Medieval Christians granted Islam authority only as self-incriminating evidence

Evidence

Basically Islam itself lacked authority: that was Aquinas’ chief point. It did not have documenta veritatis and the absence of miracles was the sign of this. If Islam had no authority, Muslim interpretations had none; the only authority of Islam could be against itself. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1414

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Anidjar’s claim that Christian polemic produced ‘Islam’ as a usable figure by rendering it an untrustworthy witness to itself — the vault’s genealogical thread.