In the Middle Ages, Muslim travelers embarked on a rihla, or world tour, as surveyors, emissaries, and educators. On these journeys, voyagers not only interacted with foreign cultures—touring Greek civilization, exploring the Middle East and North Africa, and seeing parts of Europe—they also established both philosophical and geographic boundaries between the faithful and the heathen. These voyages thus gave the Islamic world, which at the time extended from the Maghreb to the Indus Valley, a coherent identity. Islam and Travel in the Middle Ages assesses both the religious and philosophical aspects of travel, as well as the economic and cultural conditions that made the rihla possible. Houari Touati tracks the compilers of the hadith who culled oral traditions linked to the prophet, the linguists and lexicologists who journeyed to the desert to learn Bedouin Arabic, the geographers who mapped the Muslim world, and the students who ventured to study with holy men and scholars. Travel, with its costs, discomforts, and dangers, emerges in this study as both a means of spiritual growth and a metaphor for progress. Touati’s book will interest a broad range of scholars in history, literature, and anthropology.

"This collection will be welcomed by anyone working on the interactions of the Muslim and Christian worlds in the Middle Ages--and the more casual reader will be struck by the persistence of stereotypes on both sides of the divide."--Medium Aevum LXXIX "The essays explore what, from the ninth to the fourteenth century, Western Christian clerks and kings, monks and abbots, friars and bishops, and scholars and poets wrote about Muslims and Islam. . . . Tolan's book is among the best in the field."--Journal of Religion "Considers such examples as portrayals of Muhammad in thirteenth-century Spain, Saladin in the medieval European imagination, and Saracen philosophers who secretly deride Islam. . . . Tolan is an engaging writer, accessible to the general as well as the scholarly reader."--Book News "Tolan has a talent for unraveling often tangled threads and subplots in a complex and intriguing story."--Religion and the Arts "Tolan's writing distinguishes itself by being insightful, nuanced, and magnificently lucid as well as highly accessible. Certain chapters will particularly enthrall: the chapter on Saladin will be one favorite; the chapter on the floating coffin of prophet Muhammad--a rhetorical masterpiece--will delight and fascinate. Every chapter is illuminating."--Geraldine Heng, University of Texas The Bible and the Qur'ân agree that the Arabs were the descendants of Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar. To many medieval Christians, the description of Ishmael in Genesis ("a wild man; his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him") was a prophecy of the violence and enmity between Ishmael's progeny and the Christians--spiritual descendants of his half-brother Isaac. John Tolan, one of the world's foremost authorities on early Christian/Muslim interactions, offers ten essays that explore the history of conflict and convergence between Latin Christendom and the Arab Muslim world during the Middle Ages, deepening our understanding of the roots of current stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs in Western Culture. John V. Tolan, professor of history at the University of Nantes, is the author of numerous articles and books, including the acclaimed Saracens: Islam in the Medieval European Imagination.

This introduction to medieval-age Battuta and his journey provides a fascinating window into what the world was like in the 14th century with illustrations, photographs, and maps that bring the rich and diverse world that produced Battuta to vivid life. Illustrations.

In this volume, Jacob Lassner examines the triangular relationship that during the Middle Ages defined - and continues to define today - the political and cultural interaction among the three Abrahamic faiths.

Connected by their veneration of the One God proclaimed by Abraham, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam share much beyond their origins in the ancient Israel of the Old Testament. This Very Short Introduction explores the intertwined histories of these monotheistic religions, from the emergence of Christianity and Islam to the violence of the Crusades and the cultural exchanges of al-Andalus.