Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain (review) (original) (raw)

2003, The Catholic Historical Review

AI-generated Abstract

The review of "Reconquest and Crusade in Medieval Spain" by O'Callaghan provides a critical analysis of the book's narrative regarding the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula, comparing it to the broader themes of crusades in both context and historiography. It highlights the complexities involved in the interactions between Christian and Muslim forces during this period, noting that alliances and conflicts were not purely defined by religion. The review discusses the author's approach to the subject, acknowledging both the strengths and limitations of the work, while emphasizing the ongoing relevance of historical narratives in understanding contemporary tensions between Christianity and Islam.

Sign up for access to the world's latest research.

checkGet notified about relevant papers

checkSave papers to use in your research

checkJoin the discussion with peers

checkTrack your impact

Nicola Clarke review, Christian Identity amid Islam in Medieval Spain

However, some may be disappointed that the book is a record of conversations with academics rather than a collection of short essays. This may produce an awkward read, but the multiplicity of scholars and scholarship summarized nevertheless allows the reader to experience a vast breadth of scholarly opinions on qur'anic topics.

Rethinking the impact Of the cRusades On The MusliM-ChrisTian ThOughT and develOpment

The present paper attempts to revisit the impact of the Crusades into a broader social, economic, political, and religious context. It will first investigate the Crusades' impact on the Muslim world and, then accordingly and importantly on the Western Europe visa -vis trade, economy, religion, knowledge, scientific inventions, literature to name a few prominent areas. The Crusade imagery, ideology and symbolism are so much powerful and immense so that it has subsided and undermined the constructive/positive impact the Western Europe achieved by confronting with the Orient/Muslim world. The paper concludes that the Crusades' positive impact and interaction if broadly highlighted and explored, and if given considerable space in public and academic discourses then the possibilities of the East-West tension and hostility could be alleviated to a considerable extent.

Discordant Voices: The Influence of Ideology and Context on the Perceptions of Franciscan and Dominican Friars in the Thirteenth Century Concerning Islam and Muslims

2014

This thesis was prepared in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History. The thesis examines the perceptions of thirteenth-century Dominican and Franciscan friars concerning Islam and Muslims, and the extent to which their perceptions demonstrate the existence of a normative ideology influenced by the needs of crusading. It also explores the relationship between the individual context of each author and similarities and differences between their respective perceptions. It reinforces other recent studies that demonstrate that medieval people perceived both Islam and Muslims in a variety of ways. In doing so, it reveals the profound influence that engagement with Arab-Muslim culture had on the perceptions of mendicant friars in the thirteenth century. It also demonstrates the value of an alternative approach to the examination of Christian-Muslim relations that addresses problems of extremes of fragmentation and generalisation which are problematic in this field of study.

The historiography of Medieval Christian-Muslim relations (1960-2020

De Medio Aevo, 2023

The historiography concerning Medieval Christian Muslim-Relations over the past sixty years has been shaped by two important books: Norman Daniel's Islam and the West (1960) and Edward Said's Orientalism (1978). Each of these works made significant contributions to the field, but each also had serious methodological limitations. Both works assumed and reinforced a conceptual divide between an imagined Christian West and Muslim East. Over the past several decades, some of the most interesting and important work in the field has challenged and reconceptualized this dichotomy.

“The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New Synthesis,” History 93 (April 2008): 181-200.

Conventional wisdom maintains that the Islamic world and western Christendom held two very different views of the crusades. The image of warfare between Islam and Christendom has promoted the idea that the combative instincts aroused by this conflict somehow produced discordant views of the crusades. Yet the direct evidence from Islamic and Christian sources indicates otherwise. The self-view of the crusades presented by contemporary Muslim authors and the self-view of the crusades presented by crusading popes are not in opposition to each other but are in agreement with each other. Both interpretations place the onset of the crusades ahead of their accepted historical debut in 1095. Both interpretations point to the Norman conquest of Islamic Sicily (1060–91) as the start of the crusades. And both interpretations contend that by the end of the eleventh century the crusading enterprise was Mediterranean-wide in its scope. The Islamic view of the crusades is in fact the enantiomorph (mirror-image) of the Christian view of the crusades. This article makes a radical departure from contemporary scholarship on the early crusading enterprise because it is based on the direct evidence from Islamic and Christian sources. The direct evidence offers a way out of the impasse into which crusade history has fallen, and any attempt at determining the origin and nature of crusading without the support of the direct evidence is doomed to failure.

Loading...

Loading Preview

Sorry, preview is currently unavailable. You can download the paper by clicking the button above.