Representation of in Early Modern English Literature Dawlat Yassin

Early modern England underwent an confronted English people directly with the economic change towards capitalism when trade question of their own identity. The need to define brought English merchants to the Middle East, the self and the other becomes vital in an era North Africa and other parts of the Ottoman where contact with different people is inevitable. dominions. Motivated by good prospects of trade According to Jean E. Howard, in this “Age of and profit, or merely the love of adventure and Discovery, a sense of English national identity exploring new countries and new cultures, took shape in relation to an emerging language of traders as well as adventurers came in contact racial difference in which skin color and with peoples of different religions, customs, and physiognomy became over determined markers skin colors. In this transitional age, of a whole range of religious and sexual and cultural difference by which the English were English identities were conflictively altered distinguished from various non-European by means of two elements: the economic 'others'” (102). The wealthy, militant Ottoman and epistemological transition to a new Empire was threatening to influence all cultural kind of society, first, and also the relations aspects of England and Europe. Chews recently established with a new and until then described the Ottoman threat that started in the unknown culture, which was threateningly fourteenth century as “a cloud [that] arose in the and radically Other especially because it east and from the fifteenth till far into the was dangerously powerful, a culture that seventeenth the Ottoman peril hung over significantly played a role in the new Europe” (qtd. in Lezra 163). economic and social scenario. (Casellas 125) English theater reacted with a new kind of play that came to be known later as the “Turk This contact resulted in a need for a set of play” or “Turkish play.” Plays of this type definitions of the Self, and a drive to discover a express a desire to trade with the Muslim Other way to conduct a communication with the Other and to win “him” as a political ally, but at the while keeping one’s own identity safe and same time, they forcefully emphasize the dangers unaffected. of such communication. Turkish plays are The acquaintance with Muslims, their haunted with anxiety at the inevitable, though different religion, and different skin color desirable, contact with Muslims and are meant to Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 11 warn Christians of the physical and spiritual Muslims' lechery and barbarism. Skin color is hazards of associating with Muslims. English another form of constructing Muslims’ otherness; theater presents Muslims as a threat to Christian “Muslim” becomes the synonym of black, Moor, monotheism and morality, as well as to the Blackmore, and Saracen (Casellas 63). The masculinity and manhood of Christian difference in religion is connected to blackness Englishmen and Europeans in general. The only due to the inherent connotation of the evil and form of contact with Muslims that the English sinister nature of what is dark or black in western theater approved was trade and materialistic culture. Skin color becomes important when the exchange. A good example from Phillip words “Muslim”, “Moor” and “Turk” become Massinger’s The Renegado is Vitelli’s instruction color-implicating vocabulary, and Muslims to his servant: “We are allowed free trading, and become connected to the descendants of Ham, with safety, / temper your tongue and meddle not who are doomed by the authority of Biblical with the Turks, / their manner, nor their religion narrative (Casellas 64). This connection supports (1. 1. 46-48). all imagined ideas about the corruption of Muslims. The extremity of the Ottomans’ wealth and power stunned the English, for they could not see Both Heywood’s and Massinger’s plays these things as rewards to Muslims from God. present Muslimness as the identity of the morally They wanted an explanation of the Ottomans’ deprived pagan: the black, evil human being. wealth and military prowess that would refute Muslims are portrayed as bloody, licentious any possibility that God was taking the heathens, and their religion is doomed as mere Ottomans’ side, rather than one which did not paganism and idolatry. The Renegado and The position God as condemning Muslims and their Fair Maid of the West warn the English audience so-called “pagan” faith. The English wanted to against any human or cultural communication see and believe that Muslims’ power and wealth with Muslims. In these plays, Islamic culture were not a reward, but rather a scourge to punish represents a threat to English and European deviant, sinful Christians, mainly the and manhood, primarily through circumcision, which the Catholics. Whereas the Protestant English is often confused with castration. The other defined themselves as the people of the only true anxiety that these two plays reflect is the fear of religion on earth, they identified the Others as miscegenation with the black heathen and the Satanic and devilish. Dark skin color helped contamination of the purity of the white race. In associate Muslims with evil, for the English saw short, association with Muslims is deemed as a the dark skin as a reflection of dark heart and threat of eternal damnation. spirit. In The Fair Maid of the West, the English are In Thomas Heywood’s The Fair Maid of presented as morally superior and more civilized the West and Philip Massinger’s The Renegado, than Muslims. Mullisheg is barbarous in the way Muslims are accepted by the English as trade he seeks power and sexual pleasure. He raises his partners and may be politically and economically throne “Upon the slaughtered bodies of [his] equals, but their religion is identified as an foes” (Heywood 4.3.10), gives orders to seize unacceptable paganism. This racialized view of Christian merchants’ ships and goods to enrich religion positions the “Turk” as morally inferior his state treasury, and plans to buy sexual to the idealized virtuous Christian. In these plays, pleasure with his money by purchasing Islam forms the main constituent of Muslims’ concubines: “Find us concubines, / the fairest otherness and is represented as a source of Christian damsels you can hire / Or buy for

