Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Carl W. Ernst, The Shambhala Guide 

to Sufism (Boston and London: Shambhala, 1997); 

Michael Gilsenan, Recognizing Islam: Religion and Soci-

ety in the Modern Arab World (New York: Pantheon, 

1982); Valerie Hoffman, Sufism, Mystics, and Saints in 

Modern Egypt (Columbia: University of South Carolina 

Press, 1995); Gregory Starrett, Putting Islam to Work: 

Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in Egypt

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).

miraj

  See n

ight

 j

ourney

 

and

 a

scent

.

Mohammedanism

 

(Muhammedanism)

Mohammedanism is a term used by some schol-

ars and religious officials, particularly those in 

e

Urope

 in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, 

to identify Islam. There were previously many 

variants of the word, including Mahometanism, 

Mahometism, and Mahometry. Early in its usage, 

Mohammedanism (and other similar terms) often 

conveyed an explicitly hostile description of and 

attitude toward i

slam

. At other times, it was used 

because of an unwitting overemphasis on the role 

of the prophet m

Uhammad

 or out of a desire to 

present information in a way that would make 

sense to Christian Europe.

Mohammedanism misrepresents Islam by imply-

ing that Muhammad is at the center of Islam, the 

object of worship guiding the community. Muham-

mad is indeed a central figure in the tradition, 

though only insofar as he served as a fully human 

conduit for God’s word (q

Uran

) and as a model 

for pious and righteous behavior for the commu-

nity. By focusing heavily on Muhammad, the idea 

of Mohammedanism as a conceptual category and 

descriptive term gave license to some 19th-century 

European scholars to claim Islam’s inferiority to 

Christianity via criticism of Muhammad’s behavior 

and its effect on Islam as a whole. This criticism, in 

contrast to the Christian idea of Christ’s perfection, 

left Islam as merely a derivative form of Christianity 

and not, as Islam itself claims, its successor in the 

Abrahamic monotheisms.

Today, use of the term is limited almost wholly 

to new editions of older European and North 

American texts on Islam.

See also c

hristianity

 

and

 i

slam

; o

rientarism

.

Caleb Elfenbein