Gibbon’s celebrated chapter on Islam broke no new ground

Evidence

Something of the same is true also of our own Gibbon. Largely the architect of our modern historical perspectives, Gibbon derived his own from different sources, and his fiftieth chapter does not represent his most original thinking. We see displayed before us accurate and balanced statements, expressed with the familiar elegance, but not essentially new. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1627 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Little truly new was written about Islam between 1300 and the Enlightenment. There were occasional exceptions, the best known being that of Juan de Segovia, whose grand project was a trilingual Koran: the Arab text alongside new translations into Latin and Spanish. Yet for the most part the humanists turned their back on Islam: Arab and Muslim culture were parts of the “Gothic” accretion that they wished to shed in order to return to a pure, antique wisdom. The old stereotypes of barbaric invaders, now couched in the vocabulary of humanism, flowed easily from their pens: gone was any sense that Islam could be a serious intellectual or theological adversary. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1357 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Gibbon’s famous Islamic history chapter was unoriginal, repeating medieval themes — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1627; Christian thought on Islam stagnated for four centuries after 1300 — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1357; No fresh Christian thought about Islam emerged for four centuries

Related

• Gibbon’s famous Islamic history chapter was unoriginal, repeating medieval themes (similarity 0.92)
• Christian thought on Islam stagnated for four centuries after 1300 (similarity 0.89)
• Gibbon’s Enlightenment account of Muhammad recycled medieval themes unchanged (similarity 0.86)
• Hostile Christian descriptions of Islam repeated themselves virtually unchanged across centuries (similarity 0.80)
• Islamic scholarship by Christian academics reframed Islam as a shared spiritual enterprise (similarity 0.80)
• Renaissance scholarship long coexisted with unrevised medieval views of Islam. (similarity 0.79)
• Mid-fifteenth-century European thought on Islam surpassed all earlier and later centuries (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Gibbon’s famous Islamic history chapter was unoriginal, repeating medieval themes #corroborates (0.98) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1627
• Christian thought on Islam stagnated for four centuries after 1300 #exemplifies (0.72) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 1357
• No fresh Christian thought about Islam emerged for four centuries #exemplifies (0.72)