Traveling to archives in Tunisia, Morocco, France, and England, with visits to Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Spain, Nabil Matar assembles a rare history of Europe’s rise to power as seen through the eyes of those who were later subjugated by it. Many historians of the Middle East believe Arabs and Muslims had no interest in Europe during this period of Western discovery and empire, but in fact these groups were very much engaged with the naval and industrial development, politics, and trade of European Christendom. Beginning in 1578 with a major Moroccan victory over a Portuguese invading army, Matar surveys this early modern period, in which Europeans and Arabs often shared common political, commercial, and military goals. Matar concentrates on how Muslim captives, ransomers, traders, envoys, travelers, and rulers pursued those goals while transmitting to the nonprint cultures of North Africa their knowledge of the peoples and societies of Spain, France, Britain, Holland, Italy, and Malta. From the first non-European description of Queen Elizabeth I to early accounts of Florence and Pisa in Arabic, from Tunisian descriptions of the Morisco expulsion in 1609 to the letters of a Moroccan Armenian ambassador in London, the translations of the book’s second half draw on the popular and elite sources that were available to Arabs in the early modern period. Letters from male and female captives in Europe, chronicles of European naval attacks and the taqayid (newspaper) reports on Muslim resistance, and descriptions of opera and quinine appear here in English for the first time. Matar notes that the Arabs of the Maghrib and the Mashriq were eager to engage Christendom, despite wars and rivalries, and hoped to establish routes of trade and alliances through treaties and royal marriages. However, the rise of an intolerant and exclusionary Christianity and the explosion of European military technology brought these advances to an end. In conclusion, Matar details the decline of Arab-Islamic power and the rise of Britain and France.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Europe Through Arab Eyes is a landmark in the study of the exchanges between Christendom and Islam in the early modern period.–Abdul-Karim Rafeq “Historian”
Europe Through Arab Eyes offers a tantalizing glimpse into a rich and diverse corpus of early modern Arabic-language accounts of Europe and the Mediterranean world.–Ellen R. Welch “Journal of World History”
An excellent example of the creative use of source material… Highly recommended.– “Choice”
In this erudite and beautifully written book, Nabil Matar tells an untold story about Christian-Muslim relations in the early modern period. Often suppressed or ignored by historians, this period comes to life in Matar’s text as a dynamic stage of cultural and political exchanges between Europe and the Muslim world.–Tarek El-Ariss “Seventeenth Century News”
These evocative and provocative translations from an important moment in the history of Arab-Islamic and European relations will enable increasingly finegrained comparisons. Matar continues to challenge and reshape early modern studies.–Claire Schen “Journal of British Studies”
This book fills a huge gap in our understanding of the history of that period.– “Times Higher Education Supplement”
About the Author
Nabil Matar is professor of English at the University of Minnesota. He is the author of a trilogy on Britain and the Islamic Mediterranean: Islam in Britain, 1578-1685; Turks, Moors, and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery; and Britain and Barbary, 1589-1689. He is also author and translator of In the Lands of the Christians.
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