muslim polemic targets distant figures rather than living enemies

Evidence

The treatment of Muhammad was a reversal of hagiography, from his unpropitious birth to his bad death at the last. When two societies are at war, or confidently expect to be at war, they must mutually be aware of whatever separates them, especially in belief, in the practices of daily life and in the events of past and contemporary history which they share. There is likely to be a tendency to exaggerate or invent differences. A society would have to be remarkably tolerant to recognise the virtues, and make allowance for the faults, of their enemies’ leaders. It is surprising how often the Latin West did in fact admit the humane virtue, and even admire the chivalry or strength of government, of contemporary Muslim enemies; the legend of Saladin is the obvious case, and Tripoli’s veneration for Baybars is another. On the other hand, there were few saints produced by the Reconquest and fewer by the Crusades; Godfrey of Bouillon’s heroic aura acquired only in retrospect a sacred connotation. Worse was attributed to the long-dead Muhammad than to any living leader of Islam; partly because he was so distant in time, he could be made to impersonate all those things which seemed most abominable in his religion. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1377

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates and extends the Aziz/Razack cluster on how ‘the Muslim’ is constituted — here the mechanism is temporal distance from a dead foundational figure, complementing how modern Racial Muslim discourse targets a present, embodied figure.