Mediaeval Christian polemicists dismissed Quranic metaphors by misreading them as literal physics

Evidence

His criticism that the Qur’anic story of Christ was as hard to believe as the Christian one was fair; but he would also use Qur’anic passages to make points of startling pedantry. For example, he pointed out that when the Qur’an said that the Jews claimed to have killed the Messias, Jesus, it was quite in error, because the Jews did not believe that Jesus was the Messias. It was the heart of his argument that Muhammad did not understand the truths that he sometimes enunciated; he ‘spoke the truth… but he did not understand’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 953 (#expands, via linked claim)

The Contrarietas has a perversion of the Qur’anic text here. For ‘it is /awful for you … to go unto your wives’ it has ‘estote solicitt ut impregnetis mulzeres’ (Q. 11.183; Cont. 1x). — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2364 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Mediaeval critics mocked the Qur’an’s chapter names as irrational; Anti-Quran polemics were crafted for Christian audiences rather than actual Muslims; Christian polemicists distorted Qur’anic verses with small, impactful translation shifts (+3 more)

Related

• Medieval polemicists attacked the Qur’an with pedantic misreadings to prove Muhammad misunderstood truths (similarity 0.91)
• Christian polemicists distorted Qur’anic verses with small, impactful translation shifts (similarity 0.90)
• Medieval polemicists distorted Quranic verses to serve anti-Muslim arguments (similarity 0.90)
• Medieval Christians polemicists routinely conflated the Qur’an with reported sayings of Muhammad (similarity 0.89)
• Medieval attacks on the Qur’an obscured its evident piety to unlearned readers (similarity 0.89)
• Medieval Christian polemic interpreted Qur’anic texts as nastily as possible (similarity 0.88)
• Christian annotators charged the Quran with self-contradiction on points later seen as mere nuance (similarity 0.88)
• Medieval European conflation of Qur’an and Traditions may have been a deliberate polemic tactic (similarity 0.87)
• Mediaeval critics mocked the Qur’an’s chapter names as irrational (similarity 0.87)
• Mediaeval anti-Islamic polemics convinced neither Muslims nor Christians (similarity 0.86)
• Christian polemicists charged the Qur’an with asserting and denying the same doctrines. (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval polemicists quoted the Qur’an inaccurately without scruple (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christians dismissed Quranic revelation as a literary fiction (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval Christian polemics held that Qur’anic truths served only as bait for deception. (similarity 0.84)
• Christian anti-Islamic polemic targeted Christian readers, not Muslims (similarity 0.84)

Broader Connections

• Medieval polemicists attacked the Qur’an with pedantic misreadings to prove Muhammad misunderstood truths #expands (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 953
• Medieval polemicists distorted Quranic verses to serve anti-Muslim arguments #expands (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2364
• Anti-Quran polemics were crafted for Christian audiences rather than actual Muslims #expands (0.78)
• Christian polemicists distorted Qur’anic verses with small, impactful translation shifts #expands (0.78)
• Medieval Christians dismissed Quranic revelation as a literary fiction #qualifies (0.72) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 215