Latin heresiographies served internal Christian audiences, not genuine interfaith debate

Evidence

The tests of prophethood were not invented for the occasion; but from the details of how they were put forward it is obvious that the intention was to show Muhammad to be a false prophet, not to establish the prophetic signs with academic impartiality. These points were the very ones where Muhammad failed. Naturally they were given prominence, as fruits in the Gospel sense, till they excluded all other aspects of prophethood. ‘Disproof’ in consequence did not relate exactly to the case that was actually made out by Muslim apologists, who would stress that Muhammad restored the purity of worship, that he led the people of God with a divine approbation that was proved by success, notably at the battle of Badr, above all that the Qur’an which was revealed to him was almost self-evidently of God. The latter point was so ill appreciated that it could not be eftectively attacked; the others were considered and rejected by Latin polemists, but not emphatically; for Christian writers their own favourite schematisation was more important. Their polemic scheme was well suited to convincing convinced Christians; hardly at all to real debate against … Argument taken from Scripture and argument about Scripture based upon a peculiar interpretation of the Qur’an were unlikely to impress Muslims at all. We shall see that this was also true of much historical analysis of the Prophet’s life. It is only in the field of moral philosophy that arguments were based on common ground, and the same weakness appears there, when data were defined by Christians without proof of their validity, still less of their acceptability by Muslims. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 447

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Anidjar’s claim that the Jew/Arab distinction performs internal Christian work — here polemics against Islam function to consolidate Christian self-definition rather than genuinely address Muslims.