The image of Muhammad in Latin chronography of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Abstract

The foundations of the western image of Islam were laid in the early middle ages, when the Prophet was presented as an instrument of apostates, at whose instigation he created a religion which was the very antithesis of Christianity. However, twelfth- and thirteenth-century writers embellished this picture with tales of an exotic world, drawing upon both motifs from folklore and contemporary fantasies of a Muslim Paradise of sensual delights. The increase in direct contact with Islam seems to have done little to modify either the traditional stereotypes or the newer exotica.