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 12 gold,” (Heywood 4. 3. 28-30). He has no barbarous, bloody, and pagan king is fascinated scruples about using his power to attain his by the beauty of the fair, Christian, virtuous sexual objects, either: “the loveliest of the Moors maiden who robs him of his manly courage and / we can command, and Negroes everywhere” turns him effeminate. In front of this beautiful (Heywood 4. 3. 30-1). On the other hand, English girl, Mullisheg is led by his passion. He English superiority in the play is based on their is ready to give up half his kingdom for her, and civility and moral discipline without openly yet she still resists. He is unable to have her associating that superiority with other categories either by temptation, or by force. Bess also like religion or skin color. Reading between the interferes with Mullisheg and prevents Spencer’s lines can reveal religion as the main factor that castration. At the end of the play, she is makes the English superior to Muslims. Muslims domesticated by marrying Spencer, the English are openly presented as pagans who make gentleman with whom she is in love. This sensual pleasure their main interest in life. marriage represents the victory of the English Whereas Muslim identity is presented in the most patriarchy and the imperviousness of English negative ways, Englishness becomes the manhood in relation with another powerful synonym of virtue, modesty and beauty. Muslims empire. are viewed as both bloody and lascivious. Furthermore, in her virtuousness and The Fair Maid of the West’s chastity is virginity, Bess can be understood as standing for contrasted to Mullisheg’s sensuality. Bess is the Virgin Queen, Queen Elizabeth I. The virtuous even though she lives in a very tempting relationship that feminizes and emasculates situation: she is a poor bar attendant serving wine Mullisheg can also be interpreted as England and to men who are fascinated by her beauty and its queen emasculating the Ottoman empire as want to prey upon her chastity. She also remains represented by an Ottoman king: “Elizabeth I chaste while confronted with excessive wealth unmans the pagan king with her charms and and power at Mullisheg’s court. Bess resists the retrieves all the English merchants’ confiscated temptations of love, wealth, and power and holds goods as well as the life of her captive lover” on to her Christian virtue. In contrast to this (Slights & Woloshyn 254). This supports the idealized Christian maiden, Mullisheg stands as theory advanced by many critics of early modern an emblem of sensuality. He plans to include in English drama that England’s relationship with his harem women of different races, colors, and other empires is characterized by emasculation even religions. His insatiable appetite for sexual and feminization of the Other. pleasure is presented in an utter contrast to Skin color also appears in its traditional Bess’s faithfulness to both her Christian lover western connotation in Bess’s dealing with and her Christian virtue. Mullisheg. The threat of miscegenation hovers By being impervious to the Muslim king’s over their meeting. Whereas Mullisheg desires to temptations, Bess plays the role of emasculating have wives and concubines of different races and him. English relations with other empires were colors, he has gotten nothing from Bess more characterized by emasculation (Fuchs 61). While than kisses on the cheek. Clem begrudges English manhood was threatened by Mullisheg’s black skin the kisses of Bess’s white circumcision, castration, and utter conversion by lips: “Must your black face be smooching my their relationship with the Ottoman Empire, Bess mistress’s white lips/with a Moorian? I would reverses the situation. In Massinger’s and his you have kissed her a…” (Heywood 5. 2. 80). audience’s conception, the situation is: the dark, Taking into consideration Clem’s unfinished

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 13 word “a…” shows how even a low-class person countries and England, which makes it difficult like Clem cannot see blacks and whites as equal for the English public to have any credible human beings. Despite being a king, black information about them. Muslims are presented Mullisheg’s place is to kiss the white girl’s “a…” as lascivious and loose people who live solely for and not her face. This imagined disparity sensual pleasure. This imagined sensuality of between the supposed high human essence of the Muslims is presumed to be originated in the white girl and the low one of the black king acts teachings of their religion. to forbid sexual intercourse between the unequal Muslim identity is constructed as degenerate; two. Therefore, it gives the English audience a they are shown in the play to follow all means, reassurance against any possible miscegenation. no matter how cruel and unfair they are, to attain Heywood might have meant this to be an indirect their military and economic goals and gains. lesson to his audience to hold on to their racial They build their kingdoms on the bones of the pride to avoid miscegenation with the black, conquered and have no respect for human life. Muslim Other. Mullisheg’s low behavior and Mullisheg is not only barbarous and cruel in lack of dignity in pursuing the object of his lust, action, but he also has no shame in telling about along with his black color, shows him to be his bloody ways of attaining the throne of Fiz, utterly damned. his kingdom: “Upon the slaughtered bodies of Despite the blurriness surrounding the effect our foes, / We mount our high tribunal, and being of one’s religious affiliations on his/her behavior sole, / without competitor (IV. 3. 