Idols in the East

by Akbari, Suzanne Conklin

• ISBN13: 9780801448072
• ISBN10: 0801448077
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-08-15
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

Representations of Muslims have never been more common in the Western imagination than they are today. Building on Orientalist stereotypes constructed over centuries, the figure of the wily Arab has given rise, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, to the "Islamist" terrorist. In Idols in the East, Suzanne Conklin Akbari explores the premodern background of some of the Orientalist types still pervasive in present-day depictions of Muslims-the irascible and irrational Arab, the religiously deviant Islamist-and about how these stereotypes developed over time. Idols in the East contributes to the recent surge of interest in European encounters with Islam and the Orient in the premodern world. Focusing on the medieval period, Akbari examines a broad range of texts including encyclopedias, maps, medical and astronomical treatises, chansons de geste, romances, and allegories to paint an unusually diverse portrait of medieval culture. Among the texts she considers are The Book of John Mandeville, The Song of Roland, Parzival, and Dante's Divine Comedy. From them she reveals how medieval writers and readers understood and explained the differences they saw between themselves and the Muslim other. Looking forward, Akbari also comes to terms with how these medieval conceptions fit with modern discussions of Orientalism, thus providing an important theoretical link to postcolonial and postimperial scholarship on later periods. Far reaching in its implications and balanced in its judgments, Idols in the East will be of great interest to not only scholars and students of the Middle Ages but also anyone interested in the roots of Orientalism and its tangled relationship to modern racism and anti-Semitism.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	p. ix
Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction: Medieval Orientalism?	p. 1
The Shape of the World	p. 20
Defining the Parts	p. 24
Defining the Center	p. 50
From Jerusalem to India	p. 67
The Liber Floridus	p. 75
The Roman de toute chevalerie	p. 90
Kyng Alisaunder	p. 102
The Place of the Jews	p. 112
Dispersal and Enclosure	p. 115
Climate and the Diasporic Body	p. 140
The Saracen Body	p. 155
The Male Saracen	p. 159
The Female Saracen	p. 173
The Hybrid	p. 189
Empty Idols and a False Prophet	p. 200
The Broken Idol	p. 203
The Place of Muhammad	p. 221
The Filthy Idol	p. 235
The Form of Heaven	p. 248
The Beautiful Surface	p. 252
The Paradise Inside	p. 262
The Place of Philosophy	p. 269
Conclusion: A Glance at Early Modern Orientalism	p. 280
Works Cited	p. 289
Index	p. 315
Illustrations
World map in the form of a flower	p. 21
Four views of the world	p. 27
T-O map with the sons of Noah, and modern schematic of the illustration	p. 31
Zonal map schematic	p. 32
Ptolemaic map with the sons of Noah	p. 35
Psalter map	p. 39
World map with fourth continent, Lambert of St. Omer	p. 71
World map with fourth continent, Beatus de Lièbana	p. 73
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