1957/02/01 by Bernard Lewıs · 4 citations
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · Engineering · #Historical and Linguistic Studies #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies #Islamic Studies and History #Barbarian #Offensive #Islam #Fifteenth #Subject (documents) #History #Period (music) #Ancient history #Classics #Art #Archaeology #Engineering #Computer science
paper · doi:10.1017/s0041977x00061954
openalex publication_date 1957/02/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
I suppose that most textbooks of European history or of world history—which in European textbooks is much the same thing—contain a chapter called ‘The Age of the Discoveries’, or something of the kind, which deals with the period from the fifteenth century onwards when Western Europe set about discovering the rest of the world. My subject to-day is another and earlier discovery, in which the West European was not the explorer going forth to discover the barbarian, but the barbarian discovered by the explorer—the Muslim explorer. My purpose is to outline, very briefly, the sources, nature, and stages of growth of Muslim knowledge concerning Western Europe, first in the obscure centuries before the Crusades, then during that great offensive of Western Christendom against Islam, of which the expeditions to Palestine were the easternmost expression.