The problem of interreligious peacemaking in the works of ramon llull

Abstract

The purpose of this essay is to examine depictions of interior peace, as well as exterior peacemaking in the world, in representative works by Ramon Llull, written during the later thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. I will show how Llull’s goal of ending conflict involved interreligious dialogue and an attitude of intellectual openness, but at the same time advocated problematic efforts to proselytize religious others that were to be backed up by military force. While the writer’s conceptualization of inner, spiritual combat and peacemaking draws on a number of Christian conventions, we will see how it can also be fruitfully compared to Islamic traditions.