The portrayal of the East vs. the West in Lady Mary Montagu's Letters and Emily Ruete's Memoirs.

• Author: Rawi, Ahmed K. Al-

INTRODUCTION

AFTER THE PUBLICATION OF Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), a great deal of controversy emerged that basically dealt with the West's elitist outlook and misrepresentation of the East. Very few studies concentrated on the other trend that embodied positive ideas. Some Western writers actually glorified the East and even considered it superior to the West. Geoffery Nash's study, From Empire to Orient: Travellers to the Middle East 1830-1926 (2005) falls into such a category. The author argues that the picture is more complex than the one previously proposed by Said who has mainly based his arguments on the Western 'hostile corpus.' (1) Nash points to the Spirit of the East (1838), [written by the First Secretary at the British Embassy in Istanbul, David Urquhart (1805-1877)] as a pioneering work in this trend. Thus, for Nash, Urquhart stands as a 'discursive instability within Orientalism." There was also a woman who lived before Urquhart who could be considered, the pioneer in her views toward the East; namely Lady Mary Montagu (1689-1762). Many critics of Montagu focused on Montagu's presumed lesbianism or licentious description of the seraglio. However, Montagu made various insightful and important comparisons between the West and the East, whether in the manners of people and habits, or in issues like slavery and women's rights.

I would also like to point out some commonalities between Montagu's views and Emily Ruete's (1844-1924) Memoirs (1880s), which is the first known autobiography of an Arab woman. Ruete or Sayyda Salme, being an Arab Muslim princess living in Zanzibar, was the daughter of Sultan Said bin Sultan Al-Busaid of Oman (1791-1856). She stated her observations of Zanzibar and Oman between 1850 and 1865. The Arab princess, who later converted to Christianity to marry a German merchant, lived the rest of her life in Germany, criticized both the German and British societies.

Ruete knew English as she was hosted by an English family in Aden upon leaving Zanzibar. She also quoted two English writers in her book in relation to the issue of slavery and she herself visited England in the midnineteenth century to up with meet her brother, Sultan Barghash (1837-1888).

EAST/WEST INTERACTION

In order to understand the importance of Montagu and Ruete, one has to briefly examine the prevalent Western attitudes toward the East and Islam before the 18th century. After the fall of Constantinople at the hands of the Ottoman leader Mohammed II (1432-1481) in 1453, Islam was seen as a threat and its prophet an impostor. Christian Protestantism, for instance, considered the Pope and the Turk as the two arch-enemies of Christ and his Holy Church, and if the "Turk is the body of Anti Christ, the Pope is the head." (2) As a matter of fact, Islam as a religion was identified with the shortcomings of the Catholic Church (being the opposite image of pure Christianity). Martin Luther (1483-1546) believed that the one "who fights against the Turks ... should consider that he is fighting an enemy of God and a blasphemer of Christ, indeed, the devil himself." (3) But in reality, the Turks were used as touchstones in the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in the sense that each party used the atrocities of its opponent in comparison to the Turks. In some eases, the Turks were favoured to other Christian sects since the former practised more religious tolerance. In other cases, Islam was not seen as a revealed and separate religion but a deviation of Christian belief because both religions carded similar noble values and high ethical standards. For instance, Thomas Carlyle wrote in a letter sent to Ralph Waldo Emerson that Islam was a kind of "bastard Christianity." (4)

Generally speaking, the term 'Turk' was used pejoratively in Europe. It was well known to be attributed to any Muslim but it also took other meanings starting from the sixteenth century, including "a cruel, rigorous, or tyrannical man; any one behaving as a barbarian or savage; one who treats his wife hardly; a bad-tempered or unmanageable man." (5) Thus, Arabs, Muslims, and the 'Unspeakable Turk' all referred to a menace.

