Christian observers were structurally excluded from mosques and so misread Islamic worship

Evidence

The fact is that, although the prayer voiced and performed in unison in the mosque is characteristic of Islamic devotion, this was not understood by the Latins, who were never present, under normal conditions, in the mosque. … Even the fact that there is a special communal prayer, intended to bring together, not small groups, but the whole people - the Friday prayer when the entire Muslim community attended the same mosque - was barely known and rarely appreciated. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1184

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete mechanism for the vault’s claim that ‘Islam’ as a construct is produced by outsiders who never encounter actual Muslims — mirrors Aziz’s point that the racial Muslim is defined by surveillance rather than contact.