Crusaders justified holy war by calling Muslims pagan idolaters

Evidence

For Raymond d’Aguiliers, the Crusade—in all its bloodiness—is justifi- able first and foremost as vengeance. The pagans, who crucified Christ, who continue to crucify him in effigy, and whose rites pollute the sacred places of Jerusalem, deserve to have the wrath of God fall on them in the form of the crusaders’ sword. For Raymond as for Tudebodus, the Saracens’ supposed paganism is a key element in vindicating the Crusade. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 648

Tudebodus’s descriptions of Saracen paganism form a key element in his justification of the Crusade. Christianity has from the beginning been locked in a struggle with paganism: now the time has come—predicted both in scripture and in the stars—when Christ will vanquish the idols once and for all, and his people will come into his inheritance. The army of God is painted in the colors of the Bible, described both as the righteous army of Israel and as the new apostolate. The confrontation between God’s army and the pagan army, like that between the crucifix and the idol of Machomet, can have only one outcome: victory for the Christians. Themes essential to Christian history—pilgrimage, martyrdom, and the fight against idolatry—combine to form a powerful justification of the Crusade. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 642

Categorization

• QUESTION: How does this ‘Saracens as pagans’ frame connect to the reader’s vault claims that Islam was variously framed as heresy and as paganism across medieval polemic?
• XREF: Continues and instantiates Tolan’s own thesis chapter arc (Saracens-as-pagans); could feed the vault’s genealogy of Islamophobic framing.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 648; John V. Tolan, Saracens, 642