Medieval polemics featured idols destroyed by their own devotees.
Evidence
The center of the pagan cult, for the Chanson d’Antioche, is Mahomes, an idol held in midair by magnets. A defeated Saracen general, Sansadoines, strikes the idol, knocking it down and breaking it after it has shown itself powerless to secure victory for its devotees. Here again, the pagan enemy himself realizes the powerlessness of his idols and destroys them with his own hand. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 671 (
#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 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
In so many cases the crimes of which Islam was accused were crimes of which Christians were equally guilty. The only excuse is that it was believed that Muslims justified these offences by doctrine; but Christians were inconsistent in not admitting, perhaps in not recognising, their own acts of violence. Islamic theory and practice were condemned by Christian theory, but not by Christian practice. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1455 (
#complicates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Medieval attackers exploited the shahadah to reverse the charge of associating partners with God.; Medieval chroniclers had crusaders smash golden idols inhabited by demons to court martyrdom; Crusade epics show Muslims themselves destroying their own powerless idols. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 671 (+16 more)
Broader Connections
- Crusade epics show Muslims themselves destroying their own powerless idols.
#corroborates(1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 671 - Medieval polemic fused Jews, Muslims, and heretics into one spiritual enemy.
#complicates(0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 872 - Medieval polemicists framed Muslim image-abhorrence as savage iconoclasm
#complicates(0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1083 - Medieval polemic attacked Muslim aspects that scandalized Christian observers
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1472 - Medieval Christian polemicists caricatured Muslim ablutions into a distorted parody.
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1171 - Medieval polemicists mocked Muslim textual authority while relying on their own dubious sources
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1965 - Medieval polemicists fabricated Muslim inferiority to justify Christian superiority claims.
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1252 - Medieval polemicists accused Muslims of vices Christians themselves practiced
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1455 - Medieval Christian polemicists projected their own violence onto a monolithic Islam to justify crusade
#complicates(0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 746 - Medieval Christians projected their own mutilation fears onto Muslim monsters
#complicates(0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 256 - Medieval writers depicted Muhammad as an animated idol that killed Christians on approach.
#complicates(0.70) - Medieval authors largely believed their own caricatures of Muslims as pagan idolaters
#complicates(0.70) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 692