Podcast Summary:

New Books Network: Ayoush Lazikani, "The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing" (Yale UP, 2025)
Date: December 6, 2025
Host: Morteza Hajizadeh
Guest: Dr. Ayoush Lazikani, University of Oxford

Episode Overview

This episode features Dr. Ayoush Lazikani, a lecturer at Oxford and specialist in medieval literature, discussing her new book, The Medieval Moon: A History of Haunting and Blessing. The conversation delves into how the moon served as a powerful symbol across medieval cultures—Christian, Islamic, East Asian, and beyond—embodying mystery, transformation, and dualities of blessing and haunting. Far from being a solely Eurocentric history, Lazikani’s work stitches together global traditions, demonstrating the moon’s enduring role in shaping spiritual, literary, and scientific thought from 700 to 1600 and its continued resonance today.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dr. Lazikani’s Background and Path to the Book

• Focus: Started in English literature, specifically texts for anchorites (Christian recluses), eventually expanding to comparative studies involving Islamic contemplative literature. Noticed the moon's prominence across cultures, leading to a global history focused on its medieval significance.
• Quote:

  “The Moon was really central to both [Christian and Islamic] cultures…really fundamental to how they think about their faith.” (03:30, Lazikani)

2. The Moon in Medieval Riddles & Cosmology

• Medieval riddles (Old English, Old Norse) often used the moon as a metaphor for uncertainty and transformation—a celestial entity both familiar and fundamentally mysterious.
• Quote:

  “The moon itself was a kind of riddle for medieval people. It changed form…there’s this sense that they didn’t know where it went.” (05:55, Lazikani)

• The riddle format skillfully reflected the elusive knowledge medieval societies had about lunar behavior.
• Notable Moment: Discussion of Old English riddles where the moon’s disappearance during its cycle inspired speculation and creative mythmaking. (06:59)

3. Moon Personification and Religious Identity

• Across civilizations, the moon was personified—as deities (Selene, Diana, Artemis in Greco-Roman tradition; Chang’e in Chinese mythology; divine figures in Mayan and Islamic tradition).
• The moon was often both an object of worship and a symbol of complex religious identities:
  • Christianity: the Virgin Mary on the crescent moon.
  • Islam: Sufi poets describing God as the moon.
• Quote:

  “Depending on the culture… the moon is really central to exploring and understanding religious identities.” (08:43, Lazikani)

4. Imagined Journeys to the Moon: Exile & Otherness

• Medieval minds imagined lunar journeys—well before space travel became real—turning the moon into a place of exile or longing.
  • English poem: a man exiled to the moon for stealing thorns.
  • Ariosto’s 'Orlando Furioso': Orlando’s sanity is exiled to the moon.
  • Japanese 'Tale of the Bamboo Cutter': a moon princess sent to earth as a form of exile, exploring themes of belonging and separation.
• Quote:

  “It shows that they were thinking about [space journeys] so many centuries before it was scientifically possible.” (12:47, Lazikani)

5. Lunar Phenomena as Divine Signs

• In Islam, the splitting of the moon (Surah al-Qamar) is considered a miracle of Prophet Muhammad—a symbol of judgment, eschatology, and the afterlife.
• In Christianity, lunar motifs appear in art, e.g., the Virgin Mary on the moon, or the sun and moon at the crucifixion, symbolizing cosmic upheaval.
• Quote:

  “The moon was often used to symbolize the church…The church reflects the light of Christ just as the moon reflects the light of the sun.” (15:11, Lazikani)

6. The Moon and Medieval Medicine

• Both Western (Latin Christian) and Islamic medical traditions classified the moon as a planet (Ptolemaic cosmology), closest to Earth and thus highly influential on human health.
• Treatments—particularly bloodletting—were often timed with lunar phases and zodiacal positions (melothesia), linking cosmology and therapeutic practice.
• Quote:

  “It was perceived as the planet closest to the Earth, that it was seen to have such a profound influence on illness and health.” (20:10, Lazikani)

7. The "King Moon" and Social Ethics

• In South Asian myth, the moon’s obsession with one star to the neglect of its duties leads to disease—a narrative underlining social harmony and dharma (proper conduct).
• Restoring cosmic and social order leads to healing—linking cosmology, health, and ethical behavior. (23:00)

