Book Description

This dissertation approaches the classic dichotomy of Christianity and Islam in the Mediterranean, and teases out nuances of their relationship during the early modern period. It presents four chapters on religious figures, miracles, holy war, and linguistic capital which demonstrate four mechanisms that Christianity and Islam used as conduits to advance their narratives. Many times these were mechanisms of a polemical nature, but they also demonstrate the parallels that existed between the two worldviews. While certain genres of writing were deliberately structured polemics, polemical arguments conditioned a variety of writers' perspectives and observations in other genres. Because of their polemical history, these two major Mediterranean religions were familiar with the things that separated them, and many times they exaggerated those differences in order to stand out. These parallels and differences are studied departing from a variety of texts produced by Mediterranean itinerants, many of them based out of Spain. The major text of study is Antonio de Sosa's [Topografía de Arge], published in 1612 but written decades earlier to describe the writer's surroundings and observations during his captivity in Algiers. Sosa's text serves as a point of departure into a bevy of selected topics that elucidate how Islamic and Christian writers and travelers presented themselves and their opposition in their historical artifacts. Sosa very often ridicules local religious figures, the marabouts, as fools, and he furthermore derides the Muslim people who have the gullibility to believe in them; in so doing, he seeks to discredit Islam as a whole. To broaden the focus of these critiques, I place Sosa's comments in the context of Islamo-Christian polemical writings and arguments that stretch from the beginnings of Islam to the early modern period. Subsequent chapters focus on miracles, holy war narrative, and language as linguistic capital as points of departure to better understand the nature of the relationship between Christianity and Islam at this time.