:::: Both the 'thieves' and the 'outside-of-Sarah' theories are mentioned and mercilessly refuted by Gibbon (though the latter without much of an argument). As for ScottAdler's argument: did not both the heading and the original poster explicitly say 'ethymology'? You are the only one pin-dancing trying to invoke bloody war in an argument regarding the origins of a word. For what it's worth: the term 'Saracen' was already applied BEFORE Muhammed was born, so it seems incredibly unlikely the origin of the word has anything to do with 'Muslim invader'. Whether they were horrible or not seems rather unrelated.