Islam treated Jews more mildly than Christianity did.

Evidence

It was not only his fellow Jews who incurred his wrath. He reserved his most hateful denunciations for Christianity. For Goldziher, Islam was not only a theological advance upon Christianity, it was surely a social one as well. After all, it had not discriminated against the Jews living in its orbit as Christianity had done. While he never shied away from highlighting Muhammad’s intolerance and even violence toward Jews, Goldziher was of the opinion that there existed a significant difference in the way Jews and Judaism were treated in Islamic doctrine and the social reality that prevailed after Muhammad’s death, claiming that “after the foundation of the Muhammedan community a milder sentiment with respect to the Jews was introduced.” — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 408

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader ‘myth of Islamic tolerance’ debate and to Edward Said’s critiques of orientalism.