L’image de l’Islam dans la littérature des voyages portugaise du XVIème siècle: les itinéraires terrestres au Moyen Orient

Abstract

This paper aims at studying the characterization of Islamic religion and civilization in five Portuguese overland itineraries in the Middle East during the 16th century. These texts can be roughly divided in pilgrimage accounts to the Holy Land on one side and travelogues dealing with the voyage between the Persian Gulf and Europe on the other. They all depict very different representations of the Muslim world but some common traces will be found amongst them. One of the similarities is the evidence provided for the Portuguese presence in the Levant and in the Indian Ocean which can be interpreted as a decisive factor for the composition of each one of these accounts.