Early Modern English Perceptions of Islam Islam, Early Modern English Perceptions of Author Jaimie Carr Supervising Editor Melissa Walter Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Intellectual copyright in this entry is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC_ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Jaimie Carr, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times, Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Supervising Editor An editor who supervises the work of a student editor. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Race Muslims Ottoman Empire Published file. Updated metadata proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Changed refering to Istanbul as a muslim nation to a muslim city. Created File. Michael Best Michael Best

Michael Best is Professor Emeritus at the University of Victoria, BC. He founded the Internet Shakespeare Editions in 1996, and was Coordinating Editor until 2017, contributing two editions to the ISE: King John and King Lear (the latter also available in print from Broadview Press). In print, he has published editions of works of Elizabethan magic and huswifery, a collection of letters from the Australian goldfields, and Shakespeare on the Art of Love (2008). He contributed regular columns for the Shakespeare Newsletter on Electronic Shakespeares, and has written many articles and chapters for both print and online books and journals, principally on questions raised by the new medium in the editing and publication of texts. He has delivered papers and plenary lectures on electronic media and the Internet Shakespeare Editions at conferences in Canada, the USA, the UK, Spain, Australia, and Japan.

 Jaimie Carr Jaimie Carr

Jaimie Carr was a student at the University of Fraser Valley.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Navarra Houldin Navarra Houldin

Training and Documentation Lead 2025–present. LEMDO project manager 2022–2025. Textual remediator 2021–present. Navarra Houldin (they/them) completed their BA with a major in history and minor in Spanish at the University of Victoria in 2022. Their primary research was on gender and sexuality in early modern Europe and Latin America. They are continuing their education through an MA program in Gender and Social Justice Studies at the University of Alberta where they will specialize in Digital Humanities.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 Melissa Walter Melissa Walter

Melissa Walter is Associate Professor of English at the University of the Fraser Valley. Her research focuses on early modern English drama and English and European prose fiction. She is the author of The Italian Novella and Shakespeare’s Comic Heroines (U of Toronto, 2019), and co-editor, with Dennis Britton, of Rethinking Shakespeare Source Study: Authors, Audiences, Digital Technologies (Routledge, 2018). Her work on English theatre and the European novella has appeared in several edited collections, including Transnational Exchange in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2008), and Transnational Mobility in Early Modern Theater (Ashgate, 2012). She has also written about Translation and Identity in the Dialogues in English and Malaiane Languages (Indographies, ed. Jonathan Gil Harris. Palgrave 2012). At the University of the Fraser Valley, she is a lead coordinator of UFV’s Shakespeare and Reconciliation Garden.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/

In early modern England, believers in and converts to Islam were most often termed Mohametans or Musselmen if they originated from Persia or places in the Ottoman Empire. More occasionally, Moor or Morisco were used if they were from North Africa. The English perception of the Islamic world was heavily influenced by trade with the Ottoman and Persian Empires. Distrusted as apostates by the Englishmen they encountered, Muslims nevertheless played a role in English trade and in popular culture. Misinformation regarding Islam was widespread.

Allies

During the early modern period, England had a civil relationship with the Ottoman Empire. From 1511 on, English ships freely sailed the Mediterranean, trading regularly with Beirut, Istanbul, and Tangier, as well as Persia, Hormuz, and the Mughal empire, all of which were Muslim nations. Following the Ottoman-Venetian war of 1570–1573, English ships began to replace Venetian ships in the trade with Turkey. In 1581, English merchants secured the trading monopoly with the Ottoman Empire through the creation of the Levant Company, frequently known as the Turkey Company. A royal charter signed by Queen Elizabeth I established the monopoly, which was extended to Venice in 1592. This greatly expanded trade for England and increased the diplomatic interactions between England and the Ottoman Empire. Some relations between England and the Barbary Coast of North Africa in the 17th century also existed, with Elizabeth I establishing an ambassador in Morocco. England also participated in trade with Istanbul, another Muslim city.

Misinformation

While England may have had friendly relations with the Ottoman empire and other Islamic nations during the early modern period, much distrust persisted against Islam, which stemmed from misinformation, religious beliefs, and fear. Negative views of Islam permeated English culture, including false views of Muslims being sensualists, idolaters, savages, and anti-Christian. The largest reason for these negative views was the spread of false information. Little reliable information on Islam made it to England during the early modern period, brought only intermittently by diplomats, merchants, and travelers. Frequently, information came from Italian and French sources translated into English. These sources were unreliable as they were often mistranslated, and many Europeans encountering Turks already had a tainted view of Muslims.

