Medieval Christian polemicists attacked Islam’s divided-moon miracle with crude physics arguments

Evidence

12. This applies particularly to arguments taken by Ricoldo from the Contrarietas. An example of the sort of argument from reason that Ricoldo maintained was, or would be, successful is that based on the ‘divided moon’ supposed miracle of Muhammad. How could the moon be divided, argued Ricoldo; is it a heavy body, that it should fall? And if it fell, how is it that it did not take up a great part of the earth? Or the sea and the waters not become troubled? How could so great a miracle be hid from the world? The reprobatio argued similarly; as the moon is greater than the earth, how could it fall on a part of the earth, much less hide in the Prophet’s sleeve? And the event could not have happened at all without the whole world seeing, or succeeding generations passing the story down, as happened in the case of the Flood (Itin. xxxin, reprob. vit). It is not usually fair to mock at the outmoded science of a past age; but in the present case it must be said that if some of these arguments now seem particularly ridiculous, their authors were to blame for using ‘reason’ so lightly and almost irresponsibly. They should have known that reason is no basis to attack faith, and that ridicule is dangerous. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2419

Categorization

• CANDY: The image of medieval Christians solemnly arguing the moon couldn’t fit in Muhammad’s sleeve is a perfect dinner-party anecdote.
• SEED: Angle for an essay: how medieval interfaith polemic deployed naive physics, and the warning that ‘reason’ is a weak weapon against faith.