(Book Review): Sāmer Sayed Qandīl, The European Visions about Islam, since the Islamic Conquests until the Crusades, Cairo: The Egyptian General Organization for Book, 2018. عرض كتاب: سامر سيد قنديل، الرؤى الأوروبية عن الإسلام من الفتوحات الإسلامية حتى الحروب الصليبية، سلسلة تاريخ المصريين 320، القاهرة: الهيئة العامة للكتاب 2018.

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Dept. of History, Faculty of Arts, Ain Shams University, Cairo, Egypt. postal code 11566

Abstract

When we study the history of social thought of Western Europe in the Middle Ages towards the Other, it will be paused for some time before the problem of the ego in European thought, which was essentially built on the Greek concept, that used the word barbaroi to describe all peoples located outside Greece, to refer to them with this term, for the other being barbarian, or uncivilized, compared to the Greeks themselves. Perhaps, this view was the one that dominated the Byzantine Empire in the East, the legitimate heir to the Roman Empire who lived on a Greek land whose inhabitants believed in the idea of the superiority of the Greek element. This European superiority view was increased by the fact that the Caesars of Rome lived and died believing that Rome was the mistress of the cities and that they were the masters of the world. In addition, the Roman Emperor continued to believe that he was the megas Priest, pontefix maximus, and that he deserved to be worshiped in his name, and sacrifices were also offered to him, just like the Gods. Despite the spread of Christianity in Medieval Europe in the first centuries AD, it was unable to reshape the European conscience toward the Other, especially those who differed in religion...

Keywords

Files

Share

How to cite

Statistics