Religious violence, tolerance, Islam, and fanaticism revisited: from Medieval Spain to today’s world and viceversa. Notes on three recent theoretical contributions

Abstract

We present here three recent contributions by historian and islamologist Adrien Candiard: En finir avec la tolérance? Différences religieuses et rêve andalou (2014); Comprendre l’islam. Ou plutôt : pourquoi on n’y comprend rien (2016), and Du fanatisme. Quand la religion est malade (2020). Despite not being books of medieval history as such, but rather interpretative essays, we judge them of interest to scholars of the Middle Ages. Firstly, because, in order to elaborate the theoretical frameworks from which to analyse the proposed issues, the author, a specialist in medieval Islamic theology, engages in constant dialogue with the medieval Christian and Islamic traditions. Secondly, because many medievalists must deal, both in their research and in their teaching, with religious phenomena such as the ones addressed by Candiard (relations between Christianity and Islam, religious violence, tolerance, fanaticism, etc.), for whose proper understanding they often lack certain interpretative keys such as those offered by him.