Medieval writers granted Muslims virtue only as courtesy, never as real religion

Evidence

Ricoldo was charitable towards Islamic belief when it fell within his direct, as opposed to his literary, experience. “And when they named Christ among us, they never did so except with fitting praise, such as, “Christ, may he be praised’’, or something of the sort.’ He classed this as affability to strangers, rather than as religion. … He felt no pleasure in the Qur’anic texts; the story which Tripoli had savoured, of the calling and the motherhood of Mary, provoked from Ricoldo a tirade against the supposed anachronism of identifying Mary, as daughter of ‘Imran, with the sister of Moses and Aaron. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 952

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the ‘constitutive outside’ logic in the vault — genuine encounter exceeds the theological category that governs it, so the category is preserved by cordoning experience off.