Eulogius presented Muslim violence as inherent to the faith’s founding

Evidence

Time and again, Eulogius and Alvarus insist on two key faults of the Muslim other: their lust and violence. One of the chief objectives of these apologists is to show that the Muslim authorities (and not the martyrs) were responsible for the executions. Eulogius seeks to prove that the Muslims are violent by nature. In the biography of Muhammad that he inserts in his Liber apologeticus, Eulogius emphasizes the cruelty of the pseudoprophet and of the Arabs in general: “He ordered his believers to take up arms on his behalf, and, as if with a new zeal of faith, he ordered them to cut down their adversaries with the sword.” For Eulogius, the “Chaldeans” perpetuate the violence of their founder; the martyrs of Córdoba are simply their most recent victims. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 535

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘violence is inherent to the founder’s teaching’ framing echoes later anti-Islamic polemic from the Crusades through modern Islamophobia.