The carnal Paradise was the central symbol of Christian anti-Islam polemic

Evidence

The Liber denudationis even goes so far as to claim that Muslims believe that in the next life each Muslim in paradise will be awarded for his virtue by an elongation of his penis: it will be so long, in fact, that he will need seventy Christians and seventy Jews to carry it before him! — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 820 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Yet the core of Riccoldo’s criticism of the Koran is that it is supposedly irrational. Muslim divorce law is contrary to reason and to natural law. Riccoldo affirms (erroneously following the Liber denudationis) that the Koran permits sodomy, which reason prohibits. Equally irrational and ridiculous, for Riccoldo, are the carnal delights the Saracens await in heaven; here he again follows the Liber denudationis, claiming that the Saracens believe that heavenly penises will be “as long as a fresh horse can run in one day before becoming tired.” — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1251 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Medieval Christians enlisted Muslim philosophers as witnesses against the carnal Paradise; Medieval Christian polemicists caricatured Muslim paradise beliefs with absurd bodily inventions — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 820; Christian polemicists caricatured Islamic paradise as crudely carnal to discredit it. (+7 more)

Related

• Medieval Christians enlisted Muslim philosophers as witnesses against the carnal Paradise (similarity 0.91)
• Medieval polemicists ridiculed Islamic paradise for its alleged carnal absurdities. (similarity 0.90)
• Medieval Christian polemicists caricatured Muslim paradise beliefs with absurd bodily inventions (similarity 0.86)
• Medieval Christian polemic mocked Muslim sexual mores to discredit the Koran (similarity 0.85)
• Medieval Christians treated Qur’anic Paradise as proof of Islam’s invalidity (similarity 0.84)
• Crusade-era polemic framed Islam as carnally licentious and militarily coercive against Christian love (similarity 0.83)
• Critics linked Islamic sexual laxity to its doctrines of determinism and paradise (similarity 0.83)
• Christian polemicists portrayed medieval Muslim sexuality as wholly unregulated (similarity 0.82)
• The medieval libel framed Islam as a carnal cult for carnal people (similarity 0.80)
• Early Christian anti-Islamic polemics focused on polygamy, divorce, and Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval polemicists called the Muslim Paradise a brothel and tavern (similarity 0.80)
• Medieval fixation on genital washing mirrored Christian obsession with Islamic sexual sin (similarity 0.79)
• Twelfth-century polemics reduced Islam to a carnal cult of lust (similarity 0.79)
• Christians framed Islam as a religion built on sexual licence (similarity 0.78)
• Medieval polemic treated Muslim sexuality as a symptom of a deeper spiritual laxity (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Christian polemicists caricatured Islamic paradise as crudely carnal to discredit it. #corroborates (0.90)
• Medieval Christians enlisted Muslim philosophers as witnesses against the carnal Paradise #expands (0.85)
• Medieval Christian polemicists caricatured Muslim paradise beliefs with absurd bodily inventions #exemplifies (0.85) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 820
• Medieval polemicists ridiculed Islamic paradise for its alleged carnal absurdities. #exemplifies (0.85) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1251
• Medieval polemicists called the Muslim Paradise a brothel and tavern #exemplifies (0.85) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 824
• Christian writers framed Muslim paradise as carnal reward for killing Christians #expands (0.80) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 130
• Crusade-era polemic framed Islam as carnally licentious and militarily coercive against Christian love #expands (0.80) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1036
• Medieval Christians treated Qur’anic Paradise as proof of Islam’s invalidity #corroborates (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 843
• Early Christian anti-Islamic polemics focused on polygamy, divorce, and Muhammad’s marriage to Zaynab #complicates (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 357
• Christian polemicists repeatedly charged Islam with being fundamentally irrational #complicates (0.75)