10-13). This in The Fair Maid of the West, one direct shows cruelty and bloodthirstiness to be the norm comment by Bess makes it clear that all vice and among Muslims. virtue spring from the teachings of one’s religion Muslims are shown also to discriminate and the conformity to those teachings. Religion against Christian merchants who do business in remains a clear line between the good Self and their countries: “it is most fit /that Christians that the bad Other. When Goodlack is being rough reap profit by our land / should contribute unto and mean, Bess cannot believe he is Christian, so great a loss” (IV. 3. 24-27). Here Muslims are for such acts and speech could not come from a shown not merely passing laws in a civilized Christian: “Are you Christian?” This question manner to regulate and benefit from commerce unfolds how idealized the image of a Christian is and traffic through their countries – which might in contrast to the demonized image of the non- be the Eastern perspective concerning the matter Christian Other in the English imagination. – but are made by the writer to arrange to Heywood sets Christian identity in opposition specifically penalize ships and goods owned by to Moorish and Muslim identity. Muslims are Christian merchants. This can be a very viewed as inferior to the English in their successful way to move English audience’s barbarity, violence, and bloodthirstiness. In sentiments against Muslims and to identify them addition to their lewdness and licentiousness, as the violent Others who threaten English peace Muslims are also shown in the play to be bloody. and interests. Heywood takes too much freedom in Although Islam is a monotheistic Abrahamic constructing the identity of Muslims. Islam is faith, it is conceived by the West, including ambiguous to the English and they can construct England, to be a kind of paganism. Heywood’s it the way they like. It is not difficult to attach Mullisheg swears by the prophet : different kinds of vices to Muslims due to the “Now, by the mighty Prophet we adore” (IV. 5. geographical and cultural distance between their

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26). This line constructs Muslim identity as completely identifiable by contrast to Islamic pagan. It suggests that Mullisheg and Muslims licentiousness. worship a human being, Prophet Muhammad, English identity becomes that of beauty, when in fact this kind of oath is forbidden in virtue, and true religion. The English are Islam. Muslims worship God and should swear endowed with these characteristics, and their by no one other than Him. In Islam, Prophet goodness is able to conquer the violence and Mohammad is a normal human being, even an lasciviousness of Muslims. The presumedly cruel illiterate one, who has no super powers and and lewd Mullisheg becomes peaceful and chaste cannot be considered mighty in any sense. Both through the effect of Bess’s beauty and virtue. He the oath and the description of the prophet as offers the maiden no violence and sponsors her mighty categorize Muslims as pagan others in marriage with her beloved Spenser. Mullisheg is opposition to the English Christians. made to declare the virtuousness of the English Notions of Islamic sensuality and its geography and human identity: “The English prophets’ alleged immorality were popular in earth may well be termed a heaven/ that breeds Europe and England: “Appraisals of Islam were such divine beauty” (Heywood V. 1. 43-4). critical of its immoral nature, and particularly the Describing beauty as divine connects it with character of [prophet] Mohammad continued to virtue. Even the enemy is impressed and appear in Europe (Curtis 33). Against the acknowledges the superiority of the English numerous appraisals, like those of Michel identity. Baudier and Blaise Pascal – esteemed and The contrast between white, virtuous popular French writers at the time – that Christians and corrupted, dark Muslims is also considered prophet Muhammad a sensual strongly present in The Renegado. Philip imposter, and falsely told of a corrupted “system Massinger is more open about the power of marked by the existence of concubines, boys Christian faith to preserve one’s virtue, in used for pleasure, profligate lust, and the use of contrast to Islam, which is assumed to promote opium, Guillaume Postel was almost a lone voice licentiousness. Massinger makes religion the in writing that most Turks were not polygamists” main component of his characters’ identities. It (Curtis 33). forms personalities and fosters virtue or vice in Ignorant of Islam and prophet Mohammed’s its followers. While Christian characters like life and teachings, or merely motivated by Paulina, Vitelli, and Francisco are holy and cultural and political prejudice, Heywood deeply rooted in their virtue, Muslim characters imagines Musllisheg taking refuge in the like Mustapha and Assambeg are portrayed as prophet’s promises and relentlessly pursuing completely debauched. Even Manto, the servant, sexual pleasures with women of different races is used by Massinger to show the corruption of and colors. While Spencer, Bess, and the rest of the Muslim court; Manto declares she cannot the English characters are chaste, Muslim preserve her virginity there, and she considers it Mullisheg is characterized by excessive sexual madness to assume she should have done so appetite and activities. Against this allegedly while living among lustful Turk courtiers. By Muslim indulgence in sexual pleasure, Heywood contrast, Christian characters are fashioned as highlights English chastity and elevates it by having the religious and spiritual fortitude to repeatedly referring to Bess as a virgin beauty withstand all temptations and preserve Christian and comparing her to the virgin queen, Queen virtue. Elizabeth. England becomes the virgin nation,

