Twelfth-century Latin writers reframed Islam from paganism to a heresy

Evidence

Through increased contact with Muslims, many Christians realized how erroneous this image of Saracen paganism was. In the twelfth century, as contacts between the Latin West and the Muslim world multiplied (through trade, crusade, and intellectual exchange), some Latin writers learned more about Islam and attempted to incorporate that knowledge into their Christian worldview (as discussed in chapter 6). Peter the Venerable, abbot of Cluny, had the Koran translated into Latin. He and other authors studied the works of earlier Spanish Christian polemicists against Islam. These twelfth-century authors wrote theological refutations of Islam, trying to prove the superiority of Christianity. They viewed Islam as a heresy, an illegitimate deviation of the true religion. The culprit was Muhammad, portrayed as a scoundrel and trickster. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 70

Categorization

• QUESTION: Was Peter the Venerable’s Latin Koran translation (the first) a neutral text or a polemical tool from the start?
• DEFINE: Useful distinction: medieval Europe shifted from viewing Islam as pagan idolatry to viewing it as Christian heresy — a key category shift.
• XREF: connects to: Whether Islam technically counted as heresy was debated among medieval Latin theologians