Medieval Christian theologians branded Muslims irrational while abandoning rational proof of their own faith

Evidence

At the same time that Christian theologians began to admit that they were unable to prove their doctrines through reason, in part in reaction to the works of Muslim and Jewish philosophers, they increasingly lambasted Muslims (and Jews) as “carnal” and “irrational.” This tendency is nowhere more blatant than in the works of Dominican missionary Riccoldo da Montecroce. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1234

Categorization

• XREF: Directly genealogical for the vault’s Anidjar/Aziz claims about Western construction of Islam as irrational Other — this passage shows the rationale for that trope emerging at a specific medieval moment. — connects to: Pope Benedict’s attack on Islamic irrationality ignored Christianity’s own persecution of reason — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 342