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Massinger does not only depict born Muslims and makes its followers, whether natives or as corrupted, but also includes converts in his converts, unacceptable in the English people’s stereotype of the licentious, immoral Muslim. conception. Islam and the motives for embracing Muslims’ otherness is not identified in terms of it are portrayed as base. blood or hereditary traits; rather, it is the faith The convert to Islam, or the “renegade”, that makes the whole difference between what becomes the most hateful traitor to his country Massinger imagines to be a virtuous Christian and religion. Malieckal cites Nabil Matar’s and a lascivious Muslim. To Massinger, shifting description of the English attitudes towards the religions affects personalities. When Antonio renegades: Grimaldi becomes a pirate, a thief, and a rapist, he is assumed to be a Muslim convert. However, For English travelers, the renegade was not the effect of conversion to on only a heinous apostate from religion: he Donusa is completely different. was the living embodiment of Islam’s triumph. Writers denounced the renegade While conversion to Christianity transforms with vehemence because they saw in him the Donusa “from a dangerous Muslim temptress to feared prospect of Christianity’s future. The a happy Christian wife,” converting to Islam is renegade was the most tangible evidence of seen as forsaking the right religion (Burton 153). Islam’s military strength; he was also The use of the term “turn Turk” for conversion to disturbingly, proof of Islam’s cultural and Islam connotes “duplicity and faithlessness.” religious hegemony. The more Muslim’s According to the records of travelers, Muslims could point to the converts among them, the are “‘all pagans and infidels….sodomites, liars more the Englishman realized how weak his and drunkards” where “collision and deceit were religious culture was and the more he feared the bedrock of Turkish belief” (16). Therefore, the fate that awaited him should the Ottoman the English conception of conversion to Islam armies continue their indomitable expansion can be summarized as Burton puts it: “To turn into central Europe and further. Indeed, by Turk [is] to turn from Christian virtue” (17). the first half of the seventeenth century, no Reports of large numbers of Christians Englishman could ignore the attacks by the converting to Islam spread all over England and Turkish navy on the south coast England and Europe by merchants and travelers. Malieckal the large number of co-nationals captured in cites Lois Potter who, “working with primary the sea and land skirmishes. (28) resources, estimates [apostates'] population: 'the Reasons behind conversion to Islam are extent of conversions is uncertain, but portrayed as mere materialistic gains or social contemporaries perceived it as enormous. climbing. Unlike the English, the Ottomans had William Davis, a barber-surgeon who had visited no social hierarchy. High offices were open to Tunis, claimed in 1614 that Turkey and Barbary converts as well as to born Muslims. This might contained more renegades than native Turks'’’ have been an attraction for ambitious (27). This news created a need to warn the Englishmen restricted by the hierarchy of the Christian population against the lurking danger English society. However, Turk plays depict no and to stop losing members to the rival religion. successful convert achieving wealth or high In such a situation, nothing works better than social status. On the contrary, Turk plays aim at ideology in directing people’s apprehension discouraging and warning Christians against against the new religion. This can be achieved by contact with Muslims and the spiritual, propaganda that distorts the image of the religion

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 16 materialistic, and bodily losses of associating England who has no prospects of advancement in with Muslims or converting to Islam. The the English society; while in the Ottoman society, motives for conversion are depicted as base and he finds himself a royal-to-be if he relinquishes materialistic, and the results of conversion some of this cultural identity. Although Clem involve both spiritual and physical losses. The never intends to convert to Islam, his irrational convert loses the salvation of the true religion as class ambitions and unthinkable association with well as his manhood by circumcision, which is the Other costs him what he calls “his best often confused with castration. jewels,” his testicles (Heywood 89). The Renegado also denies any possibility of Barbara Fuchs views Clem as an “interloper a sincere conversion to Islam. While Grimaldi is by his class” (61). He is, like the Ottomans, understood to convert to Islam for wealth and inferior to the English. Clem is susceptible to the profit, Paulina acts the role of a convert in order threat of Islam because he is marked by his lower to put off the execution of Vitelli and Donusa and class, while those superior English that Fuchs to have a chance to rescue them. The pretended sees as the “nation that coalesces around Bess” is conversion in order to rescue fellow Christians is proof of the effects of Islam (61). Fuchs is right, seen an honorable adventure for Paulina, because for none of the other English or Christians in the she neither embraces the new “false” religion nor play are subject to forced or consensual forsakes her previous “true” one. Grimaldi’s conversion, circumcision, or castration. Only conversion is considered base because it is done Clem, blinded by his lower class ambitions, does for materialistic gains while neglecting spiritual not “fare as well” (61). salvation. Burton goes on to say that “Sincere Fuchs’ view on lower class susceptibility to conversion to Islam is often considered, in the conversion to Islam is also proven true in The West, as unthinkable today as was in early Renegado, where Vitelli the gentleman escapes modern England” (17). bodily and spiritually unhurt, and therefore “Turning Turk” is condemned and blackened remains retrievable to the Christian realms – in the eyes of the English audience. The fate of even after sexual intercourse with a Muslim the “renegade” is also made to appear tragic. woman – while Gazet almost goes through what Grimaldi, after renouncing Christianity, turns to Clem experiences in The Fair Maid of the West; piracy and becomes a thief