Crusade hagiography projected classical polytheist idol worship onto Muslims wholesale

Evidence

One day their king discovered that Thiemo had been trained as a goldsmith, so he asked him to repair a golden idol. Thiemo asked for a hammer and approached the idol. He addressed the demon inhabiting the idol, ordering it in the name of God to leave the statue. When the demon uttered blasphemies, Thiemo smashed the idol with his hammer. This led to his martyrdom: he was thrown into prison, brought out the next day, put on an ass, whipped, and brought to an arena before the throngs; there the king accused him of sacrilege. Thiemo responded that the idols were not gods but demons, and preached that the king should desist from the worship of Saturn, Jove, and the obscene Priapus. The king responded by ordering that all Thiemo’s fingers be cut off, as well of those of his followers, and that their limbs then be lopped off. As the king drank the martyrs’ blood, Thiemo commended his soul unto God, and the crowd saw a choir of angels descend to take up the souls of the martyrs. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 601