Imagined Saracen idolaters justified violence actually aimed at internal Christian enemies

Evidence

Far from these communities of dhimmis, Christians of northern Europe and of Byzantium could imagine their Saracen enemies as idolaters who practiced the discredited and colorful rites of the ancient pagans, devoting sacrifices and prayers to a pantheon of idols that included Jupiter, Apollo, Priapus, and their special god Muhammad. This image of Saracen idolatry provided a useful caricature with which the Christian author could justify and glorify the killing of Muslims and the conquest of Muslim territories. By creating a largely imaginary enemy outside the bounds of Christian Europe, the Chansons de Geste could revel in the knightly violence that was in reality more often directed at internal Christian enemies. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1359 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Europe North of the Pyrenees showed little interest in Islam before the first Crusade of 1095–99. Chapter 5 examines how chroniclers of the first crusade portrayed Saracens as idolaters who had polluted the holy city of Jerusalem with their profane rites, in particular through the adoration of a silver idol of Muhammad in the Temple of Solomon, an idol the crusaders supposedly demolished. This image, albeit wildly inaccurate, helps justify and glorify, for these authors, the violence of the Crusade. Other authors throughout the Middle Ages, particularly the poets of Chansons de Geste, offer a similar image of Saracen idolatry, often with similar motives. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 423 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Chansons de Geste projected internal violence onto imaginary pagan enemies; Bede read Saracen defeats as divine punishment for their wickedness; Hrotsvitha tied Saracen idolatry to homosexuality and despotic violence to justify resistance (+8 more)

Broader Connections

• Invented pagan Saracens justified violence actually aimed at fellow Christians #corroborates (1.00)
• Christians fighting internal enemies displaced that violence onto imaginary Muslim idolaters #corroborates (0.97) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1359
• Crusade-era writers invented Saracen idolatry to justify their own violence #corroborates (0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 423
• Medieval European epics invented Saracen idolatry to justify crusader violence #corroborates (0.93) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 589
• Christians fantasized Muslims as pagan idolaters to justify crusading violence #corroborates (0.92)
• Many medieval writers genuinely believed Saracens were idolaters #complicates (0.85) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 693