Traveling to archives in Tunisia, Morocco, France, and England, with visits to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Spain, Nabil Matar assembles a rare history of Europe’s rise to power as seen through the eyes of those who were later subjugated by it. Many historians of the Middle East believe Arabs and Muslims had no interest in Europe during this period of Western discovery and empire, but in fact these groups were very much engaged with the naval and industrial development, politics, and trade of European Christendom.
Beginning in 1578 with a major Moroccan victory over a Portuguese invading army, Matar surveys this early modern period, in which Europeans and Arabs often shared common political, commercial, and military goals. Matar concentrates on how Muslim captives, ransomers, traders, envoys, travelers, and rulers pursued those goals while transmitting to the nonprint cultures of North Africa their knowledge of the peoples and societies of Spain, France, Britain, Holland, Italy, and Malta. From the first non-European description of Queen Elizabeth I to early accounts of Florence and Pisa in Arabic, from Tunisian descriptions of the Morisco expulsion in 1609 to the letters of a Moroccan Armenian ambassador in London, the translations of the book’s second half draw on the popular and elite sources that were available to Arabs in the early modern period. Letters from male and female captives in Europe, chronicles of European naval attacks and the taqayid (newspaper) reports on Muslim resistance, and descriptions of opera and quinine appear here in English for the first time.
Matar notes that the Arabs of the Maghrib and the Mashriq were eager to engage Christendom, despite wars and rivalries, and hoped to establish routes of trade and alliances through treaties and royal marriages. However, the rise of an intolerant and exclusionary Christianity and the explosion of European military technology brought these advances to an end. In conclusion, Matar details the decline of Arab-Islamic power and the rise of Britain and France.
Daftar Isi
Acknowledgments
A Note on Transliteration
Chronology
List of Rulers
Part I
Introduction
1. Popular Sources: Accounts of Muslim Captivity in Christendom
2. Elite Sources: Muslim Ambassadors in Christendom
Conclusion: Encountering the Dunya of the Christians
Part II. Translations
1. 1578: Letters of Radwan al- Janawy on Muslim Captives
2. After 1588: Description of the Defeat of the Armada
3. ca. 1589–1591: A Journey from Morocco to Istanbul and Back
4. After June 1596: Description of the En glish Attack on Cadiz
5. 1613–1618: Description of Pisa and Florence
6. 1623: Expulsion of the Moriscos and the Miraculous Ransoming of Muslim Captives
7. 1633–1635: Letters from Tunis by Osman/Thomas d’Arcos, a Convert to Islam
8. 1635: Letter About Muslim Captives Converted to Christianity
9. 1635: Expulsion of the Moriscos
10. 1642: Description of the World
11a. Before 1688: Christian Attack on Jarbah (Tunisia) in 1510
11b. 1685: Bombardment of Tripoli, Libya, by the French Fleet,
12. 1681–1691: Battle Accounts
13. 1590–1654: Euro-Tunisian Piracy
14. Before September 2, 1706: Letter of Mulay Isma’il to the English Parliament
15. November 1, 1707: Letter from a Captive in France
16a. 1713: Letters of Bentura de Zari, Moroccan Ambassador Under House Arrest in London
16b. January 12, 1717: Letter of Mulay Isma’il to Philip V
17. 1726–1727: On Quinine
18. Mid-eighteenth century: Captivity in Malta
19. 1782: Muhammad ibn ‘Uthman al- Miknasi. Falling in Love in Naples
20. 1798: Letter from a Female Captive in Malta
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Tentang Penulis
Nabil Matar is professor of English at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of a trilogy on Britain and the Islamic Mediterranean:
Islam in Britain, 1578-1685;
Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery; and
Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689. He is also author and translator of
In the Lands of the Christians.
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