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Early American Perceptions of Muslims

Year 2013, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 7 - 34, 29.11.2013

Abstract

Abstract: This paper briefly surveys the early American perceptions of Muslimsas reflected in the Barbary-related literature, and follows some of the traces ofthat past in Today's American culture. The four themes of traditional EuropeanOrientalism can be easily found in the early American literature on Barbary:Islam is portrayed in this literature as the religion of political tyranny, anti-Christian darkness, sensual pleasures, and oppression of women. What is newin this study is the American context in which these themes function. TimothyMarr believes that Islam was used by the early Americans as a “cultural enemy”,an “oppositional icon” that helped the new nation build its own identity. Thisrhetorical use of Islam against internal and external enemies seems to haveresponded to an American need for creating a new nation's self-consciousness.Marr called this internalization of Islam “domestic Orientalism” and its externalprojection “imperialism of virtue”.

Key words: America, Muslims, Turks, Christianity, Orientalism, identity,perception, stereotype.

References

  • Reference List
  • Allison, Robert J. 1995. The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim
  • World 1776-1815. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Austin, Allan D. 1986. African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Source Book.
  • New York and London: Gerald Publishing, Inc.
  • Baepler, Paul. 1999. White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American
  • Barbary Captivity Narratives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Cantor, Milton. “A Connecticut Yankee in a Barbary Court: Joel Barlow's Algerian
  • Letters to His Wife,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 19, No. 1
  • (Jan., 1962), pp. 86-109
  • Fisher, Godfrey. 1957. Barbary Legend: War, Trade and Piracy in North Africa,
  • -1830. Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • Friedman, Ellen. “The Exercise of Religion by Spanish Captives in North Africa”,
  • Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Apr., 1975), p. 21
  • Hammurabi's Code of Laws, Translated by L. W. King, Retrieved May 5, 2007 from:
  • http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/hammurabi.htm
  • Jefferson. Thomas, Autobiography (the Avalon Project at Yale Law School), retrieved
  • April 15, 2007 from: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jeffauto.htm.
  • Jefferson, Thomas. Eighth Annual Message to Congress. November 8, 1808 http://
  • www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/sou/jeffmes8.htm. (The Avalon Project)
  • Retrieved April 11, 2007
  • Kidd, Thomas S. “Is It Worse to Follow Mahomet than the Devil?: Early American
  • Uses of Islam”, Church History. 72, no. 4, (2003) p.766-790
  • Markoe, Peter. 1787. The Algerian Spy in Pennsylvania or Letters written by a Native
  • of Algiers on the Affairs of the United States in America from the Close of the Year
  • to the Meeting of the Convention. Philadelphia: Richard and Hall
  • Marr, Timothy. 2006. The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism. Cambridge:
  • Cambridge University Press.
  • Matar, Nabil. 2002. In the Lands of the Christians: Arab Travel Writing in the 17th
  • Century. New York. Routledge
  • McAlister, Melani. 2001. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the
  • Middle East, 1945-2000. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • McAlister, Melani, “Saving Private Lynch”, New York Times, April 6, 2003
  • Myles, Anne G. “Slaves in Algiers, Captives in Iraq: The strange career of the
  • Barbary captivity narrative”, from: http://www.common-place.org/vol-05/no-01/
  • myles/index.shtml. vol. 5 · no. 1 · October 2004, retrieved May 5, 2007
  • Norton, Marry B. 1980. Liberty's Daughters: the Revolutionary Experience of
  • American Women, 1750-1800. United States: Harper Collins Publishers.
  • Parker, Richard B. 2004. Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History. Gainesville:
  • University Press of Florida.
  • Radosh, Ronald. “American foreign policy at home in the Middle East”. The Weekly
  • Standard, 02/05/2007, Volume 012, Issue 20
  • Rowson, Susanna H. 1794. Slaves in Algiers; or, a struggle for freedom: a play,
  • interspersed with songs, in three acts. Philadelphia: Wrigley and Berriman, prtrs.,
  • Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism, New York: Vantage.
  • Shaler, William. 1826. Sketches of Algiers, Political, Historical, and Civil; Containing
  • an Account of the Geography, Population, Government, Revenues, Commerce,
  • Agriculture, Arts, Civil Institutions, Tribes, Manners, Languages, and Recent Political
  • History of that Country. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard and Company.
  • Shaler, William. On the Language, Manners, and Customs of the Berbers, or
  • Berbers, of Africa. Communicated by William Shaler, Consul of the United States
  • at Algiers, in a Series of Letters to Peter S. Du Ponceau, and by the Latter to the
  • Society Transactions of the American Philosophical Society New Ser., Vol. 2 (1825),
  • pp. 438-465
  • Treaty of Peace and Amity, Signed at Algiers September 5, 1795, Article 16 (the
  • Avalon Project) http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1795t.
  • htm. re112trieved April 12, 2007.
  • Wheelan, Joseph. 2003. Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror. Carroll &
  • Graf Publishers.
  • Washington, George. Eighth Annual Message of George Washington United States,
  • http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/sou/washs08.htm December 7, 1796
  • (The Avalon Project)
  • Washington, George. Seventh Annual Message of George Washington United States,
  • http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/sou/washs07.htm (The Avalon Project)
  • December 8, 1795

