Turks Moors and Englishmen during the age of discovery presents the complex interactions between Muslims and Englishmen. Nabil Matar used a variety of resources such as memoirs of captives, Arabic Chronicles, North African history, and the writings of an Englishman who lived in Morocco and Egypt to depict the impact of negative English conception on Native Americans while interacting with Muslims. Matar is able to show the shifting attitude and attributes of the English in dehumanizing the once dominant Muslims of North Africa and Levant. Matar considers the importance of the English-Muslim-American triangle was in setting the platform for colonialism and racism through the writings and practices that were produced during the English Renaissance. …show more content…
These Englishmen went there to seek various economic opportunities that were not available in England. The population of such overseas settlers was in the thousands as the majority were men. Just like the Muslims, the Britons were held as captives for various criminal activities, such as piracy. What is unique about these settlers were their written accounts of the Muslims. Either they were soldiers who joined the Muslim armies or held as captives, they all consisted of written accounts of their daily interactions with the Muslims. These writings were important because it showed the military and economic might of the Muslim empire. Through these writings, Britons knew that the religion of this empire was unchallenged, but challenging and it was also unthreatened but threatening. “It was not an empire that England could possess, but one it had to watch out for and guard …show more content…
The Britons accused the Indians of sodomy, which in Christianity was a grave sin. Therefore, they took the initiative in dispersing the Native Indians off their lands to create a civil society. “Britons developed an analogy that was logical but not empirical: since their existence among the Indians was an existence among the sodomites, who were destroyed, their existence among the Muslims was also and existence among the sodomites, who would also be destroyed”. The Britons adopted the same method against the Muslims in denouncing and dehumanizing them to point where they can colonize them. Matar states that there was not enough empirical proof of sodomy existing in this region. However, sodomy and conquest became a very critical for the Britons in an attempt to destroy the Muslims.
Turks Moors and Englishmen during the Age of Discovery is an inspiring and intriguing book for historians who are studying the dynamics of the Middle East. This text provides distinct information on the complex interactions between the Muslims and Britons. Matar is able to utilize the unexamined sources to uncover the dynamic interactions between the Muslims and the Britons during the Age of discovery. He is successful in portraying the transition of attributes of the Britons towards the Muslims during the Age of
To many of the English colonists, any land that was granted to them in a charter by the English Crown was theirs’, with no consideration for the natives that had already owned the land. This belittlement of Indians caused great problems for the English later on, for the natives did not care about what the Crown granted the colonists for it was not theirs’ to grant in the first place. The theory of European superiority over the Native Americans caused for any differences in the way the cultures interacted, as well as amazing social unrest between the two cultures.
It is approximated that the Australopithecus, a hominid, lived approximately four to one million years ago. From that point in time, the world history of humans has been an exhaustive, arduous task to document. With that in mind, world historians attempt to capture the events most important to the development of contemporary humanity. In fact, Tamim Ansary states that “World history, after all, is not a chronological list of every damn thing that ever happened; it’s a chain of only the most consequential events, selected to reveal the arc of the story-it’s the arc that counts.” Some have taken a European approach to the restrictions, but in response to such thought, Tamim Ansary’s Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes presents a sequential restating of history through an Islamic viewpoint. From the beginning of Islam with Muhammad to recent happenings, like 9/11, Ansary presents Islamic history in a larger context to commendably combine said history with world history. Furthermore, Ansary claims that Islamic history has often been seen as a side to Western history, as Western history has “prevailed and churned” Islamic history, although it has it is crucially significant in the larger context of world history. In the larger sense, Ansary proves his argument that Islamic history has developed independently and is important, but he does not project the importance of the Islamic history over European history.
During the colonial era, the economic conditions of both the New World and Great Britain were taking more notice then the religious concerns of the colonies. This was why Britain wanted to solve further economic problems through the colonization of the New World. For instance, many of their earliest settlers migrated to the New World due...
All across cultures in history, varying groups of beliefs have come into contact with one another. As for early Muslims, military expansion and travel were key components for spreading the Islamic religion to foreign nations. However, not all exchanges were hostile or wholly based on the conquest of exotic lands. Some interactions solely were based on capturing lands to control, while allowing non-converters to remain in the area as the military continued forward gaining new territory. The primary sources, The Viking Rus, Peace Terms with Jerusalem, and The Pact to Be Accorded to Non-Muslim Subjects provide insight on how Muslims interacted with other religious groups. Early Muslims saw the expansion of Islam through conquest, travel, and trade with foreign cultures and beliefs, all while having unusual exchanges with each faith.
