Medieval wars killed infidels rather than converting them
Evidence
The anonymous author claims that converting Saracens to Christianity is easy and that he himself has baptized “a good thousand.” William of Tripoli concluded his Notitia de Machometo with dire semiapocalyptic predictions of the demise of Islam largely through military conquest: a third of the Saracens will perish by the sword, a third will perish in the desert, and a third will flee to Christianity. The anonymous author of De statu indeed includes this same prediction; yet he concludes his tract with the assertion that preaching the word of God will suffice to bring Saracens to the Christian truth, explicitly rejecting the twin strategies of military crusade and philosophical argument. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1070 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Roger Bacon was one of the most avid readers of the Itinerary of his fellow Franciscan William of Rubruck. Bacon attempts to turn William’s debating strategy into a veritable science of religion, bent on converting the infidel through rational argumentation. … For Bacon, the fruits of centuries of crusade and mission were scant: “there are few Christians; the whole breadth of the world is occupied by unbelievers, and there is no one to show them the truth.” No one, that is, until Roger Bacon came along. War does not win converts; it kills infidels and sends them to hell, making the survivors all the more hostile to Christianity. More often than not, crusades fail to meet their military goals, as the expedition of Louis IX so painfully illustrated. Bacon is not a complete pacifist; military defense of the Holy Land is legitimate, and he even suggests the use of high-tech mirrors to create fires in the enemy camp. But it is preaching and philosophical argument, not war, that will win converts to Christianity. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1144 (
#contradicts, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Medieval attackers exploited the shahadah to reverse the charge of associating partners with God.; Medieval theologians reframed Scripture to justify killing infidels in war; Medieval thinkers argued rational persuasion, not crusade war, would convert infidels — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1144 (+16 more)
Broader Connections
- Medieval Christians debated conversion by preaching versus military conquest
#corroborates(0.95) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1070 - Medieval thinkers argued rational persuasion, not crusade war, would convert infidels
#contradicts(0.92) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1144 - Preaching held priority over war in converting infidels
#corroborates(0.92) - The Crusades were less coherent religious triumph than convenient enemy-making
#complicates(0.85) - Scholastic method arose partly from the need to convert infidels
#complicates(0.75) - Medieval crusader chronicles fabricated enemy atrocities from martyrdom tropes
#complicates(0.75) - Early medieval Christians saw invaders as divine scourges, not religious rivals worth studying
#complicates(0.75) - Medieval Christianity treated Jews and Muslims as equivalent infideles long before modern anti-Semitism
#complicates(0.75) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 230 - Medieval anti-Islamic polemics aimed to fortify Christians rather than convert Muslims
#complicates(0.75) - Medieval depictions of Islam as heresy served to justify violence and resist conversion
#complicates(0.75) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 139 - Medieval Christians clustered Jews and Muslims as one infidel genus
#complicates(0.75) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 98 - Crusader battlefield deaths were not technically martyrdom in medieval theology
#complicates(0.70) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1784 - Medieval missionaries aimed at martyrdom rather than Muslim conversion
#complicates(0.70) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1465 - Medieval crusade ideology asserted enemy culpability as self-evident rather than argued
#complicates(0.70) - Medieval crusade rhetoric framed Muslims as objects of conversion or extermination
#complicates(0.70) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 625