Spanish thought about Islam was mostly rational, not fanatical
Evidence
We generally imagine Spanish thought about Islam to have been violent, uncompromising, and fanatical. But this image, which has impressed itself as normal, represents only a short phase, or rather two short phases, almost at the beginning and at the very end of the Middle Ages. Between these two extremes, between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries, there is a long period in which Spanish influence was very varied but almost wholly rational and beneficent. — R. W. Southern, Western Views of Islam in the Middle…, 113
Related
- Every seminal medieval idea about Islam originated in Spain (similarity 0.81)
- Mid-fifteenth-century European thought on Islam surpassed all earlier and later centuries (similarity 0.80)
- Medieval Christian critics of Islam lacked Arabic competence and historical perspective (similarity 0.80)
- Muslims dominated Spanish intellectual and cultural life from the ninth century on (similarity 0.79)
- Renaissance scholarship long coexisted with unrevised medieval views of Islam. (similarity 0.79)
- European intellectual confrontation with Islam began in the twelfth century (similarity 0.78)
- European scholarship on Islam turned disinterested only once Islam ceased threatening Europe. (similarity 0.78)
- Bacon abandoned biblical prophecy to read Islam through philosophy (similarity 0.78)
- Western ideological camps all reduce Islam to a scapegoat (similarity 0.78)