Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the age of discovery

281 Pages·1999·1.248 MB·English

by  Matar, Nabil I

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..GM 
.’—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