Mozarabic polemicists needed plausible caricatures because their readers lived among Muslims.

Evidence

Yet the Mozarabic authors base their caricature on knowledge of Islam and write for Christians who are in daily contact with Muslims. They cannot content themselves with fabricating wildly inaccurate tales of the trickster and magician who dupes the Saracens through false miracles. They need to provide their readers with an image of Islam that seems realistic at the same time that it is repellent. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 821 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Proximity to Muslims forced Mozarabic polemicists to make their caricatures plausibly realistic — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 821; Perfidy toward Muslims was already a shared polemical trope — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 2209; Anti-Islamic polemic intensified when written for audiences far from Muslims — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 749 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Proximity to Muslims forced Mozarabic polemicists to make their caricatures plausibly realistic #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 821