Examines the ways in which Christian monks justified occupying the Sinai through creating associations between Biblical narratives and Sinai sites while assigning uncivilized, negative, and oppositional traits to the indigenous nomadic population, whom the Christians pejoratively called Saracens.
"A well-researched, stimulating work. This book represents an extremely important contribution to the field of late antique and early medieval cultural history and to the history of relations between Christianity and Islam. Truly, an impressive read."-John Tolan, Professor of History, Université de Nantes
"In this intelligent and original study, Walter Ward offers a vivid portrait of the religious culture of the Sinai in late antiquity. He weaves together the strands of continuity connecting Christian views of 'the Saracen' in the pre-Islamic and Islamic eras to illuminate the way that later rhetoric of the Muslim 'other' percolated into the Roman imperial mainstream. Adeptly grounded in archaeological, anthropological, and literary material, it is elegantly situated within current debates in late antique studies and contains an urgent message for the contemporary era. Mirage of the Saracen deserves to be on the bookshelf of anyone with an interest in the place of religion in the ancient and modern worlds."-Greg Fisher, Professor of Greek and Roman Studies, Carleton University
"A fine study of Christian colonization, spatial and spiritual, of the Sinai Peninsula. . . . a very good book."
