Ricoldus de Monte Crucis (the name is spelled with minor variations) was an Italian Dominican friar, traveller and Christian apologist active in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries who is well known for his anti-Islamic polemic Contra Sarracenos et Alchoranum. This work has gone through many editions and has been translated into several European languages, influencing at least one later Latin translation of the Qur'an. Ricoldus’ tract stands somewhat apart from other Christian anti-Islamic writings of its time because of the considerable knowledge of Arabic and specifically of Qur'anic Arabic that the author, who spent many years in Baghdad, demonstrates. A study of this text is therefore of value not merely to specialists in the field of Qur'an translations by medieval Christians, but also to students of historical encounters between Muslims and Christians, to scholars of the early history of the Dominican order and of medieval Latinity, and even to theologians and those interested in the origins of later forms of Orientalism.

Daniel Pachurka, at the time of publication a post-doctoral student at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, has produced a painstakingly researched study that takes into account the genealogy of the known manuscripts of Contra Sarracenos, the political context in which the work was composed, and the relation of this work to other more-or-less contemporaneous writings such as Ramon Martí’s De secta Machometi and the Liber disputationis Raimundi Lulli Christiani et Homeri Saraceni. Pachurka also demonstrates how Ricoldus’ work shows the influence of the anonymous anti-Islamic tract Liber denudationis (Contrarietas alfolica). The result is an impressive work of scholarship that makes considerable demands on the reader but repays the effort with a rich and nuanced view of a document that shaped Western perceptions of Islam for centuries.

The core of Pachurka's work is a detailed commentary on the Latin text of Contra Sarracenos et Alcoranum, which is reproduced in its entirety in this volume, along with a German translation. The Latin reveals the dependence of Ricoldus on Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī, one of the major hadith collections of Sunni Islam, his awareness of the biography of the Prophet (Sīra) undertaken by the eighth-century historian Ibn Ishāq, and his reliance on citations from the Vulgate. The ways in which the Dominican at times failed to grasp the cultural and religious significance of stories related in the Qur'an are likewise elucidated. Particularly intriguing are the instances when Ricoldus has come close to an accurate translation but has not quite hit the target. For example, the title of Sura 93 is l-ḍuḥā, which can be translated ‘forenoon’ or ‘morning’. Ricoldus renders the Arabic as ‘Creatio’ even though a different triliteral radical is used throughout the Qur'an to express the idea of creation. Ricoldus seems to have some sense of l-ḍuḥā as a ‘bright beginning’, but has disregarded the other half dozen appearances of this root form in the Qur'an where context strongly suggests ‘morning’.

In other instances, Ricoldus shares with other early Christian commentators on the Qur'an a willingness to put the worst possible interpretation on a passage, especially if it concerns polygamy. Commenting on a hadith of al-Bukhārī Ricoldus sees Muhammed, whom he describes as ‘malus et facinorosus’, claiming the right to indulge himself in promiscuous sexual licence, while the usual Muslim interpretation of the passage is that it regulates marital rights. Since Ricoldus would have had considerable first-hand knowledge of the respect accorded the Prophet by essentially all Muslims, such passages point to an exclusively non-Muslim intended audience for Contra Sarracenos et Alcoranum. Balanced against these facts is clear evidence of Ricoldus’ frequently precise and deep knowledge of Arabic, as well as his use of Arabic sources such Averroes (whom he may have known primarily in Latin translations).

Ricoldus understood the central role of the Prophet Muhammed in the construction of Islamic belief, and therefore the Dominican's attacks on Islam are frequently made by means of the Prophet. Various arguments are presented to prove that Muhammed was a ‘false prophet’: among these is the assertion that Muhammed performed no miracles. Elsewhere Muhammed's personal morality is doubted, with Contra Sarracenos concluding with a stinging denunciation of the circumstances surrounding Muhammed's death. Parchuka notes that Ricoldus – either innocently or intentionally – has completely misread the tone of the account preserved in a hadith. What was originally written as a reverent description of the Prophet's last moments is recast as a lurid tale in which Muhammed expires in the inappropriately sensuous embrace of his wife Aisha, having been finally identified as an ‘anti-Prophet’.

Pachurka includes a collection of ahadith of al-Buhari pertinent to Ricoldus' work: the texts of these ahadith, and of the Hadith Muslim, in Siddiqi's edition, are presented in transliterated Arabic (all Arabic materials in this book appear in transliteration) followed by English translations. In addition, ahadith of Sunan Abu Dawud, another major hadith collection upon which Ricoldus draws, as well as excerpts from the Actum Machumeti, an early and relatively difficult to access source, are included. The last appears with a German translation. The presentation of these sources together with the text of Contra Sarracenos enhances the utility of this volume considerably. There is also an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary literature, but no indices.