Medieval Christians conflated Jews and Muslims as carnal and literal-minded

Evidence

Both Jews and Muslims were seen by medieval Christians as people who privileged the carnal over the spiritual, not only epistemologically (in their preference for the dead letter of the law above the living spirit of faith) but also behaviorally (in their propensity toward sensuous pleasures and sexual deviance). — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The Antichrist was often tied to Jewish and Muslim figures in theology, literature, and art. This was, after all, part of how Christians defined themselves against communities that stood in opposition for one reason or another. As Jeffrey Jerome Cohen puts it, “the classification of the Jews together with the Muslims” was one of the major “subsets in a larger genus of hermeneutically constructed infidels who undermined the unity of the Christian faith.” These ideas did not end with the onset of modernity, a point raised by some scholars of Orientalism and anti-Semitism, who have argued that the vilification of Jews and Muslims is a continuously related historical process. Without one, it is impossible to fully understand, or acknowledge, the other. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 98 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Medieval authors mislabelled Islamic Christian and Jewish influences as heretical sects; Biblical Jews served as the medieval model for Christian depictions of Muslims; Medieval Christians lumped Jews and Muslims together as carnal and sensual peoples — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228 (+12 more)

Broader Connections

• Medieval Christians lumped Jews and Muslims together as carnal and sensual peoples #corroborates (1.00) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 228
• Medieval Christian texts distinguished Jews from Muslims rather than equating them #contradicts (0.95)
• Medieval Christians clustered Jews and Muslims as one infidel genus #corroborates (0.92) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 98