Medieval polemicists tainted Islam by linking Mecca’s rites to Talmudic pagan cults

Evidence

Alfonsi stops short of calling Muslims pagans, but he implies that their monotheism is sullied by the vestiges of these pagan rites. He associates real elements of the Muslim Mecca cult (lapidation, wearing of seamless garments, the Ka’ba itself) with Talmudic descriptions of the pagan cults of Merqulis (at whose idols devotees threw stones) and Baal-Peor (to whom one bared oneself and defecated); these are linked through the story of Lot’s sons, Amon and Moab, in a twist that seems to be Alfonsi’s own innovation. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 817

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Christian polemicists sacralizing rival cults via Jewish sources parallels the way medieval anti-Jewish accusations recycled Talmudic material — and the anthropology of ‘survivals’ anticipates Frazer’s Golden Bough method.
• QUESTION: How widely did Alfonsi’s Amon-Moab linking of Mecca to Merculicius/Chamos circulate among later medieval writers? Worth tracing its reception.

Related

• Alfonsi invented a Talmudic genealogy turning Mecca rites into degraded pagan survivals (similarity 0.88)
• Medieval polemicists denied Muslim sacred history and substituted their own accounts (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval polemics fused attacks on Islam and Judaism as twin irrational faiths. (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christian polemic traced Muhammad’s error to heretical Jewish and Christian teachers (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Christians portrayed Muslim Ka’ba worship as hidden pagan idolatry. (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval polemicists placed Islam midway between Jewish and pagan error (similarity 0.79)
• Medieval polemic framed Muhammad as Antichrist figure and Islam’s spread as fraud’s persistence (similarity 0.78)
• Medieval polemicists cast Muhammad as a failed Antichrist to explain Islam’s spread (similarity 0.78)
• Medieval polemics explained Islam’s origins through heretical Christian and Jewish teachers (similarity 0.78)