Medieval Christian chroniclers racialized dark-skinned Muslims as diabolical and deceptive.

Evidence

There is a long medieval tradition of associating blackness with devils and of seeing dark-skinned Muslims as semidiabolical creatures. They are “the vile African people who excelled neither through strength nor through goodness, but did all with trickery and cleverness.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 971

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to how racializing and demonizing rhetoric operates in colonial and crusade-era texts, echoing themes in The Reluctant Fundamentalist about how groups get cast as foreign deceivers. — connects to: Crusade rhetoric racialized Muslims as a vile and accursed race. — Nasar Meer, Racialization and Religion: Race,…, 12