Some medieval Christians wrongly identified Muhammad with the heresiarch Nicholas
Evidence
One of its several nastier absurdities is the notion that Muhammad expected to rise again on the third day after his death; in the Middle Ages this reappeared in the very slightly more reasonable version that he expected his body to be carried to Heaven by angels.! — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 65 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Salah ad Din’s letter to the Emperor, often quoted by his Latin contemporaries, enshrined the succinct formula, “Our instructor and God’s Apostle, Muhammad, whom He sent for the correction of the right religion: may He make it appear above all religions.’ James of Vitry realised that Muhammad’s mission was to ‘expound to the world and declare’ the revelations given to Moses and Christ, and to “correct and instruct those who ill understood the commands of religion’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 141 (
#contradicts, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Medieval Christian polemic traced Muhammad’s error to heretical Jewish and Christian teachers — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 811; Medieval Christians knew Muslims revered Muhammad as a prophet, not a god; Medieval Christians judged Muhammad by criteria his own theology did not claim — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 394 (+14 more)
Broader Connections
- Medieval Christian polemic traced Muhammad’s error to heretical Jewish and Christian teachers
#corroborates(1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 811 - Medieval Christians knew Muslims revered Muhammad as a prophet, not a god
#contradicts(1.00) - Medieval Latin Christians understood Muhammad as a corrective prophet completing earlier revelations
#contradicts(1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 141 - Medieval Christian polemicists fabricated absurdly distorted biographies of Muhammad
#expands(1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 65 - Medieval Christians read Muhammad’s life as a failed imitation of Christ
#exemplifies(1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 499 - Medieval Christians actively preferred false anti-Muhammad accounts over true ones
#corroborates(1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1529 - Medieval Christians identified Muhammad with Behemoth, Leviathan, and the Antichrist
#corroborates(1.00) - Some twelfth-century Christians knew Muslims do not worship Muhammad as a god
#contradicts(1.00) - Medieval Christians usually called Muhammad a prophet or pseudoprophet, not a god.
#contradicts(1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 116 - Medieval polemicists mapped Muhammad onto earlier named heresies.
#corroborates(1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1020 - Medieval Christian polemicists deliberately mistranslated Muslim sources to defame Muhammad
#expands(1.00) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 583 - Medieval Christian polemicists investigated Muhammad’s claims carefully rather than dismissing them
#complicates(0.85)