False statements about Islam persisted for centuries because community good seemed to require them

Evidence

It is curious that Peter the Venerable’s own polemic was not associated with the main corpus in the manuscripts, or, consequently, by Bibliander; this may be the result of accident, but it suggests, as did Vincent’s treatment of Peter of Toledo’s Risalah text, that the European public was more interested in facts about Muhammad and Islam than in argued polemic. It seems probable that in some writers’ eyes the great polemic lay in the selection, arrangement and presentation of supposedly factual material, rather than in such argumentation as Peter the Venerable, for example, based upon it. Ratiocination might be superfluous, even distracting, when a selection of facts — allegations — could be relied on to induce the desired reaction in the mind of the reader. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302 (#expands, via linked claim)

It is astonishing how even the details of their criticisms were repetitions passed down over centuries. The present writer many years ago prepared a statement of Islamic belief from the accounts of seventeenth-century travellers, and, although he did so in conditions which separated that work from the work on the Middle Ages with which this present book is concerned, the descriptions of the Christian attitudes of the two periods correspond so minutely as to astound the reader of both. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1574 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Truth was eternal, and the structure of God’s plan was rational and constant; the revered writings of old remained their surest guide. Error, apparently multifarious, nevertheless reflected the constant opposition between God and Satan. These are the principles behind all the willful misunderstandings and distortions of Islam examined in the chapters that follow. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 162 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302; Hostile Christian descriptions of Islam repeated themselves virtually unchanged across centuries — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1574; The belief in eternal truth drove systematic misreading of Islam. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 162 (+2 more)

Related

• Hostile Christian descriptions of Islam repeated themselves virtually unchanged across centuries (similarity 0.86)
• Vituperative anti-Islamic polemic persisted into the 1780s and 1790s. (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval audiences preferred Islam accounts easier to ridicule over accurate ones (similarity 0.85)
• Vincent’s anti-Islamic method was data-driven rather than argumentative (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic circulated as a living shared tradition (similarity 0.84)
• An established anti-Islamic literature existed in the West by 1350 (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemics aimed to fortify Christians rather than convert Muslims (similarity 0.82)
• False claims about Islam circulated because communal good seemed to require them (similarity 0.82)
• Renaissance scholarship long coexisted with unrevised medieval views of Islam. (similarity 0.82)
• The belief in eternal truth drove systematic misreading of Islam. (similarity 0.82)
• Medieval Christian polemicists attacked Islam with knowingly false evidence (similarity 0.82)
• Medieval critics saw Islamic truths as deliberate bait for deception (similarity 0.81)
• Christian anti-Islamic polemic stayed medieval in method until the 1700s. (similarity 0.81)
• Informed medieval polemicists still clung to untenable anti-Muslim fables (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument #expands (0.82) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302
• Hostile Christian descriptions of Islam repeated themselves virtually unchanged across centuries #corroborates (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1574
• The belief in eternal truth drove systematic misreading of Islam. #expands (0.78) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 162
• Anti-Muslim rhetoric was founded in the Middle Ages and persists into today #corroborates (0.75)
• Christian thought on Islam stagnated for four centuries after 1300 #expands (0.72) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1357