Medieval audiences preferred Islam accounts easier to ridicule over accurate ones

Evidence

This was most true of revelations that allowed the Prophet marital privileges of one sort and another; many of these were invented by Christians, but such as were not were highly immoral in Christian eyes, especially when expressed in Christian terms. The two most important aspects of Muhammad’s life, Christians believed, were his sexual licence and his use of force to establish his religion. In order to preserve this picture unblurred it was often necessary to prefer a false account to a true one (as we to-day see it); certainly as many false but desirable elements as could by any means be believed were usually accepted. Even so, there was a wide difference between what could be believed by those who lived in the heart of Christendom and what those who lived within or upon the borders of dar al-Islam could believe. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1529 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

It is curious that Peter the Venerable’s own polemic was not associated with the main corpus in the manuscripts, or, consequently, by Bibliander; this may be the result of accident, but it suggests, as did Vincent’s treatment of Peter of Toledo’s Risalah text, that the European public was more interested in facts about Muhammad and Islam than in argued polemic. It seems probable that in some writers’ eyes the great polemic lay in the selection, arrangement and presentation of supposedly factual material, rather than in such argumentation as Peter the Venerable, for example, based upon it. Ratiocination might be superfluous, even distracting, when a selection of facts — allegations — could be relied on to induce the desired reaction in the mind of the reader. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval disputation records were largely constructed strawman debates; Even well-informed medieval authors chose implausible stories when framing Muslims; Medieval Christians actively preferred false anti-Muhammad accounts over true ones — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1529 (+3 more)

Related

• Medieval Christians actively preferred false anti-Muhammad accounts over true ones (similarity 0.91)
• Medieval disputation records were largely constructed strawman debates (similarity 0.90)
• Even well-informed medieval authors chose implausible stories when framing Muslims (similarity 0.88)
• Vincent’s anti-Islamic method was data-driven rather than argumentative (similarity 0.88)
• Mediaeval authors often deliberately chose the worst accounts of Muhammad. (similarity 0.87)
• Medieval polemicists quietly dropped claims lacking cross-tradition confirmation (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christians preferred entertaining, ridiculable portraits of Islam over accurate information about it (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christian distaste, not ignorance, distorted portrayals of Islam (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christian polemicists blended entertainment with controversy, favoring polemically useful facts over accuracy (similarity 0.85)
• Christian polemicists studied Muslim revelation accounts seriously rather than dismissing them (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval Christian polemicists attacked Islam with knowingly false evidence (similarity 0.85)
• Even factually accurate Christian accounts distorted Islam through selective emphasis (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval polemic attacked Muslim aspects that scandalized Christian observers (similarity 0.85)
• Factual corrections to Christian anti-Islamic polemic only patched a weakened doctrinal structure (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Medieval Christians actively preferred false anti-Muhammad accounts over true ones #corroborates (0.95) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1529
• Medieval Christian distaste, not ignorance, distorted portrayals of Islam #corroborates (0.90)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument #expands (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302
• Medieval critics framed Islam as offering an easier, more indulgent path than Christianity #complicates (0.70) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 850