Riccoldo claimed philosophical study led Muslims to despise their own religion.

Evidence

The rejection of the crucifixion was violently attacked by Humbert of Romans: ‘although they agree with us in matters to do with the praise of Christ, yet, failing to understand the mystery of the Cross, but abusing it like most vile swine, they think it a fatuity and a scandal to the divine Majesty to confess that the Son of God was crucified … Humbert knew that Muslims did not believe Christ to be Son of God; his theme presumably carried him away, and he must have had in mind I Cor. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 930 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Llull rejects the Dominican strategy, forging his own approach, an idiosyncratic fusion of Dominican rationalism and thoroughness with Franciscan mysticism and pathos. For Llull, the superiority of Christianity to Islam can be demonstrated rationally, if through the rather abstruse and idiosyncratic tool of Llull’s Art. For Llull (as for many earlier authors) Muhammad lacks the signs of prophecy, and the Koran is full of contradictions. He asserts that learned Muslims themselves are aware of this and do not believe that Muhammad was a prophet. They are (like Peter the Venerable’s imagined Muslim audience a century and a half earlier) an audience ripe for conversion, if only Christians can properly attend to the task. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1279 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

There was a deeper weakness in Ricoldo’s approach. He was lucky not to have to refute the very arguments that he used against Islam, but brought against Christian doctrine, as many of his very rationalist arguments would in fact be brought in later ages. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 374 (#responds-to, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval Christian polemicists weaponised Muslims’ own sources against Islam. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1315; Missionary failure led Riccoldo to blame Muslim irrationality despite admiring them — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1256; Medieval Christian scholars exaggerated Islam’s internal religion-philosophy conflicts. (+16 more)

Broader Connections

• Christian polemicists imagined educated Muslims as secretly doubting their own faith #corroborates (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1279
• A papal polemicist misattributed to Muslims a belief he knew they rejected. #corroborates (1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 930
• Ricoldo’s rationalist arguments against Islam were later turned against Christianity itself #responds-to (0.98) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 374
• Medieval Christian scholars exaggerated Islam’s internal religion-philosophy conflicts. #qualifies (0.94)
• Medieval Christian theologians branded Muslims irrational while abandoning rational proof of their own faith #complicates (0.87) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1234
• Medieval polemicists attacked the Qur’an with pedantic misreadings to prove Muhammad misunderstood truths #complicates (0.87) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 953
• Missionary failure led Riccoldo to blame Muslim irrationality despite admiring them #complicates (0.82) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1256
• Medieval Christian polemicists misattributed beliefs to Muslims that Muslims would disown. #complicates (0.82) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1435
• Medieval contempt for Islamic philosophy coexisted with massive intellectual debt to it. #complicates (0.82) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1995
• Medieval polemicists mocked Muslim textual authority while relying on their own dubious sources #complicates (0.78) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1965
• Medieval polemicists denied Muslim sacred history and substituted their own accounts #complicates (0.78) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 815
• Medieval thinkers blamed Christians’ own divisions and vices for Islam’s refusal to convert #complicates (0.78) — R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle…, 466
• Philosophy is attacked for its form by religion and its content by philosophy #complicates (0.78)
• Enlightenment rationalists framed Muslims as intellectually incapable due to their religion. #complicates (0.74)
• Liberal philosophers excuse blatant bigotry when the target is Islam. #complicates (0.74) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 215