Muslims questioned Christians directly on image veneration

Evidence

These episodes may be exaggerated; but Fidenzio himself followed the victorious army of the sultan as it retired to Damascus, in the hope of helping the Christian prisoners, and some of the Muslims, with the events of the capture of the Christian city fresh in their minds, asked him why Christians adored pictures and images. It was not, Fidenzio of course replied, the images, but the saints in heaven whom they represented, that Christians venerated. “They were silent, not knowing what else to say.’ — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 640

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates the iconodule vs iconoclast distinction concretely — Christians worshiped the prototype, not the image, a distinction Muslims found puzzling.
• XREF: connects to: Lull saw Muslim and Christian fears of misbelief as mirror images