John Tolan:
Faces of Muhammad
Gesichter Mohammeds
Western Perceptions
of the Prophet of Islam
from the Middle Ages to Today
Westliche Wahrnehmungen des Propheten
des Islam vom Mittelalter bis heute
Princeton, NJ (USA):
Princeton University Press,
2019, 328 pp., index, illustr.
Verlagsinformation >>> — Leseprobe >>>
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JOHN TOLAN(Author), AMIR MOEZZI MOHAMMED ALI (Editor): Le Mahomet des historiens
[Der Mohammed der Historiker]
Paris: Cerf 2025, 2208 pp.
ISBN-10 : 220415007X — ISBN-13 : 978-2204150071
Verlagsinformation (Amazon) >>>
Obwohl die Historizität des Prophten Mohammed weitgehend anerkannt ist, hat es doch seit dem 19. Jh. immer wieder in den religiösen Traditionen intensive Debatten um die Überlieferungstränge seins Lebens gegeben.
Heretic and impostor or reformer and statesman? The contradictory Western visions of Muhammad
In European culture, Muhammad has been vilified as a heretic, an impostor, and a pagan idol. But these aren’t the only images of the Prophet of Islam that emerge from Western history. Commentators have also portrayed Muhammad as a visionary reformer and an inspirational leader, statesman, and lawgiver. In Faces of Muhammad, John Tolan provides a comprehensive history of these changing, complex, and contradictory visions. Starting from the earliest calls to the faithful to join the Crusades against the “Saracens,” he traces the evolution of Western conceptions of Muhammad through the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and up to the present day.
Faces of Muhammad reveals a lengthy tradition of positive portrayals of Muhammad that many will find surprising. To Reformation polemicists, the spread of Islam attested to the corruption of the established Church, and prompted them to depict Muhammad as a champion of reform. In revolutionary England, writers on both sides of the conflict drew parallels between Muhammad and Oliver Cromwell, asking whether the prophet was a rebel against legitimate authority or the bringer of a new and just order. Voltaire first saw Muhammad as an archetypal religious fanatic but later claimed him as an enemy of superstition. To Napoleon, he was simply a role model: a brilliant general, orator, and leader.
The book shows that Muhammad wears so many faces in the West because he has always acted as a mirror for its writers, their portrayals revealing more about their own concerns than the historical realities of the founder of Islam.
1. Mohammed als Idol
des 19. Jahrhunderts in Mitteleuropa
10. Schlussfolgerung
| John Tolan, Université de Nantes |
- Französische Ausgabe:
Mahomet l’européen. Histoire des représentation du Prophète en Occident.
Trad.: Cécile Deniard. – Paris: Albin Michel 2018, 448 pp. – Rezension (PDF), in:
49-2 | 2019 – El espacio provincial en la península ibérica - Spanische Ausgabe:
Mahoma
el Europeo: percepciones occidentales del Profeta del Islam desde la Edad Media a nuestrosdías
Cáceres,
Universidad de Extremadura, 2021, 265 pp. - Un Mahomet d’Occident? La valorisation du prophète de l’islam
dans l’Europe chrétienne (XIV – XVIIe siècles) — (23 pp., über academia.edu) - Beiträge von John Tolan zum Koran und Mohammed im Kontext Europas (academia.edu)
- Le Coran européen – la place du livre saint de l’islam
dans la culture européeene (2023, 13 S., academia.edu)
John Tolan u.a.
>>> Charles Tieszen: The Christian Encounter with Muhammad
How Theologians have Interpreted the Prophet.
London u.a.: Bloomsbury 2022
Verlagsinformation & Inhaltsverzeichnis >>>
>>> Kenneth Baxter Wolf: Muhammad als Antichrist im Córdoba des 9. Jh.s
Christians, Muslims, and Jews in Medieval and Early Modern Spain: Interaction
and Cultural Change, in: MARK D. MEYERSON / EDWARD D. ENGLISH
Series: Notre Dame Conferences in Medieval Studies
— University of Notre Dame Press 2000, 368 pp. — https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvpj7bxm
(20 Seiten über academia.edu >>>)
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| Paris: Tallandier 2022, 352 pp. ISBN/EAN: 979-1021049772 ISBN/EAN numérique : 979-1021049796 Leseprobe / Extrait >>> |
Weitere Beiträge von John Tolan
- John Tolan – see more >>>
- Articles & Books from John Tolan
on academia.edu - John Tolan: L’Espagne chrétienne entre rabbins, prêtres et muftis
Beitrag auf academia.edu >>> - John Tolan: Kirchenrechtliche Regelungen
für interreligiöse Disputationen
im Mittelalter
Medieval Encounters 24 (2018), 14-28 - John Tolan: Miroir de nos phantasmes?
L’islam dans l’imaginaire européen: perspectives historiques 2012, 18 pp.
halshs-00737964v2 (über academia.edu) - John Tolan: Le Saint chez le Sultan –
La rencontre de François d’Assise
et de l’islam. Huit siècles d’interprétation.
Paris: Seuil 2007, 504 pp., Ill., index - John Tolan: Les Sarrasins. L’Islam dans l’imagination européenne au Moyen Âge.
Compte rendu (Persée): Mbaye Ousmane
Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes
Année 2004 162-1 pp. 242-243



