Early Modern Orientalism: Representations of Islam in Sixteenth-and Seventeenth-Century Europe
Daniel Vitkus
The early modern image of Islam—as seen through Western eyes—is one that has been so radically transformed by time, distance, and cultural mediation it bears little resemblance to the religion culture purports describe. In fact, representation Islam in medieval Renaissance Europe is at times almost opposite its alleged original. Through a process misperception demonization, iconoclasm becomes idolatry, civilization barbarity, monotheism pagan polytheism, on. And yet, these twisted stereotypes are, sense, “real.” They are real because, for vast majority Europeans, they served as only readily available means understanding (or perhaps we should say, misunderstanding) Islam. These representations also “real” sense any such material ideological impact historical phenomenon: mode perception shapes way people think therefore act.
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