Some medieval clerics already rejected hostile caricatures of Muslims as inaccurate

Evidence

Not that all readers of this story believed it. Otto of Friesing came across the story and retells it in his Chronicle of Two Cities, but immediately rejects it as impossible: the Saracens would not have asked Thiemo to worship idols since “the Saracens universally are worshipers of one God… . They are cut off from salvation by one thing alone, that they deny that Jesus Christ … is God and the Son of God, and hold in reverence and worship as a great prophet of the Supreme God, Mahomet, a deceiver.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 604

Categorization

• XREF: Reverses the assumption that medieval Christians uniformly believed inflammatory anti-Muslim propaganda — echoes how misinformation coexists with skeptical contemporaries in every era. — connects to: Physical contact with Muslims forced medieval authors toward greater accuracy
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: what fraction of Latin chroniclers expressed similar doubts, and what evidence did Otto actually have about Muslim monotheism?