Eighth to the Sixteenth Century - Rashid Islamic Center

132 • The Making of Islamic Sciencerespects. Its scope is much wider, both geographically as well as interms of material. Instead of courts, this phase of translation activitywas increasingly based in the newly founded universities. Translatorswere now able to travel to Muslim lands other than Spain. Thetranslations from this phase are much more refined and critical. Butthe most important aspect of this phase of the translation activitywas that it gave birth to a distinct enterprise that would cast a deepshadow on the West’s relationship and understanding of Islam andMuslims: Orientalism. Because of its importance, this third phase oftranslation activity deserves more detailed exploration and a context.European ContextIn order to holistically understand the three phases of Europeantranslation activity it is important to keep in mind that the secondphase of translation activity took place in the backdrop of the lossof al-Andalus by Muslims through its reconquest by the Latin Westand, more important, of the Crusades. Both events contributed tothe emergence of a very unfavorable image of Islam and Muslimsin the European mind. Islam, for most Europeans of that time, wasa dangerous, hostile, and even pagan cult. This image was builtthrough another translation movement that began somewhat priorto the translation of scientific texts and focused instead on Islamictexts, transmitting to the learned Latin circles of the Middle Ages (ca.800–1400) an account of Islam’s message and the life of its Prophet.The transmitters of this information lived close to Muslims and hadaccess to Islam’s two primary sources, the QurāĀn and Hadith.The image of Islam prevalent in the medieval West emergedon the basis of the works of these writers. In many writings of thisperiod, the Prophet Muhammad appears as an idol worshipped bySaracens; in others he is depicted as a magician; in still others he isa possessed man. In the epics of the Crusades, the Prophet of Islamappears as a heathen god (Trude 1993, 382). These popular texts hadan audience not trained in theological intricacies, and their authorsand minstrels used imaginative powers to exaggerate and hyperbolefor their readership; this resulted in such gross misrepresentationsas the infamous Mary Magdalene from the Digby cycle. An amazing