Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination

by John Tolan

Book Overview

In the first century of Islam, most of the former Christian Roman Empire, from Syria to Spain, was brought under Muslim control in a conquest of unprecedented proportions. Confronted by the world of Islam, countless medieval Christians experienced a profound ambivalence, awed by its opulence, they were also troubled by its rival claims to the spiritual inheritance of Abraham and Jesus and humiliated by its social subjugation of non-Muslim minorities...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0231123337
• ISBN13: 9780231123334
• Release Date: June 2002
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.2" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 22 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

Elegant, thorough, and substantive investigation of a complex topic

Tolan's _Saracens_ and his follow-up, _Sons of Ishmael_, are sophisticated, meticulous, and elegant investigations into a complex and shifting collective of medieval attitudes, texts, and sources. His preference for utilizing less-regularly cited primary documents is a marvelous gift, and he readily references other, more 'mainstream' works, which enables a scholar to follow his research trail in a logical and clear fashion. He avoids over-theorization in favor of summation and presentation, both needed and appreciated steps taken while he is writing formational texts in a growing field of study. Any student or scholar working on or interested in the formulation of medieval visions and attitudes towards Islam will be indebted to Tolan's careful scholarship. Highly recommended.

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Impeccable Research, But At Times Slanted

The role of the Saracen(Arab) in literature has been a perennial theme of medieval studies and culture, and particularly in the means by which alterity(or Otherness) is constructed and perceived. In Tolan's book, Tolan reveals a range of medieval attitudes towards the Saracen as the "Other", whether a demonized Other in the eyes of the Latin West, an honourable Other who possesses immense valour and integrity of character in the eyes of Eastern Monophysites at quarrel with the Roman Catholic Church, or a stubborn and illogical Other which would not convert to Christianity given the polemical and apologetical tools harnessed against the Islam faith. It is in this range of medieval attitudes towards the Saracen as "Other" that modern issues like the status of dispossession faced by Arabs in the modern Western world and the heightened Christian-Muslim debates after September 11 in USA find their ideological and historical roots. Tolan's research is impeccable in its consideration of various sources ranging from texts as obscure as the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius to the writings of John of Damascus, from Isidore of Seville's anti-Jewish and Christian-eschatological discourses to Ramon Llul's "A Debate between Three Wise Men", from Aquinas' Dominican discourses to Spanish-Castilian historical sources and hagiographies and Hrotswitha of Gandersheim. One point that might be noticeable in his writing is however a notable contempt for Christendom in the Middle Ages which he actually associates with modern twentieth century Christianity after the 17th century Reformation(catalyzed through Luther, Calvin and Zwingli and the Anabaptist Revolt against church-state structures). This is probably a wrong-headed move in that not only does it appear to be highly ecumenical in its thrust, but that it appears to ignore the historical differences between modern Christianity and medieval Christendom. At times, when using the Dominicans and Franciscans or such to prove how medieval Christians use the Bible as a case for proving first and foremost the nature of Islam as a "heresy" in medieval Christian terms, he is conveying another impression of dislike of modern day Christianity that appears to be more subjective than objectively balanced and weighed out. I would recommend this book for those who are seriously interested in knowing how the configuration of the Saracen as the "Other" in literature of the Christian West and also the East evolved over the centuries from the earlier part of the Middle Ages right through to the High Middle Ages and then 14th century Europe. It does seem however at times, due to the highly emotive content that has a chance to appear every once in a while in some of the chapters, readers should take extra caution and weigh what Tolan says with a grain of salt and some serious reason.