Mark of Toledo presented the Qur’an as self-evidently the speech of a madman

Evidence

There seems as little appreciation here of the language of the Qur’an as understanding of the Arab admiration of it. Mark knew that Muslims argued from the style of the Qur’an on the lips of an illiterate prophet to its divine origin; and the whole of his prefatory summary of Qur’anic teaching, which in précis of the Qur’an he put into the mouth of the Prophet, is a tour de force of mimicry that makes it impossible to suppose him insensitive to Arabic style. Yet it was not just that he felt that good Arabic made bad Latin. For Mark, the very words of the Qur’an were inherently and perniciously defective. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 333 (#expands, via linked claim)

Mark of Toledo related the violence of the seizures ( ‘like’ epilepsy and ‘like’ demoniac possession) to the ‘confused style’ of the Qur’an which he thought an important defect. He pictured Muhammad himself as having stressed the angelic violence: cogzt me angelus. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 173 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mark of Toledo found the Qur’an’s very words inherently defective, not merely mistranslated — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 333; Mark of Toledo linked Qur’anic style to purported epileptic seizures — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 173

Related

• Mark of Toledo linked Qur’anic style to purported epileptic seizures (similarity 0.93)
• Mark of Toledo found the Qur’an’s very words inherently defective, not merely mistranslated (similarity 0.93)
• Medieval polemicists traced the Qur’an’s style to Muhammad’s suspected seizures. (similarity 0.87)
• Medieval Christians explained revelation as epilepsy while Islam read it as divine (similarity 0.81)
• Christian polemicists deemed the Qur’an’s style itself inherently defective, not merely untranslatable (similarity 0.80)
• A Christian translator doubted the Qur’an’s proof but affirmed its intent (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Mark of Toledo found the Qur’an’s very words inherently defective, not merely mistranslated #expands (0.90) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 333
• Mark of Toledo linked Qur’anic style to purported epileptic seizures #expands (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 173