Even well-informed medieval authors chose implausible stories when framing Muslims

Evidence

It is curious that so much stress should have been put upon aspects of which the critics could have had no certain knowledge whatever. From the point of view of believers in a natural law, it was with reason that Christians complained of defects in Islamic moral law, but their assumptions about the actual commission of offences were gratuitous. Theory can never have been confirmed by direct access to educated Muslims, even in the rare case of writers who claimed to have taken part in active discussion, for example, Ricoldo and Lull; or where there was a close knowledge of written sources and some personal contact with Islamic society, for example, with the Cluniac translators, with Mark of Toledo, Ramon Marti or San Pedro. It is the same with those who lived among or near to Muslims, Vitry, Tripoli or Fidenzio; and, more obviously, with the pilgrims, who often, however, exercised a more lively curiosity than Latins resident in the East, with somewhat unreliable results. Vitry’s acceptance of the Malikite scandal about the abuse of wives, which could only have relevance in Malikite Spain, although his own experience was confined to Syria and Egypt, is an example of the influence of literary, at the expense of direct, sources of knowledge; and in Spain itself it was surely the literary perpetuation of an oral Christian tradition that was the usual source of such unsavoury information. In any case, it was obviously impossible to observe much of Islamic sexual practice at first hand. Even Christian girls married to Muslims will have been largely cut off from their old friends; the life of the harim precluded any personal acquaintance with family life, and it is extremely difficult to imagine any reliable, serious and confi- dential discussion of such things between a pious Christian and a pious Muslim of the Middle Ages.” — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1359 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

San Pedro had some doubts about the Maurus legend but felt sure that episodes told by ibn Ishaq (the delay in revelation over the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and the accusation by the Quraysh that Muhammad had a foreign teacher) implied the substantial truth of the main point of it. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2044 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval polemicists used Muslim sources to validate anti-Muslim legends — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2044; Medieval audiences preferred Islam accounts easier to ridicule over accurate ones; Theory outweighed direct observation in medieval European writing about Islam — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1281 (+9 more)

Related

• Medieval Christian critics of Islam derived claims from literary sources, not observation (similarity 0.89)
• Informed medieval polemicists still clung to untenable anti-Muslim fables (similarity 0.88)
• Medieval polemicists used Muslim sources to validate anti-Muslim legends (similarity 0.88)
• Medieval audiences preferred Islam accounts easier to ridicule over accurate ones (similarity 0.88)
• Scholars perpetuated apocryphal Islamic legends despite knowing they lacked sources (similarity 0.88)
• Medieval polemicists recycled general accusations of Muslim vice without personal knowledge (similarity 0.87)
• Medieval critics saw Islamic truths as deliberate bait for deception (similarity 0.87)
• The social character of Islamic practice went unrecognized by medieval Christian writers (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christian distaste, not ignorance, distorted portrayals of Islam (similarity 0.86)
• Mediaeval authors often deliberately chose the worst accounts of Muhammad. (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval writers ignored Islamic ritual because praising it served no polemic purpose (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval polemicists quietly dropped claims lacking cross-tradition confirmation (similarity 0.85)
• Physical contact with Muslims forced medieval authors toward greater accuracy (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval polemicists ignored known facts to fabricate Muslim heretical intent (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval Christian polemicists treated Christian and Muslim legends as mutually confirmatory (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Medieval polemicists used Muslim sources to validate anti-Muslim legends #expands (0.82) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2044
• Medieval Christian critics of Islam derived claims from literary sources, not observation #corroborates (0.82) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1359
• Medieval audiences preferred Islam accounts easier to ridicule over accurate ones #corroborates (0.80)
• Medieval Christian distaste, not ignorance, distorted portrayals of Islam #expands (0.80)
• Theory outweighed direct observation in medieval European writing about Islam #corroborates (0.78) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1281
• Medieval authors mixed accurate monotheist knowledge of Islam with fabricated idol worship. #corroborates (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 791
• Even fictional martyrdoms reveal the hagiographers’ polemical image of Islam #expands (0.72) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 362
• Educated medieval people knew Muslims were not idolaters despite literary convention #complicates (0.72) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1752