Prof. Hamid Naseem Rafiabadi
The history of relations between Christianity and Islam is far more complex than the simplistic claim that Muslims and Christians have always been enemies. There have been long periods of coexistence, intellectual exchange, political cooperation and mutual learning. At the same time, it would be historically inaccurate to deny that powerful currents of Christian anti-Islamic polemic, hostility and misrepresentation developed from the earliest centuries of Islam and became particularly pronounced in medieval Europe. These attitudes were shaped not only by theological disagreement but also by political rivalry, military conflict, the Crusades, the expansion of Muslim civilization and the psychological challenge posed by Islam to the religious self-understanding of medieval Christendom. Islam presented Christianity with a particularly profound theological challenge because it did not simply appear as another pagan religion. The Qur’an claimed to restore the original monotheistic message of Abraham, Moses and Jesus, affirmed Jesus as the Messiah and a mighty prophet, honoured Mary, accepted earlier revelation while accusing some communities of distorting or misinterpreting it, and declared Muhammad to be the final messenger of God.
Thus Islam challenged Christianity from within the Abrahamic theological framework. It did not reject the biblical prophets; rather, it claimed that their authentic message was fundamentally one of submission to the One God. This was intellectually unsettling for parts of the Christian world. Islam’s rapid expansion brought large portions of the former Christian Byzantine and Roman world under Muslim rule, from Syria and Palestine to Egypt, North Africa and Spain. Medieval Christian writers therefore encountered not merely a theological argument but a powerful civilization that possessed its own scripture, legal system, philosophy, scholarship, institutions and political authority. John Tolan’s study of medieval European representations of Muslims observes that Christian responses were influenced by the challenge posed by Islam’s rival claim to the Abrahamic inheritance. He also demonstrates that European writers frequently distorted Islamic teachings and constructed caricatures of Muslims in order to explain Islam’s extraordinary success and to defend Christian intellectual and religious identity.
The problem therefore went beyond legitimate theological disagreement. Disagreement between religions is normal; polemical distortion is something different. David Nirenberg’s study of Christendom and Islam notes that medieval Christian ideas about Islam were often products of the Christian theological imagination rather than accurate knowledge of Islam, and that increased contact with actual Muslims did not necessarily make those representations more accurate. He further traces the development of the idea of Christian war against Islam and its contribution to the formation of a more unified medieval European conception of Christendom. The Crusading period intensified this phenomenon. Religious rhetoric was employed to transform a complex political and military conflict into a cosmic struggle between Christianity and an allegedly demonic enemy.
“Instead of hatred, the constructive Islamic response to anti-Islamic polemics is peaceful, intellectual engagement. Guided by Qur’an 16:125, Muslims should overcome past hostilities by presenting the Qur’anic accounts of God, Jesus, Mary, and prophethood through truth, historical evidence, scholarship, and respectful dialogue.”
Studies of medieval sermons show how Muslims were sometimes described through biblical, heresiological and apocalyptic categories rather than through serious engagement with Islamic beliefs. Some Crusade-era sermons portrayed Muslims as fundamentally alienated from God, thereby providing theological justification for armed confrontation. Anti-Muslim polemic also acquired an institutional and economic dimension. During the Crusader period, attempts were made to restrict commercial relations with Muslims, demonstrating that hostility was not confined to theological writings or the battlefield. Medieval Christian authorities could treat Muslim commerce itself as part of the struggle between Christendom and Islam.
An especially important development was the production and circulation of anti-Islamic literature. Polemical works written during the medieval period continued to circulate in Europe for centuries. One major study of the Contra legem Sarracenorum (“Against the Law of the Saracens”), composed around 1301, demonstrates how a medieval anti-Islamic polemic circulated through European Christendom from the fourteenth into the sixteenth century and influenced Christian-Muslim relations long after its original composition.
The phenomenon did not disappear with the Middle Ages. During the Ottoman expansion into Europe, Islam increasingly became associated in European Christian consciousness with the “Turkish threat.” Martin Luther, for example, viewed the Ottoman advance as both a military and an apocalyptic danger. According to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia, Luther believed that the rise of the Turks had eschatological significance and devoted considerable effort to warning Christians about Islam and equipping them intellectually to resist it. His later writings became explicitly polemical, although he also contributed to making information about Islam available to European readers.
