Failed missions, not failed crusades, produced the stereotype of the irrational Oriental

Evidence

Though he frankly admires the Muslims’ learning, culture, piety, and hospitality, he shows little hope that they will convert peacefully. Their law will perish by the sword, but it seems unlikely that this will happen any time soon. In order to explain his own failures as a missionary (and the failures of others like him or better than him-for example, Dominic and Francis, whose missionary efforts he evokes in his Letters), he must blame the stubborn irrationality of the Saracens. Riccoldo profusely praises their learning and erudition, yet later claims they are prohibited from studying philosophy since the caliphs know it would disprove their 250 • Thirteenth-Century Dreams of Conquest and Conversion “irrational” religion. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1256 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Failed missions were blamed on infidels’ irrationality — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1362; Failed missionary efforts produced blame of Muslim irrationality rather than self-criticism — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1181; Missionary failure gave birth to the admirable-yet-unconvertible Muslim stereotype — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1256 (+15 more)

Broader Connections

• Missionary failure gave birth to the admirable-yet-unconvertible Muslim stereotype #complicates (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1256
• Failed missionary arguments turned Muslim image from rational to irrational in Christian Europe. #corroborates (0.95)
• Anti-Orientalist polemicists made basic historical and source-language errors #complicates (0.75) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 594
• Some Orientalists pursued their scholarship to the point of ruin #complicates (0.75)
• Orientalism’s cult following grew among nonspecialists despite no corrections to its errors #complicates (0.75) — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 539
• Oriental representations become repetitive pseudoincarnations serving narcissistic Western needs. #complicates (0.75)
• Orientalist decline theories explain Muslim failure via a fixed inner flaw #complicates (0.70)
• Orientalist Muslim dehumanization legitimizes colonial and imperial adventures #complicates (0.70) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 44
• Disappointed travelers used unmet Orientalist expectations as proof of Christian superiority #complicates (0.70)
• Empiricist assumptions locked Orientals into unescapable determining origins #complicates (0.70)
• Islamic Orientalists turned alienation into superiority rather than self-understanding #complicates (0.70)
• Learned Orientalist scholarship pressed ideological myths into service #complicates (0.70) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 170
• Orientalism generated a free-floating mythology detached from actual Orientals #complicates (0.70) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 151