The Saracen

The Saracen is a two-part novel written by Robert Shea. The two separate portions, The Land of the Infidel and The Holy War are a continuous tale.

Basically ignored during its publication - and subsequently out of print, although still enjoying strong reviews and a cult following by those who have read it - the novel is the portrayal of an English-born man named David, who is captured as a very young child and sold into slavery to Baibars, a Mamluk officer. He becomes a devout believer in Islam and takes the Arabic form of his name and the surname of a convert, Daoud ibn Abdullah. He develops into a gifted warrior and assassin. He is sent to the Papal Court in Orvieto in the 13th century as a spy, in order to foil an alliance between the Christian West and the Mongolian descendants of Genghis Khan to exterminate the Muslim faith and capture the Holy Land.

Daoud was also trained by the Hashishyya, a heretical Islamic order. One of the many spellings of their name, Hashshashin, is where we derive the modern word "assassin". Shea spends considerable time discussing their techniques and philosophy, and it is a major theme of the book.

The Saracen (opera)

The Saracen (Сарацин in Cyrillic, Saracin in transliteration), is an opera by César Cui composed during 1896-1898. The libretto was written by Vladimir Vasilievich Stasov and the composer, based on a play by Alexandre Dumas (père) entitled Charles VII chez ses grands vassaux. The opera was premiered on 2 November 1899 (Old Style), in Saint Petersburg at the Mariinsky Theatre, with Eduard Nápravník as conductor. It was staged also in 1902 by the Moscow Private Opera at the Solodovnikov Theatre, but never became part of the standard operatic repertoire.

The Saracen can be understood to some extent as a sequel to Tchaikovsky's opera The Maid of Orleans in that later events involving the same French monarch are involved.

Characters and setting

Saracen

Saracen was a generic term for Muslims widely used among Christian writers in Europe during the later medieval era. The term's meaning evolved during its history. In the early centuries CE, Greek and Latin writings used this term to refer to the people who lived in desert areas in and near the Roman province of Arabia. They were distinguished as a people from others known as Arabs. In Europe during the Early Medieval era, the term came to be associated with Arab tribes as well. By the 12th century, "Saracen" had become synonymous with "Muslim" in Medieval Latin literature. Such expansion in the meaning of the term had begun centuries earlier among the Byzantine Romans, as evidenced in documents from the 8th century. In the Western languages before the 16th century, "Saracen" was commonly used to refer to Muslim Arabs, and the words "Muslim" and "Islam" were generally not used (with a few isolated exceptions).

Early usage and origins

Ptolemy's Geography (2nd century CE) describes "Sarakene" as a region in the northern Sinai peninsula. Ptolemy also mentions a people called the "Sarakenoi" living in north-western Arabia (near neighbor to the Sinai).Eusebius of Caesarea refers to Saracens in his Ecclesiastical history, in which he narrates an account wherein Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria, mentions Saracens in a letter while describing the persecution of Christians by the Roman emperor Decius: "Many were, in the Arabian mountain, enslaved by the barbarous 'sarkenoi'." The Historia Augusta also refers to an attack by "Saraceni" on Pescennius Niger's army in Egypt in 193, but provides little information as to identifying them.

Saracen (disambiguation)

Saracen is a European medieval term for Muslims, adopted from Latin.

Saracen or Saracens may also refer to:

Art, entertainment,and media

Fictional characters

Literature

Opera

Television

Enterprises

Military

Sports

Saracen (comics)

Saracen is a fictional villain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as an enemy of the antihero the Punisher. He was created by Mike Baron and Erik Larsen, and first appeared in The Punisher Vol. 2, #22 (August 1989)

Publication history

Saracen was introduced in The Punisher Vol. 2, #22-23, and reappeared in The Punisher War Journal #25-27, as well as The Punisher Vol. 2, #47-48, and The Punisher War Journal #33. The character was then killed off in the one-shot comic book The Punisher: Empty Quarter, though a version of him from an alternate universe was later featured in Exiles Vol. 1, #99.

Saracen received profiles in Marvel Encyclopedia #5, and Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z Update #1.

Fictional character biography

A globe-trotting mercenary and assassin whose actions, such as plundering cruise ships and blowing up airliners, have resulted in him being branded a terrorist, Saracen hails from an undisclosed Arabian country, and is said to be happily married.