A New Trend Emerged in Recent Times

ISLAM IN WESTERN LITERATURE supported by German poets and intellectuals. This change in perspective became increasingly evident. Thomas Carlyle’s decision to portray Muhammad as the hero and prophet in his writings was both indicative of this new trend and an acceleration of it. In Carlyle’s interpretation, there is a notable absence of discordant elements; in fact, it could be criticized for its lack of critical analysis. Such kinds of discussions that Muhammad was a deceitful impostor and that his religion was a baseless fabrication to be untenable were not acceptable to Carlyle. His portrayal of Muhammad had to be that of a true, genuine hero. The material presented below gives some information on Islam in Western literature. 1. Latin translation in Migne Patrologiae Graecae, Vol. XCIV (Paris, 1860), cols. 1585-1598; vol. XCVI (1864), cols. 1335-1348. 2. Inferno, XXVIII, 31-32. 3. See, “Theodor”, Bibliander, Historiae Saracenorum in Machvometis Saracenorum principis ([Zurich), 1550), pp. 3-6. 4. Lydgate’s Fall of Princes, ed. Henry Bergen, Part III (Washington, 1923), p. 921. 5. Romeo and Juliet, III, v, 184; I Henry IV, II, iii, 88. 6. Works of Francis Bacon, Vol. II (London, 1824), p. 279. 7. The True Nature of Imposture fully Display’d in the Life of Mahomet, 8th ed. (London, 1723), p. 38.