ABSTRACT
Edward Gibbon fi nishing up his Th e Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1776-78) was able to imagine how easily serene little Oxford could have been dominated by tall Islamic minarets before his birth, and the accents in its markets would have been Arabic: “…the interpretation of the Koran would now be taught in the schools of Oxford, and her pulpits might demonstrate to a circumcised people the sanctity and truth of the revelation of Mahomet” (469).
