Mohammedan

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2009)

Mohammedan (also spelt Muhammadan, Mahommedan, Mahomedan or Mahometan) is a term used as both a noun and an adjective meaning belonging or relating to either the religion of Islam or to that of the Islamic prophet Muhammad; a term largely rejected by the Muslim world as a misnomer.^[1][2][3] The term is now largely superseded by Muslim, Moslem or Islamic, but was commonly used only in Western literature until at least the mid-1960s. (See for instance the second edition of A Dictionary of Modern English Usage by HW Fowler, revised by Ernest Gowers (Oxford, 1965)). Muslim is more commonly used today than Moslem, and the term Mohammedan is generally considered archaic or in some cases even offensive.^[4] According to the SOED (1973), Mohammedan was in use by 1681, along with the older term Mahometan that dates back to at least 1529.^{[citation needed]}

The Online Etymology Dictionary reports that the earliest form in English of the name of Muhammad was Mahum (c.1205), which was originally confused for "an idol", while Wyclif has Macamethe (c.1380).^[5] In Christian Western Europe, until the 13th century or so, there was a mistaken belief among some Christians that Muslims worshiped Mahomet, while some considered him a heretic.^[6] Other European literature in the Middle Ages referred to Muslims as pagans or by sobriquets such as the paynim foe. Depictions such as those in the Song of Roland represent Muslims worshipping Muhammad as a god, or worshipping various deities in the form of "idols", ranging from Apollo to Lucifer, but ascribing to them a chief deity known as "Termagant".^[7]

When the Knights Templar were being tried for heresy, reference was often made to their worship of a demon Baphomet, which was notable by implication for its similarity to "Mahomet". These and other variations on the theme were all set in the "temper of the times" of what was seen as a Muslim-Christian conflict as Medieval Europe was building a concept of "the great enemy" in the wake of the quickfire success of the Muslims through a series of conquests shortly after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, as well as the lack of concrete information in the West about the mysterious East.^[8]

See also

• Orientalism
• Medieval Christian view of Muhammad
• Mahound

References