Medieval Christians framed Islam as an ethnicity-linked false law rather than a religion.

Evidence

“Islam” in Arabic means submission, submission to God’s will; a “Muslim” is one who has submitted to God’s will. Yet medieval Christian writers did not speak of “Islam” or “Muslims,” words unknown (with very few exceptions) in Western languages before the sixteenth century. Instead, Christian writers referred to Muslims by using ethnic terms: Arabs, Turks, Moors, Saracens. Often they call them “Ishmaelites,” descendants of the biblical Ishmael, or Hagarenes (from Hagar, Ishmael’s mother). Their religion is referred to as the “law of Muhammad” or the “law of the Saracens.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 50

Categorization

• XREF: Directly grounds the vault’s Anidjar claim that the Islam-West opposition is built on genealogical/ethnic rather than religious framing; medieval Christians literally named Muslims by descent (Ishmaelites, Hagarenes) and reduced their faith to a ‘law.’
• DEFINE: Clarifies that ‘Saracen’ and ‘law of Muhammad’ are medieval Christian constructs predating the very word ‘Islam’ in Western languages.