Medieval Christians treated Qur’anic Paradise as proof of Islam’s invalidity

Evidence

Christian commentators in all ages, and certainly not least in the Middle Ages, have seen that beatitude to which the Qur’an invites believers as one of the most important disproofs of the Islamic religion. Because Christian thought is wholly bound up in the concept of eternal life, the irrationality of Islam propter finem quam promittit has seemed to Christians so clear a mark of its invalidity. Three distinct bodies of fact, the historical details of Muhammad’s personal life, the requirements of Islamic sexual ethics and the elements in Paradise which the Qur’an delineates were linked together to constitute one single theme. Islam was essentially built upon a foundation of sexual licence which was plainly contrary to the natural and the divine law. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 843

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the Latin tag ‘propter finem quam promittit’ — the end or reward Islam promises as disproof.
• XREF: connects to: Medieval Christian polemic interpreted Qur’anic texts as nastily as possible; The carnal Paradise was the central symbol of Christian anti-Islam polemic; Medieval Christians enlisted Muslim philosophers as witnesses against the carnal Paradise