This chapter outlined some of the key shifts in the European image of Islam from the eighth to the eighteenth centuries. This journey through history shows us that at first, between the eighth and eleventh centuries, Muslim incursions into Europe were viewed no differently from other pagan invasions. In fact, the Saracens were believed to be descendants of Abraham and therefore from the same “family” as Christians and Jews. Yet once other pagans integrated into Christian Europe, the powerful Muslim enemy became an “other” that had to be vanquished through holy wars. The papacy sought to unite a fractious Europe under the banner of Christianity as a way to advance its power.

SEED: A counterintuitive historical angle: the construction of religious 'otherness' was a political tool of the papacy, not a natural outcome. Could make an essay on how identity boundaries shift with power interests.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 93