Medieval claims of mass Muslim conversion to Christianity strain credulity

Evidence

It is very difficult to assess Tripoli’s claim to have baptised so many converts. Adults may have sought a magical protection for themselves or their children; there may have been baptisms of dissident Christians under some misapprehension; neither of these is a very convincing explanation, and yet the fact asserted is nearly as impossible to believe as the idea that Tripoli might be a liar. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2143

Categorization

• SEED: Rare skeptical moment in polemical literature — an angle on how missionizing propagandists produced numbers their own audience could not quite swallow.