Intellectual polemic and violent crusade coexisted as tools in the thirteenth-century West

Evidence

The thirteenth century saw a flourishing of different strategies to grapple with the “problem” of Islam: crusade, theological refutation, mission, martyrdom. … These polemical ideas, in particular the hostile biography of Muhammad, were used to deny any political legitimacy to Muslim rule in Spain and to justify the social and political subjugation of Muslim subjects of Spanish Christian rulers. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 71