Medieval Christians lacked the words ‘Islam’ and ‘Muslim’ entirely

Evidence

It is impossible that Ricoldo should have had the knowledge necessary to discuss the Qur’an on anything like equal terms with Muslim theological teachers or students. Mediaeval contempt for the Islamic world as unphilosophical contrasts strangely with our modern concept of the mediaeval Latin West as wholly indebted for its philosophy to the Islamic East. Even if the modern view is correct, we need not assume mediaeval hypocrisy, but just a lack of historical perspective. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1995 (#expands, via linked claim)

In writings about Islam penned by famous Christians like Jerome and Bede, it is worth remembering that much of the so-called knowledge produced about Islam was based on folk tales about monsters and mythical narratives about the East and its associated mysteries. These early works were nothing but musings and conjecture, written by individuals who had never opened the pages of a Qur’an or met a Muslim. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 143 (#complicates, via linked claim)

For the most part the idea that Islam is one single Revelation made to all Prophets was not known, or else misunderstood, or else understood and neglected. Yet Gregory VII had so much earlier told a Muslim king that he prayed that ‘God bring you to the bosom of blessedness of the most holy patriarch Abraham’; was this a conscious effort to communicate with Islam at that point where the two religions most naturally meet? The subject oftered jimited scope for controversial writing. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 167 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval Christians saw Islam as salvation by faith without works; Medieval writers mostly ignored that shared terms hid different meanings; Medieval Christians missed Islam’s consciously unpriestly religious structure. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1264 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• Medieval Christian critics of Islam lacked Arabic competence and historical perspective #expands (0.95) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1995
• Medieval Christians missed Islam’s consciously unpriestly religious structure. #complicates (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1264
• Medieval Christians largely missed the shared-prophet premise of Islamic theology #complicates (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 167
• Early Christian accounts of Islam were written without any contact with Muslims #complicates (0.85) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 143
• Islam’s selective agreement with Christianity defied medieval categorization #complicates (0.80) — R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle…, 29
• Medieval Christians labeled Muslims by ethnicity, not by religion, from biblical sources #complicates (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 88