Lull admired Arabic culture while insisting Islam was false and its followers damned
Evidence
With the possible exception of Ricoldo da Monte Croce, no medieval European thinker appears to have been more familiar with Arabic literature and thought. Lull found much to admire in it. Apart from his passion for Sufism, he praised the beauty of the Qur’an and he claimed that Muslims lived longer than Christians because their diet and clothing were more sensible. Even so, he was adamant that the Muslim religion was false and its followers damned. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 92
Categorization
- XREF: This tension between deep scholarly admiration and theological condemnation anticipates the recurrent pattern Irwin traces in later Orientalists.
Related
- Lull deemed Muslim conversion possible only once they were subdued (similarity 0.81)
- Lull studied Arabic nine years out of fear the Mongols would convert to Islam (similarity 0.81)
- Even sympathetic European scholarship ignored Islam’s living devotional spirituality (similarity 0.79)
- Lull judged Muhammad false for promising sensual rather than spiritual paradise. (similarity 0.79)
- Medieval Lull framed Muslim theological resistance as wilful stupidity (similarity 0.78)