Geiger defended Muhammad against Enlightenment-era scholarly dismissals

Evidence

Since the Enlightenment, many scholars had dismissed Muhammad as a hypocrite and deceiver (Voltaire) and a fanatic (Herder), while the great nineteenth-century Semiticist, Theodor Nöldeke, spoke for many when he referred to the founder of Islam as “hysterical.” Geiger declared such opinions to be the product of “outright bias and misunderstanding of the human heart” [einseitigkeit und gänzlicher Verkennung des menschlichen Herzens]. By contrast, Geiger saw Muhammad as a “genuine enthusiast [wirklicher Schwärmer] who was himself convinced of his divine mission, and to whom the union of all religions appeared necessary for the welfare of mankind.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 373 (#expands, via linked claim)

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 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Geiger defended Muhammad against a dismissive European scholarly tradition. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 373; Geiger was the first to treat Muhammad and Islam with scholarly respect — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 383; Enlightenment philosophers wavered between rational and superstitious treatments of Muhammad — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 360 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Geiger defended Muhammad against a dismissive European scholarly tradition. #expands (0.96) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 373
• Medieval Christian polemicists investigated Muhammad’s claims carefully rather than dismissing them #complicates (0.79)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument #complicates (0.72) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302