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> Before Elizabeth's reign, England - like the rest of Christendom - understood a garbled version of Islam mainly through the bloody and polarised experiences o

by jkot 11y ago

> Before Elizabeth's reign, England - like the rest of Christendom - understood a garbled version of Islam mainly through the bloody and polarised experiences of the Crusades. > No Christian even knew the words "Islam" or "Muslim", > Christians simply could not accept that Islam was a coherent religious belief. Instead they dismissed it as a pagan polytheism or a heretical deformation of Christianity. That is just not true. Christians knew Islam for almost millennium before 16th century and centuries before crusades. There were christian communities all over Muslim world.

vetinari 11y ago
In 16th century there was already Habsburg-Ottoman war. Europeans were pretty much aware already, what Islam and Muslim are. At this time, it was just English who were slowly finding out, how to manipulate Ottomans and Berbers against other Europeans.
- dogma1138 11y ago
  In the 8th century Spain was conquered by Muslims so they probably knew about them before the 16th centure ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania
Snargorf 11y ago
Indeed. In fact, basically all Muslim country north or west of Saudi Arabia were Christian for centuries before being conquered by Muslim invasions. Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Balkans, Turkey - all Christian before the armies of Islam came in 632-1683. It's an interesting piece of history that not a lot of people realize. That's why all these places have/had Christian communities. They're the leftover conquered people who were too stubborn to convert of leave under the abuse of their Muslim rulers. It's not like a bunch of Christians have ever immigrated into any Muslim country - lol!
- zyngaro 11y ago
  Yes. They did. At least one example I know of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians - lol
- mkaziz 11y ago
  And they were Jewish or Pagan before the Christians forced their way in. Check out this article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Christian_violence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Ch... Those old warrior popes sound a lot like the Mullahs of today. I particular enjoyed this line: "In the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: "'The knight of Christ may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently; for he serves Christ when he strikes, and saves himself when he falls.... When he inflicts death, it is to Christ's profit, and when he suffers death, it is his own gain.'""
  - DanielBMarkham 11y ago
    Agreed that in general it's an eerie thing. There are some interesting similarities, especially with the First Crusade and ISIS. There are also some striking differences. Aside from the Byzantine, Christianity was mostly monolithic, with secular rulers jockeying for power inside of one Pope. On the other side, the religious and secular authority were both the same person. This led, over time, to the crusades being a way of wielding internal control over Christiandom, because one guy (the Pope) could preach a crusade against any local, domestic opponents and get some kind of traction out of it. Islam has no centralized authority. (Lots of other differences also)
    - maaku 11y ago
      Eh that's only true of Western Christiandom, which was of relatively less importance until the fall of Byzantine. It certainly doesn't describe the various Orthodox sects, which either didn't participate or were sometimes victims in the crusades.
      - 11y ago
eveningcoffee 11y ago
It hard to understand why people who should know better (Jerry Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary College, University of London) distribute this garbage.
hartpuff 11y ago
I think it means they literally didn't know the words Islam or Muslim, it being previously known as Muhammadism or Mahometry and/or other words.
empath75 11y ago
Catholics had written detailed arguments against Muslims for hundreds of years prior to Elizabeth. Here's Thomas Aquinas making some arguments against Muslim criticisms of Christianity in the 13th century: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/islam/rationes.htm http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/islam/ration...
nl 11y ago
Right. But this is more about the centralization of knowledge and the slow distribution of that knowledge. Note that this story is in the context of England ("England - like the rest of Christendom - understood a garbled version of Islam mainly through the bloody and polarised experiences of the Crusades.") There may have been people in England (and the rest of Europe) at that time that used the words "Islam" and "Muslim" to describe that religion. However, they weren't people who wrote a lot, and those terms certainly weren't wide-spread. Look at it in Google's NGram viewer: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Islam&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2CIslam%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BIslam%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BISLAM%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Islam&case_ins... The author isn't arguing that they didn't know of the religion at all, just that they were ignorant of much of what it believed.
TenOhms 11y ago
I find this hard to believe because Islam often takes issue with Christianity due to the concept of the Trinity being equated to polytheism.
dogma1138 11y ago
Considering that there was an "Islamic" nation (in one form or another) in Europe for about 800 years starting around 700AD, when the Umayyads conquered 2/3rd of Spain just a stone throw away from then England (even tho England didn't really exist yet) it is quite unclear who the hell fact checked this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba
- williamjennings 11y ago
  Those Umayyads settled further into western Europe than most people recognize. Their expeditions covered most of western France, from the English channel to the Loire valley at their greatest extent. Given this geographic distribution, it is very problematic to assume that there was no contact for another 800 years. There were ample local converts, so it is unfair to claim that the conquest was accomplished solely by a army of foreigners. A more culturally neutral history would explain that the native Celts kicked out the Goths during the expansion of the Umayyad empire.
- maaku 11y ago
  williamjennings you are shadow banned.
kiliancs 11y ago
Another prominent and earlier example of Christians studying Arabic and Islam and engaging in peaceful theological discussions with Muslims through logic was Ramon Llull, one of the first to be born after Jaume I conquered Majorca. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull

by jkot 11y ago

vetinari 11y ago

In 16th century there was already Habsburg-Ottoman war. Europeans were pretty much aware already, what Islam and Muslim are. At this time, it was just English who were slowly finding out, how to manipulate Ottomans and Berbers against other Europeans.

