Part 3: Western Views of Islam and Africa

Part 3: Western Views of Islam and Africa

Oct 15: “Orientalism”

Orientalism, Islam and Africa

Robinson: in terms Western Views Islam and Africa- critical moment 1798 (Napoleon’s conquest of Europe)- critical tradition ‘Orientalism’

[quoting Edward Said Orientalism]:

“My contention is that without examining Orientalism as a discourse one cannot possibly understand the enormously systematic discipline by which European culture was able to manage – and even produce – the Orient politically, sociologically, militarily, ideologically, scientifically, and imaginatively during the post-Enlightenment period. Moreover, so authoritative a position did Orientalism have that I believe no one writing, thinking or acting on the Orient could do so without taking account of the limitations on thought and action imposed by Orientalism”


Said dates beginning of ‘Modern Orientalism’ to Napoleon in Egypt –hence connection Robinson makes between ‘tradition’, ‘event’ and ‘Islam and Africa’

- story of Napoleon’s fascination with Egypt and anything ‘Egyptian’well known- Robinson speaks specifically to his immersion in Islam (drawing of ‘investiture’ of shaykh, also said to have converted)- ‘conquest’ real (albeit short-lived) but also symbolic- brought ship full of ‘Orientalists’ to study, explain – and help ‘rule’- epitomizes Said’s articulation ‘Orientalism’- ‘modern’ in that marked formal departure from simple demonizing or exoticism marking previous centuries


So what is this ‘tradition’, Orientalism all about?

And why should something called ‘Orient-alism’be so important for studying

Islam and Muslim Peoples in Africa?

Edward Said and Orientalism

The book Orientalism was first published in 1979 and had major impact on Literature Studies, and European History, histories of ‘eastern’regions linked to Europe through imperialism and colonialism

- concept of ‘the other’ (verb: ‘othering’)- not new per se, but newly theorized- Said argued that Europe, principally Britain and France initially, produced ‘knowledge’ about the East (including Near and Middle East, Asia, India) that celebrated how different this East/Orient was from West/Europe


Constructed an homogenous entity (Said says ‘essentialist’):

- in which information was easily transferrable from one orientalregion to another (description of village in Syria was acceptable description to complete travelogue in, say Egypt or Turkey)

- in which certain tropes/stereotypes were immediately recognizable and resonated with readers:

- ‘Oriental life of ease/indolence- ‘Oriental’ despotism- ‘Oriental’ sexual depravity/sensuality- ‘Oriental’ fatalism


‘Oriental’ characteristics drawn from centuries of ‘impressions’, military interactions, mostly with Ottomans and Moghul Empire in India:

- ‘life of ease/laziness/indolence’: result of enormous wealth represented by wealthy classes, royal courts of these empires (Europeans always impressed)- ‘despotism’: seeming ‘absolute power’ of Sultans, need to distinguish it from ‘absolute monarchy’ (eg Louis XIX), often conflated military tactics aimed to ‘impress’ enemy with daily government- sensuality/ sexual ‘depravity’: the Harem, Eunuchs (must reflect deeper depravity, sexual obsession)- fatalism: ‘Insha’allah’ – as God wills (‘God Willing’)


- and in which information and imagined stereotypes can be captured in recognizable literary and artistic ‘images’

- Said speaks of how novels written at the time contributed to ‘rooting’ the ‘Orient’ in this particular form, in the minds of the larger public

- ‘Orientalist Art’ celebrated various combinations of these images –impossible to think of ‘the East’ without voluptuous naked women, black slaves, obese men/sultans, perverse pleasures (cover of first publication French painting ‘The Snake Charmer’)

[see, for example ‘Orientalism in Art’ website, Resources]

Cover of ‘Orientalism’:From painting ‘TheSnake Charmer[Jean-Leon Gerome, French;For more of his paintings see‘Orientalism in Art’, Resources]

‘The Harem’ (1850)

‘A Moorish Bath –Turkish Woman Bathing (n.d.)


