Dean Prideaux’s anti-Muhammad polemic recycled medieval accusations well into the Enlightenment.

Evidence

It is astonishing how late the prejudiced approach survived. Pére Nau and many others were less prejudiced and fairer than, several generations later, Prideaux, the Dean of Norwich who acknowledged his debt to Ricoldo when he set out deliberately to establish the Prophet’s zmposture. His is the classic example of all that was least generous in the Christian attitude, and he was entirely indebted to the polemic lines of the mediaeval writers, though in balance of judgement inferior to the best of them. It may be that his real purpose was to defend revealed religion from the attacks of the Deists; but this cannot, by modern standards, excuse the use of false material. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1598

Categorization

• QUESTION: Prideaux’s stated motive — defending revealed religion from deists — is intriguing; did deists actually use Islam to undermine Christianity, and did that debate shape even fair-minded orientalism?