Saracen. Late 15th-century German woodcut depicting Saracens. Saracen (/ ˈsærəsən / SARR-ə-sən) was a term used both in Greek and Latin writings between the 5th and 15th centuries to refer to the people who lived in and near what was designated by the Romans as Arabia Petraea and Arabia Deserta. [1][2][3] The term's meaning evolved during ...
Saracen, in the Middle Ages, any person—Arab, Turk, or other—who professed the religion of Islām. Earlier in the Roman world, there had been references to Saracens (Greek: Sarakenoi) by late classical authors in the first three centuries ad, …