8. The Moon as a Symbol of Mutability and Grief

• The changing phases of the moon inspired medieval associations with instability, illusion, and sorrow.
  • Chaucer: the moon as deceptive, unstable.
  • Kalila wa Dimna: the moon’s image as illusion.
  • The poem Pearl: the moon becomes emblematic of unfulfillable longing after loss—grief for a lost child, separation.
• Quote:

  “From this developed this idea of the moon being associated with mutability…pain that’s associated with that mutability and the grief of being in what was understood to be the sublunary world.” (25:17, Lazikani)

9. The Moon of Loves and Embraces: From Earthly Love to Mystical Union

• Chapter 6 explores the moon as a metaphor for love—from Persian ('Layli and Majnun'), European, and Welsh poets, to Sufi mystics.
• Sufis transformed the moon from a conventional symbol of romantic (earthly) love to a representation of divine unity and transcendence:
  • Ibn Arabi used the full moon’s image of a 14-year-old beloved to evoke the perfection and unchanging nature of the divine, going beyond earthly cycles.
• Quote:

  “They take this image and they transform it so it’s actually about divine love… the divine doesn’t move through the typical circuits of the moon.” (30:42, Lazikani)

10. The Global Middle Ages: Beyond Eurocentrism

• Lazikani’s approach is consciously global, including Japanese, Persian, Arabic, and other traditions, reflecting the moon’s universal presence.
• The ‘global Middle Ages’ challenges Eurocentric perspectives, urging scholars to see the moon (and the medieval past) as a shared legacy shaping all civilizations.
• Quote:

  “The moon is a shared part of creation, regardless of where someone is in the world… associated with the imagination, literary and artistic expression. This is something… shared across traditions.” (32:36, Lazikani)

11. Medieval Insights for Contemporary Life

• The intimacy medieval minds felt with the moon—seeing it as guide, companion, and teacher—has relevance in today’s conversations about environment, technology, and humanity’s cosmic context.
• Medieval moon stories remind us that we are in dialogue with the cosmos, not masters over it, underpinning both ecological perspectives and our ongoing fascination with space.
• Quote:

  “We are in dialogue... with the cosmos and with nature and not separate from it. So I think that's what the medieval world offers us—this sense of intimacy between humanity and broader creation of which we are part.” (36:10, Lazikani)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “The moon itself was a kind of riddle for medieval people. It changed form…they didn’t know where it went.” (05:55, Ayoush Lazikani)
• “Across cultures, the moon is associated with the imagination, with literary and artistic expression.” (32:36, Lazikani)
• "We are in dialogue with the cosmos and with nature and not separate from it." (36:15, Lazikani)
• “I hope to achieve…really to think of the centuries from 700 to 1600...from a global perspective.” (33:28, Lazikani)
• “In Japanese culture, [the moon is] a companion for the nun as she's undertaking journeys…across the text, the moon has a profound link with humans.” (35:26, Lazikani)

Important Segment Timestamps

• [02:47] Dr. Lazikani’s academic background and genesis of the project
• [05:34] Medieval moon riddles: the moon as a puzzle
• [07:15] Personification of the moon in world traditions
• [09:33] Imagined lunar journeys: otherness, exile, and belonging
• [13:12] Lunar phenomena: eclipses, splitting of the moon, and religious meaning
• [18:09] The lunar influence in medicine and ritual practice
• [22:07] South Asian “King Moon” myth and ethical order
• [24:13] Moon’s role as symbol of mutability, illusion, and grief
• [27:07] The moon and love: Sufis and the mystical beloved
• [31:16] The ‘global Middle Ages’ and breaking Eurocentric study
• [34:06] What the medieval lunar legacy offers the present

Tone & Style

The conversation is thoughtful and accessible, blending intellectual rigor with genuine enthusiasm for the subject. Dr. Lazikani’s explanations are both scholarly and vivid, often weaving storytelling with analysis, and the host’s questions steer the dialogue into new territory without losing focus on the overarching themes.

Summary for Non-Listeners

This interview paints a sweeping, multi-cultural portrait of the moon in medieval imagination. Across riddles and folk tales, medical manuals and mystical poetry, Dr. Lazikani traces how the moon’s changeable face inspired ideas about mystery, love, exile, health, cosmic order, and spiritual longing. Her book and this interview urge us to recognize the moon not just as a scientific object, but as a deeply shared cultural artifact that continues to shape how humanity sees itself in the universe—bridging past and present, earth and sky, the local and the global.