Medieval Christian critics of Islam lacked Arabic competence and historical perspective

Evidence

It is impossible that Ricoldo should have had the knowledge necessary to discuss the Qur’an on anything like equal terms with Muslim theological teachers or students. Mediaeval contempt for the Islamic world as unphilosophical contrasts strangely with our modern concept of the mediaeval Latin West as wholly indebted for its philosophy to the Islamic East. Even if the modern view is correct, we need not assume mediaeval hypocrisy, but just a lack of historical perspective. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1995

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s existing work on how ‘Islam’ as a construct — here, as unphilosophical barbarism — was produced from a position of ignorance and constituted the West’s outside.