Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today

Description

Heretic and impostor or reformer and statesman? The contradictory Western visions of Muhammad In European culture, Muhammad has been vilified as a heretic, an impostor, and a pagan idol. But these aren't the only images of the Prophet of Islam that emerge from Western history. Commentators have also portrayed Muhammad as a visionary reformer and an inspirational leader, statesman, and lawgiver. In Faces of Muhammad, John Tolan provides a comprehensive history of these changing, complex, and contradictory visions. Starting from the earliest calls to the faithful to join the Crusades against the "Saracens," he traces the evolution of Western conceptions of Muhammad through the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and up to the present day. Faces of Muhammad reveals a lengthy tradition of positive portrayals of Muhammad that many will find surprising. To Reformation polemicists, the spread of Islam attested to the corruption of the established Church, and prompted them to depict Muhammad as a champion of reform. In revolutionary England, writers on both sides of the conflict drew parallels between Muhammad and Oliver Cromwell, asking whether the prophet was a rebel against legitimate authority or the bringer of a new and just order. Voltaire first saw Muhammad as an archetypal religious fanatic but later claimed him as an enemy of superstition. To Napoleon, he was simply a role model: a brilliant general, orator, and leader. The book shows that Muhammad wears so many faces in the West because he has always acted as a mirror for its writers, their portrayals revealing more about their own concerns than the historical realities of the founder of Islam. Cover Title Epigraph Contents Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction: The Prophet Muhammad in Western Discourse 1. Mahomet the Idol The Formation of the Image of Saracen Idolatry Jesus contra Mahomet: Saracen Idolaters as the Enemies of the Crusaders Mahumet among the Saracen Idols of the Chanson de Roland Mahowndes and Mahounds in Medieval Letters 2. Trickster and Heresiarch The Twelfth-Century Legend: Guibert of Nogent Learned Assault on the Prophet: From Petrus Alfonsi to the Dominicans Mahomet the Scoundrel and Impostor in Late Medieval and Early Modern European Culture 3. Pseudoprophet of the Moors Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada and Mark of Toledo Pedro Pascual Crusading against Moor and Turk in the Fifteenth Century Juan Andrés A Morisco Muhammad 4. Prophet of the Turks European Wars of Religion and the Turkish Prophet Mahomet Mahomet, Unitarian Prophet? Fusing Qur’ān and Traditional Polemics in the Sixteenth Century Mahomet Testifies to the Immaculate Conception 5. Republican Revolutionary in Renaissance England Cromwell as Mahomet: The English Alcoran (1649) Mahomet, Republican Visionary: Henry Stubbe’s Originall & Progress of Mahometanism (1671) Mahomet, Prophet of Unitarianism or Impostor? 6. The Enlightenment Prophet: Reformer and Legislator The Three Impostors An Anticlerical Hero Sale’s Qur’ān Voltaire’s Mahomet Gibbon and Mahomet 7. Lawgiver, Statesman, Hero: The Romantics’ Prophet Bonaparte’s Mahomet: Model Statesman and Conqueror Goethe: Where Is the Line between Poet and Prophet? The Romantics’ Muhammad: From Carlyle to Lamartine 8. A Jewish Muhammad? The View from Jewish Communities of Nineteenth-Century Central Europe Abraham Geiger: The Prophet as Monotheistic Reformer Gustav Weil’s Reforming Enthusiast Heinrich Graetz’s Brilliant Pupil of an Arabian Rabbi Ashkenaz Dreams of a Lost Sefardi Paradise Ignác Goldziher 9. Prophet of an Abrahamic Faith Louis Massignon and Giulio Basetti-Sani Vatican II and Hans Küng Montgomery Watt Conclusion Notes Introduction Mahomet the Idol Trickster and Heresiarch Pseudoprophet of the Moors Prophet of the Turks Republican Revolutionary in Renaissance England The Enlightenment Prophet Lawgiver, Statesman, Hero A Jewish Muhammad? Prophet of an Abrahamic Faith Conclusion Index