dogma1138 11y ago
In the 8th century Spain was conquered by Muslims so they probably knew about them before the 16th centure ;) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania

Snargorf 11y ago

Indeed. In fact, basically all Muslim country north or west of Saudi Arabia were Christian for centuries before being conquered by Muslim invasions. Syria, Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Balkans, Turkey - all Christian before the armies of Islam came in 632-1683. It's an interesting piece of history that not a lot of people realize. That's why all these places have/had Christian communities. They're the leftover conquered people who were too stubborn to convert of leave under the abuse of their Muslim rulers. It's not like a bunch of Christians have ever immigrated into any Muslim country - lol!

zyngaro 11y ago
Yes. They did. At least one example I know of: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Tunisians - lol
mkaziz 11y ago
And they were Jewish or Pagan before the Christians forced their way in. Check out this article: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Christian_violence https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_and_violence#Ch... Those old warrior popes sound a lot like the Mullahs of today. I particular enjoyed this line: "In the 12th century, Bernard of Clairvaux wrote: "'The knight of Christ may strike with confidence and die yet more confidently; for he serves Christ when he strikes, and saves himself when he falls.... When he inflicts death, it is to Christ's profit, and when he suffers death, it is his own gain.'""
- DanielBMarkham 11y ago
  Agreed that in general it's an eerie thing. There are some interesting similarities, especially with the First Crusade and ISIS. There are also some striking differences. Aside from the Byzantine, Christianity was mostly monolithic, with secular rulers jockeying for power inside of one Pope. On the other side, the religious and secular authority were both the same person. This led, over time, to the crusades being a way of wielding internal control over Christiandom, because one guy (the Pope) could preach a crusade against any local, domestic opponents and get some kind of traction out of it. Islam has no centralized authority. (Lots of other differences also)
  - maaku 11y ago
    Eh that's only true of Western Christiandom, which was of relatively less importance until the fall of Byzantine. It certainly doesn't describe the various Orthodox sects, which either didn't participate or were sometimes victims in the crusades.
    - 11y ago

eveningcoffee 11y ago

It hard to understand why people who should know better (Jerry Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary College, University of London) distribute this garbage.

hartpuff 11y ago

I think it means they literally didn't know the words Islam or Muslim, it being previously known as Muhammadism or Mahometry and/or other words.

empath75 11y ago

Catholics had written detailed arguments against Muslims for hundreds of years prior to Elizabeth. Here's Thomas Aquinas making some arguments against Muslim criticisms of Christianity in the 13th century: http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/islam/rationes.htm http://www.catholicapologetics.info/apologetics/islam/ration...

nl 11y ago

Right. But this is more about the centralization of knowledge and the slow distribution of that knowledge. Note that this story is in the context of England ("England - like the rest of Christendom - understood a garbled version of Islam mainly through the bloody and polarised experiences of the Crusades.") There may have been people in England (and the rest of Europe) at that time that used the words "Islam" and "Muslim" to describe that religion. However, they weren't people who wrote a lot, and those terms certainly weren't wide-spread. Look at it in Google's NGram viewer: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Islam&case_insensitive=on&year_start=1500&year_end=2008&corpus=15&smoothing=7&share=&direct_url=t4%3B%2CIslam%3B%2Cc0%3B%2Cs0%3B%3BIslam%3B%2Cc0%3B%3BISLAM%3B%2Cc0 https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Islam&case_ins... The author isn't arguing that they didn't know of the religion at all, just that they were ignorant of much of what it believed.

TenOhms 11y ago

I find this hard to believe because Islam often takes issue with Christianity due to the concept of the Trinity being equated to polytheism.

dogma1138 11y ago

Considering that there was an "Islamic" nation (in one form or another) in Europe for about 800 years starting around 700AD, when the Umayyads conquered 2/3rd of Spain just a stone throw away from then England (even tho England didn't really exist yet) it is quite unclear who the hell fact checked this. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Andalus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caliphate_of_C%C3%B3rdoba

williamjennings 11y ago
Those Umayyads settled further into western Europe than most people recognize. Their expeditions covered most of western France, from the English channel to the Loire valley at their greatest extent. Given this geographic distribution, it is very problematic to assume that there was no contact for another 800 years. There were ample local converts, so it is unfair to claim that the conquest was accomplished solely by a army of foreigners. A more culturally neutral history would explain that the native Celts kicked out the Goths during the expansion of the Umayyad empire.
maaku 11y ago
williamjennings you are shadow banned.

kiliancs 11y ago

Another prominent and earlier example of Christians studying Arabic and Islam and engaging in peaceful theological discussions with Muslims through logic was Ramon Llull, one of the first to be born after Jaume I conquered Majorca. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull