The term Saracen originally carried meanings of easternness, thievery, and barrenness

Evidence

Considerable debate surrounds the etymology of “Saracen.” The most exhaustive investigation of the history of the word is found in Irfan Shahid’s study of the presence of Arabs in pre-Islamic Roman territory. Shahid explains that the word Saraceni had a number of meanings that were grouped into classifications based on “linguistic, ethnic, and geographical” groups situated in the “problem of the image of Arabs in ancient and medieval times.” These classifications included sharq/sharqi/sharqiyyin (east/easterner/easterners), sariq/sariqin (thieves/ marauders/plunderers), and s’raq (barrenness). — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 153

Categorization

• DEFINE: The etymology grounds the reader’s analytical category: ‘Saracen’ encoded thievery and barrenness from the start, before any designation of Muslims.
• QUESTION: The ‘barrenness’ root (s’raq) is striking — worth chasing how barrenness-of-land mutated into racial/degeneracy claims later, and whether it fed the Hagarene degeneracy discourse.