Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the age of discovery PDF
Preview Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the age of discovery
Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery a Nabil Matar COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS New York Columbia University Press Publishers Since 1893 New York Chichester,West Sussex Copyright © by Columbia University Press All rights reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Matar,N.I.(Nabil I.) Turks,Moors,and Englishmen in the age of discovery / Nabil I.Matar p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index ISBN ––– (cloth) ISBN ––– (paper) . Middle East—Relations—Great Britain. . Great Britain—Relations—Middle East. . Africa,North—Relations—Great Britain. . Great Britain—Relations—Africa,North. . Middle East— History—–. . Africa,North—History—–. . Great Britain— History—Elizabeth,–. . Great Britain—History—Stuarts,–. .Indians—First contact with Europeans. I. Title. DS..GM .’—dc – Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper. Printed in the United States of America c p For Ibrahim and Hady matar fm 2/22/05 4:23 PM Page vii Contents Preface ix Introduction 3 1.Turks and Moors in England 19 2.Soldiers,Pirates,Traders,and Captives:Britons Among the Muslims 43 3.The Renaissance Triangle:Britons,Muslims, and American Indians 83 4.Sodomy and Conquest 109 5.Holy Land,Holy War 129 Conclusion:Britons,Muslims,and the Shadow of the American Indians 169 Appendix A:English Captivity Accounts,1577–1704 181 Appendix B:The Journey of the First Levantine to America 185 Appendix C:Ahmad bin Qasim on Sodomy 193 Notes 195 Bibliography 231 Index (Prepared by Marilyn Goravitch) 257 Preface From the Elizabethan period and throughout the seventeenth century, Britons from England and Wales,and to a lesser extent,Scotland and Ireland, were exposed to the civilization of Islam.This civilization was experienced by means of its literature,culture,and languages,chiefly Arabic and Turkish. It was also experienced as a theology that English and Scottish clerics con- fronted—either in polemical texts or in disputations.Such an Islam could be written about, debated, denounced, admired, and scrutinized without bringing the Briton into contact with a single Muslim man or woman.It could be praised for its sufi models,attacked for its “Mahometan berry”(cof- fee),threatened by eschatological destruction,or denounced for its “rene- gades”—all from the safety of Britain’s insular borders.It is a testimony to the vast impact of Islam on Renaissance England and the British Isles that despite the limitations of this exposure,the Arab-Islamic legacy permeated English discourse and thought.In Islam in Britain,1558-1685,I attempted to examine that legacy and showed that although a centripetal relation gov- erned Islam and Britain,by the end of the seventeenth century,that relation had become centrifugal and oppositional. In this book,I shall show how that change was effected by focusing on the Age of Discovery,the period that corresponds in England to the time between the Elizabethan period and the beginning of the Great Migration in the Caroline period.Specifically,I shall examine this interaction in the light of England’s concurrent encounter with another non-Christian people—the American Indians. Students of the English Renaissance have ignored the importance of the fact that Britons encountered Muslims at the same time they encountered American Indians. Only three years after the Turkey
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