Medieval Christians interpreted Muslim prayer as corrupted monachism.

Evidence

Observation of Muslims praying seems something to have suggested a Christian parallel rather than a Christian contrast, and there was thought to be a connection between the salat and Christian monachism, just as there was between the ordinary dress of Muslims and the monastic habit. San Pedro said that under the secret influence of the monk, his adviser, ‘Muhammad taught his people by what devout and ordered method they should pray, and should most often kneel; all which things the Muslims most punctiliously observe, as though they were monks; in other things, however, they observe monachism very badly indeed …’ It has never come gratefully to Christian minds that in Islam incontinence, and even unchastity, can come together with prayer and devotion. The theme of false monachism was surprisingly widespread. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1189

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s vault thread on how Islam is constructed as the West’s constitutive outside — here Christian writers domesticate Muslim devotion by seeing it as a perverse imitation (monasticism corrupted), a classic move of defining the other through the self’s categories.