Voltaire’s attack on Muhammad served to attack revealed religion and royalty

Evidence

Voltaire’s attitude in 1742 was different from that of the mediaeval Christian only in two respects. In his tragedy (Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le prophéte) he frankly preferred to invent his own legends, rather than use those already circulating, which were apparently not scurrilous enough for his purpose; and his arguments against Islam are not only, like the mediaeval ones, such as might be used against all revealed religion: they are intended so to be used. The attack on Muhammad nevertheless made an excellent mask, and, although it was suspected of antiroyalism, the judicious Benedict XIV read it con sommo piacere. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1611

Categorization

• XREF: Voltaire’s Mahomet as a ‘mask’ for anti-Christian and antiroyal satire strengthens the vault’s genealogical thesis that attacking Islam is historically always also a displaced self-critique by the West. — connects to: Voltaire’s anti-Islam attacks served his campaigns against religion itself
• SEED: Angle: a genealogy of the ‘mask’ — Muhammad/Islam as acceptable target precisely because it lets speakers say about religion and power what they cannot say directly about their own.
• QUESTION: Voltaire invented scurrilous legends when existing ones were insufficient — worth tracing when fabricated or escalated claims about Islam today fill a similar rhetorical need.