Enlightenment thought held contradictory views of Muhammad

Evidence

The Enlightenment saw the birth of scholarship on Islam that was both realistic and sympathetic. For instance, in contrast to the vicious medieval demonization of Muhammad, several philosophers published tracts arguing that Muhammad was not an impostor. Voltaire defended Muhammad as a great thinker and founder of a rational religion even as he (and other Enlightenment critics of organized religion) condemned Islam quite acerbically. Daniel explains Voltaire’s contradictory stances: “We must say that Voltaire first thought an attack on Islam useful for an attack on religion generally; and later saw the advantage of treating the facts less passionately, in order to recommend natural religion at the expense of Christian belief.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 91 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

For Enlightenment philosophers, there is evidence of what Benedict Robinson has called a “crisis of representation,” the struggle between humanism and the imagination evident in the treatment of Muhammad and Islam in general, which wavers between a measured rationalism and polemical superstition. Leibniz was one of several philosophers who faced this crisis in his writings: Was Muhammad an enlightened thinker, a medieval humanist, or a force of destruction and evil? — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 360 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

For any outsider, and surely for most Muslims, this would be regarded as defaming the Prophet in the worst possible way; in Iran this was done for the exact opposite purpose. Claiming that the Prophet instigated murder had as its purpose not to defame the Prophet but to justify murder by showing that the Prophet himself had encouraged it. It is an argument with far-reaching impli­ cations and devastating consequences. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 586 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Enlightenment thinkers produced contradictory, instrumentally motivated views of Islam — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 91; Enlightenment philosophers wavered between rational and superstitious treatments of Muhammad — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 360; The same claim about the Prophet can serve opposite moral purposes — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 586

Broader Connections

• Enlightenment thinkers produced contradictory, instrumentally motivated views of Islam #corroborates (0.92) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 91
• Enlightenment philosophers wavered between rational and superstitious treatments of Muhammad #corroborates (0.90) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 360
• The same claim about the Prophet can serve opposite moral purposes #expands (0.80) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 586