ABSTRACT
The Latin word saraceni has a very interesting history, for it gradually referred not only to Arabs or Muslims, but also to all non-Christian or non-European "foreigners." As Bernard Lewis pointed out, in the early centuries of the Roman Empire, the Saracens were a nomadic tribe from the Sinai Peninsula, but later the name acquired a much broader meaning, and the Greek-speaking subjects of the Byzantine Empire applied it to all Arabs. The "Saracens" were the Muslim enemy of Christian Europe. The "Moors" of Spain were identified as "Saracens". The European Christians, who themselves had committed massacres of Jews and other "children of the Devil", thought of the "Saracens" as evil, violent, savage people who attacked monasteries and churches and murdered people. For the European Christians, however, there was no difference between Umayyads, Fatimids, and Abbasids, Arabs and Muslims, Shiites and Sunnis, Persians and Turks.