Contributions to developing this ‘tradition’ as an identifiable ‘ism’(theory, belief):

- from intellectuals, academics- especially important: philology - discipline, ‘science’ of language: created hierarchies of languages to parallel development hierarchy physical ‘types’- Orient linked to ‘Semitic’ family, seen as ‘inferior’ [Hebrew excepted]- ‘good’ Oriental languages (eg Sanskrit) belonged to classical India, ‘bad’ to modern orient- ‘bad’ orient: Asia, North Africa and “Islam everywhere”


Contributions to developing this ‘tradition’ as an identifiable ‘ism’(theory, belief):

- method of ‘collecting’ information: philology rooted in early Sanskrit manuscripts brought from East to West – 19th c. ‘science’ based on centuries old language no longer spoken; sura of the Qur’an taken as contemporary practice everywhere (re: sexual relations, for example); ‘mirrors for princes’ – late 16th c. Ottoman reformist commentary on problems with government taken as ‘exemplifying’oriental rule, and so on

- Orientalism assumed unchanging place, people, time: change, growth, modernisation, development belonged to the West


Finally, Said argues that the ‘intellectual genealogy’ of Orientalismwould be incomplete without acknowledging contribution of “imaginative travel literature”:

- has ‘typology’ of different kinds of authors and how they relate to their material [in some instances, narrative is really about ‘author’, setting happens to be ‘oriental]- clear that the ‘language of the Orient’ circulates freely among them and they read each other- [me] similar in some ways to earlier Arab Geographers: ‘borrow’from earlier descriptions to ‘fill narrative gaps’ (in this case also ‘borrow’ from other places), attempting to ‘fit information into ‘known’world (in this case, into known ‘imagined’ world of stereotypes)


Ultimately, Said’s Orientalism is Political:

- objectively: these ‘orientalist writings’ used to assist Western governments ‘handle’ the East- in effect, they actually “produced” the Orient [quote from Said]- then they ‘conquered’ and ‘colonized’ the people and places they created- historians, in turn, perpetuate this distortion in our writings- hence, his warning that: “no one writing, thinking or acting on the Orient could do so without taking account of the limitations on thought and action imposed by Orientalism..


So: to return to our second question –

why should something called ‘Orient-alism’be so important for studying

Islam and Muslim Peoples in Africa?


Said’s references to Africa per se are few: North Africa ‘features’ in his Orient but not the Horn, not East Africa, not West Africa

Robinson implies the relevance of Orientalism but really speaks only to the specific ‘moment’ when Modern Orientalism (according to Said) is ‘born’: namely Napoleon in Egypt

Were that the only ‘connection’ with Islam and Muslims in Africa, clearly Orientalism would not deserve more attention than the page Robinson assigns it

There is more here to look at!


One of most important impacts seen in looking at ‘Abolition and Arab Slave Trades’:

- Orientalist discourse merges with Abolitionist discourse to shape discussion that resonates even today

- Topic of last lecture in this ‘section’

[see McDougall ‘Discourse and Distortion’, David Livingstone ‘Explorations…’, both in Additional Readings]

Thomas Pellow

Thomas Pellow:

- represented particular genre of ‘travel writing’ (to reference Said)- ‘the Christian captive/slave’- as consequence of Ottoman ‘piracy’ in Mediterranean- also as consequence of European attempts along Moroccan and Mauritanian coast to trade (‘intercept lucrative slave, gold commerce), combined with difficult seas/winds: shipwrecks increasingly common

- 18th-19th century, shipwrecked sailors, merchants taken ‘captive’ by Saharans/Moroccans or those ‘captured at sea’ delivered to Muslim ports like Algiers, Tripoli increasingly important as ‘sources’ of information about Muslim North/West Africa

Thomas PellowThomas Pellow:

- 1716, cabin boy: ship captured (plundered) by ‘Barbary corsairs’(meaning Muslim Mediterranean ‘pirates’)- he and 52 shipmates sold to Moroccan Sultan- many of latter killed- he ‘impressed’ Sultan Moulay Ismail- converted to assure safety: became ‘slave’ to Sultan’s son - spent 23 years in Morocco: at times in disfavor (because he tried to escape), most of the time occupied ‘privileged’ role- married, had child- participated in Sultans battles- travelled across Sahara to Mauritania with Sultan’s commercial caravan

Thomas Pellow

Thomas Pellow:

- ‘adventures’ published shortly after return to England (1740):“‘The history of the long captivity and adventures of Thomas Pellow, South Barbary

- language, caricatures of Sultans, portrait of Moulay Ismail as archetypal ‘Oriental Despot’, exoticism of Harem, cruelty vis-à-vis slaves…

- clearly contributing to ‘Orientalist’ paradigm well before Napolean’sfamous conquest

Thomas Pellow

(Arabs of the Sahara):“These Laurbs [Arabs] are an awkward sort of people of anolive colour, and wearing the hair of their heads andbeards without ever cutting or topping, it runs naturallyup into rings or curls, so that their heads look all one at adistance as if they had growing on them large bushes offurze. Their only clothing, is a blue linen shirt, and a pairof drawers reaching a little below their knees, with whichthey are furnished by the Moors. Their habitations, ortents, are made of the skins of tame and wild beasts. …

