Medieval Christian writers confused Muslim dating because they missed the lunar calendar’s solar drift
Evidence
- The account in the Contrarietas (cap. x1) claims to be an eyewitness one. It is not at all clear and does not sound authentic. It had little influence and was ignored by Ricoldo. The general failure to realise that the Muslim year is lunar, and, being shorter, moves back through the solar year, made all confusion worse. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2356
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Saïd’s Orientalism theme: the West’s systematic misreading of Islamic practice as grounded in ignorance that produces distorted knowledge.
- SEED: Essay angle on how a technical calendrical misunderstanding undergirded centuries of Christian polemic about Islam — errors compound when foundations are wrong.