Riccoldo read the Koran as unwitting Christian testimony requiring no conversion

Evidence

Riccoldo affirms that Muhammad, in the Koran, professes Christian truth without understanding it: Riccoldo produces the standard arguments for the Trinity based on the Koran’s use of plural nouns to refer to God; he also produces Koranic passages that, he claims, prove the existence of the Holy Spirit and of Christ as the Word of God. He notes that the Koran praises the Torah and Gospel and asks why in that case the Muslims do not study them? The answer, he says, is that they would soon discover their error; in order to prevent this, they prohibit the study of the Bible (just as they prohibit the study of philosophy for the same reason). Indeed, he says, the Saracens have four “remedies” to prevent their error from being revealed: they kill anyone who attacks the Koran; they prohibit religious disputation; they warn Saracens not to believe what non-Saracens say; and they proclaim, “your law is for you, mine is for me.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1269

Categorization

• SEED: Angle: how missionary opponents used a rival’s own scripture as evidence for their own position — the strategy of reading adversary texts as unwitting testimony. Could extend to modern apologetics behaviors.
• XREF: Connects to the coercive-conversion logic Riccoldo endorses (compel into the Banquet) and medieval violence-against-heresy debates, and to the doctrine that error must be suppressed.