The problem of evil drove Christians to polemicize Islam theologically

Evidence

All these authors struggled with the same troubling questions: why should God allow the Muslims to conquer (and maintain) huge territories and to reduce their Christian inhabitants to the status of dhimmi? Was it because God preferred Islam? Indeed, that was the point of view of Muslims and of the increasing numbers of Christian converts who swelled the ranks of Islam. That could not, of course, be the response of the authors who chose to remain Christian; they needed other explanations. In other words, they had to adapt the concepts of Christian theology and Christian historiography to explain Islam to their Christian readers. In so doing, they had to convince their readers of the superiority of Christianity, of the need to remain steadfast in the ancestral faith. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 288

Categorization

• XREF: The dhimmi status and ‘why does God allow this’ question echo existing vault claims about Islam-West opposition structures.