[compare with Burton’s description Somalis, below]

Thomas PellowMoulay Ismail:

“An excessive cruelty, a great capacity, and a perfectknowledge of the genius and temper of his people, preservedto this Emperor the throne for so long a space oftime as fifty-five years, and death alone took it from him.By strictly observing, even to the nicest particulars, all theceremonies of the Mahometan religion, he made himselfrespected by his subjects for his virtues, at the same timehe was feared for his cruelty and vices. He alwaysbrought his projects to bear, and if he saw there wasdanger in using violence, he knew how to employ cunning.Voluptuous, covetous, passionate, treacherous, more than atyrant, he tamed the natural savageness of his subjects, byshowing himself still more savage than they. …

Thomas Pellow

“ He was an early riser, whether from his natural disposition,or the horror of the many murders, exactions, andcruelties he had committed on his poor subjects and slaves,I cannot determine ; but those who have been near himwhen abroad in camps (for in his palace he was waited onby women, young wenches, and eunuchs, who dare not telltales), report that his sleep was very much disturbed andfull of horror, when, starting on a sudden, he has beenheard to call upon those he had murdered, and sometimesawake he used to ask for them whom he had killed but theday before …”

Thomas Pellow(caids – local governors bring Moulay Ismail his ‘due’ tribute):“…for if the Emperor thinks they do not bring him the whole profitsthereof, … they are in danger of being put to some cruel death. Before they go into his presence they pull off their shoes, put on a particular habit they have to denote a slave, and When they approach him fall down and kiss the ground at his horse's feet. … they bend forward andhold their heads a little on one side in token of offering their life, …Partly from fear and partly from superstition, for they believe him to be the true branch of the Xeriphian [Sharifian] family, who draw their descent from the prophet Mahomet, and Therefore think he was particularly favoured by Heaven, and could do nothing amiss, butimagined all who died by his hand went to Paradise; in which opinions he confirmed them by a long continuance of tyrannical power, byartifice and by hypocrisy, never doing anything of Consequence without first falling down upon the ground with his face close to the earth for a considerable time, making believe that he then received inspiration and directions from God, or Mahomet …”

Thomas PellowThomas Pellow:

- of interest: book recently ‘republished’as

White Gold : The Extraordinary Story of Thomas Pellowand Islam's One Million White Slaves

Thomas PellowPublisher’s Blurbs:

“Pellow and his shipmates were bought by the tyrannical sultan of Morocco, Moulay Ismail, who was constructing an imperial palace of such scale and grandeur that it would surpass every other building in the world, a palace built entirely by Christian slave labor.”

“In the summer of 1716, a Cornish cabin boy named Thomas Pellowand 52 of his comrades were captured at sea by the Barbary corsairs. Their captors, fanatical Islamic slave traders, had declared war on the whole of Christendom. Thousands of Europeans had been snatched from their homes and taken in chainsto the great slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Sale in Morocco to be sold to the highest bidder. White Gold is an extraordinary and shocking story “

Mungo Park

Mungo Park:

- although West Africa lay outside Said’s ‘Orient’, Park typical of ‘genre’ travel writing- travelled on behalf of (paid by) London Association for the Discovery of the Interior of Africa – wealthy bankers, businessmen- aim: explore the Niger from source to ocean outlet; visit famedTimbuktu and ‘Houssa’ [Hausaland – didn’t realize not a city]- information meant to assist British commerce- account meant to engage public

Mungo Park

- written in ‘romantic’ style: Park the lone protagonist, struggling against Rousseau’s ‘natural man’- Africa and Africans ‘uncivilized’ in sense of acting on natural instincts, untutored in politics, ‘rules’ of civilized society- Travels in the Interior… analyzed as literature ‘typical’ of Romantic style- except: when Park speaks of ‘the Moors’- when he enters the land of the Moors (‘Mohammedans’), he encounters warring peoples, greedy kings and a ruler named ‘Ali’who is the archetypal ‘despot’ (cruel and corrupt)- he is imprisoned; women torment him insisting on examining his naked body

Mungo Park

Mungo Park: region in which he was held ‘prisoner’ [Additional Reading}

Mungo Park

“I fancied that I discovered in the features of most of them [Moors], a disposition toward cruelty, and low cunning; and I could never contemplate their physiognomy, without feeling a sensible uneasiness. From the staring wildness of their eyes, a stranger would immediately set them down as a nation of lunatics. The treachery and malevolence of their character are manifested in their plundering excursions against the Negro villages”.

