Medieval polemicists ignored known facts to fabricate Muslim heretical intent

Evidence

San Pedro had some doubts about the Maurus legend but felt sure that episodes told by ibn Ishaq (the delay in revelation over the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus and the accusation by the Quraysh that Muhammad had a foreign teacher) implied the substantial truth of the main point of it. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2044 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Peter asserted that there is nothing about this prophecy in the Q., and nothing in those other books of the Muslims which have less authority. It is stupid, he added, to believe things on doubtful authority, and senseless to believe them on none — remarks that in the circumstances have an unintentional irony. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1965 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

It is curious that Peter the Venerable’s own polemic was not associated with the main corpus in the manuscripts, or, consequently, by Bibliander; this may be the result of accident, but it suggests, as did Vincent’s treatment of Peter of Toledo’s Risalah text, that the European public was more interested in facts about Muhammad and Islam than in argued polemic. It seems probable that in some writers’ eyes the great polemic lay in the selection, arrangement and presentation of supposedly factual material, rather than in such argumentation as Peter the Venerable, for example, based upon it. Ratiocination might be superfluous, even distracting, when a selection of facts — allegations — could be relied on to induce the desired reaction in the mind of the reader. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval polemicists distinguished what Muslims believed from what they only thought they believed.; Medieval polemicists recycled general accusations of Muslim vice without personal knowledge; Ketton deliberately obscured Islam’s claim to universal prophethood (+12 more)

Related

• Medieval polemicists recycled general accusations of Muslim vice without personal knowledge (similarity 0.92)
• Informed medieval polemicists still clung to untenable anti-Muslim fables (similarity 0.91)
• Medieval polemicists used Muslim sources to validate anti-Muslim legends (similarity 0.90)
• Medieval Christian polemicists treated Christian and Muslim legends as mutually confirmatory (similarity 0.89)
• Medieval polemicists quietly dropped claims lacking cross-tradition confirmation (similarity 0.88)
• Medieval critics saw Islamic truths as deliberate bait for deception (similarity 0.88)
• Scholars perpetuated apocryphal Islamic legends despite knowing they lacked sources (similarity 0.88)
• Polemical scholars adopted textual accuracy only as a tactical weapon against Islam (similarity 0.87)
• Christian polemicists read Muslim sources as unwittingly confirming Christian legends (similarity 0.86)
• Vincent’s anti-Islamic method was data-driven rather than argumentative (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval polemicists distinguished what Muslims believed from what they only thought they believed. (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval polemicists mocked Muslim textual authority while relying on their own dubious sources (similarity 0.85)
• Christian polemicists studied Muslim revelation accounts seriously rather than dismissing them (similarity 0.85)
• Scholarly polemic failed because it never spoke in terms Muslims could recognize (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Medieval polemicists used Muslim sources to validate anti-Muslim legends #corroborates (0.90) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2044
• Medieval polemicists mocked Muslim textual authority while relying on their own dubious sources #corroborates (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1965
• Medieval anti-Islamic polemic worked through fact curation rather than argument #expands (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1302
• Medieval polemicists quoted the Qur’an inaccurately without scruple #exemplifies (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1410
• Medieval Christian polemicists refused Muslim sources on Muhammad’s life on principle #complicates (0.80)
• Medieval European conflation of Qur’an and Traditions may have been a deliberate polemic tactic #corroborates (0.75)