Saracens

by John Tolan

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.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Islam, Religion, Medieval, European History, Middle East

400 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2002

About the author

John V. Tolan works on the history of religious and cultural relations between the Arab and Latin worlds in the Middle Ages. He received a BA in Classics from Yale, an MA and a PhD in History from the University of Chicago, and an Habilitation à diriger des recherches from the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has taught and lectured in universities in North America, Europe Africa and the Middle East and is currently Professor of History at the University of Nantes. He currently is director of a major project funded by the European Research Council, “RELMIN: The legal status of religious minorities in the Euro-Mediterranean world (5th-15th centuries)” (www.relmin.eu).

Reviews

[Kimberly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saracens by John Tolan provides a good introduction to the literate medieval person's mindset. Most literate people in the Middle Ages were religious leaders, so the majority of the sources he cites are church leaders. Tolan shows how beginning in the 8th C Syrian Christians were overrun by followers of Islam, most often referred to as Saracens, Ishmaelites, or Arabs.

Isadore of Spain had three categories for non-Christians: Jews, pagans and heretics. His typology was taken as truth for early medieval Christians and they spent much time and energy trying to force Islam to fit one of the pre-existing molds.

The original dhimmis (second class conquered peoples, Jews and Christians) took a very Old Testament approach. Islam was viewed as a temporary trouble; a punishment sent by God to purge Christians of their sins. They thought that it was just another barbarian invasion which would soon run itself out and dissolve. They saw no reason to learn anything about Islam, but focused more on internal divisions and problems.

Once Islam conquered Spain in 711 Western Europe began to pay attention, and saw Islam as a new religious threat to be refuted. Some attempt was made to learn about Islam, and a few tracts and treatises were written against it. But the Westerners who were safe beyond the Alps still had no idea what they were talking about. However when fear of the 'other' was added to half-truths and misperceptions Islam was distorted by church leaders. Muhammad was portrayed as a trickster, false prophet and a practitioner of black magic. The sexual and worldly treasures to be found in paradise were denounced as sin by celibate Church leaders.

The Christian dhimmis in Spain and Syria living under Islam and daily interacting with it tended to view it as a heresy, while the intellectuals living in safety branded it pagan idolatry. Finally the Qur'an was translated into Latin and Westerner leaders could actually study it. Gradually a more accurate view of Islam was developed and arguments through reason were enacted to convert the Saracen. Even with the best minds of the times trying to refute Islam through conventional means they were more often than not unsuccessful. Franciscan and Dominican missionaries went to Spain, North Africa, and the Holy Land in attempts to either gain a martyrs crown and a heavenly reward (typically Franciscan) or gain converts through special schooling and training in order to dialogue with them(Dominicans).

As arguments through reason failed Saracens were viewed as less intelligent than normal pagans or heretics. If reason was not enough to persuade them then force was deemed necessary. Christian leaders became disillusioned as missionary attempts failed, and as crusade after crusade failed to gain permanent possession of the Holy Land. Islam did not fit into their nice little categories; and finally some scholars began to accept it as a separate religion. Hostility continued to rise as Christian’s vilified Islam and the centuries old stereotypes persisted in later arguments. The tensions and rivalries founded by misrepresenting a new religion have impacted future generations down to our own day.

[AskHistorians]

A study of the Christian understanding of the Islamic Other.

[Red Alibi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book that delves into the mind of a medieval European Christian upon the rise of Islam and trying to make sense of the Ishmaelites, their new religion and it's glory.

It is interesting to see how some Christians reacted to Islam and it's rapid expansion into the heart of Christindom. They, for the most part, saw it as a punishment from God for their own transgressions and sexual deviancy. The world made sense but the new religion threw it all into turmoil when they couldn't be fit into the 3 preconceived molds that the Christians held: Jews, heretics, and pagans. It's unbelievable to the mind of the medieval Christian, that these insignificant desert-dwellers are now rulers of many lands that Christian empire held before. Must be a punishment for that type of Christians, reasoned the other type of Christians. It's a freaking blessing dude lmaooo, said some sect of Christianity because the Christians of the other sect were prosecuting them and the Muslim rulers gave them more freedom of religion, provided they payed the Jizyah.
It's probably just temporary and gods punishment for us and such, right? Right?!
Spoiler: It was not temporary.

It is worth to mention that most early Christian and Jewish writings on Islam rarely mention "Islam" or "Muslims." Rather, they refer to them as Ishmaelites (as they are descendants of Ismael PBUH) often and Arabs. They called the religion "the Law of the Ishmaelites."
You can certainly trace back today's anti-Muslim sentiments and stereotypes back to even before the rise of Islam and then with the writings of Isidore, a contemporary of Mohammad (PBUH), and later Christian authors who vehemently attacked the Muslims with distorted and twisted information (e.g., a demon accepted a sacrifice from a Muslim, rather than God; Muslims are idolators, pagans; they eat flesh and drink blood, etc.). Although today's sentiment is much more subtle than it used to be and, as the author notes, the sense of superiority the Christians hold over Muslims is no longer a religious superiority, but rather a cultural, technological, englightenment one. It remains, all the same.

It is also darkly humorous to see the same medieval Christian thought about Islam as a punishment for their own sins echoed today in many Muslims. Colonization and the destructions of Muslims towns today are punishments from Allah for deviating from the true Islam. Muslims had glory in the past because they stuck true to the religion. The secularization and liberalization are surely the downfall of the glory that Islam once held.

[Marc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the writing style was a bit dense and dry to get through, Tolan does a good job of describing the primary sources from which he draws his conclusions. What's interesting/scary is that the same tactics used more than 1000 years ago continue to be used today, often for the same reason (defining one's in group at the expense of the "other", dehumanizing the enemy, misrepresenting their ideology through ignorance or willful choice, etc.).



It provides a good context for the crusades (a topic I've become interested in again), and to see how the imagination of the Christian world and the crusades shaped each other through such a tumultuous time. Probably not for the casual reader however. Tolan also provides a good bibliography of sources for further study.

[Charlie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very satisfying scholarly survey of Christian perceptions of Islam. Covers the early centuries of Islamic conquest through the thirteenth century, with perhaps a bit of a slant toward Spain. Concentrates on literary sources, mostly histories and treatises. The main thesis is that Christians, especially Latins, failed to understand Islam because it did not fit within their already existing conceptions of history, geography, and religion. The material is rather dense. Highly recommended, but only for students or scholars.

For a fuller review, go here: http://dearreaderblog.com/?p=1526