Muslim biographers’ frankness about Muhammad’s marriages fueled medieval Christian scandal

Evidence

It is not possible to ignore, in the name of good taste, an aspect of the history of Muhammad which was considered particularly important by mediaeval writers. Muhammad shocked their conception of what a secular ruler, let alone a prophet, might do, and the immodesty of Muslim writers in describing sexual episodes intensified this shocked response. Although Muhammad himself may really have had no great sensual leanings, the treatment of his marriages and of some episodes in his relations with his wives by Islamic authors gave a very different impression to clerical Europe, with its strong sense of what was proper. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 553

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

Related

• Medieval Europe read Muslim sexual candor as moral corruption (similarity 0.85)
• Muhammad’s marriages alone barred prophethood for medieval Christians (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval Europe’s favorite Muhammad story was the Zaynab marriage scandal (similarity 0.83)
• Medieval critics lacked the historical imagination to reconstruct Muhammad’s Meccan context (similarity 0.82)
• Medieval Christian writers uniformly stressed Muhammad’s orphaned poverty (similarity 0.81)
• Even moderate medieval Christian writers distorted Muhammad by cherry-picking facts (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval polemic attacked Muslim aspects that scandalized Christian observers (similarity 0.81)
• Even ‘moderate’ medieval biographers of Muhammad selected only polemic-serving facts (similarity 0.81)
• Mediaeval authors often deliberately chose the worst accounts of Muhammad. (similarity 0.81)
• Medieval Christians deemed even truthful statements by Muhammad untrustworthy (similarity 0.80)
• Even factually accurate Christian accounts distorted Islam through selective emphasis (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Christians actively preferred false anti-Muhammad accounts over true ones (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Christians lacked any accurate chronology of Muhammad’s life (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval Christian shock targeted Islamic toleration of sins more than the sins themselves (similarity 0.80)
• Bacon escalated anti-Muslim polemic by accusing Muhammad of indiscriminate rape, exceeding prior Christian authors (similarity 0.80)