In the same respect, the East, specifically Turkey, was thought to be a despotic state that forced its citizens to follow irrational rigid rules in life stemming from the exotic teaching of Islam. As a matter of fact, the term 'despotic' was first linked to the East by a Venetian Ambassador, describing the Ottoman regime as 'the most immoderate ... absolute and despotic." (6)

On the other hand, a new European interest in the East was seen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in terms of commerce. The discovery of trade routes affected the relationship between the East and the West. Some Western commercial companies began to establish offices in the East, like the Muscovy Company (1555) and its Persian trade, or the Levant Company (1581) with its commerce in the Near East, and the East India Company (1600) and its trades in the Far East. Consequently, more channels of communication were opened "from the reports of commercial factors, travelling merchants, official envoys, and ambassadors." (7) Besides, the general attitude toward the Turks altered with the increasing weakness of the Ottoman Empire specifically after signing the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699, when the Ottomans retained the Hungarian Banat, which they lost only 19 years later. Instead of viewing Turkey as a serious threat, Europe took a more lenient view but without forgetting its religious biasness. As A. Secor claimed, there was a "shifting oriental discourse" at this stage based on the facts on the ground, since most European writers "increasingly focused on the Ottomans as an example of what England should not be or become." (8)

Within these times, very few writers made positive passing references to the Turks, Arabs, and Islam. In relation to Muslim piracy, Daniel Defoe (1660?-1731) is a useful example to cite especially in his elaboration on the subject of slavery. In The Farther Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1719), Crusoe was taken captive by the Moors but managed to escape with a small boy. Defoe mentioned that the treatment of the slaves by Muslims could be more merciful than that of the Portuguese, "[I] have been as much a Slave at the Brasils as I had been in Barbary, the meer being sold to a Mahometan excepted; and perhaps a Portuguese is not much a better Master than a Turk, if not in some Cases a much worse." (9) Other examples include Henry Fielding (1707-1754) who was Montagu's cousin and she herself was his patron. Fielding mentioned in Joseph Andrews (1742) that; "[A] virtuous and good Turk, or Heathen, are more acceptable in the sight of their Creator, than a vicious and wicked Christian, tho' his Faith was as perfectly Orthodox as St. Paul's himself." (10) Such a tolerable view could be attributed to Montagu's influence as one of the founders of the realistic English novel. In addition, James Boswell (1740-1795) referred in Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) to the need to discover another country unlike England in order to gain more experience. Boswell stated; "[I] should wish to go and see some country totally different from what I have been used to, such as Turkey, where religion and every thing else are different." Johnson's reply denoted a view that was not popular at the time since he equated the Christian and Muslim countries together, considering them worthy to live in unlike the rest of the world, "[Y]es, Sir;" Johnson responds, "there are two objects of curiosity, the Christian world, and the Mahometan world. All the rest may be considered as Barbarous." (11)

Amid these conflicting views, Lady Montagu was probably the best example of a writer who dealt with the East and Islam with more details and understanding. Montagu stayed in Turkey from 1716 to 1718 with her husband, Edward Montagu, being the British Ambassador in Constantinople. Her letters sent home were published without authorization in 1763. When she returned, Montagu introduced the inoculation of smallpox into England after observing it in Turkey. She, herself, was plagued with the disease, which partly marred her face. After being divorced from her husband in 1739, she spent the remaining part of her life touring the Continent. In 1803, her writings about English and Continental life and the 52 Turkish letters were complied in Works.

IGNORANCE EXPOSED

The letters of Lady Mary Montagu provided the reading public with a new account of the East. The few accounts by Western travelling merchants were generally biased and inaccurate in their descriptions. Montagu wanted to give an "objective" account, and referred in various letters that there were many fallacies in Europe with regard to Muslims. Jean Dumont, who travelled to Turkey in 1694, was mentioned by Montagu as a writer having "equal ignorance and confidence." In a letter addressed to the Lady, she says that:

Your whole letter is full of mistakes from one end to the other. I see you have taken your ideas of Turkey from that worthy author Dumont ... 'Tis a particular pleasure to me here, to read the voyages to the Levant, which are generally so far removed from truth, and so full of absurdities, I am very well diverted with them. They never fail giving you an account of the women, whom 'tis certain they never saw, and talking very wisely of the genius of the men, into whose company they are never admitted; and very often describe mosques, which they dare not peep into. The Turks are very proud, and will not converse with a stranger they are not assured is considerable in his own country. (12) (Bold added) Montagu clearly refers to the...