The modern world is linked through networks of communication and exchange between peoples. These exchanges between regions has changed cultures, economics, and politics. Through time the cultural influence between regions has consisted of many factors and elements but comes down to the spread of religion and religious teachings , movement of peoples, technological and cultural advancements affecting trade and commerce. Beginning with the Middle Ages in the years 1100-1500 , Africa, Asia, and Europe developed and influenced each other in several different ways. Starting with religion. The birth of Islam in the Middle East rapidly spread throughout Afro- Eurasia. Islam was attractive to people who were uninterested in the requirements of Christianity and the Church.
I have chosen to compare the Native Americans to both the Spaniards and the Puritans. I will do so on three levels: culture, religion, and literature. I will show how both the Spaniards and the Puritans wanted to impose their traditions upon the Native American; however, the Spaniards did so by merging with the Indians and the Puritans did so by oppressing the Indian.
forcing the Europeans into marriages they did not want; in a religion they did not understand or
From Thomas Harriot’s A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia Harriot’s assumption that the English are vulnerable to such exploitations of religious belief are comparable to the vulnerable characteristics of the Algonkians. Compared to the Algonkians, the hold over the English is much less material based but rather spiritual and as a result confides the English to a corner, comparing their holy desires to that of the fantasized Algonkians.
Since the settling of the English colonies in the early 17th century, pioneers have been destined to expand into the North American frontier and to domesticate it with their Christian faith and progressive nature. In their exploration of the frontier, however, the Puritan colonists often encountered Indians whose savagery challenged their discipline and morals. Just as the colonists expanded, Indians also saw their native lands of many years vanish. The situation naturally compelled the Puritans and the Indians to fight each other for their mutual interests. Thus, while most accounts of Western history focus on the heathen threat, both Indians and colonists experienced the harshness of the captivity myth and its evolution into other mythology that defined American history.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, when the Europeans started to come over to the new world, they discovered a society of Indians that was strikingly different to their own. To understand how different, one must first compare and contrast some of the very important differences between them, such as how the Europeans considered the Indians to be extremely primitive and basic, while, considering themselves civilized. The Europeans considered that they were model societies, and they thought that the Indians society and culture should be changed to be very similar to their own.
For this course, we are using two different books to guide our learning throughout the semester. One of the books is Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World through Islamic Eyes by Tamim Ansary. The other book used in this course is The Modern Middle East: A History by James Gelvin. Both of these books tell the history of the Middle East. Although these books discuss the similar subjects, they are written and tell the history in different ways. This paper will create a comparison between these two books by showing the differences between them.
During the 16th and 17th century, the Middle East saw the rise of the “Gunpowder Dynasties”. This included the Ottoman Empire, the Safavids of Persia, and the Mughals. Simply put, these civilizations were the first in the Mediterranean to use gunpowder weapons including guns and cannons. However, it did not stop there, with the use of gunpowder came the rise of new technologies in metallurgy, mining, and weapon design. The use of gunpowder had arrived in the Middle East due to the Mongols who first witnessed its use in China. The only other empires which used gunpowder at the time were Britain and the Netherlands. The use of gunpowder allowed the three empires of the Muslim world to achieve things they previously could not and led to many advances and dominance in the region. At the same time however, it also fragmented the Mediterranean. As well, contrary to what some may assume, all of the gunpowder empires were not Arab, they consisted of newcomers to the Middle East. With all this in mind, an examination of the similarities and differences between the empires and the difference they made in the Muslim world for centuries to come is vital.
Moroccan traveler, Ibn Battuta, is well-known for being one of the greatest travelers of his time. Battuta’s descriptive account of his travels to East and West Africa in the fourteenth century provides important insight into African Islamic life at that point in time. Although Battuta and the peoples in black Africa shared the same religion, he comes to realize that sharing a religion is not enough to completely relate to a different group of people. The story of Ibn Battuta in Black Africa illustrates the difficulties he faced in relating to these peoples due to the non-traditional role of women, different religious customs, and frequent misinterpretation of situations.
THESIS: There is strong evidence to see a footprint of the Turks in the New World.
Usually differences of ethnics, cultures and religions lead to sorts of misunderstanding between people from different societies. People are usually judged according to their behavior in public spaces which might be a result of their culture, education, or social class. An article, “The Arab world” (1996), written by Edward T. Hall, an American anthropologist and writer, discusses the cultural misconceptions between Americans and the Arabs. The article points many of social behaviors acted by Arab individuals that seem weird and sometimes astonishing and inconvenient to the Americans and Westerners. In addition, Hall includes examples of plenty of social behaviors that he thinks are the theme of the Arabic culture along with few personal experiences that led him to conclude that it is really difficult for Europeans and Americans to understand Arabs. Despite the presence of some good points, the article is greatly biased and prejudiced against Arabs, and it is clearly noticed that the author has a misconception of the Arabic and Middle Eastern culture.