Eighteenth-century European writers attacked Islam mainly to attack Christianity

Evidence

This is the background to the more famous writers of the eighteenth century, who liked to attack or to praise Islam only as a means to attack Christianity. Again the weapons of the mediaevals were used. Boulainvilliers and Savary, praising Islam as a natural religion, really extend the satiric attack on Christians from the field of morals where orthodox Latins kept it to the field of doctrine itself. Often mediaeval arguments against Islam which were capable of being applied against any religion were now used against Christianity. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1605

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects to the historical pattern of using one group’s beliefs as a proxy attack on another, similar to how the author frames other religious polemics.
• DEFINE: Clarifies the mechanism by which mediaeval anti-Islamic arguments were repurposed by enlightenment-era writers against Christianity itself.

Related

• Eighteenth-century writers satirized Christianity through a fictional Muslim mask (similarity 0.93)
• Enlightenment praise of Islam extended the mediaeval attack on infidels to Christianity itself (similarity 0.88)
• Attacks on Islam in eighteenth-century England were really attacks on Christian heresies (similarity 0.87)
• Mediaeval Christian polemic relied on Scripture to refute Islam (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemics aimed to fortify Christians rather than convert Muslims (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval Christian polemics against Islam were written for Christian audiences, not Muslims (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval Christian polemic framed Islam alongside heresy and Judaism (similarity 0.83)
• Christian polemics against Islam argued from premises only Christians accepted (similarity 0.82)
• Medieval Christian polemics could only read Islam as affirming or negating Christianity (similarity 0.82)
• Medieval writers ignored Islamic ritual because praising it served no polemic purpose (similarity 0.81)
• Arguments deployed against Islam in medieval polemics could rebound against Christianity equally. (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christian polemicists attacked Islam with knowingly false evidence (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christian polemicists treated Islam as closer to true faith than Judaism. (similarity 0.81)
• Latin Christians attacked Islam mainly because Muslim intellectual influence threatened them (similarity 0.81)
• Anti-Islamic polemic served to deter conversion and justify war against Muslims. (similarity 0.81)