Medieval Christian polemic equated hajj rites with pagan Indian worship

Evidence

The Risalah, in this matter faithfully represented both by Peter of Toledo and by Vincent of Beauvais, recognised in the practices of the hajj itself customs that were also known among pagan Indians: there was the circumambulation, lapidation and the howling of the crowd. The whole thing (in this version) was related equally to the paganism of the Old Testament and to that of the Hindus; and in both cases paganism meant the worship of Venus. In this the text appears to belong to the same general tradition as that to which Pedro subscribed, but the details which it contains most curiously do not seem to have attracted the attention of other writers. The Risalah in this was less than usually influential. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1210

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault cluster on how Islam is constructed as the West’s constitutive pagan/outside — the detail that the hajj was read as pagan or idolatrous parallels Anidjar’s genealogy of the Jew-Arab enemy.
• SHARE: The detail that ‘paganism meant the worship of Venus’ for medieval polemicists is narrow and specific.