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IMC 2009: Sessions

Session 828: Inter-Religious Mediterranean: How Make Use of Religious Knowledge about the Outside Inside the Own Community

Tuesday 14 July 2009, 16.30-18.00

Organiser:Felicitas Schmieder, Historisches Institut, FernUniversität Hagen
Moderator/Chair:Thomas Gruber, Merton College, University of Oxford
Paper 828-aCompetitive Borrowings: Mutual Influences of 7th-Century Jewish and Christian Apocalyptic Discourses
(Language: English)
Lutz Greisiger, Seminar Sprachen & Kulturen des Christlichen Orients, Martin Luther-Universität, Halle-Wittenberg
Index terms: Hebrew and Jewish Studies, Mentalities
Paper 828-bThe Mediterranean as a Space of Latin Christian Religious Learning
(Language: English)
Felicitas Schmieder, Historisches Institut, FernUniversität Hagen
Index terms: Mentalities, Theology
Paper 828-cAnti-Sufi Polemics and the Inter-Religious Mediterranean (13th-14th Centuries)
(Language: English)
Anna Ayse Akasoy, DFG-Forschungskolleg 'Wissenskultur und gesellschaftlicher Wandel', Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt am Main
Index terms: Islamic and Arabic Studies, Mentalities
Abstract

The Mediterranean space has been taken, by many scholars many times, as a meeting space of Jews, Christians, and Muslims. The people involved in the meeting went beyond perceiving 'the other' as simply infidels and started to learn about the contents of the others' beliefs. This knowledge could also be used towards the inside of the own religious group: it could sharpen the borders to the outside and strengthen identity, it could influence the self-description by reacting to the others' arguments and polemics, and it could also be used polemically against differences perceived inside the own group. This spectrum of options of mental encounter is taken up, exemplarily, by the three papers from points of view of each of the three religions involved.