Stealing from the Saracens
Stealing from the Saracens

Author: Diana Darke

Publisher: Hurst & Company

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 1787383059

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Europeans are in denial. Against a backdrop of Islamophobia, they are increasingly distancing themselves from their cultural debt to the Muslim world. But while the legacy of Islam and the Middle East is in danger of being airbrushed out of Western history, its traces can still be detected in some of Europe's most recognisable monuments, from Notre-Dame to St Paul's Cathedral. In this comprehensively illustrated book, Diana Darke sets out to redress the balance, revealing the Arab and Islamic roots of Europe's architectural heritage. She tracks the transmission of key innovations from the great capitals of Islam's early empires, Damascus and Baghdad, via Muslim Spain and Sicily into Europe. Medieval crusaders, pilgrims and merchants from Europe later encountered Arab Muslim culture in journeys to the Holy Land. In more recent centuries, that same route through modern-day Turkey connected Ottoman culture with the West, leading Sir Christopher Wren himself to believe that Gothic architecture should more rightly be called 'the Saracen style', because of its Islamic origins. Recovering this overlooked story within the West's long history of borrowing from the Islamic world, Darke sheds new light on Europe's buildings and offers rich insights into the possibilities of cultural exchange.

Saracens
Saracens

Author: John Victor Tolan

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 401

ISBN-13: 0231123337

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Medieval Christian writers distorted the teachings of Islam and caricatured its believers in a variety of ways. This book provides a comprehensive study of Christian polemical responses to Islam in the Middle Ages.

A Short History of the Saracens
A Short History of the Saracens

Author: Syed Ameer Ali

Publisher: Darf Publishers

Published: 1899

Total Pages: 716

ISBN-13:

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'Saracen' was a name employed by medieval writers to describe the Muslims of Syria and Palestine, and the Arab rulers of North Africa generally - especially those conquerors of Spain and Sicily, and the invaders of France. Later the name was applied to all those peoples against whom the crusades were preached, and it is with these events that the term 'Saracen is most popularly connected. Saladin, proclaimed sultan in 1174, was the most prominent leader of this period and in many ways he can be said to typify the Saracenic qualities: courage, wisdom, magnanimity. However, the crusader period covered but a small part of Saracen history which, indeed, can be said to extend from pre-Islamic Arabia; Spain itself saw eight centuries of Saracen rule. In 'A Short History of the Saracens', Ameer Ali examines every aspect of these extraordinary people. Few writers, in the decades since this work was first published, in 1899, have presented a more complete account. For this reason, both historians and students of the period will welcome its republication.