Reformation-era anti-Islamic polemic drew on medieval translations and texts

Evidence

Help came to the embattled humanists in the form of a letter to the council from none other than Martin Luther himself, who declared his support for the project, saying that there was no better way to injure Muhammad and the Turks than to publish their “lies and fables” for all to see. Earlier the same year Luther himself had completed his German translation of Riccoldo’s Contra legem Sarracenorum. When Martin Luther and his contemporaries sought to comprehend Islam and to engage in polemics against it, they turned naturally to translations and texts produced between the twelfth and the early fourteenth centuries. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1355

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader theme of how medieval polemical texts became the raw material for early modern religious controversy. — connects to: An established anti-Islamic literature existed in the West by 1350; The Western canon on Islam outlived religious unity and the Reformation itself.