-

Year 2013, Volume: 3 Issue: 1, 7 - 34, 29.11.2013

Abstract

This paper briefly surveys the early American perceptions of Muslims as reflected in the Barbary-related literature, and follows some of the traces of that past in Today’s American culture. The four themes of traditional European Orientalism can be easily found in the early American literature on Barbary: Islam is portrayed in this literature as the religion of political tyranny, antiChristian darkness, sensual pleasures, and oppression of women. What is new in this study is the American context in which these themes function. Timothy Marr believes that Islam was used by the early Americans as a “cultural enemy”, an “oppositional icon” that helped the new nation build its own identity. This rhetorical use of Islam against internal and external enemies seems to have responded to an American need for creating a new nation’s self-consciousness. Marr called this internalization of Islam “domestic Orientalism” and its external projection “imperialism of virtue”.

References

  • Reference List
  • Allison, Robert J. 1995. The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim
  • World 1776-1815. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Austin, Allan D. 1986. African Muslims in Antebellum America: A Source Book.
  • New York and London: Gerald Publishing, Inc.
  • Baepler, Paul. 1999. White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American
  • Barbary Captivity Narratives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Cantor, Milton. “A Connecticut Yankee in a Barbary Court: Joel Barlow's Algerian
  • Letters to His Wife,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 19, No. 1
  • (Jan., 1962), pp. 86-109
  • Fisher, Godfrey. 1957. Barbary Legend: War, Trade and Piracy in North Africa,
  • -1830. Oxford: Clarendon Press
  • Friedman, Ellen. “The Exercise of Religion by Spanish Captives in North Africa”,
  • Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 6, No. 1 (Apr., 1975), p. 21
  • Hammurabi's Code of Laws, Translated by L. W. King, Retrieved May 5, 2007 from:
  • http://eawc.evansville.edu/anthology/hammurabi.htm
  • Jefferson. Thomas, Autobiography (the Avalon Project at Yale Law School), retrieved
  • April 15, 2007 from: http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/jeffauto.htm.
  • Jefferson, Thomas. Eighth Annual Message to Congress. November 8, 1808 http://
  • www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/sou/jeffmes8.htm. (The Avalon Project)
  • Retrieved April 11, 2007
  • Kidd, Thomas S. “Is It Worse to Follow Mahomet than the Devil?: Early American
  • Uses of Islam”, Church History. 72, no. 4, (2003) p.766-790
  • Markoe, Peter. 1787. The Algerian Spy in Pennsylvania or Letters written by a Native
  • of Algiers on the Affairs of the United States in America from the Close of the Year
  • to the Meeting of the Convention. Philadelphia: Richard and Hall
  • Marr, Timothy. 2006. The Cultural Roots of American Islamicism. Cambridge:
  • Cambridge University Press.
  • Matar, Nabil. 2002. In the Lands of the Christians: Arab Travel Writing in the 17th
  • Century. New York. Routledge
  • McAlister, Melani. 2001. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the
  • Middle East, 1945-2000. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • McAlister, Melani, “Saving Private Lynch”, New York Times, April 6, 2003
  • Myles, Anne G. “Slaves in Algiers, Captives in Iraq: The strange career of the
  • Barbary captivity narrative”, from: http://www.common-place.org/vol-05/no-01/
  • myles/index.shtml. vol. 5 · no. 1 · October 2004, retrieved May 5, 2007
