Medieval polemicists recast Muhammad’s tender deathbed scene as sexual filth.

Evidence

For Ramon Martí, missionary friar under a vow of celibacy, the most false and shocking thing about Muhammad and his followers is their sexual practices: polygamy, homosexuality, even sex in heaven! This gulf of incomprehension flavors Martí’s portrayal of Muhammad’s death. Earlier polemicists related horrendous fables about Muhammad’s shameful murder and the defilement of his corpse by pigs or dogs. The Muslim story of his death, by contrast, shows him surrounded by his loved ones, peacefully dying with his head in the lap of his beloved wife ‘A’isha. For Muslims, this touching scene emphasizes Muhammad’s humanity (just as, for Christians, the birth and death of Christ emphasize his humanity). Yet Martí is unable to see anything other than filth in this scene: “When he died he had his head between ‘A’isha’s breast and her chin, and she mixed her saliva with that of Muhammad. In this way the death or end of Muhammad was vile, unclean, and abominable. And such a death is in no way appropriate for a prophet or a messenger of God.” In a standard Christian deathbed scene, an attentive priest would hear confession and administer communion and extreme unction, and the dying man would prepare his soul to meet its maker. Instead of the Body of Christ, Martí seems to be implying, Muhammad’s last solace was the saliva of profane kisses; instead of the anointing hand of a priest, he is caressed by the breasts of a woman; instead of confessing and turning away from sin, he is clinging desperately to it. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1203

Categorization

• XREF: Complements Olufemi Taiwo / how-to-raise-a-racist vault work. Directly extends Tolan’s own argument, no prior chapter, and the ‘immodest dress’ moral-panic vault claims.
• ADDENDUM: Sexual-purity framing of the Other parallels the moral-panic logic in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’; shows the celibate friar’s lens as a class/identity signaling stance.