Abstract
This paper discusses Pierre Bayle’s article on Muhammad in his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1696), especially with regard to its two main themes: the role of force in the establishment of Islam, and sexual morality within Islam. Both themes had been a traditional part of Christian apologetics for centuries, but Bayle takes them up in an unconventional way, proposing to write the history of Islam objectively rather than fitting it into a Christian story. This article will discuss these and other themes in Bayle’s "Mahomet" and place it within the wider historiographical context of the early modern debate on Islam.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 27-50 |
| Journal | Journal of the History of Ideas |
| Volume | 78 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2017 |
Keywords
- Bayle
- Islam
- Muhammad
- Toleration
- Sexuality
- Gibbon
- Apologetics
- History
