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.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780691186115
Publisert
2019
Utgiver
Vendor
Princeton University Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter