Medieval Christian polemicists mined Islamic sources to justify pre-existing accusations against Muhammad.

Evidence

The reprobatio proceeded always by the citation of texts from the Qur’an and the Traditions, apparently seeking the Islamic authorities which would justify the traditional Christian accusations. Thus robbery, he said, was specifically permitted, on the authority of Bukhari, by the lex super rapinis. Muhammad, similarly, said that it was ‘given to him by God that he should attack or kill men until they witnessed that there was no other than God and that Muhammad was the messenger of God; and that they should give him tribute or rates’. He attributed the access of converts in the prophet’s own time to genuine belief through fatua simplicitas, to family loyalty and to love of honour and riches. This diminishes the importance in the rise of Islam of force, usually included among the primary motives of conversion. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 704

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to the vault’s existing claim (from the Islamophobia thread) that Western constructions of Islam seek authoritative justification for pre-formed enemy images — a pattern echoed in Aziz/Razack analyses of racialized Muslims.