Medieval crusade epics made Mecca the Saracen cult center to be conquered

Evidence

The center of the pagan cult, for the Chanson d’Antioche, is Mahomes, an idol held in midair by magnets. A defeated Saracen general, Sansadoines, strikes the idol, knocking it down and breaking it after it has shown itself powerless to secure victory for its devotees. Here again, the pagan enemy himself realizes the powerlessness of his idols and destroys them with his own hand. Sansadoines then predicts to the Saracens that they will be defeated by the Christians who will “break the walls and palisades of Mieque [Mecca], will take Mahomet down from the pedestal where he is placed, [and will take] the two candelabra that sit there.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 671

Categorization

• XREF: Feeds the genealogical record of how ‘idolatrous Mecca’ imagery — an ancestor of orientalist tropes — was fabricated in crusade literature well before modern Islamophobia.