Christians explained Muslim conquest by redeploying biblical prophecies of suffering at infidel hands.

Evidence

Those Christians who rejected conversion, who chose to remain Christian, needed to come up with another explanation. This was to be sought, naturally, in authoritative books: the Bible and the writings of church fathers. These were indeed a rich source of explanation: the Hebrew prophets, Gospel, and the book of Revelation spoke of the tribulations that God’s people were to suffer at the hands of infidel oppressors. These passages were redeployed and reinterpreted to make sense of the Muslim victories. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 48

Categorization

• XREF: Directly grounds the vault’s genealogical claim that medieval exegesis supplied the template later mapped onto Islam — connects to Anidjar’s argument that theological frameworks persist in secularized form.
• ADDENDUM: Supports the reader’s stated purpose: shows the scriptural hermeneutic through which Muslim victories were rendered as divinely sanctioned tribulation, the root of later ‘Islam as punishment/oppressor’ framing.