thevolume represents a significant contribution to the complex history of the conceptualization and pictorialization of the Prophet Muhammad in the West. It gives a rapid and though deep overview of the history of the making of an image of the Prophet Muhammad in Europe and thus reflects the whole history of the making of the image of Islam in the Latin West, from the early medieval times till the 19th century. The book also provides the reader with ready access to the most recent scholarship concerning the image of Muhammad in Europe, in the form of comprehensive footnotes provided throughout the text and an extensive bibliography.

Generations of Western writers—from the Crusades to the present day—have written portraits claiming to depict the life and personality of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. Over the course of thirteen centuries, stubbornly biased and consistently negative representations have persisted, presenting images which bear no resemblance to the noble man familiar to Muslims. Muhammad in Europe traces this consistent tradition of distortion and provides an account of the reasons behind it. Drawing on works dating from the Middle Ages to the last decade of the twentieth century and spanning Latin, Italian, French, German, and English language sources, the book culminates with a critical analysis of Salman Rushdie’s controversial novel, The Satanic Verses.

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.

The Routledge Companion to Medieval English Literature offers a new, inclusive, and comprehensive context to the study of medieval literature written in the English language from the Norman Conquest to the end of the Middle Ages. Utilising a Trans-European context, this volume includes essays from leading academics in the field across linguistic and geographic divides. Extending beyond the traditional scholarly discussions of insularity in relation to Middle English literature and ‘isolationism’, this volume: Oversees a variety of genres and topics, including cultural identity, insular borders, linguistic interactions, literary gateways, Middle English texts and traditions, and modern interpretations such as race, gender studies, ecocriticism, and postcolonialism. Draws on the combined extensive experience of teaching and research in medieval English and comparative literature within and outside of anglophone higher education and looks to the future of this fast-paced area of literary culture. Contains an indispensable section on theoretical approaches to the study of literary texts. This Companion provides the reader with practical insights into the methods and approaches that can be applied to medieval literature and serves as an important reference work for upper-level students and researchers working on English literature.

This Handbook considers Christian thought in the long nineteenth century (from the French Revolution to the First World War), encompassing not only doctrine and theology, but also Christianity's mutual influence on literature and the arts, political and economic thought, and the natural and social sciences.

Disziplinäre Grenzen überschreitend zielt der Band darauf ab, die Visualisierung Mohammeds in der westlichen Welt vis-à-vis mit dessen Darstellung im Islam zu untersuchen. Dabei wird das Material weder geographischen oder sprachlichen Sphären zugeordnet noch werden Textquellen isoliert von bildlichen Darstellungen betrachtet. Die Beiträge eröffnen vielmehr einen thematischen und theoretischen Dialog über die Frage, wie der Prophet in verschiedenen kulturellen Traditionen, in Europa und Amerika und in der Welt des Islam, vom Mittelalter bis in die Gegenwart, vergegenwärtigt wurde.

By crossing disciplinary boundaries in the field of the humanities, this volume aims to elucidate Muhammad s visualization in the West vis-a-vis his image in Islam. It does so not by relegating materials to geographical and/or linguistic spheres or by separating texts from images. Rather, it seeks to place various articles in thematic and theoretical conversation so as to explore more broadly how the Prophet has been constructed, visualized, narrated, encountered, revised, adapted, and adopted in multiple cultural traditions, in European and American traditions and in the world of Islam from the medieval era until the modern period."

This lavishly illustrated volume is the first major global history of ornament from the Middle Ages to today. Crossing historical and geographical boundaries in unprecedented ways and considering the role of ornament in both art and architecture, Histories of Ornament offers a nuanced examination that integrates medieval, Renaissance, baroque, and modern Euroamerican traditions with their Islamic, Indian, Chinese, and Mesoamerican counterparts. At a time when ornament has re-emerged in architectural practice and is a topic of growing interest to art and architectural historians, the book reveals how the long history of ornament illuminates its global resurgence today. Organized by thematic sections on the significance, influence, and role of ornament, the book addresses ornament's current revival in architecture, its historiography and theories, its transcontinental mobility in medieval and early modern Europe and the Middle East, and its place in the context of industrialization and modernism. Throughout, Histories of Ornament emphasizes the portability and politics of ornament, figuration versus abstraction, cross-cultural dialogues, and the constant negotiation of local and global traditions. Featuring original essays by more than two dozen scholars from around the world, this authoritative and wide-ranging book provides an indispensable reference on the histories of ornament in a global context. Contributors include: Michele Bacci (Fribourg University); Anna Contadini (University of London); Thomas B. F. Cummins (Harvard); Chanchal Dadlani (Wake Forest); Daniela del Pesco (Universita degli Studi Roma Tre); Vittoria Di Palma (USC); Anne Dunlop (University of Melbourne); Marzia Faietti (University of Bologna); María Judith Feliciano (independent scholar); Finbarr Barry Flood (NYU); Jonathan Hay (NYU); Christopher P. Heuer (Clark Art); Rémi Labrusse (Université Paris Ouest Nanterre la Défense); Gülru Necipoğlu (Harvard); Marco Rosario Nobile (University of Palermo); Oya Pancaroğlu (Bosphorus University); Spyros Papapetros (Princeton); Alina Payne (Harvard); Antoine Picon (Harvard); David Pullins (Harvard); Jennifer L. Roberts (Harvard); David J. Roxburgh (Harvard); Hashim Sarkis (MIT); Robin Schuldenfrei (Courtauld); Avinoam Shalem (Columbia); and Gerhard Wolf (KHI, Florence).