and a rapist. Although if there had been time to make him an eunuch he is considered to turn a profit for his adopted before his master had to leave Tunis, it would Islamic country, he is not shown to be treated have been done. The supposed convert Grimaldi well by Muslims. Grimaldi gets involved in a also remains retrievable simply because he is quarrel with Assambeg, who strips him of all his neither circumcised nor castrated. Although fortune and throws him into the street to become Grimaldi is universally accepted by Massinger’s a beggar. This is a warning that a Christian who critics to be a convert, there is not enough gives up his spiritual welfare for a materialistic evidence of his conversion to Islam in the play. one must expect to gain neither. In her article “Wanton Irreligious Madness: The Fair Maid of the West also carries this Conversion and Castration in Massinger’s The warning against conversion or unnecessary Renegado,” Bindu Malieckal considers Antoni association with Muslims. Clem loses, or almost Grimaldi a “Christian who willingly becomes a loses, his manhood by unnecessary association Muslim and experiences spiritual emasculation” with the Turks. He is an indentured servant in (26). If Grimaldi shows irreligiousness to his

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Christian society and renounces his faith, this of this term at the time. Although the play offers does not mean he has any alliance to no ceremony of Grimaldi’s conversion nor a Christianity’s rival faith, Islam. Grimaldi’s declaration of it by him or any other character turning to piracy and working for a Muslim who could be a witness to a fake or sincere country’s military does not necessitate any switching of religions, most of Massinger’s spiritual alliance with Islam. He might be a critics take Grimaldi’s conversion to Islam as a mercenary getting paid for his services regardless fact without ever questioning it. of his religious affiliations. Grimaldi identifies himself and his fellows as Malieckal offers invalid evidence of pirates: “We are the Neptunes of the ocean / And Grimaldi’s conversion: Gramaldi’s identification such as traffic shall pay sacrifice / o their best of himself as an “atheist.” This does not lading” (Massinger 1. 3. 65-67). It is obvious necessarily mean conversion to Islam. By this, that he is nothing more than a pirate who allies Grimaldi might be only announcing his with the enemies of his country and religion to renunciation of his religion and/or the codes of serve his personal interests of gaining wealth. morality of his society, without embracing Grimaldi’s sole vocation is materialistic gain. alternatives for them. Malieckal’s citation of Grimaldi’s evilness is blamed on Islam, Vitkus’s explanation of the usage of the word though he starts acting according to his moral “atheist” in the is not enough degeneration before arriving in Muslim countries evidence that it denotes switching into another or meeting Muslims. He is born and raised in religion. Malieckal gives Vitkus' explanation of and carries the blood of his people. the usage of the word as: Whether his evilness is acquired or inherited, his Renegades who did convert were described society and education – and maybe, for some, his as ‘atheists,’ a term that implied not a lineage – is to be blamed, rather than laying the denial of God’s existence, but refer in early blame on the country where he goes to serve and modern parlance to anyone who did not get paid for his services. Grimaldi’s relation with conform to orthodox religious practice. Islam and Muslims is nothing more than a Sometimes an ‘atheist’ was simply business relationship, and Assambeg’s someone guilty of treasonous, criminal emasculation of his character by stripping him of behavior” (Malieckal 29). his wealth is rather to be seen directed to a worker, an employee, more than it is towards a Therefore, a renegade was described as an fellow Muslim or a convert. However, this atheist in the Renaissance, but the atheist can be interpretation does not go with Massinger’s and many things other than a Muslim convert. Again, his audience’s/readers’ theory of the immoral Grimaldi might be simply expressing his Turk Muslim acting as a scourge on the life and intention not to conform to Christian orthodox fortune of a faithless “runagate.” religious practices or moral codes. The truth about Muslims’ behavior in However, since Grimaldi shows signs of everyday life and the way they respond to moral degeneration by betraying his country and situations like that of dealing with a convert are religion through turning to piracy, kidnapping a never presented in The Renegado. In fact, there is Christian girl, and selling her as a slave to a no apparent intention of seeking the truth about Muslim high official, Massinger and his society Islamic culture or showing it, for the Turk plays are inclined to identify his moral degeneration as were mere propaganda against Muslims, their “turning Turk,” with all the negative implications

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 18 religion, and their culture. Islamic culture is her mistress in order to achieve the object of her silenced by Massinger. His portrayal of Muslims’ lust. Manto discloses her mistress’s secret to behavior, their moral codes – of which he strips Mustapha, with whom she has a sexual liaison. them – and their religion is all falsehood. Like their women, Muslim men are also Massinger does not present Muslims’ true lascivious. While men oppress women and identity as a people of monotheistic religion restrain them from enjoying what Massinger and where chastity is considered the most important Donusa assume to be allowed in Islam, men are virtue to guard. Out of ignorance or bias, he not restrained, and they openly seek their sensual portrays Muslims as caring nothing for chastity pleasures. Assambeg keeps a Christian virgin and religious virtue. Massinger treats Muslims as captive and tries to seduce her. The presumed a gang that is aware of its moral perversion and convert Grimaldi also openly invites his friends