Mungo ParkMaking much of Moors’ ‘fanaticism’, hatred of Christians and belief in

their own superiority, Park wrote:

“It is impossible for me to describe the behaviour of a people who study mischief as a science and exult in the miseries and misfortunes of their fellow creatures. It is sufficient to observe that the rudeness, ferocity and fanaticism, which distinguish the Moors from the rest of mankind, found here a proper subject whereon to exercise their propensities. I was a stranger, I was unprotected, and I was a Christian; each of these circumstances is sufficient to drive every spark of humanity from the heart of a Moor…. The Moors are rigid Mahomedans, and possess, with the bigotry and superstition, all the intolerance of their sect. …Cut off from all intercourse with civilized nations,… they are at once the vainest and proudest, and perhaps the most bigoted, ferocious, and intolerant of all the nations on the earth – combining in their character, the blind superstition of the Negro with the savage cruelty and treachery of the Arab.

[see McDougall, ‘Discourse and Distortion’; Additional Reading]

Captioned “Park’sLast Stand at BussiaRapids”

Imagined view ofPark’s death onthe Niger River:‘the Civilized againstthe African’ in theRomantic style

[from Orientalism in Art, see Resources]

Mungo Park

19th century travellers’ accounts of both Sahara and West Africa repeated tropes

- oriental despots ready to kill any Christians who entered theirterritory had some travellers disguising themselves as Muslims (egRene Caille), others wanting to (Clapperton and Denham – public opinion against)

- following another ‘genre’ identified by Said: entering into the Orient by becoming ‘oriental’

Richard BurtonRichard Burton:

- ‘orientalist’ par excellence- spoken of extensively by Said for account of travels to Mecca- disguised as Muslim, entered Holy city- Said does not refer to any of his extensive writings on Africa- First Footsteps into East Africa story of travel to Harar: again in disguise as Muslim, again ‘penetrated’ Holy City- genre different from Park: ability of author to ‘immerse’ in local culture, in this case Muslim culture, implied power- unlike ‘orientals’, ‘westerners’ (Burton) had ability to acquire knowledge and skills, feign beliefs, insert into society- according to Said, this genre reflected reality of 19th C. imperialism- foreshadowed colonialism

Richard Burton

Richard Burton(Ch. 4 ‘The Somal, their origin and peculiarities’)

“The Somal, … may be determined to be a half-caste tribe, an offshoot of the great Galla race, approximated, like the originally Negro-Egyptian, to the Caucasian type by a steady influx of pure Asiatic blood.

In personal appearance the race is not unprepossessing. The crinalhair is hard and wiry, growing, like that of a half-caste West Indian, in stiff ringlets which sprout in tufts from the scalp, and, attaining a moderate length, which they rarely surpass, bang down. … each filament is duly picked out with the comb or a wooden scratcher like a knitting-needle, and the mass made to resemble a child’s “pudding,” an old bob-wig, a mop, a counsellor’s peruke, or an old-fashioned coachman’s wig, …”

Richard Burton(in contrast, the Bedouins…)

“The Bedouins, true specimens of the “greasy African race,” wear locks dripping with rancid butter, and accuse their citizen brethren of being more like birds than men. The colouring matter of the hair, naturally a bluish-black, is removed by a mixture of quicklime and water, or in the desert by a lessive of ashes15 : this makes it a dull yellowish-white, which is converted into red permanently by henna, temporarily by ochreish earth kneaded with water. The ridiculous Somali peruke of crimsoned sheepskin,— almost as barbarous an article as the Welsh,— is apparently a foreign invention: I rarely saw one in the low country, although the hill tribes about Hararsometimes wear a black or white “scratch-wig.”

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/burton/richard/b97f/chapter4.html#fn15

Richard Burton(back to the ‘Somals’)

“The head is rather long than round, and generally of the amiablevariety, it is gracefully put on the shoulders, belongs equally to Africa and Arabia, and would be exceedingly weak but for the beauty of the brow. As far as the mouth, the face, with the exception of high cheek-bones, is good; the contour of the forehead ennobles it; the eyes are large and well-formed, and the upper features are frequently handsome and expressive. The jaw, however, is almost invariably prognathous and African; the broad, turned-out lips betray approximation to the Negro; and the chin projects to the detriment of the facial angle. The beard is represented by a few tufts; it is rare to see anything equal to even the Arab development:… The skin, amongst the tribes inhabiting the hot regions, is smooth, black, and glossy; as the altitude increases it becomes lighter, and about Hararit is generally of a cafe au lait colour. …”

Richard Burton

“…The male figure is tall and somewhat ungainly. … the shoulders are high, the trunk is straight, the thighs fall off, the shin bones bow slightly forwards, and the feet, like the hands, are coarse, large, and flat. Yet with their hair, of a light straw colour, decked with the light waving feather, and their coal-black complexions set off by that most graceful of garments the clean white Tobe, the contrasts are decidedly effective.

