Muhammad’s marriages alone barred prophethood for medieval Christians

Evidence

It seemed very obvious to mediaeval Christians that Muhammad’s behaviour with women alone made it quite impossible that he should have been a prophet. … It is very interesting that the facts were so often invented, or else falsified, or just exaggerated; but, had they not been so, it is certain that the most sober relation of Muhammad’s life would have caused Christians to say that no true prophet could conduct his personal life as Muhammad did his. … In this matter there is little common ground between Christianity and Islam. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 591

Categorization

• XREF: This shows the differential construction of body/sexuality as the Muslim outside to Christian virtue, resonating with the vault’s Anidjar/Aziz thread on how Islam is constituted as the West’s negative face.
• QUESTION: This claim that exaggeration was unnecessary because even the sober facts would shock is doing real analytical work but the author doesn’t push on whether the gendered-sexual framing itself is the constructive move.