Islam affirmed creation’s goodness where Augustine distrusted the senses

Evidence

God’s earth is beautiful, bountiful, good. God created it for his creatures for their benefit and enjoyment. We are far, here, from the asceticism of an Augustine. The senses are not the snares of temptation; they are the means of our participation in God’s glorious creation. The City of Man and the City of God are one, if only we will bow down (as do our fellow creatures, the sun, moon, plants, and trees) and submit to the will of God. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 189

Categorization

• XREF: Grounds the vault’s theme of how polemicists constructed Islam as Christianity’s ‘other’ by showing the real doctrinal divergence was not permissiveness but a positive valuation of bodily creation — useful contrast behind later accusations of sensuality.