This history helps explain why some European representations of Islam became extraordinarily persistent. The Muslim was not always portrayed as an actual human being belonging to another Abrahamic tradition; he was transformed into a theological and civilizational “other.” Islam could be represented as a Christian heresy, Muhammad as an impostor, the Qur’an as a fabrication, and Muslim civilization as a threat to Christian civilization. Such representations served an ideological function: by portraying Islam as false, irrational or demonic, they strengthened the internal boundaries of Christian identity.
Yet historical honesty requires another important qualification. It would be wrong to convert the history of Christian anti-Islamic polemic into the claim that all Christians are hostile to Islam. Christian communities have differed enormously across time and geography.
Eastern Christians lived under Muslim governments for centuries; Christian and Muslim scholars sometimes exchanged knowledge; Christians translated Arabic philosophical and scientific works; and there were numerous periods of peaceful coexistence. Indeed, modern Catholic teaching represents a significant departure from much earlier polemical traditions. The Second Vatican Council’s Nostra Aetate (1965) explicitly states that the Church regards Muslims with esteem and recognizes that Muslims worship the one God, honour Abraham, revere Jesus as a prophet, honour Mary, believe in resurrection and judgment, and practise prayer, almsgiving and fasting. It also acknowledges the history of quarrels and hostilities between Christians and Muslims and calls for mutual understanding, social justice, peace and freedom. (Vatican ) This transformation is important because it demonstrates that Christianity and anti-Islamic polemic are not synonymous. The historical record contains both hostility and dialogue, both polemic and intellectual exchange, both confrontation and cooperation.
From an Islamic perspective, however, the deeper issue remains theological. Islam’s appearance challenged certain Christian claims concerning the nature of God, the status of Jesus, the doctrine of the Trinity, the crucifixion and the transmission and interpretation of revelation.
The Qur’an does not treat Jesus with contempt; on the contrary, it gives him an exalted prophetic status. It rejects his divinity precisely because it insists upon uncompromising monotheism: “Say: He is Allah, One; Allah, the Eternal Refuge. He neither begets nor is born, nor is there to Him any equivalent.”
— Qur’an 112:1–4. Likewise, the Qur’an describes Jesus as the Messiah and a messenger of God while rejecting the elevation of prophets to divine status:
“The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a messenger of Allah, and His word which He conveyed to Mary, and a spirit from Him.” — Qur’an 4:171. Consequently, Muhammad’s message was not simply another competing religious ideology. From the Qur’anic standpoint, his mission represented the completion and universalization of the prophetic message: the same fundamental call to worship the One God that had been given to Abraham, Moses and Jesus. This explains why the emergence of Islam constituted such a profound challenge to medieval Christian theology. The historical lesson, therefore, should not be one of permanent Christian-Muslim antagonism. Rather, it should be a call to distinguish faith from polemic, theology from political propaganda, and historical Christianity from the prejudices produced by particular historical circumstances. Where medieval writers caricatured Islam, modern scholarship should correct the caricature. Where Christians misunderstood Muhammad, Muslims should respond through knowledge rather than reciprocal hostility. And where genuine theological differences remain, they should be addressed honestly and respectfully.
The most constructive Islamic response is therefore not hatred of Christianity or Christians. It is to place the Qur’anic account of God, Jesus, Mary, revelation and prophethood before the world, supported by historical evidence and serious scholarship. The Qur’an itself insists upon intellectual engagement: “Invite to the way of your Lord with wisdom and beautiful preaching, and argue with them in the manner that is best” — Qur’an 16:125. The historical record demonstrates that anti-Islamic Christian polemic has existed and, at particular moments, exercised considerable influence upon European perceptions of Islam. But the same history also demonstrates the possibility of a different relationship—one based upon truth, scholarship, mutual recognition and peaceful dialogue. The task today is not to reproduce the polemics of the past, but to overcome them.
(The author a veteran academician is a former Professor and Head Department of Islamic Studies, Kashmir University. The views, opinions and conclusions expressed in this article are those of the author and aren’t necessarily in accord with the views of “Kashmir Horizon”)
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