European observers misconstrued the Muslim call to prayer as praise of Muhammad.

Evidence

This sounds like the ordinary adhan rather than any special ceremony. Among fourteenth-century pilgrims, Verona only distinguished the repeated word ‘Allah’ (quod idem est quod Deus) and said that the call continued, ‘I bear witness that Muhammad was a great prophet of God.’ Here the phrase ‘I bear witness’ is an accurate detail not mentioned by earlier or by contemporary writers, although the other words are incorrect. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1155

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader pattern of Western misreading of Islamic practice discussed throughout this book, and to the immodesty moral panics piece on cross-cultural perception.