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Saracens

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Salah ad-Din View Drop Down
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  Quote Salah ad-Din Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Saracens
    Posted: 15-May-2013 at 19:55
'Saracen' is an old-fashioned word, greatly favored in the historic West, used to describe an Arab, a Muslim, or a denizen of the Middle East, or all of the above. History puts this word in the mouth of Crusaders when speaking about their foe.

Where is the word actually derived from? I have vague memory of it being used by the Romans to refer to Bedouin tribes on the fringes of the Empire, and subsequently being inherited by medieval Europe. Is this a term that Arabs would have ever 'answered to' (for lack of a better wording) at any point in history, or was the word solely used in Europe?

Secondly, the word is clearly out of fashion in modern scholarship, but is it considered to have a derogatory/racist connotation? It does ring pretty medievalish, comparable to 'heathen' and 'heretic'.
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TheAlaniDragonRising View Drop Down
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  Quote TheAlaniDragonRising Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 16-May-2013 at 04:03
What a handsome figure of a dragon. No wonder I fall madly in love with the Alani Dragon now, the avatar, it's a gorgeous dragon picture.
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  Quote lirelou Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-May-2013 at 12:05
Supposedly from Old French, and before that Ancient Greek. Possibly from words meaning 'swarthy' or 'Eastern'?
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Baal Melqart View Drop Down
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  Quote Baal Melqart Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 19-May-2013 at 15:20
It is thought that Saracen would have originally been used by Romans to denote the Arabian tribes living around the region of Sinai and Petra. Some etymologists have hypothesised that ''Saracen'' may actually have roots in the Arabic languages of the time in which case it would be a bastardisation of ''Shirka'' which means something along the lines of association/partnership. This would made sense since the Romans used Arab Foederati type warbands levied from Arabian tribes to fight off the Sassanids. Perhaps the word caught on and was then bastardised further as it was picked up by other people speaking other languages.
 
 
 
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Nick1986 View Drop Down
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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29-May-2013 at 18:51
During the early modern period, Saracen was interchangeable with Moor and Turk: the European name for a Muslim
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