Medieval Christian polemics demonized Muhammad to justify crusader violence against Muslims

Evidence

Guibert de Nogent, admitting that he could only repeat what the “vulgus” said about Muhammad rather than produce a proper theological refutation of his doctrine, presented Muhammad as a clever scoundrel, a heresiarch whose life was a mocking mirror image of that of a true Christian saint, specifically in order to justify the crusaders’ aggression against Muslims. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 886

Categorization

• XREF: Genealogical root for the Anidjar/Aziz genealogies of Islamophobia: here the ‘heretic/fraud’ Muhammad trope serves a justificatory function for violence, exactly the mechanism the vault claims modern Islamophobic tropes inherit.
• ADDENDUM: Directly grounds the modernist claim that anti-Muslim discourse legitimizes aggression, though tied to crusade rather than the dress/panic articles.
• DEFINE: Defines the ‘mocking mirror image’ anti-saint trope deployed against Muhammad.