holds onto its law only because it allows sensual to get drunk and repair to their whores: “Come, pleasure and sexual indulgence. Muslims are not let’s be drunk! Then each man to his whore” only silenced from expressing what they are or (1.3.81). Muslims are portrayed to have no what they believe themselves to be, but they are spiritual aspirations. They are incapable of made to utter only what supports Massinger’s exerting their will to guard their chastity or to construction of them as the perverted others who limit their sensuality. Grimaldi expresses an are inferior to Christians both in their faith and alleged Muslim hate of exerting the will and everyday practice. exercising patience and self-restraint in spiritual practices such as fasting. Once he quarrels with Both Muslim men and women are presented Assambeg, Grimaldi feels like forswearing as debauched people whose main concern in life piracy, which he loves and makes his living on. is seeking sensual pleasure. Francisco warns Grimaldi says he hates to foreswear piracy as Vitelli against being involved with or even seen much as he hates fasting: “I hate/ as deadly as I by Muslim women, who are lascivious and thirst do fasting, or long grace when meat cools on the for fair lovers. Massinger’s Francisco table” (2.5.8-9). dehumanizes Muslim women by comparing them to chained fierce dogs that can surpass the devil Like Heywood, Massinger contrasts the in means to procure the objects of their lust: virtue of Christians to the looseness of Muslims. He set virtuous Christian characters in opposition …, these Turkish dames / (like English to loose Muslim ones. On the female Muslim mastiffs that increase their fierceness / By side, Manto has lost her virginity a long time ago being chained up), from the restraint of and still keeps a sexual liaison with Mustapha, freedom, / If lust once fire their blood from and the Ottoman princess shows strange a fair object, / Will run a course the fiends aggression in perusing the object of her lust. On themselves would shake at / To enjoy their the other hand, the virtuous Paulina, like wanton ends. (1. 3. 8-13) Heywood’s Bess, resists all temptations of love, Francisco’s caution to Vitelli is proven true wealth, and power and preserves her virginity. by the conduct of Donusa, who finds all means to English and Christian dignity and integrity are bring Vitelli to her place and tempt him with both preserved by virgin females who pass through all her beauty and her wealth. While the princess hazards and come out virtuous, victorious, and possesses money and beauty with which to tempt virgins. her prospective lover, Manto the servant never Christian men, like their women, are not lacks means to win her lover either. She betrays

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 19 lacking in the sense of their chastity and the most likely explanation of Mullisheg’s virginity. While Vitelli slips one time, he proves inability to ravish Bess. However, it can be to be still redeemable. The next time he sees the argued that a holy relic that Paulina wears around Muslim temptress, he gathers all his Christian her neck is what protects her from Assambeg. resources of virtue and resists the fatal woman’s Francisco mentions that the relic combined with temptations to the point that it affects her and continuous prayer will protect Paulina from any ends in her conversion to the religion that can violence: “This on her breast she wears and does produce such formidable chastity. In complete preserve / the virtue of it by her daily prayers” contrast to Vitelli, Assambeg goes on in his (Massinger 1.1.150-1). The connection of the unrelenting but unsuccessful pursuit of Paulina. relic with prayer – which is an expression of faith This technique of contrasting virtuous Christian – suggests the role Paulina has in making the Characters to lewd Muslims serves to intensify holy relic effective via her pious personality. It is the sense of both Christian virtue and Islamic first and last Paulina’s innately chaste nature that vice. activates the holy relic and protects her from rape. In surveying the fortitude with which Christian virgins – both male and female – resist In a patriarchal society like that of the early Muslim temptation, a group of questions comes modern English, a woman’s chastity is not her to the surface. First, why did the extremely own but her father’s or the nearest male licentious Turks Mullisheg and Assambeg, while guardian’s. Paulina and Bess do not own their desperately desiring the Christian Bess and chastity and therefore they cannot dispose of it Paulina, not rape them? Second, why is Vitelli any way they like. Being set in a foreign country, allowed to slip once and remain redeemable, their chastity becomes that of their countries, while the females must go through their whole religion, and culture. On Paulina and Bess hangs stories with immaculate honor, not one single the honor of the whole Christendom that should mistake to blemish their chastity? Is it because be shown proof against Islamic temptations. In once they slip, they will not be redeemable, or is the same sense, on Donusa hangs the honor of it because they represent Christian and English the Muslim empire that the Christians will honor more than the men do, according to the disgrace both by her sexual intercourse with double standards concerning male and female Vitelli and finally by her conversion to sexuality? On the other hand, the Muslim Christianity. Burton thinks Massinger’s treatment Donusa is allowed to have sex with Vitelli and of the “Islamic threat…carefully interlaces remain redeemable and an accepted candidate for patriarchy with Christianity casting Muslim “revirgination” through baptism. women as temptresses, but also apostates” (151). Both Bess Bridges and Paulina escape the While Paulina and Bess are made execution of Turks’ lustful designs and preserve insusceptible to any actual intercourse with the purity of their body and spirit. According to Muslim men, Donusa is made the temptress who Juan Luis Vives, a Spanish scholar who lived seeks and succeeds in having intercourse with a between 1493-1540, “Chastity offered women Christian man. Sexual intercourse is considered protection from soldiers and tyrants and has been polluting to the female body and spirit, which universally respected throughout time. Chastity necessitates protecting Christian woman from creates an aura of impermeability for the chaste contamination through being involved in sexual woman – an invisible but detectable barrier no activities with Muslim men. Conversely, man can penetrate” (qtd. in Ritscher 12). This is Donusa’s female sexual transgression is not