In mind the Somal are peculiar as in body. They are a people of most susceptible character, and withal uncommonly hard to please. They dislike the Arabs, fear and abhor the Turks, have a horror of Franks, and despise all other Asiatics who with them come under the general name of Hindi (Indians).”

Richard Burton(Ch. 8 ‘Ten Days in Harar’ – visit to the Amir)

“The palace itself is, as Clapperton [another explorer] describes the Fellatah Sultan’s state-hall, a mere shed, a long, single-storied, windowless barn of rough stone and reddish clay, with no other insignia but a thin coat of whitewash over the door.

… Presently the blear-eyed guide with the angry voice returned from within, … and motioned us to doff our slippers at a stone step, …We grumbled that we were not entering a mosque, but in vain. Then ensued a long dispute, in tongues mutually unintelligible, aboutgiving up our weapons: by dint of obstinacy we retained our daggers and my revolver. The guide raised a door curtain, suggested a bow, and I stood in the presence of the dreaded chief.

Richard Burton

“The Amir, or, as he styles himself, the Sultan Ahmad bin Sultan Abibakr, sat in a dark room with whitewashed walls, to which hung — significant decorations — rusty matchlocks and polished fetters. His appearance was that of a little Indian Rajah, an etiolated youth twenty-four or twenty-five years old, plain and thin-bearded, with a yellow complexion, wrinkled brows and protruding eyes. His dresswas a flowing robe of crimson cloth, edged with snowy fur, and anarrow white turban tightly twisted round a tall conical cap of red velvet, like the old Turkish headgear of our painters. His throne was a common Indian Kursi,…

Richard Burton

“… I entered the room with a loud “Peace be upon ye!” to which H. H. replying graciously, and extending a hand, bony and yellow as a kite’s claw, snapped his thumb and middle finger. Two chamberlains stepping forward, held my forearms, and assisted me to bend low over the fingers, which however I did not kiss, being naturally averse to performing that operation upon any but a woman’s hand. My two servants then took their turn: in this case, after the back was saluted, the palm was presented for a repetition.3 These preliminaries concluded, we were led to and seated upon a mat infront of the Amir, who directed towards us a frowning brow and an inquisitive eye….”

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/burton/richard/b97f/chapter8.html#fn3

Richard Burton

“… I then represented in Arabic that we had come from Aden, bearing the compliments of our Daulah or governor, and that we had entered Harar to see the light of H. H.‘s countenance: … The Amir smiled graciously. This smile I must own,… was a relief. We had been prepared for the worst, and the aspect of affairs in the palace was by no means reassuring.

[upon leaving] …the loiterers in the Harar palace yard, who had before regarded us with cut-throat looks, now smiled as though they loved us. Marshalled by the guard, we issued from the precincts, and after walking a hundred yards entered the Amir’s second palace, which we were told to consider our home. There we found the Bedouins, who, scarcely believing that we had escaped alive, grinned in the joy of their hearts, …”

David Livingstone

David Livingstone:

- The Last Journals of David Livingstone in Central Africa…exemplify ‘Orientalism’ in East Africa (‘Journals’ begin with his arrival in Zanzibar)- but also reflect overlay of second discourse, that of ‘Abolitionism’- will look at in context of ‘Abolition and Arab Slave Trades’


Conclusion:

Other than limited view of North Africa, Islam and Muslim Peoples in Africa lay outside of Said’s concept of the Orient and the discourse of Orientalism but…

for 18th and 19th C. writers about Islam and Muslim Peoples –whether Christian captives, European ‘explorers’, westerners in search of ‘adventure’ in the East or missionaries/abolitionists (next day) – the language, images and stereotypes of ‘Orientalism’[‘discourse’] hugely important in shaping publications

Orientalism became embedded in Europe’s view of Muslim Africa.

Part 3: Western Views of Islam and Africa

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Transcript of Part 3: Western Views of Islam and Africa