Belief in conspiracies and suppressed facts enabled Christian distortion of Muhammad.

Evidence

This presentation of a wholly new version of the historical figure of Muhammad, one which no Arab could recognise, was facilitated by the ease with which it is possible to believe in some vast conspiracy to deceive; people have believed to an exaggerated extent in the conspiracies against society of Albigensians or Freemasons or Jesuits founded on esoteric knowledge. It is still easier to believe that a body of facts is suppressed by an openly hostile society. Thus a ‘real truth’ was substituted for an ‘ostensible’ one: for the Prophet of the Hijaz, the magician whom swine devoured. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1377

Categorization

• XREF: Conspiracy-belief mechanism echoes modern Islamophobia literature and general epistemic studies. — connects to: Presse editors suppressed scandal coverage out of faith in the Moses myth. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the…, 4043