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The Clashing Religions at Turbulent Political Times
Abstract
“The Clashing Religions at Turbulent Times” describes the tragic relationship between the Islamic Civilization and the West throughout history to the present day, and the reaction of 17th-, 18th- and 19th-century writers in Britain, and the rest of Europe, to the devastating historical events and numerous translations of Arabic and Islamic sources into Latin, English and other languages. Extraordinary zeal both in politics and religion leads to nothing but bloodshed and wars, and creates eternal enmity between nations. Social, political and religious toleration is a moral virtue and an essential key to our mutual peaceful coexistence in this world.
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Notes
Jane S. Gerber, The Jews of Spain (New York: The Free Press, 1994), 28.
Gerber, 52.
Gerber, 49.
For more information on Ibn Tufayl and the various translations of his novel, Hayy Ibn Yaqzan, see Samar Attar, The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence On Modern Western Thought (Lanham: Lexington Book, 2007).
Simon Ockley, The Improvement of Human Reason Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan (London, 1708; reprinted Hildesheim: George Olms Verlag, 1983), 168.
Ockley's Appendix, 167.
Ibn Tufayl, The Journey of the Soul: The Stoty of Hai bin Yaqzan. Trans. Riad Kocache (Lonon: The Octagon Press, 1982).
Ibn Tufayl, The Journey of the Soul, 59.
Thomas Fuller, The History of the Holy War (London: William Pickering, 1840), 8.
See Edward Gibbon, The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1855), or the various volumes edited by J. B. Bury (London, 1898). Note that although Gibbon never did learn Arabic, he managed to read a large number of books written on Oriental history and had a sympathetic outlook towards the Arabs, the prophet Muhammad and the Muslims in general.
See “Kubla Khan” in Coleridge Poetical Works, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge (London: Oxford University Press, 1912; reprinted 1967). For analysis of the poem, see Samar Attar, Borrowed Imagination: The British Romantic Poets and Their Arabic-Islamic Sources (Lanham: Lexington Book, 2014), 43-50.
See The Assassins A Fragment of A Romance in The Complete Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley, edited by Roger Ingpen and Walter E. Peck. Volume VI (London: Ernest Benn Limited; New York: Gordian Press, 1965), 153-71. For a brief comment on the prose romance, see Attar's Borrowed Imagination, 130-1. For a historical account of the Assassin movement, consult Philip Hitti, History of The Arabs. Tenth edition (New York: Macmillan St Martin's Press, 1970), 446-8, and Farhard Daftary, A Short History of the Ismailis (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998).
See Byron's Complete Poetical Works. Volume III. Edited by Jerome J. McGann (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 259-60, 261-2, 263. For a comment on Byron's poem, consult Attar's, Borrowed Imagination, 157-9. See also Philip Hitti's History of The Arabs, 701-2. Hitti records Timur's invasion of Asia Minor and his capture of the Ottoman Sultan Bayazid I.
Consult https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_CareyWest, James Ryan, Evangelizing Bengali Muslims, 1793-1813: William Carey, William Ward, and Islam. Dissertation The Boyce Digital Library (Digital.library.sbts.edu/handle/10392/4620). This dissertation argues that Carey and Ward had a deeply-held interest in Muslim evangelization and carried out that interest in active ministry to Muslims.
See Kritzeck, J. Peter The Venerable and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1964); Southern, R. W. Western Views of Islam in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962), and Peter The Venerable Writings Against The Saracens, trans. Irven M. Resnick (Washington DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2016). See also Fatani, Afnan, “Translation of the Qur'an,” in Oliver Leaman, ed. The Qur'an an Encyclopedia (London: Routledge, 2006), 657-69.
Voltaire, Mahomet the Prophet, trans. Robert Meyers (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1964). See Samar Attar's comment on Voltaire's play and his views of the Quakers in her book. The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl's Influence On Modern Western Thought, 119-21.
See Attar's The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment, 102-4 and 106-8.
Rousseau, The Social Contract, an eighteenth-century translation revised and edited by Charles Frankel (New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1947), 5. See also Attar's comment on Rousseau in The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment, 90.
For a quick reference on the life of Priestly, Burke and Paine, consult The Oxford Companion To English Literature, edited by Margaret Drabble (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 797-8, 149-50 and 740-1.
William Blake, The Complete Poems, edited by W. H. Stevenson (Harlow, London: Pearson Longman, 2007), 56. See Attar's comment on Blake in Borrowed Imagination, 99-103.
“Mahomet,” in The Complete Works of S. T. Coleridge, edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge. Volume 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), 329-30.
Wordsworth, The Poetical Works of Wordsworth with Introduction and Notes, edited by Thomas Hutchinson. A New edition. Revised by Ernest De Selincourt (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), 336.
In Book 1, Chapter VI, p. 8, Fuller writes in The History of The Holy War: “It may justly seem admirable how that senseless religion should gain so much ground on Christianity; especially having neither real substance in her doctrine, nor winning behaviour in her ceremonies to allure professors. For what is it but the scum of Judaism and Paganism sod together, and here and there strewed over with a spice of Christianity?” In Book III, Chapter XIV, p. 139, Fuller writes about the death of Saladin in February 16, 1193, and presents him in a positive light. He argues, “finding Saladin so generally commended of all writers, we have no cause to distrust his true character. His wisdom was great, in that he was able to advise, and greater, in that he was willing to be advised …. His justice to his own people was remarkable, his promise with his enemies generally well kept.”
Benedict of Peterborough, edited by W. Stubbs (London, 1867). Volume ii, 189. Philip Hitti, History of The Arabs, 651. Ibn-Shaddad, Baha’ al—Din (1145-1234), Hayat Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi /Biography of Saladin (Beirut, 1981), 164-5. Original Arabic with French translation. Ibn Shaddad, The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin, trans. by D. S. Richards (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2002). Maalouf, Amin, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes (New York: Schocken, 1989). Maalouf, Amin, The Crusades Through Arab Eyes, trans. into Arabic by Afif Dimashqiyyah (Beirut: Al Farabi Press, 1989), 263-4. For detailed information on the general attitude of the various Christian sects towards the crusades, see Allen, Susan Jane, An Introduction To The Crusades (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017).
On January 21, 1824, Wordsworth reminded Walter Savage Landor in a letter ‘”that you are disgusted with all books that treat of religion.’ I am afraid it is a bad sign in me that I have little relish for any other …. But all great poets are in this view powerful religionists.” Letters of The Wordsworth Family From 1787 to 1855 collected and edited by William Knight in three volumes. Volume II (New York: Haskel House Publishers LTD, 1969), 214-16. See also Delli Carpini, John, History, Religion and Politics in William Wordsworth's Ecclesiastical Sonnets (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2004), and Gill, Stephen, William Wordsworth: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
Bolton, Carol, “Thalaba The Destroyer: Southey's Nationalist ‘Romance’”, in the journal Romanticism On The Net. Issue 32-3. November, 2003 and February, 2004. Madden, Lionel, ed. Robert Southey. The Critical Heritage (London: Routledge, 1972). Simmons, Jack, Southey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948). Speck, William, Robert Southey (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006).
For the attitude of Shelley and Keats towards religion, see Attar's Borrowed Imagination.
Scott, Sir Walter, The Talisman. 1825. Reprint ed. (London: J. M. Dent, 1914), 38-9.
Attar, Samar, Debunking The Myths of Colonization: The Arabs and Europe (Lanham: University Press of America, 2010), xviii, 21n27, 41.