Muhammad and Ideology in Medieval Christian Literature

The article examines popular Christian literary works of the medieval period, focusing on The Song of Roland, The Divine Comedy, Piers Plowman, The Canterbury Tales and The Pilgrim's Progress, and asks what were the factors behind their harsh and exaggerated treatments of Muhammad. The answer lies in the authors' common ideological purposes, whereby they portrayed Muhammad either as a false god or as the quintessential Christian heretic to show that he was the model for unorthodox beliefs and schisms in their own time. Inè uenced by the critical theory of Slavoj Zizek, the article contends that the authors' ideological commitment is coné rmed by their persistent misrepresentation of Muhammad in order to make social or theological points, even though they often show appreciation for Muslim culture on the whole.