Medieval Christian polemic libeled Muslims as libidinous, gluttonous, semihuman barbarians.

Evidence

Daniel was shocked by the inaccuracy and hostility of what he found in many of the medieval texts he analyzed, and understandably so. Medieval Christian writings about Islam contain much that is appalling to the twentieth-century reader: crude insults to the Prophet, gross caricatures of Muslim ritual, deliberate deformation of passages of the Koran, degrading portrayals of Muslims as libidinous, gluttonous, semihuman barbarians. Daniel’s reaction to his own catalog of such hostile caricature is to shake his head in sad consternation. Yet there is little in his book to suggest why Christian writers presented Islam in this way or what ideological inter- ests these portrayals might have served. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 54

Categorization

• XREF: The libidinous/bestial caricature is a direct ancestor of the eroticized and dehumanized Muslim tropes Aziz and the vault’s broader anti-Islam genealogy already trace forward; useful as medieval endpoint text.