Medieval Christian chroniclers had confused accounts of pre-Islamic Arabia

Evidence

More plainly, Roderick of Toledo said that at Muhammad’s birth Arabia and Africa were torn between the Catholic faith, the Arian heresy, the Jewish perfidy and idolatry; that his father’s preference fluctuated between the Catholics and the Jews. Mecca owed its importance to its many idols. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 456

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Reasonable medieval portraits of Arabia saw it as fringe, not orthodox Christian