Medieval Christian apocalypticism ranked the new Islamic conquests beneath older prophecies of doom

Evidence

Yet the victory over the Ishmaelites and the subsequent peace are merely the prelude to harsher invasions: the barbarians of the North, Gog and Magog—wild men who eat scorpions, kittens, miscarried fetuses, and human flesh—will pour out of the mountains and wreak havoc for “a week of calamity” until God sends one of his angels to destroy them, and the king of the Greeks will rule in Jerusalem for ten and a half years. Yet even this is but a prologue to the real drama of the end: it is at this time that the Antichrist is born. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 331

Categorization

• XREF: Grounds the genealogical point that early Christian responses to Islam were framed as apocalyptic trial within a pre-existing end-times typology — relates to the Anidjar/Aziz claims that Islamophobia has theological roots in Christian self-definition.