JEWISH SENTINEL

20 JEWISH SENTINEL • JUNE 18 - 24, 2021 another, from here and there, re- lentlessly moving forward in time, provides extensive information on circumstances, motives, legal im- plications, personal changes, so- Perceptions of the Prophet of Is- lam from the Middle Ages to To- day. By John V. Tolan. Asserting that “Muhammad has always been at the center of Eu- ropean discourse on Islam,” Tolan finds that “Muhammad occupies a crucial and ambivalent place in the European imagination ... alter- natively provoking fear, loathing, fascination, or admiration.” In- deed, views of him are “anything but monolithic,” ranging from the satanic to the most positive. Tolan’s nine chapters look at in- stances of this phenomenon over 800 years, starting with Crusader stories and ending with such twen- tieth century scholars as Louis Massignon and W. Montgomery Watt. Tolan, a professor of histo- ry at the University of Nantes in By DANIEL PIPES Conversion to Islam in the Pre- modern Age: A Sourcebook. Edit- ed by Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn, and Luke Yarbrough. T he editors commissioned and assembled no less than 57 of what they term “some of the most vivid and neglected [primary-]sources” on conversions to Islam during the premodern pe- riod, 700-1650. The geographic coverage extends from West Afri- ca to Indonesia, with an emphasis on the Middle East and especial- ly Syria and Iraq, a reflection of both the Middle East’s centrality in Islam and the sources available. Translations into English are from languages as varied as Armenian and Malay; each is followed by suggestions for further reading. The scholarship is exemplary, providing a sober and literate sur- vey of a key topic of Islamic histo- ry. Reading the excerpts one after Pain soaks the testimonies and cries that reverberate through the centuries. The agony for non-believers of Islamic supremacism remains sadly consistent. cial impact, and more. But beyond those specifics, the collection leads to an inescapable overall impression of betrayal and oppression: almost always, the convert implicitly realizes that. As he joins what the editors candid- ly call “the hope of joining God’s ‘winning team’,” he leaves his for- mer co-religionists in the lurch. In the Geniza, for example, the con- vert was usually known as a “crim- inal” (Heb. poshe’a ). Conversely, few conversions occur for positive, affirmative, inspirational reasons. (One ex- ception of note concerns the 41 monks of Amorium who convert- ed en masse.) Thus does the edi- tors’ scholarly detachment vanish, pushed aside by the pain that soaks the testimonies and cries that re- verberate through the centuries. The agony for non-believers of Is- lamic supremacism remains sadly consistent. Faces of Muhammad: Western The Agony And The Ecstasy Islam’s roots spread across three thorny books BOOK REVIEW Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A Sourcebook Edited by Nimrod Hurvitz, Christian C. Sahner, Uriel Simonsohn, and Luke Yarbrough University of California Press, 2020 355 pp., $95 Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today By John V. Tolan Princeton University Press, 2019 309 pp., $29.95 continued on page 25