  • Norton, Marry B. 1980. Liberty's Daughters: the Revolutionary Experience of
  • American Women, 1750-1800. United States: Harper Collins Publishers.
  • Parker, Richard B. 2004. Uncle Sam in Barbary: A Diplomatic History. Gainesville:
  • University Press of Florida.
  • Radosh, Ronald. “American foreign policy at home in the Middle East”. The Weekly
  • Standard, 02/05/2007, Volume 012, Issue 20
  • Rowson, Susanna H. 1794. Slaves in Algiers; or, a struggle for freedom: a play,
  • interspersed with songs, in three acts. Philadelphia: Wrigley and Berriman, prtrs.,
  • Said, Edward W. 1979. Orientalism, New York: Vantage.
  • Shaler, William. 1826. Sketches of Algiers, Political, Historical, and Civil; Containing
  • an Account of the Geography, Population, Government, Revenues, Commerce,
  • Agriculture, Arts, Civil Institutions, Tribes, Manners, Languages, and Recent Political
  • History of that Country. Boston: Cummings, Hilliard and Company.
  • Shaler, William. On the Language, Manners, and Customs of the Berbers, or
  • Berbers, of Africa. Communicated by William Shaler, Consul of the United States
  • at Algiers, in a Series of Letters to Peter S. Du Ponceau, and by the Latter to the
  • Society Transactions of the American Philosophical Society New Ser., Vol. 2 (1825),
  • pp. 438-465
  • Treaty of Peace and Amity, Signed at Algiers September 5, 1795, Article 16 (the
  • Avalon Project) http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/barbary/bar1795t.
  • htm. re112trieved April 12, 2007.
  • Wheelan, Joseph. 2003. Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror. Carroll &
  • Graf Publishers.
  • Washington, George. Eighth Annual Message of George Washington United States,
  • http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/sou/washs08.htm December 7, 1796
  • (The Avalon Project)
  • Washington, George. Seventh Annual Message of George Washington United States,
  • http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/sou/washs07.htm (The Avalon Project)
  • December 8, 1795
There are 65 citations in total.

Details

Primary Language Turkish
Journal Section Articles
Authors

M. El-moctar El-shınqıtı This is me

Publication Date November 29, 2013
Published in Issue Year 2013 Volume: 3 Issue: 1

Cite

APA El-shınqıtı, M. E.-m. (2013). Early American Perceptions of Muslims. Birey Ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, 3(1), 7-34.
AMA El-shınqıtı MEm. Early American Perceptions of Muslims. Birey ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi. November 2013;3(1):7-34.
Chicago El-shınqıtı, M. El-moctar. “Early American Perceptions of Muslims”. Birey Ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 3, no. 1 (November 2013): 7-34.
EndNote El-shınqıtı ME-m (November 1, 2013) Early American Perceptions of Muslims. Birey ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 3 1 7–34.
IEEE M. E.-m. El-shınqıtı, “Early American Perceptions of Muslims”, Birey ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 7–34, 2013.
ISNAD El-shınqıtı, M. El-moctar. “Early American Perceptions of Muslims”. Birey ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi 3/1 (November 2013), 7-34.
JAMA El-shınqıtı ME-m. Early American Perceptions of Muslims. Birey ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi. 2013;3:7–34.
MLA El-shınqıtı, M. El-moctar. “Early American Perceptions of Muslims”. Birey Ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi, vol. 3, no. 1, 2013, pp. 7-34.
Vancouver El-shınqıtı ME-m. Early American Perceptions of Muslims. Birey ve Toplum Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi. 2013;3(1):7-34.

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