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Those who have discovered C.S. Lewis's enchanted universe of Narnia might recollect its terrible Empire of the South: Calormen. There, beyond the Great Desert, dwell a "wise, wealthy, courteous, cruel" people, who pray to Tash, a bloodthirsty god. Tash, "the inexorable, the irresistible," is represented on Earth by the cruel Calormene ruler, the Tisroc, who once ordered the death of a cook for his indigestion. While not deified, the Tisroc is so revered by the Calormenes that a mention of his name is never heard without the added: "May he live forever."

Like so many Narnian figures, the Tisroc is not Lewis's invention but a parody. For the Tisroc is part Ottoman sultan and part Muhammad, "blessings and peace be upon him," the prophet of Allah, "the Merciful, the Benevolent." He is but one representation in the colorful corpus of Christian writings on Muhammad, the prophet who has intrigued and terrified the West since the rise of Islam in the seventh century. Western Christian writers have repeatedly redrawn his figure, now as a demoniac, then as a bloodthirsty, sex-crazed barbarian or as a noble rationalist.

Indeed, Muhammad is one of those figures whose legend has grown so greatly that his historical person seems entirely overshadowed. Partly as a consequence of this, Christian scholars today seem utterly at odds with one another over who this man was and how we should regard him, while the vast majority of Christians are almost entirely ignorant about Muhammad, his life and teachings. At a time when a deeper understanding of the world's one billion Muslims has taken on a new urgency, it is no sensationalism, I believe, to maintain that it behooves every Christian today to encounter for himself the man regarded by Muslims as the final prophet of God, Chief of the Messengers.

Muhammad first appears in the Western canon from the pen of an intriguing ninth-century activist, Eulogius of Cordova. Eulogius lived under Islamic rule in Spain, where he took a leading role in inflaming Christian insurrection. This was done, remarkably, not by taking up arms but rather through a movement of voluntary martyrdom. One of the ways to carry out such a plan was to openly insult Muhammad, a crime invariably punishable by death. For this reason Eulogius's Liber Apologeticus Martyrum includes polemic against the Muslim prophet.

Much of the literature of the next several centuries, through the Crusading period, is likewise polemical. Characteristic of this period is the letter from Peter the Venerable (of Cluny) to Bernard of Clairvaux "on the false prophet Muhammad." Elsewhere in his writings, Peter addresses Muhammad in the first person: "Shall I believe that you were a true prophet of God? Truly I would be more foolish than an ass."1

A similar hostility is seen under a much different guise in a curious lyrical novel written by Alexandre du Pont in 1258, The Romance of Muhammad.2 Du Pont composed his work in Old French and not in Latin, thus clearly intending it for popular consumption. At the time of his writing, news had recently arrived of Louis IX's disastrous crusade to Egypt, and the Franciscans and Dominicans were opening missions in Islamic lands. In the Romance, du Pont seeks to secure his Christian readers in their faith, despite their military losses to Islam and the tales of its opulence that the Crusaders brought back with them. This he does by showing Muhammad to be nothing but a Christian heretic who, with diabolical aid and ceaseless treachery, planted his perverted faith among the barbaric Arabs. In du Pont's account, Muhammad is also aided by a renegade Christian hermit, who helps convince Muhammad's wife, Khadija, that her husband's epileptic seizures are in fact a sign of divine visitations. Du Pont's Muhammad is brutal as well, ordering his followers to convert all people to Islam through warfare, and to "hand over straightway to be tortured; Those who are unwilling, in spite of force; Or other means, to adhere to it."

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