Saga - 2012, Page 35

Abstract
sverr i r j akob s son
MEDIEVAL ICELANDIC CONTRADICTIONS REGARDING ISLAM
The rise of a new world religion proved traumatic for many medieval Christians.
According to their doctrine, history spanned the story of fall and redemption,
with the coming of Christ ushering in a new era. In a theological sense, Christ had
assumed the burden of humanity’s sins, which had a historical counterpoint in
the belief that this initiated the sixth and last era of human history. To many prac-
titioners of history this meant that the finale had begun, and the main event in the
last chapter would centre on the victory of Christianity, as it spread to pagan peo-
ples until uniting the world under a single belief. The coming of Islam and the vic-
tories enjoyed by Muslims for several centuries dealt a blow to the confidence of
Christian literati. Even though the rise of a new world religion did not directly
violate biblical visions of the future, it had not been foretold, leaving Christian
authors at a loss for explanations. Their discourse on Islam can be seen as typify-
ing their world view as Christians, whereby Muslims constituted the important
Other.
This study focuses on medieval Icelandic views about Muslims, keeping in
mind that Iceland was one of the Latin Christian countries farthest removed from
any actual Muslim threat. On the whole, Iceland demonstrated an interesting
aspect of the complex relationship between Christian and non-Christian groups:
there was little physical contact, so rather than being individuals who were
encountered and experienced, Muslims were “imagined” constructions, distinct
both in geography and religion. This study explores medieval images of Islam
and the Muslims within Icelandic discourse, the attitudes of Icelandic religious
and secular writers towards Islam and the creation and perpetuation of negative
Muslim stereotypes. To discover the ideological purposes that such portrayals
served, three kinds of medieval Christian and secular Icelandic sources —
romances, theological tracts, and historiographical writings — are analysed for
the images they constructed of the Muslim Other. These images are then posi-
tioned on three axes to help conceptualise the multi-faceted nature of alterity, in
accordance with Tzvetan Todorov’s typology of knowing the Other. The images of
Muslims in Icelandic historiography drew heavily on stereotypical Christian rep-
resentations of Pagans. In a period when religion was an important identity mark-
er, Muslims became the most significant Other in the worldview of Icelandic
Christians. However, within the militant discourse of crusade narratives, there
was also room for respecting brave, noble adversaries, who idealised the chivalric
loyalty obliging a knight to keep his word and not betray his sworn faith. Such
discourse might even present Muslim knights proving their nobility by refusing to
accept Christianity, so that the Muslim images in learned Icelandic discourse
could often become quite contradictory.
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