The Effect of the Crusades on the Emergence of the Western Representation and Perception of Muslim Women in Medieval Times.

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to analyse the effect of the Crusades on the emergence of the western perception of Muslim women in medieval times as depicted in European historical resources.

My paper consists of three parts. In the first part, ‘The image of Muslim women before the Crusades in the western world’, I am going to examine how much the Franks knew about Muslim women before the Crusades. The second part deals with ‘The image of Muslim women in Latin historical sources’ in which I will discuss the portrayal of Muslim women in western sources, and the representations that appear in the Crusaders texts. The last part is entitled “Features in the development of European’s curiosity in Muslim women” In this part I will pay tentative attention to the factors that lead to Europeans’ curiosity about Muslim woman in terms of how it works and what mechanisms it employs to deal with East-West relationships.