Medieval polemicists read Muslim head-covering as monkish hypocrisy
Evidence
- There are several references to the ‘monk-like’ habit, described as like the Benedictine (Caesarius 1v.xv; San Pedro SSM 1.vili.68) the Franciscan (Acqui) or in summer the Canons Regular’s (San Pedro, ibid.) ; its adoption was attributed to the spoiled monk, Sergius ( Varagine, Acqui); this monastic dress was most often spoken of without elucidation (Varagine, Quidam Anglicus, Ludolf, vi, Acqui); San Pedro spoke of the tonsure in Cistercian style put to superstitious use (SSM 1.viil.94) ; Verona said that Muslims consider it a sin to go uncovered (x1) and added that this was-an anti-clerical and anti-Roman act. These comments vary in tone between simple interest and obscure disapproval, but there seems to have been a suggestion of hypocrisy in many of these examples. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2207
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to how Muslim dress gets misread as signifying religious hypocrisy and anti-clericalism — relevant to Aziz’s Racial Muslim and to the vault’s modest-dress moral-panic article.