Medieval Europe read Muslim sexual candor as moral corruption

Evidence

It is not possible to ignore, in the name of good taste, an aspect of the history of Muhammad which was considered particularly important by mediaeval writers. Muhammad shocked their conception of what a secular ruler, let alone a prophet, might do, and the immodesty of Muslim writers in describing sexual episodes intensified this shocked response. Although Muhammad himself may really have had no great sensual leanings, the treatment of his marriages and of some episodes in his relations with his wives by Islamic authors gave a very different impression to clerical Europe, with its strong sense of what was proper. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 553

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the vault’s existing claims (in the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ piece and the Anidjar thread) about how moral-panic discourse constructs an outside religion as licentious and improper.