Supposed and True Knowledge of the Qur’ān in Early Medieval Latin Literature, Eighth and Ninth Centuries

Abstract

Abstract This article intends to revise the still unrivalled opinion in Medieval Studies according to which knowledge of the Qur’ān in the early medieval Latin West is almost completely missing. For this purpose, it revises the current state of the art, enriches this panorama with some new findings in rarely studied or unknown sources and tries to assess a new profile of Latin reception of the Muslims’ central religious book. The study can show that authors of the early medieval Latin world ventured first, yet still polemical and apologetic approaches to the new religious phenomenon ‘Islam’ that produced not only superficial, hearsay-based, but first detailed knowledge of the Qur’ān.