Distance from the Islamic border allowed increasingly extravagant anti-Islamic claims to be accepted

Evidence

Like earlier hostile biographies of Muhammad (John of Damascus, the Risâlat al-Kindî., Theophanes, or the Historia de Mahometh pseudopropheta) the four twelfth-century texts are based on deliberate distortions of Muslim traditions. Here, however, the Muslim tradition is more distant and the distortion more marked; these are texts meant to denigrate Islam to readers that were unlikely ever to meet a Muslim, not to dhimmis who had daily contact with Muslims. The authors are thus freer both to make Muhammad conform to the typological image of a heresiarch and to paint him in vivid colors as a scoundrel. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 749 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Accuracy about Islam declined with geographic distance from the Islamic border; Anti-Islamic polemic intensified when written for audiences far from Muslims — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 749; Anti-Islamic discourse in Europe was codified in absence of direct contact — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 171 (+1 more)

Related

• Anti-Islamic polemic intensified when written for audiences far from Muslims (similarity 0.91)
• Accuracy about Islam declined with geographic distance from the Islamic border (similarity 0.86)
• Physical contact with Muslims forced medieval authors toward greater accuracy (similarity 0.83)
• Contact with Muslims forced medieval Christians to drop absurd anti-Islamic stories (similarity 0.81)
• Theory outweighed direct observation in medieval European writing about Islam (similarity 0.81)
• Religious polemic repels the home audience more than the described adversary (similarity 0.81)
• Proximity to Muslims forced Mozarabic polemicists to make their caricatures plausibly realistic (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval audiences preferred Islam accounts easier to ridicule over accurate ones (similarity 0.80)
• Fringe frontier Christian communities generated polemical slanders later scholars universalized (similarity 0.80)
• False statements about Islam persisted for centuries because community good seemed to require them (similarity 0.79)
• Direct exposure during the Crusades did not reduce anti-Muslim mythmaking (similarity 0.79)
• Mozarab resentments on Islam’s frontier fueled fabricated Christian accusations (similarity 0.79)
• Anti-Islamic discourse in Europe was codified in absence of direct contact (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval Christian polemic constructed Islam for Christian audiences, not from Muslim sources. (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval polemicists quietly dropped claims lacking cross-tradition confirmation (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Accuracy about Islam declined with geographic distance from the Islamic border #expands (0.92)
• Mozarab resentments on Islam’s frontier fueled fabricated Christian accusations #exemplifies (0.88)
• Anti-Islamic polemic intensified when written for audiences far from Muslims #exemplifies (0.85) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 749
• Anti-Islamic discourse in Europe was codified in absence of direct contact #corroborates (0.80) — Chris Allen, Islamophobia, 171