Medieval Christians equated automata and machinery with Muslim sorcery

Evidence

Harris notes that automata such as the Mechanical Turk were referred to as mammets, a word deriving from the proper name Mohamet or Mohammed. He adds that “medieval Christian theologians used the word ‘mechanicum’ as a synonym for Muslim sorcery: they regarded Islam as a mechanical religion incapable of true life and of a meaningful future, and thus consigned it to a dead, unusable past. Benjamin’s Turkish chess-playing machine eerily replays this typological gambit.” — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 947

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the etymology of ‘mammet’ and the surprising medieval conflation of machinery with Islam-as-dead-faith.
• XREF: Connects to the Immodesty piece’s theme of Crusades-era Islamophobia and to how ‘Eastern’ mechanical/automatic people were dehumanized—echoes the data-colonialism claim that automated data subjects are consigned to a ‘usable past’. — connects to: Medieval Christian polemics reinterpreted Islamic miracles as fraudulent tricks — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1314; Medieval Christians read Muslim military success as divine judgment favoring Islam — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 47; Medieval Christians read Muslim victories as divine judgment against Christendom
• CANDY: The fact that ‘mammet’ derives from Mohammed, and that mechanical chess automata carried an anti-Islamic genealogy, is a genuinely surprising and shareable tidbit.

Broader Connections

• Medieval Christian polemics reinterpreted Islamic miracles as fraudulent tricks #expands (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1314
• Medieval Christians read Muslim military success as divine judgment favoring Islam #expands (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 47
• Medieval Christians read Muslim victories as divine judgment against Christendom #expands (0.80)