The Cross and the Crescent is a brilliant account of the relations between Islam and Christianity from the time of Muhammad to the Reformation, by Englands leading mediaeval historian. Richard Fletcher shows how, despite long periods of co-existence and overlap, religious misunderstanding between the peoples of the book has been present since their earliest encounters. He argues that though there were fruitful trading and cultural interactions between Islam and Christianity during the period when Arabs controlled most of the Mediterranean world, neither side was remotely interested in the actual religion of the other. Christians portrayed Moslems as bloodthirsty pagans and Muhammad as a false prophet, while Islam viewed Christianity as a jumble of sects and conflicting stories. In Fletchers words: Christian and Moslem lived side by side in a state of mutual religious aversion. Given these circumstances, if religious passions were to be stirred up, confrontation would probably be violent.
