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Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making » (New Edition)

Book cover image of Muhammad in Europe: A Thousand Years of Western Myth-Making by Minou Reeves

Authors: Minou Reeves
ISBN-13: 9780814775646, ISBN-10: 0814775640
Format: Paperback
Publisher: New York University Press
Date Published: November 2003
Edition: New Edition

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Author Biography: Minou Reeves

Born in Tehran, Minou Reeves was, until 1979 a career diplomat. At the time of the Iranian Revolution, she was Queen Farah's international secretary. She is the author of Female Warriors of Allah, and is now a Fellow of the Institute of Linguists at London. She currently lives in Worcestershire, working as a freelance writer, translator and language consultant.

Book Synopsis

Generations of Western writersfrom the Crusades to the present dayhave 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.

Jewish Currents

Jonathan Birnbaum and Clarence Taylor have plumbed historical documents to produce a study that has both truth and urgency.....You could not do better than this book.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Preface
Introduction1
1Muhammad the Prophet of Mecca9
2Muhammad's Rule in Medina: The Making of Islam31
3Muhammad's Quest for Spirituality57
4Muhammad as Mahound: Medieval Europe and the fear of Islam73
5The Turkish Threat: Muhammad in the Europe of the Renaissance99
6Muhammad as an Anti-Christ: The fate of Muhammad and Islam in the Reformation119
7Humanist or Fanatic? The Enlightenment divided139
8Hero or Impostor? Muhammad in the age of hero worship175
9Fantasies of Sensuality and Cruelty: Muhammad and Islam in nineteenth-century European imagination203
10The Return of the Crusades and Jihads: Islam at the end of the Ottoman Empire241
11From Reverence to Travesty: Muhammad in the twentieth century271
Bibliography301

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