Arab Views of Europeans 1578-1727 - Literature review Example

Arab Views of Europeans 1578-1727 Beginning in 1578 with a major Moroccan victory over a Portuguese invading army until 1727, a new age has emerged in the relationship between the Europeans and the Islamic world. Nabil Matar surveyed this early modern period in which Europeans and Arabs often interacted with each other, in his work Arab Views of Europeans 1578-1727: The Western Mediterranean. This paper will summarize this piece and will particularly outline his arguments and observations. In his discussion on the Arab view on the Europeans, Matar outlined the main questions that his study attempted to address: What attitude did Muslims develop in their oral and written traditions towards the European nasara? And given the fantasy and the Orientalism that marked early modern and modern European perceptions of Arabs and Muslims, did Occidentalism evolve in Arab-islamic thought? Did the military polarisation that marked the two shores of the Mediterranean produce an Arab fantasy and invention similar to that characterising a large amount of Europeans about Muslims. (p. 127) Interest From the start, Matar have recognized that majority of the historians and scholars believed that the degree of interest of the Arabs and Muslims in Latin Christendom is significantly lower than what was shown by the Europeans in the Far East. He pointed to two prevailing schools of thought that explain this attitude: First, the Europeans are generally viewed as barbarians because of their heathen religion that teaches a theology, which, according to Quran, is false and distorted; Second, the European society has been seen as inferior to the Arab world because of the Muslim belief that the heritage of the Middle Ages have given them the edge over the Europeans. The corpus of the Islamic literature on the subject has shown a degree of hostility towards the West which clouds the existing curiosity over the other civilization. This hostility would further grow as the West asserted its hegemony in the course of its colonisation efforts. Matar, however, added an interesting insight to this variable. According to him, the disinterest, as has been comprehensively illustrated by the various sources, permeated in the Ottoman territory and those within the reach of its influence. He cited the case of Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria who, in their history and literature, have spoken about the Europeans quite extensively, displaying a level of interest that is unprecedented elsewhere in the Islamic world. He took note of the fact that the Moroccan elite were educated and have in their disposal a high level of literacy that have made up with the lack of printing machines that could have made the mass production of books possible. The Moroccans have kept written records and that these documents were widely read by the Moroccan public. Matar’s point was thus, there are evidences out there that specifically detail the attitudes and views of the Muslims on the Europeans. And from here, he tried to illustrate how this could represent the Islamic view on the Europeans that is beyond prejudice, myth and misconceptions, but actual interactions from trade, diplomatic and political relationships. Matar, thus, would use the North African experience in its dealings with Europe to explain his arguments. Evolution Initially, Europeans were viewed in general not in their nationalities but because of their religion. For example, the Magharibi distinguished Catholics from the Protestants, whom they have met respectively. The Catholics were the salibiyyun or the cross-bearers; and, in the latter part of the sixteenth century, the Muslims would come to know the latarin (Lutherans) and the qalabin (Calvinists) – the nasara who rejected Catholicism. Besides conflict and cultural and religious peculiarities, the Arabs and Muslims have acquired a view on the Europeans because of the growth in commercial and political relations. The Magharibi, in particular, “were aware of the different nationalities” and the knowledge based on the Europeans’ respective political stance. Matar writes: Repeatedly, they sought to learn about political alliances in order to coordinate their commercial and trading agreements. In this respect, their knowledge was dominated by the empirical and utilitarian. (p. 130) From here, Matar have started to outline how the Islamic view on the Europeans have changed gradually starting from the cautious hostility that have permeated in the Muslim psyche since the Middle Ages to that point that is characterised by an openness that comes with the increased interaction and beneficial relationship. Evidences Due to the lack of printed tomes about the Europeans, Matar used anecdotal exchange in Magharibi popular culture and memory stories that had been passed on from generation to generation about the European Christians. A significant part of Matar’s discussion in the piece was devoted to his examination of the Muslim oral tradition of preserving their history. According to him: In this context of popular oral transmission, material by and about Magharibi captives in Christendom constitutes the most extensive corpus of scattered anecdotes, recollections, biographical entries and letters. (p. 139) In these evidences, Matar noted how Europeans are seen as somehow exaggerating the view on Muslims not exclusively in regard to religious aspects but in terms of social, cultural and economic perceptions. Most importantly, these anecdotes have shown that Muslim merchants and traders have been dispersed to European cities and harbours and that along with diplomats, they brought with them news and knowledge about the European affairs, specifically about their material culture. It was during this period when the Magharibi started to see the benefit of the European knowledge for their own society. For instance, Matar referred to the book, Kitab ul-izz wai-rifa by Ahmad bin Ghanem which showed the transmission of European knowledge about cannon casting from Spain to Tunis, and from Spanish to Arabic. According to the author, “This is what the Spaniards do in their country, and I am hoping that the same, or something similar, would be implemented in the Magharibi lands.” (p. 133) Similarly, Matar have cited numerous accounts about how advances in medicine and the sciences among Europeans have been transmitted. An underlying fact in this area, however, is that one starts to see how the Muslim perspective have changed since the European society was considered as inferior to the Islamic world. It is Matar’s point that, at least in the North African region, curiosity in the Europeans have increased and that the Arab are already taking the initiative to inquire about the European culture, technology and all the aspects of their affairs. Matar cited that amicability and the desire to learn from each other started to permeate between the Muslims and the Europeans. These were shown in several Islamic autobiographies. A case in point was how Muslim doctors traveled to Europe in order to find cure for diseases. These doctors have spoken favourably about their European acquaintances upon their return to their homelands. The same development has been reported in regard to art, politics, among other aspects. Finally, Matar have used written sources, primarily ambassadorial accounts, in expounding the views that prevailed about the Europeans. He took note that there are records of about 80 or so ambassadorial delegations from North Africa into western Europe in the period of his study. A case in point was the account written by Ahmad bin Qasim. Qasim’s memoir was supposedly the first Arabic account to provide a description of France and Holland by a Muslim in the early modern period. Matar commented: Still, the ambassadors were inquisitive and had access to various levels of social, religious and political venues of information. (p. 142) Matar’s Conclusions As stated previously, Matar have explained that he would mostly use the Magharibi experience in his study and therefore, his findings were confined to this parameter alone. Perhaps, what he wanted to present was a representation of what could have happened had the Ottoman empire became more open and receptive to European contacts. On the Magharibi side, Matar wrote, there was no structural aversion to Europeans. The two communities visited each other’s lands consistently and have developed a usual relationship as would two neighbors would have: they can love or hate each other, become friendly or adversarial. Matar argued: Based on chronicles and biographies, religious polemic and theological rulings, royal epistles and ambassadorial memoirs, captive accounts and commercial exchange, in verse and prose, rulers and commoners developed a view of the Europeans as partners and rivals, sailors and ambassadors, captors and captives, husbands and wives. The Islamic West has borrowed from the Europeans as much as the latter borrowed from the Islamic culture as well. For instance, aspects of the Renaissance were brought to North Africa and were integrated into the Islamic culture. All in all, Matar summed up the relationship and the Muslim perception that entailed: the evidences, the “writings reveal an array of allusions to, and insights about, the nasara, both hostile and amicable… Their descriptions of the Christians show how relations were not always oppositional – that while there were battles and kidnappings, captivity and humiliation, there was also diplomacy, amicability, cooperation and negotiation.” (p. 143) In this respect, Matar stressed that the perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of the Arabs and the Muslims that were the subject of his study were no different to the perspectives reflected in the body of literature that detail the European view of the Muslims in the same period. Read More