Barbarians And Non-European Culture

When Europeans first began to step outside and explore beyond their homelands they referred everyone they encountered on their way as 'barbarians'. The term barbarian existed several thousand years back. The Greeks and the Romans used it to signify a person who is uncivilized and did not belong to their culture. In fact they had enslaved all barbarians. These encounters with other societies in far off lands, led to a curious need for the Europeans to interpret the origins and nature of these groups of people. The Europeans paid close attention to both their religious and social behaviors and observed them as an outsider themselves. For example Marco polo who was a European traveler wrote his encounters with the tartar society by observing them closely. …show more content…
In other words, the Europeans viewed other societies as part of an alien society who was different from them. The non-European perspective of Europeans were rather different, they viewed the Europeans with great fear and importance as Europeans always held supreme authority. Non Europeans viewed Europeans as the more dominating ones. When Ibn batuta visited Constantinople he was under the impression that he wasn't accepted by the crowd there. He was being constantly searched because he came from a foreign land. They viewed him as a Muslim first and then focused on his ethnicity. This gives an impression that maybe the Europeans saw Muslims as a threat to them.