Better-informed Christians under Muslim rule produced far more hostile views of Islam

Evidence

One would expect a very different view of Islam in the writings of Spaniards thrust into the role of dhimmi. Indeed, ninth-century writer Paul Alvarus, who wrote in Muslim Córdoba in the 850s, was much better informed about Islam than Bede and far more hostile. Muhammad, for Alvarus, was an Antichrist, and in his readings of the Prophets and of Revelation, Alvarus saw the clear predictions of Islam and the Muslim conquests. Alvarus wrote in defense of the Córdoba martyrs, Christians (mostly monks) who publicly insulted Islam and its prophet in a deliberate attempt to provoke the Muslim authorities into executing them for blasphemy—or, in the eyes of Alvarus, martyring them. Alvarus forged an aggressively anti- Muslim theology of history, with which he tried (unsuccessfully) to convince his fellow Christians to support and revere the martyrs. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 460

Categorization

• QUESTION: Fascinating inversion: proximity to Islam bred venom, distance bred indifference. Worth chasing how Alvarus’s Córdoba martyrs were received — did the local ruler executing them make them martyrs for both sides?
• SHARE: The Córdoba martyrs provoking their own executions as deliberate blasphemy is a striking detail a medievalist friend would enjoy.