Religious Differences

Religious differences were the primary reason that England and the rest of Europe othered the Sunni Muslim Ottomans, although they held a slightly more positive view of the Shi’a Muslim Persian Empire. English Protestants in the early modern period had a strong disdain for Catholics. They saw a connection in religious practice between Catholicism and Islam, and therefore viewed Islam through the lens of anti-Catholicism and already had a framework for criticism and distrust of Muslim beliefs. Islam was then considered a threat to the English national identity and to the Crown itself, as England perceived Catholicism to be. English writers commonly demonized the Ottoman Empire through sermons and treatises. Distrust against Islam was also fueled by imperial envy. The Ottoman-Venetian war of 1570–1573 lead to the Muslim capture of large regions of Europe, causing England to view the Ottomans as dangerous as well as anti-Christian.

Public Perception

The English population’s view on Islam was widely influenced by the church, literature, and theatre. Histories that were written about the Ottoman empire in the late 16th century portrayed Muslims as, in the words of literary scholar Linda McJannet, devilish automatons, who murder and pillage without any evidence of recognizable human feeling (qtd. in Topinka 123). These histories informed the preachers, novelists, dramatists, and poets who had little or no contact personally with Muslims. No translation of the Qur’an existed in English until the mid-17th century, leaving the English to rely on faulty interpretations of it. Nabil Matar reports that early modern Englishmen subsequently based their opinions on literary tropes from the popular miracle and mystery playsthat both misrepresented and demeaned Muslims (214).

Theatre audiences in England also saw plays about Muslim Turks in which the protagonists raged or lusted, killed their children or enslaved and brutalized Christians (Matar 219). This of course stemmed from the hurtful literature that already existed. Between 1579 and 1624 over sixty dramatic works that included Islamic themes, characters, or settings were produced in England. This increase in the inclusion of Islam in dramatic works was largely due to the mystery and sensationalism around Islam created by the lack of trustworthy historical contexts and reliable translations.

In the late 17th century, more historically accurate writings about Islam and the Muslim empires became available to English readers. These were written by travellers, chroniclers, theologians, captives, playwrights and diplomats and were spread to all literate members of English society.

A page divided into four. Each of the quadrants contains a drawing. The top left drawing depicts a man in a large turban riding a horse and escorted by several other men in pointed hats. The next two drawings are of more men in pointed hats in various garb. The last drawing is of a man with a pointed hat folded forward on his head and a basket held over his shoulder. A page from The present state of the Ottoman Empire by Sir Paul Rycaut. 1670. Courtesy of Folger Shakespeare Library. Public Domain.
Key Print Sources Hawkes, David. Islam and the Economy of the Senses in Renaissance English Literature. Senses & Society, vol. 5, no. 1, Mar. 2010, pp. 144–159. Matar, Nabil. Britons and Muslims in the Early Modern Period: From Prejudice to (a Theory of) Toleration. Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 43, no. 3/4, Jul. 2009, pp. 213–231. Taşdelen, Pınar. The Ottomans and the Turks within the Context of Medieval and the Elizabethan English Poetry. Hacettepe University Journal of Turkish Studies, vol. 12, no. 22, Mar. 2015, pp. 253–276. Topinka, Robert J. Islam, England, and Identity in the Early Modern Period: A Review of Recent Scholarship. Mediterranean Studies, vol. 18, Jan. 2009, pp. 114–130.
Key Online Sources Beirouti, Charles. <quote>Like the Miss-Led Papists</quote>: Anti-Catholicism and Early Modern English Views of Islam. Medieval and Early Modern Orients, 19 April 2021, https://memorients.com/articles/like-the-miss-led-papists-anti-catholicism-and-early-modern-english-views-of-islam. Accessed 10 Feb. 2022. Cannon, J. A. Levant Company. The Oxford Companion to British History. Oxford University Press, 2009. Oxford Reference, . Levant Company. The British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/term/BIOG177802. Accessed 27 Nov. 2023. Das, Nandini et al. Mohamentan. Keywords of Race, Identity, and Mobility in Early Modern England. Amsterdam University Press, 2021. https://library.oapen.org/viewer/web/viewer.html?file=/bitstream/handle/20.500.12657/50188/9789048552283.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y%20which%20is%20reachable%20from%20this%20site:%20%C2%A0http://www.tideproject.uk/tide-keywords/.
Image Sources Rycaut, Paul. Plate Facing Page 41 in The present state of the Ottoman Empire. 1670. MS. Folger Shakespeare Library. https://digitalcollections.folger.edu/img9275.