Some medieval Christian conquerors needed no polemic against Islam

Evidence

In Jaume’s Llibre dels feyts we find none of the polemical portrayals of Islam that are found, for example, in the various chronicles of the first Crusade. Jaume apparently feels no need either to demonize his enemy or to justify his own conquests. His devotion to the Virgin, and his desire to reestablish churches in her name where mass will be performed in honor of her son, are enough for Jaume. The success of his endeavor is sufficient proof that God is on his side. Yet there is nothing in the Llibre dels feyts to suggest that Jaume made any efforts to convert Muslims to Christianity; he insists on the protection he gives them to practice their own religion. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 919

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the vault’s genealogy of Islamophobia: a harsher/extractive conquest (Reconquista, later expulsions) coexisted with a king who framed himself as Muslim subjects’ defender — nuanced against a uniform medieval Christian animus.
• QUESTION: Why did Jaume’s devotion imply no conversion mission, when his reign funded Dominican missions elsewhere? Worth chasing the legal-text angle the chapter then turns to.