Voltaire held Muhammad exploited Arab credulity to set himself up as prophet

Evidence

Voltaire contrasted the gentleness of Christ and the intolerance of Christians with this contrary state in Islam. He conceded, inconsistently with the position that he had earlier adopted, and even insisted, that Muhammad ‘deceived himself in deceiving others’; nevertheless, he really remained unconverted on the issue of hypocrisy. Muhammad, according to him, saw from the ignorance, the credulity and the inclination to enthusiasm of his fellow-Arabs that he might successfully ‘set himself up as a prophet’. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1620

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘Muhammad as impostor exploiting credulous natives’ trope is exactly the genealogy Anidjar/Aziz trace forward to modern constructions of Islam as deception and prey — relevant to the vault.