Poor Luis de Torres. In 1492 the Arabic-speaker sailed across the Atlantic with Columbus, who thought he would need a translator when he landed somewhere on mainland Asia. Obviously, things didn't work out as planned, and de Torres found himself trying in vain to communicate with Cuban islanders in a language they didn't understand.
De Torres' is only one of the many fascinating stories on display in "Islamic Encounters: America, Europe and the Middle East before 1835," an exhibit of rare books at the John Carter Brown Library organized by Dennis Landis, curator of European books. It is on view in the library's reading room through February.
With a chronological scope that ranges broadly from the late 15th century to the early 19th, "Islamic Encounters" documents the history of interactions between the Islamic world and the West in all their complexity. The diversity of materials on display is the exhibition's greatest strength, even if the curatorial logic behind all of it isn't necessarily apparent.
De Torres' story can be found in the exhibit's first section, "Spain and the Expulsions of 1492," where it is paired with a 1594 print depicting Columbus' landing. The larger theme here, though, is the waning influence of Muslim culture on the Iberian Peninsula. According to the exhibition notes, which are exhaustive and illuminating throughout, between the years 1492 - when the Spanish monarchy wrested control of Granada from Muslim rule - and 1610, 3 million Muslims emigrated from or fled Spain. A beautifully sensitive 1741 print on display here shows the Moorish architecture left behind by the disappearing society, capturing both the grandeur and detailed ornamentation of several Seville landmarks.
Another crucial component of this history is, of course, the Inquisition, the antithesis to the relative religious tolerance that reigned in Muslim Granada. The exhibition includes the Spanish perspective, as well as an emotionally charged 1569 propaganda print from Protestant England that depicts some of the nastiest Spanish torture techniques used on the Inquisition's victims, such as "basting and broyling their feete."
From here, "Islamic Encounters" moves to documents reflecting the experience of European travelers in the Islamic world. While most of these explorers and adventurers may be unfamiliar to us - anyone read Ludovico di Varthema's travelogue "Itinerario" recently? - the one well-known figure here is a man who claimed he was captured in battle by Tartars and held in slavery. This Englishman, named John Smith, managed to escape only after he bludgeoned his master to death, as he recounts in the copy of his memoirs on display here. The memoir does not, however, include the episode in which this same John Smith helped found the colony at Jamestown, Virginia, or the two times Pocahontas allegedly saved his life.
"Islamic Encounters" also features materials on the changing shape of Europe as the Ottoman Empire expanded and declined, as well as a particularly interesting section on the knowledge shared between Europe and the Islamic world, whose scientific and technological achievements far surpassed those of the West for many centuries. Europe was, however, able to give the Muslim world the art of printing, and stunning Turkish books and maps show that the transfer of knowledge went both ways.
Also on display, in a section titled "Literary Vignettes," are numerous captivity narratives from the 18th and 19th centuries. Writers could obviously hope to profit from books, like Smith's, that traded in the perceived exoticism of Muslim lands. Shoehorned into this section is a 1623 First Folio edition of the complete works of Shakespeare, ostensibly included because it contains the play "Othello." The addition is a little arbitrary, but it seems petty to complain. If the John Carter Brown Library has a Shakespeare First Folio, why shouldn't they show it off?
The exhibit ends with documents related to piracy and sea battles, featuring several prints of Barbary Coast conflicts. But the most striking item here is unillustrated - a copy of the 1797 treaty between the U.S. and the Muslim government of Tripoli. Article XI of the treaty, grounded in the principle that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion," states that religious differences between the two countries would never be used as a pretext for war.
Even if the treaty itself ultimately failed to prevent the U.S. and Tripoli from declaring war on one another four years later over a piracy controversy, the actual document serves as a fascinating piece of U.S. political and cultural history and as a controversial text in the ongoing debate over the place of religion in civic life. As an exhibit, "Islamic Encounters" ranges widely, hitting on many intriguing, unexpected stories as it tackles an enormous and complicated subject.
