Medieval polemicists ridiculed Islamic paradise for its alleged carnal absurdities.

Evidence

Yet the core of Riccoldo’s criticism of the Koran is that it is supposedly irrational. Muslim divorce law is contrary to reason and to natural law. Riccoldo affirms (erroneously following the Liber denudationis) that the Koran permits sodomy, which reason prohibits. Equally irrational and ridiculous, for Riccoldo, are the carnal delights the Saracens await in heaven; here he again follows the Liber denudationis, claiming that the Saracens believe that heavenly penises will be “as long as a fresh horse can run in one day before becoming tired.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1251

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Fits the ‘moral panics over bodily/sexual norms’ theme in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ — here the panic is about imagined Muslim otherness in paradise, projected by Christian polemic.
• XREF: Riccoldo copying from the anonymous Liber denudationis shows how Latin Christian anti-Islamic arguments circulated as a closed textual tradition, each author reusing prior ‘facts’ without contact with Islam — connects to Milgrom’s information-cost institutions and the sociology of rumor/reputation. — connects to: The carnal Paradise was the central symbol of Christian anti-Islam polemic
• CANDY: The heavenly-penises image ‘as long as a fresh horse can run in one day’ is a bizarrely specific and tweetable detail from medieval interfaith polemic.