Martin Luther Reformation and Islam
During the Reformation, the advance of the Muslim religion was very much “in the news.” The advancing Turkish Ottoman Empire, which reached its height in the early to the mid-sixteenth century, posed an unnerving political and military threat to European Christendom. Even though the armies of Europe turned back the Turks at the gates of Vienna in 1529, the fact that the forces of Islam had made it that far left Christian Europe “severely rattled” for decades to come.1 Thus, while primarily doing battle with the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformers also gave occasional attention to Islam. In addition to explaining the nature of Islam, the Reformers pondered what lessons God wanted the church to draw from the advance of “the Turks” (synonymous then with “Muslims”) upon an outwardly Christian people. As we’ve just recognized the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, we find ourselves troubled by these same questions. It seems timely to ask, how did the Reformers view Islam