There is something of a flutter on the conservative political blogs about a lecture given by Dr Jerry Brotton published on the website of the Campaign for Racial Equality: Why Muslims make Britain a better place.
Brotton argues that the Muslims were responsible for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. Somewhat gauchely, he says "it was Turkish naval manoeuvres, rather than Drake's swashbuckling, which delivered the fatal blow to the Spanish invasion plans." Of course, Tim on Conservative Party Reptile: "Eh?" points out, this should be the "Ottoman Empire" since Turkey was not created for another 350 years.
General conservative reaction to this is that it is wacky political correctness and so indeed it seems if the claim is taken at face value. The Spanish Armada was much larger than the English navy but was outgunned and outclassed in seamanship. Any ships detained to defend Spain against the Ottomans would have made little difference to the outcome.
However, nobody seems to dispute the claim that Walsingham, Elizabeth's spymaster, sent a letter in the mid-1580s to the ambassador in Istanbul, William Harborne, ordering him to encourage the Turks to harry the Spanish navy. If so, this sheds light on the intrigues in policy of Elizabethan England. Brotton's rosy view that we might all be speaking Spanish ignores the possibility that undermining the alliance against the Ottomans might have ended with us all speaking another language entirely.
Conservative Party Reptile also points out an amusing infelicity in Brotton's wide-ranging assessment of inter-religious dialogue. In a purple passage, he enthuses:
But we do know that of all the countries of Europe, Britain enjoyed the most extensive trade with Muslim lands throughout the first millennium after Christ. Happily, today English schoolchildren are learning that there is more to Genghis Khan than the hordes.CPR tentatively suggests:
"I'm pretty certain that Ghengis wasn't a Muslim actually - the Mongols had their own religion I believe..."Right there; Chingis Khan (I think that is more politically correct version) dallied with various forms of shamanism and Buddhism. He was certainly not a Muslim :-)
H/T to Laban on UK Commentators.
7 comments:
Is it any surprise that the leading country of western protestantism would be on fairly good terms with the leading country of protestantisms first millenium eastern counterpart?
It does occur to me that presbyterianism and calvinism in some respects has more in common with Islam than Catholicism
Some of the later Mongols become Muslim - hence the Moghul Empire.
If you want to know what Elizabeths church thought of Islam, take a look at this :
http://tinyurl.com/2aq9e4
"The Turk goeth about to set up, to extol, and to magnify that wicked monster and dammed soul Mohumet above thy dearly beloved Son Jesus Christ, whom we in heart believe, and with mouth confess, to be our only Saviour and redeemer. Wherefore awake, O Lord our God and heavenly Father ..."
"First, the Turke with his sword, what landes, nations, and countreys, what empires, kingdomes, and provinces, with cities innumerable hath he wonne, not from us but from Thee! Where thy name was wont to be invocated, thy word preached, thy sacraments administered, there now reigneth barbarous Mahumet with his filthy Alcoran."
Not exactly what Rowan Williams would call a deepening of understanding and friendship.
Thanks, Laban - as CEI would say, there were diverse sensibilities, that is to say, more attentive to one or other pastoral dimension of the application of the text of the Koran :-)
Fr. Tim,
I always take it as a marker of religious ignorance if a secular journalist writes something like “Islam needs to undergo its own Reformation.” For heaven’s sake – if a monotheistic religion is already 100% de-sacerdotalized, de-sacramentalized, iconoclastic and “sola scriptura,” how much more of a Reformation can you have? I tend to agree with Paul – it reminds me of Orange Lodge Presbyterianism minus the Bible and the Blessed Trinity.
Meditate on these things on the 7th of October.
Quite striking that 12000 Christian galley slaves were freed from the Ottoman ships after Lepanto. Now where's that retrospective apology for slavery? Oh, and how about some reparations? Trevor? Trevor? Are you there, Trev?
Maybe its a case of "there is nothing more diabolical than something that is nearly true" I mean the religions not the histories. Religions that are nearly true are far worse than ones that have very little truth. Joint faith schools beware. Paul, I would agree, it comes down to Jesus Christ the reality or Jesus the really nice and amazing so lets copy him guy. One is Christ one is anti-Christ (by definition). Not terribly pc I know but I cannot find fault in this logic. Just to be clear, the intention of the above views is to focus on truth not on hatred of the other person - i.e. the battle is not with "flesh and blood".
Jerry Brotton was one of the leading lights behind the “Shakespeare and Islam” season at the Globe Theatre in 2004, which came "as part of a week of events focusing on Islam to address concerns raised by the 'war on terror' and improve understanding of the links between Islam and British culture."
Another leading light, Dr Martin Lings, argued that "the guiding principles of Sufi thought are evident in Shakespeare's writing” and that “the plays depict a struggle between the dawning modernist world and the traditional, mystical value system. And, like the Sufis, the playwright is firmly on the side of tradition and spiritualism.” “It was the end of the Middle Ages and the birth of atheism,” he said. “It was the beginning of the ideas of enlightenment and the beginning really of the modern era. Shakespeare is the last outpost of tradition.”
The newspaper Arab News, offered the very helpful comment that “The season was a source of great joy to everybody except, of course, the usual cultural fascists who forget to grasp the essence of what civilization is all about. No other event to be organized in the foreseeable future is likely to enrich our sense of Britishness as the Globe’s season has done. No other contribution is likely to be as original, as bold or as relevant in the struggle to define British Islam as the Shakespeare and Islam season.”
A British actor, Patrick Spottiswoode, was even more enthusiastic than Arab News. “We have had professors teaching Othello and they’d never been to the mosque”, he gushed indignantly. “So we took them to a mosque and they were able to ask questions and get answers. I am sure they will never teach the play the same way again. I am not sure how big the ripple will be. We will soon begin our educational outreach program on Othello and Islamic design. We are sending a group of four actors to faith and non-denominational schools to work with kids to explore the story from Othello’s perspective with children playing an active role in the play. The work will culminate with the making of two handkerchiefs — one of love and one of peace —using Islamic designs which so influenced handkerchief design.”
So now you know.
Sufi or not Sufi. That is the question.
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