Medieval Christians explained Islamic licentiousness through Arab climate and temperament

Evidence

Muhammad taught whatever he thought would best please, and especially lust, which was the particular temptation of orientals, who live in a climate of great natural heat. It was often said that there was something brutish as well as carnal in the Arabs, or in the religion which was suited to their tastes. Islam positively exploited universal human weakness: ‘the religion that he established and the commandments that he gave were such as men are prone to even without commandments’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 815 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Medieval Europeans believed that the nature of the eastern and southeastern climates created men who were overemotional, irrational, and given to lascivious behavior; their darker skin and hair were attributed to the heat of the sun. The Oriental body, rather than Islamic theology, increasingly came to be the focus of Western perceptions of the Muslim. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 231 (#expands, via linked claim)

Within this general theme a variety of different emphases is met. In this context sex has its place only as the chief among several symptoms of an underlying laxity. Peter the Venerable spoke of Islamic institutions as “‘prudentes secundum carnem’ - judicious in a fleshly way, we might almost say - as if to speak so were to make a significant concession to Islamic feeling. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 855 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval Christians attributed Islamic morals to climate and carnal weakness — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 815; Medieval Europeans explained Muslim traits through climate and body rather than theology — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 231; Medieval Christians used Islam’s marital norms to claim moral superiority — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 67 (+2 more)

Related

• Medieval Christians attributed Islamic morals to climate and carnal weakness (similarity 0.90)
• Medieval Europeans explained Muslim traits through climate and body rather than theology (similarity 0.89)
• Medieval polemic treated Muslim sexuality as a symptom of a deeper spiritual laxity (similarity 0.87)
• Medieval Christians explained Islamic sensuality through climate and race theories. (similarity 0.87)
• Medieval fixation on genital washing mirrored Christian obsession with Islamic sexual sin (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval Europeans modeled Muhammad’s Arabia on their own society (similarity 0.83)
• Critics linked Islamic sexual laxity to its doctrines of determinism and paradise (similarity 0.83)
• For mediaeval Christians Islamic sex was only a symptom of broader laxity. (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Europe read Muslim sexual candor as moral corruption (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christians lumped Jews and Muslims together as carnal and sensual peoples (similarity 0.81)
• Christian polemicists portrayed medieval Muslim sexuality as wholly unregulated (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval attacks on Islam centered on its denial of chastity and reason (similarity 0.80)
• The social character of Islamic practice went unrecognized by medieval Christian writers (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Christians used Islam’s marital norms to claim moral superiority (similarity 0.80)
• Christians framed Islam as a religion built on sexual licence (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Medieval Christians attributed Islamic morals to climate and carnal weakness #corroborates (0.97) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 815
• Medieval Europeans explained Muslim traits through climate and body rather than theology #expands (0.90) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 231
• Medieval polemic treated Muslim sexuality as a symptom of a deeper spiritual laxity #corroborates (0.78) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 855
• Medieval Christians used Islam’s marital norms to claim moral superiority #complicates (0.72) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 67