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 20 considered polluting and her virginity remains anyone critically reading the play, it still has a retrievable. Conversion to Christianity erases the sentimental effect on an audience that sees and sins she committed while a “heathen,” and hears a convert condemning her former religion allows her to be reborn anew and innocent by the and embracing their own and praising it as true. power of Christian faith. In creating a Muslim female character and Donusa’s rejection of the dark Mustapha in making her a candidate for conversion to favor of the fair Vitelli should be condemned as Christianity, Massinger white-washes her skin to unjustified female changeability. Burton suggests reflect a potentially pure soul who can be that Massinger offers a mode of justifiable admitted into Christian grace. While the feminine changeableness, for “religious and exactness of Muslims’ skin color in the two plays cultural conversion necessarily endows female remains indeterminate, both Massinger and changeability with different meanings: it Heywood manipulate skin color according to sanctions forms of ‘infidelity’ which would their ends without paying attention to racial facts. otherwise invite censure” (151). At the end of the We never know the race of Mullisheg, Assambeg play, Donusa is rescued from death and leaves or Mustapha. While Mullisheg, the king of Fiz, Tunis as a happy, faithful, and pious Christian might be a dark North African, Mustapha the wife who has desired Christian martyrdom over Basha of Allepo must be a Caucasian, for though continuing a “pagan” life as a Muslim. Despite some natives of Aleppo might have olive-colored her proven female changeability, Massinger skin, most of them are fair and white. As to endorses her unfaithfulness to Mustapha because Assambeg, who is the viceroy of the Khalipha in changing the man went along with changing the Tunis, he is most likely a Turk by nationality and religion. must be of white skin like Donusa. Their color is most comparable to that of the Italians. Again, Vitelli also remains unpolluted despite his the depiction of skin color is not accurate; rather sexual liaison with a Muslim woman. This it is constructed according to what the writer retrievability of Vitelli is essential to two central wants to say about the characters' state of soul. themes in the play. First, the resistibility of Christian manhood to Islamic threat, and second, Massinger’s propaganda is not only directed to the conversion of Donusa which disgraces and towards Muslims, but it also targets the religion emasculates Assambeg as a person, and the itself. This might have been a strategy against the Ottoman Empire and Muslims represented by threat of Christian conversion to Islam by him. By virtue of his male body, Vitelli can showing it as moral depravity and a way to utter afford to sin and repent without the hazard of condemnation for its followers. Massinger wants eternal loss that someone in a female body would to believe, and tries to convince the English suffer in a similar situation. Sexual intercourse audience, that Islam is the reason behind his with a Muslim woman temporarily pollutes imagined Muslims’ moral looseness. Vitelli, but once he can stand up for his Christian Massinger’s Donusa says that her “religion virtue and resist the Muslim temptress, he is allows all pleasure” (Massinger 1.2.50). ready to be saved and reclaimed for the realms of Massinger pretends that in the a Muslim Christian grace. However, his fortitude and woman’s sexual indulgence is punished with sincere commitment to his religious principles death only if the lover is found to be Christian affects Donusa and wins her to the Christian side. (4.2.146-9). He shows the English audience that Despite the fact that Donusa’s conversion lacks Islam accepts out-of-wedlock sex as long as the the seriousness of a true and honest conversion to partner is not Christian, a strategy that naturally

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 21 invites the audience’s contempt of such a law and who called for worshiping only one God, the leads them to identify Muslims as the utter others God of Abraham, and guarding one’s virtue, as in and inferior enemies. Christianity, Massinger and Heywood imagine and present the prophet to the English audience This piece of legislation Massinger imagines as the head pirate. Writers like Massinger and is completely foreign to Islam. The punishment Heywood were able to use such falsehood in of sexual transgression for an unmarried male or their plays because of the pre-conception of the female is the same regardless of the religion of prophet as an imposter. the partner. In Donusa’s case, the Quranic punishment is death neither for her nor for In addition to absenting God from the life Vitelli. In fact, it is flogging of seventy and speech of Muslims and replacing Him by whiplashes to each of them, a punishment more Prophet Mohammad, Massinger offers a direct merciful than death for an unmarried sexual accusation of Islamic paganism. Islam is transgressor. However, Islam punishes the portrayed as heathenism where humans are made adultery of a married person by death by stoning, into idols and places are sanctified. Muslims are and the same punishment is set for both males called the “Mahomatan sect”, as if they worship and females. This punishment for adultery is the the human being, their prophet (4.2.154). Donusa same as that of the first