Daniel G. König. Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West

Political events, and in particular those of the last fifteen years, have led to increased scholarly interest in relations and perceptions between the Islamic world and the West, in both directions, from all periods since the rise of Islam. For the medieval period, there have been a number of studies examining Latin perceptions of Islam and Muslims, but few that examine Muslim views of Europe. As such, Daniel G. König’s Arabic-Islamic Views of the Latin West: Tracing the Emergence of Medieval Europe is a most welcome addition, particularly as one of its main aims is to improve the field methodologically, not merely in terms of how Muslims viewed Europe and Europeans. König’s monograph is largely a response to the current prevalent and essentially singular narrative within scholarship of Arabic-Islamic views of Europe. This narrative suggests that, out of “arrogance,” “ignorance,” or “indifference,” medieval Muslims paid little attention to a Europe that was, in their eyes, backward religiously, culturally, economically, and politically (16). This idea was advanced most strongly by Bernard Lewis, and has been taken on, with only minor alterations being made, by historians ever since. It is primarily the methodology that has been employed by these studies that is the subject of König’s criticism. The current paradigm is, in the author’s view, essentializing, as it tends to reduce perceptions of Europe to just one singular perspective. Instead, and using a methodology partially inspired by recent work by, among others, Brian A. Catlos, he argues that the sources contain a multitude of perspectives on Europe and Europeans that can be recovered. Using this methodology, König attempts to achieve a much more nuanced and accurate assessment of such perspectives.

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