‘Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery’ Book Review

‘Barbarians’ was the term used to describe Muslims and anyone who was not white and Christian in western imperial history 

Professor Nabil Matar’s enlightening book ‘Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery’ challenges Islamophobic narratives of Muslims in the 16th to 19th centuries, as well as negative perceptions of native Americans.

Muslims were seen as infidel ‘barbarians’ but also admirable, powerful and fearsome. A juxtaposition for the west.

North African and Turkish Muslims or ‘Moors’ as they were known - were a huge threat to Christendom. These powerful and strong empires couldn’t be overpowered militarily or economically. They were also committed to their Muslim faith and could not be forcibly converted. Christians on the other hand were converting to Islam is much larger numbers.

There was a real worry about Muslims defeating Christendom. Thomas Moore (16th century) for example was very anxious that Europe’s population would convert to Islam.

The English went on a huge propaganda drive to present Muslims in theatre and writings as cruel and tyrannical, sexually wild, barbaric and so on. They were seen as the ‘Other’ just as any non-white people that Europeans ventured across. In this book, Matar compares Muslims to the way the Native Americans were treated and ‘Otherised.’

Matar says: “It was the stereotype developed in literature that played the greatest role in shaping the anti-Muslim national consciousness.” And we all know how Hollywood shamefully depicted the native Americans.

The British painted this image of Muslims being barbarians when they were fully aware how advanced and wealthy they were. However, this labelling was a tool to delegitimise the ‘enemy’ and try to dominate them.

Matar states: “Superimposition provided them with a strategy to confront the non-Christian Other, and helped them redress their colonial and cultural inadequacies before other European countries such as Spain and France. It also assured them of an epistemological control over the Muslims – over those whom they had failed to dominate.“

In the Mediterranean, Muslims were dominant. In order to counteract their feelings of inadequacy and to maintain superiority, Europeans came up with their own discourse about Muslims.

This book explores these themes and challenges the gross inaccuracies in the mainstream European narratives.