Mohammedan

Mohammedan (also spelled Muhammadan, Mahommedan, Mahomedan or Mahometan) is a term for a follower of Muhammad, the Islamic prophet. It is used as both a noun and an adjective, meaning belonging or relating to, either Muhammad or the religion, doctrines, institutions and practices that he established. The word was formerly common in usage, but the terms Muslim and Islamic are more common today. Though sometimes used stylistically by some Muslims, a vast majority consider the term either archaic or offensive. The Oxford English Dictionary cites 1663 as the first recorded usage of the English term; the older spelling Mahometan dates back to at least 1529. The English word is derived from Neo-Latin Mahometanus, from Medieval Latin Mahometus, Muhammad. It meant simply a follower of Mohammad. In Western Europe, down to the 13th century or so, some Christians had the belief that Muhammad had either been a heretical Christian or that he was a god worshipped by Muslims. Some works of Medieval European literature referred to Muslims as "pagans" or by sobriquets such as the "paynim foe" (enemy). Depictions, such as those in the Song of Roland, show Muslims praying to a variety of "", including Apollo, Lucifer, Termagant, and Mahound. During the Trials of the Knights Templar (1300-1310s), reference was often made to their worship of the demon Baphomet; this is similar to "Mahomet", the Latin transliteration of Muhammad's name, and Latin was, for another 500 years, the language of scholarship and erudition for most of Europe. These and other variations on the theme were all set in the "temper of the times" of the Muslim–Christian conflict, as Medieval Europe was becoming aware of its great enemy in the wake of the quickfire success of the Muslims through a series of conquests shortly after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, as well as the lack of real information in the West of the mysterious East. The term has been largely superseded by Muslim (formerly transliterated as Moslem) or Islamic.