Christian theology had no category for a later legitimate revelation, making dhimmi tolerance unreciprocable

Evidence

Spanish Christians confronted by the rise of Islam reacted in various ways, much along the lines of their Eastern brethren a century earlier. Churchmen begrudgingly accepted their role as dhimmi and chronicled the military and political destinies of their new overlords without commenting on their religious beliefs. Theologically, these writers could explain Islam’s military successes only as punishment for the sins of heretical or morally depraved rulers (Heraclius, Witiza, Rodrigo); they had plenty of models in the Bible and in earlier Christian historiography to guide them. Yet their new role of protected, second-class minority was unprecedented: nothing in the writings of earlier Christians described anything remotely like it. If Islam tolerated Judaism and Christianity as expressions of valid (though superseded) revelation (as Christians in theory tolerated Judaism), there was no place in the Christian scheme of history for a later legitimate revelation. Christians had no solid theological grounds for showing the same tolerance toward their Muslim overlords that they received from them. As a result, these Arabized churchmen, some of whom held important positions in the Umayyad administration, preferred to keep an awkward silence about the religion of their new overlords and benefactors. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 579

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s claims via Aziz/Razack about the asymmetrical tolerance in Islamic-Christian encounter — the idea that Islam’s supersessionist deficit made reciprocal tolerance structurally impossible.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’/‘Sacrifice’ genealogy papers by showing the medieval root of the asymmetry thesis: Christians had no theological grounds to tolerate Muslims the way Muslims tolerated them.