Copying produced a self-sufficient and closed Christian concept of Islam

Evidence

There was a very great deal of copying of statements and whole passages about Islam, perhaps because of the general ignorance of the subject, or because there was a special craving for unanimity. Whatever the reasons, this nearly communal attitude existed. In the many cases of writers’ correcting one another, this was done to support themes which, when the proofs had been discredited, must be maintained with different evidence. Very largely, Christians drew from a single kitty, to which they contributed again. The Christian concept of Islam was integral and self-sufficient. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1400

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Extends the vault’s thesis: Islam constructed as the outside is here shown produced by intertextual copying rather than encounter — a medieval precursor to modern discourse-reproduction claims in Razack and Aziz.
• DEFINE: Shows ‘integral and self-sufficient’ as the mechanism-based definition of a discursive construct — Islam as the West’s outside is internally generated, not referential.
• XREF: connects to: Homo islamicus named a fixed Muslim essence readable from texts alone