Abrahamic faith, describes the Khalipha or ’s person as Judaism, the religion that Christianity accepts as sacred (I. 284), and Assambeg swears by his life its lawful precedent and the source of Western and fortune (3.3.93-4). Muslims are imagined not civilization. This law connects Islam with its to differentiate between earthly and divine love. precedent Abrahamic faiths and proves it a Mustapha sanctifies the place of his mistress’s continuation of both Judaism and Christianity, at abode and compares its sacredness to Muslims’ least in Muslim’s views, but Massinger presents sacred places in Mecca. it as a proof of Islamic cruelty. While Muslims believe Christianity is a true Massinger does not only fabricate legislation religion sent by God, Massinger is willing to and attach it to the Quranic law, but he also omits obscure this Muslim belief and fashions Muslims essential elements of Islamic faith in order to as having nothing but scorn and contempt for render it pagan and idolatrous. Like The Fair Christianity, its people, and its deity. In The Maid of the West, The Renegado never mentions Renegado, Muslims dehumanize Christians by Allah, which is the word for God. Allah is calling them names like dogs and showing scorn the God of Muslims, who is the same God in towards them and their religion. In Islam, such Christianity: the God of Abraham. Muslims in an attitude can put a Muslim outside the sect, for the play never mention Him, as if they deny His a main pillar of Islam is to believe in the true role in their life. God is absent from the life and message of the Christ and the Bible. While these speech of Muslims in both The Renegado and two writers present Islam as paganism, Muslims The Fair Maid of the West. This omission seems believe Christianity is a monotheistic, Abrahamic a tradition in the Turk plays that aim at stamping faith. The Quran makes a clear distinction Muslims and Islam with an alleged between Christians and on one side and irreligiousness and heathenism. pagans on the other. The Quran calls Christians and Jews “Peoples of Holy Books” – meaning Instead, Muslims talk only of their prophet, the Bible in its Old and New Testaments – and as if he is the deity they worship. While Muslims accepts them as citizens within an Islamic State, believe in the prophet as the messenger of God while pagans who worship any deity other than

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012) Representation of Muslims in Early Modern English Literature 22 the God of Abraham are not allowed to exist Gold.” Revist Canaria de Estudios Inglese. 54 (2007): 55- within Islamic realms. Muslim teachings such as 68. Web. 4 April 2010. this one do not suit Massinger’s project of _____, “ ‘What Good News from Barbary?’ Nascent propaganda. He denies Muslims their main Capitalism, North African and the Constructionof English belief, which is a continuation of the former two identity in Thomas Heywood’s Drams.” Atlantis 29.1 Abrahamic faiths. Massinger looks at Muslims as (2007):123-40. Web. 30 March 2010. a gang of perverted individuals that holds Curtis, Micheal. Orientalism and Islam. Cambridge: together by no legitimate or honorable law or Cambridge U P, 2009. Print. religion. Fuchs, Barbara. “Faithless empires: Renegadoes, and the English Nation.” ELH. 67.1 (2000): 45-69. Web. 30 Against this bleak picture of Islam and March 2010. Muslims, Massinger’s and Heywood’s Christian characters are made solid in their faith. They Heywood, Thomas. The Fair Maid of the West. Woodstock: Dramatic Publishing, 1995. Print. hold onto their Christian virtue and resist Muslims' material temptations and sexual Howard, Jean E. “An English Lass among the Moors: seduction. Both male and female Christians in Gender Race, Sexuality and National Identity in Heywood’s The Fair Maid of the West.” Women, Race, and these two plays hold tight to their religious ideals Writing in the Early English Period. Ed. Margo Hendricks of chastity to the point that affects and invokes and Patricia Parker. New York: Routledge, 1994. 101-17. the admiration of Muslim characters like Print. Mullisheg, Assambeg, and Donusa. By the end of Lezra, Jacque. “Translated Turks on the Early Modern the play, the patient believers are rewarded and Stage.” Transitional Exchange in Early Modern Theater. saved, winning with them one “reformed” soul to Ed. Robert Henke and Eric Nicholson. Hamilton: be saved, Donusa. Massinger uses Donusa’s McMaster U P, 2008. 159-180. Print. conversion as a proof of the falsehood and Malieckal, Bindu. “‘Wanton Irreligious Madness’: debauchery of Islam by making a born Muslim Conversion and Castration in Massinger’s The Renegado.” realize this fact and give up her previous Essays in Arts and Sciences 31.2 (2002): 25-43. Web. 30 depraved ways to embrace a faith that is proven March 2010. true by the divine conduct of its followers. Massinger, Philip. “The Renegado.” Three Turk Plays. Massinger and Heywood’s plays warn an English Ed. Daniel Vitkus. New York: Columbia U P, 1999: 240- audience against conversion to Islam by showing 344. Print. how doomed Muslims’ practices are and how Prophet Mohammad. Hadith: Sahih Bukhari. blessed it is for the Christian to adhere to his or Compiled during his lifetime (810-870): 6:60:79. Sahih her religion. Bukhari: 83: 37. Sahih Muslim. Compiled during his lifetime (817/818-874/875): 17:4196. Sahih Muslim 17:4209. Quran, Soura: Al Nour. 24. 2. 350. Print. Ritscher, Lee A. The Semiotics of Rape in Early Works Cited Renaissance English Literature. New York: Peter Lang Burton, Jonathan. Traffic and Turning Islam and Publishing, 2009. Print. English Drama. Newark: U of Delaware P, 2005. Print. Slights, William W.E. and Shelley Woloshyn. “English Casellas, Jesus Lopez-Palez. “Buliding An English Bess, English Pirates, English Drama: Feminism and (Early Modern) Identity: ‘Race’ And Capitalism in Imperialism on the High Seas.” Explorations in Heywood’s The Fair Maid of The West, Or, A Girl Worth Renaissance Culture 33.2 (2007): 252-75. Web. 1 April 2010.

Plaza: Dialogues in Language and Literature 2.2 (Spring 2012)