Christian polemicists portrayed medieval Muslim sexuality as wholly unregulated

Evidence

Islamic rules about witnesses, but not, strangely, to those that disqualified Christians from testifying in court cases that came before the qadi.**® Discrepancy between the Qur’anic and Mosaic laws of witnesses mysteriously irritated Ricoldo, who pointed to it with that triumphant air characteristic of his work whenever he felt that he or his source had unearthed some particular conclusive and self-evident absurdity. What he thought so significant in this now escapes us. There might well have been more attack than there was upon the acceptance of magical practices in Muslim society.®° Little polemic use was made of the Islamic seclusion of women.®! The serious criticism of Islam that it made no provision for restitution in cases of injury was not raised widely.®* None of these points loomed very large in the mediaeval tradition which was always dominated by the consideration of Islamic lubricity. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 848 (#expands, via linked claim)

In their disturbing teachings, these ones [that is, the Muslims] recount and babble, as if proclaiming something noble, that this pimp of theirs, preoccupied with the activity of seduction, had obtained the power of Aphrodite in excess of other men; that he had received as a gift from his god a more abundant “will of Venus” than others; that he had a greater quantity of liquid for his foul activities than the rest; that he could distribute this fluid with less effort than could other men; and that he had been given the endurance in coitus and indeed the abundance of more than forty men for exercising his lust for women. The foul, fertile abundance of his rank loins [came] not from God, the begetter of all things, as this most evil robber dreamed, but from Venus, the ridiculous mate of Vulcan, that is, from the wife of fire. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 139 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Oliver contrasts Muhammad’s life and law with those of Christ. The way to heaven, he asserts, is through chastity; your polygamy is the path to hell. Your prophet taught you that those who were killed by their enemies would go straight to a heaven replete with carnal delights; “our teacher” taught us to love our enemy in hopes of attaining a purely spiritual reward in the next life. “Your doctor,” who was taught by a Jew and an apostate monk named Sergius, ordered to conquer by the sword all who did not recognize him. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1036 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval Christians misread Islamic concubinage as unregulated promiscuity — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 779; Medieval Christian polemicists fixated on Muslim sexuality over graver legal issues — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 848; Medieval polemic treated Muslim sexuality as a symptom of a deeper spiritual laxity — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 855 (+10 more)

Related

• Medieval fixation on genital washing mirrored Christian obsession with Islamic sexual sin (similarity 0.92)
• Medieval Christian polemicists fixated on Muslim sexuality over graver legal issues (similarity 0.89)
• Medieval polemic treated Muslim sexuality as a symptom of a deeper spiritual laxity (similarity 0.88)
• Medieval Christian polemicists fixated on Islam’s legal theory while knowing nothing of its practice (similarity 0.87)
• Medieval Christian polemic held Muslim sexuality as a core mark of heresy. (similarity 0.87)
• Crusade-era polemic framed Islam as carnally licentious and militarily coercive against Christian love (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christians misread Islamic concubinage as unregulated promiscuity (similarity 0.86)
• Christians framed Islam as a religion built on sexual licence (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval attacks on Islam centered on its denial of chastity and reason (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval Christian polemic mocked Muslim sexual mores to discredit the Koran (similarity 0.84)
• Medieval Christian polemicists sexualized Muhammad into a monstrous hyperfertile pimp (similarity 0.83)
• The carnal Paradise was the central symbol of Christian anti-Islam polemic (similarity 0.82)
• Critics linked Islamic sexual laxity to its doctrines of determinism and paradise (similarity 0.82)
• Medieval polemicists attacked Islam mainly through its marriage and sexuality laws (similarity 0.82)
• Twelfth-century Christian polemicists framed Islam as lust-ridden heresy. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Medieval Christian polemicists fixated on Muslim sexuality over graver legal issues #expands (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 848
• Medieval Christian polemicists sexualized Muhammad into a monstrous hyperfertile pimp #exemplifies (0.85) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 139
• Medieval polemic treated Muslim sexuality as a symptom of a deeper spiritual laxity #expands (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 855
• Medieval Christian polemicists framed Islam as lust-driven heresy rather than separate religion #expands (0.80)
• Medieval Christian polemicists mocked Islam chiefly through exaggerated sexual caricatures. #corroborates (0.80)
• Crusade-era polemic framed Islam as carnally licentious and militarily coercive against Christian love #expands (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1036
• Medieval Christian polemic held Muslim sexuality as a core mark of heresy. #qualifies (0.75) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 805
• Medieval polemicists attacked Islam mainly through its marriage and sexuality laws #expands (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1202
• Medieval fixation on genital washing mirrored Christian obsession with Islamic sexual sin #expands (0.70)
• The social character of Islamic practice went unrecognized by medieval Christian writers #contradicts (0.70)