Medieval monks judged the Quran’s Christ story by doctrinal error rather than factual accuracy

Evidence

The same annotator of the Cluniac Qur’an who had very fully understood and apparently appreciated the Islamic Names of God was much less gracious about the Qur’anic story of Christ, which he despised as ‘unheard of and monstrous’, the ‘absurdities of apocryphal writers’. He noted siirah x1x for ‘an impudent lie’ that revealed total ignorance of Scripture. It was the doctrinal error that determined his attitude, and preoccupied him: ‘Note that he everywhere says Christ, son of Mary, against the Christians - as if he said, son of Mary, not Son of God; which is the sum of all this devilish heresy.’ — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 924

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval Christian readers judged the Qur’an by its Christology