Islamophobia & Anti-Semitism: Medieval Roots and Modern Bigotries

By Dr. Ariel Salzmann and Dr. Adnan Husain

It is commonly assumed that Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism originated under very different historical conditions. Hostility to Muslims, it is argued, might carry forward some distant echoes of the medieval Crusades but modern anti-Islamic feeling owes to the colonisation of Muslim lands and the post-colonial migration of Muslims to western countries. By contrast, hatred of Jews, it is claimed, is uniquely bound up in Christian theology and blame for the death of Christ. In the nineteenth century, racial prejudice and resentment against European Jews turned anti-Judaism (as Medievalists call it) into modern anti-Semitism. Yet current research, including a study underway by professors Adnan Husain and Ariel Salzmann of Queen’s University, suggests these modern bigotries share Medieval roots. Pre-modern Christian wars against Muslim states in Spain, the Middle East and the Balkans made a lasting impression on European culture. These conflicts also played a major role in converting theological anti-Judaism into sociological Anti-Semitism.


Ariel Salzmann, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Islamic and World History at Queens University.  She has written articles on a wide range of subjects, including one on the 18th century Ottoman Empire that remains one of the most influential in its field.

Adnan Husain, PhD,  is a Queen’s National Scholar and an Associate Professor of the Medieval Mediterranean and Islamic World at Queen’s University. The current focuses of his writing and teaching are the cross-cultural and inter-religious encounters among the Muslims, Christians and Jews of Latin Christendom and the Islamic world in the Mediterranean zone between the 10th and 15th centuries.


Date: Sunday August 25, 2013
Time: 3 – 5 pm
Location: Auditorium, Noor Cultural Centre
Admission:  $5