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Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination
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Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination Paperback - 2002

by John Tolan

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Reader reviews for Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination

From the publisher

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. Some converted. Others took up arms. Still others, the subjects of John Tolan's study of anti-Muslim polemics in medieval Europe, undertook to attack Islam and its most vivid avatar, the saracen, with words.

In an effort to make sense of God's apparent abandonment of Christendom in favor of a dynamic and expanding Muslim civilization, European writers distorted the teachings of Islam and caricatured its believers in a variety of ways. What ideological purposes did these portrayals serve? And how, in turn, did Muslims view Christianity? Feelings of rivalry, contempt, and superiority existed on both sides, tinged or tempered at times with feelings of doubt, inferiority, curiosity, or admiration. Tolan shows how Christian responses to Islam changed from the seventh to thirteenth centuries, through fast-charging crusades and spirit-crushing defeats, crystallizing into polemical images later drawn upon by Western authors in the fourteenth to twentieth centuries. Saracens explores the social and ideological uses of contempt, explaining how the denigration of the other can be used to defend one's own intellectual construction of the world.

First line

THESE OBSERVATIONS by anthropologist Mary Douglas aptly describe Christian attitudes toward Islam in the Middle Ages.

Details

  • Title Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination
  • Author John Tolan
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition First printing
  • Pages 400
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Columbia University Press, New York
  • Publication date 2002-05-01
  • Features Bibliography
  • ISBN 9780231123334 / 0231123337
  • Weight 1.2 lbs (0.54 kg)
  • Dimensions 9.1 x 6.2 x 0.88 in (23.11 x 15.75 x 2.24 cm)
  • Age range 22 to UP years
  • Grade levels 17 - UP
  • Reading level 1430
  • Themes
    • Chronological Period: Medieval (500-1453) Studies
    • Religious Orientation: Christian
    • Religious Orientation: Islamic
  • Category Religion - World Religions
  • Library of Congress Catalogue Number 2001047706
  • Dewey Decimal Code 261.27

Media reviews

Citations

  • Choice, 12/01/2002, Page 649

About the author

John V. Tolan is Matre de Confrences en histoire medievale, Department d'histoire, Universit de Nantes. He is the author of Petrus Alfonsi and His Medieval Readers and editor of Medieval Christian Perceptions of Islam: A Collection of Essays.

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Saracens : Islam in the Medieval European Imagination
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Saracens : Islam in the Medieval European Imagination

by Tolan, John

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9780231123334 / 0231123337
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Saracens
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Saracens

by Tolan, John

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by Tolan, John V.

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New York: Columbia University Press, 2002. First printing. Paperback. Near Fine. First edition, 2002. Softcover, 372 pp., clean unmarked text, Near Fine copy, a bit of rubbing to the edges of the book's covers.
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Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination

Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination

by Tolan, John

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780231123334 / 0231123337
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Columbia University Press, 2002. Trade Paperback. LIKE NEW. 372pp. AS NEW, clean, sharp copy. '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. Some converted. Others took up arms. Still others, the subjects of John Tolan's study of anti-Muslim polemics in medieval Europe, undertook to attack Islam and its most vivid avatar, the saracen, with words. In an effort to make sense of God's apparent abandonment of Christendom in favor of a dynamic and expanding Muslim civilization, European writers distorted the teachings of Islam and caricatured its believers in a variety of ways. What ideological purposes… Read more
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Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination

Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination

by John Tolan

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780231123334 / 0231123337
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Paperback / softback. New. Medieval Christian writers distorted the teachings of Islam and caricatured its believers in a variety of ways. What ideological purposes did these offensive portrayals serve? This book provides a comprehensive study of Christian polemical responses to Islam in the Middle Ages.
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Saracens
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Saracens
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Saracens

by Tolan, John V,

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Saracens

by Tolan, John

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
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Saracens
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Saracens

by Tolan, John

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780231123334 / 0231123337
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Saracens
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Saracens

by Tolan, John

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ISBN 10 / ISBN 13
9780231123334 / 0231123337
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