Medieval European misinformation about Islam came from polemical needs, not ignorance.

Evidence

Clearly, a great deal of misinformation about Islam circulated throughout medieval Christendom. Equally obviously, this was because those who touched on Islamic matters did not trouble to get their facts right and polemical fantasy better answered their needs. Getting things right was what the Orientalists did from the sixteenth century onwards. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 106

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth chasing: at what point did accuracy become the norm among Orientalists, and what exactly shifted incentives? This is the chapter’s thesis, likely unpacked in later chapters.
• XREF: connects to: Medieval polemicists recycled general accusations of Muslim vice without personal knowledge

Related

• Medieval polemicists recycled general accusations of Muslim vice without personal knowledge (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christian polemicists attacked Islam with knowingly false evidence (similarity 0.83)
• The Encyclopaedia of Islam asked European questions, not Muslim ones, about Islam (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval Islamic studies were driven by political motives, not ignorance (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval Christian knowledge systems failed to explain or influence Islam (similarity 0.82)
• Early European Islam scholarship served Christian infighting, not accurate study (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christian writers were accurate only where accuracy favored Christianity (similarity 0.81)
• Even sympathetic European scholarship ignored Islam’s living devotional spirituality (similarity 0.81)
• A fabricated Christian polemic long served as Western Europe’s main source on Muhammad (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christian polemicists blended entertainment with controversy, favoring polemically useful facts over accuracy (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval polemicists quietly dropped claims lacking cross-tradition confirmation (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval polemicists told Muslims what Islam believed against their denials (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Christian polemicists attacked Islam without knowing the Koran (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval interreligious polemics operated without shared evidentiary premises (similarity 0.80)
• No era since the Middle Ages has discussed Islam outside prejudice and politics (similarity 0.80)