Medieval Christian shock targeted Islamic toleration of sins more than the sins themselves

Evidence

For some modern Europeans the Islamic freedom from restrictions which they consider unnatural has seemed attractive.2° Moreover, Christians were recommended, for example, to practise marital continence, where the reverse was encouraged by Islam. Certainly there is no question but that Islam does treat some vicious acts more tolerantly than Christianity in the past has ever done, and this difference, not in what is condemned, but in the degree of control exercised over condemned acts, constitutes a great difference in the moral practice of the two societies. We may almost say that what shocked the mediaeval was more the toleration than the commission of sins. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1483