God's Shadow

by Alan Mikhail

  344 attack the city of Bougie for a second time: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 63.

  344 the head of the Tha‘āliba tribe: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 63.

  344 dispute erupted over who should rule the city: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 63; Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. “Khayr al-Dīn (Khiḍir) Pasha” (Galotta).

  345 Selim’s grand colonial ambitions were revealed: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 65–66.

  345 Ferdinand died: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 43–44.

  345 He had defied her final directive: Downey, Isabella, 407–08.

  345 broke a deathbed promise . . . Germaine of Foix: Downey, Isabella, 405, 431.

  346 appointed governor of Algeria . . . and also governor-general: Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. “Khayr al-Dīn (Khiḍir) Pasha” (Galotta).

  346 Oruç would die in 1518: Encyclopaedia of Islam, s.v. “Khayr al-Dīn (Khiḍir) Pasha” (Galotta).

  347 technique for attaching sails to wheeled cannons: “Chapters of Turkish History: Barbarossa of Algiers,” Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine 52 (1842): 192.

  347 explained how Morocco differed . . . and why it would prove enormously difficult to conquer: On Hayreddin’s experiences in Morocco, see Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 65–66.

  347 a series of dynasties . . . had successfully resisted Spanish, Portuguese, and Mamluk penetration: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 50–58.

  348 boosted . . . Ahmad al-A‘raj’s confidence: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 51, 55. Al-A‘raj means “the Lame,” a moniker he received because of a problem with one of his legs.

  348 mocking them as a bunch of fishermen: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 55.

  348 he planned first to secure the interior: On Selim’s plan to invade Morocco, see Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 55–69.

  349 tocsins rang out across Spain: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 64–66.

  349 Hernán Cortés himself eventually returned from Mexico: Hess, Forgotten Frontier, 74.

  349 fleet left Spain for its North African holdings: Sanudo, Diarii, 26:54–55, 93.

  350 turned enemies into allies: For references to some of the numerous requests from North Africa to Spain and France for military support against the Ottomans, see Sanudo, Diarii, 24:683; 26:371.

  350 Selim had ordered sixty thousand Ottoman troops: Sanudo, Diarii, 26:419, 424.

  350 an impressive fleet in the Aegean: Sanudo, Diarii, 27:177–78, 217.

  350 secured the island of Djerba: Sanudo, Diarii, 27:453.

  350 collect troops on the volcanic island of Ischia: Sanudo, Diarii, 28:171.

  351 asking the Venetian bailo in Istanbul: Sanudo, Diarii, 28:310.

  351 settled on eighty thousand as the appropriate number of troops: Sanudo, Diarii, 28:380–81.

  351 Ottoman and Spanish ambassadors traveled back and forth: Sanudo, Diarii, 27:141, 186.

  351 guarantees of safe passage for Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem: Sanudo, Diarii, 27:280.

  352 a new mappamundi: Sanudo, Diarii, 28:630. The dragoman Ali Bey is also mentioned in E. Natalie Rothman, Brokering Empire: Trans-Imperial Subjects between Venice and Istanbul (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2012), 168–69.

  353 “As the Ottomans were engaged”: Hamdani, “Ottoman Response,” 329.

  CHAPTER 23: ETERNITY

  356 “like the prick of a thorn”: Fatih Akçe, Sultan Selim I: The Conqueror of the East (Clifton, NJ: Blue Dome Press, 2016), 241.

  356 a pimple with a whitened tip: For suggestions about what Selim’s ailment might have been, see H. Erdem Çıpa, The Making of Selim: Succession, Legitimacy, and Memory in the Early Modern Ottoman World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017), 257, n. 1.

  356 instructed a bath attendant to pop the pustule: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 241.

  356–357 rumors started to swirl: Marino Sanudo, I Diarii di Marino Sanuto (MCCCCXCVI-MDXXXIII) Dall’autografo Marciano Ital. Cl. VII Codd. CDXIX-CDLXXVII, ed. Rinaldo Fulin, Federico Stefani, Nicolò Barozzi, Guglielmo Berchet, Marco Allegri, and la R. Deputazione Veneta di Storia Patria, 59 vols. (Venice: F.Visentini, 1879–1903), 26:109, 231, 262–64; 27:149.

  357 his eyes began to yellow: Sanudo, Diarii, 26:109.

  357 speculated that the boil was in fact a plague bubo: For references to the presence of plague in Istanbul in these months, see Sanudo, Diarii, 26:134; 28:232; Nükhet Varlık, Plague and Empire in the Early Modern Mediterranean World: The Ottoman Experience, 1347–1600 (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 164–65.

  357 wheeled on a cart: For Selim’s final illness and death, see Akçe, Sultan Selim, 242–45.

  358 cause of death: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 243; Varlık, Plague and Empire, 164–65; Çıpa, Making of Selim, 1; 257, n. 1.

  358 dispatched a single messenger to Manisa: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 244–45.

  359 to cover his naked penis: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 245.

  359 “tall and slender but tough”: Quoted in Alan Fisher, “The Life and Family of Süleymân I,” in Süleymân the Second and His Time, ed. Halil İnalcık and Cemal Kafadar (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1993), 2.

  359 declaring their allegiance to Suleyman as their sovereign: Leslie Peirce, Empress of the East: How a European Slave Girl Became Queen of the Ottoman Empire (New York: Basic Books, 2017), 67.

  360 rejoiced at the prospect that an inexperienced military strategist was now the Ottoman sultan: Peirce, Empress of the East, 66.

  360 “a furious lion”: Quoted in Natalie Zemon Davis, Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 74.

  361 seizure of the Ottoman crown an illegitimate act: Çıpa, Making of Selim, 1–2.

  361 threw themselves on the ground in sorrow: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 245.

  361 “the army flowed”: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 245.

  361 assembled at the city’s Edirne gate: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 246; Peirce, Empress of the East, 67.

  361 helped to carry the bier: Akçe, Sultan Selim, 246.

  361 commissioned a mosque complex for his father: Peirce, Empress of the East, 67. For a description and images of the complex, see “Sultan Selim Külliyesi,” Archnet, https://archnet.org/sites/2027 (accessed February 16, 2019).

  362 Hafsa died: All quotes in this paragraph are from Peirce, Empress of the East, 113.

  363 one of the reasons historians have devoted so much attention to Suleyman: Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923 (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 115–16.

  364 “friendly . . . good judgement”: Quoted in Peirce, Empress of the East, 68.

  364 “He reflects constantly”: Quoted in Peirce, Empress of the East, 68.

  364 “shed more blood”: Quoted in Davis, Trickster Travels, 74.

  365 “Some Ottoman pundits”: Peirce, Empress of the East, 67.

  CHAPTER 24: SELIM’S REFORMATIONS

  370 used religion to advance their political and ideological legitimacy: Tijana Krstić, Contested Conversions to Islam: Narratives of Religious Change in the Early Modern Ottoman Empire (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).

  370 who had almost become a lawyer: Carlos M. N. Eire, Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450–1650 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 133–34.

  371 the evils of the pope always exceeded the evils of the sultan: Egil Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” The Muslim World 64 (1974): 285.

  371 wrote reams about the Ottomans: C. Umhau Wolf, “Luther and Mohammedanism,” The Moslem World 31 (1941): 161–62.

  371 contemplated sponsoring the first German translation of the Qur’an: Wolf, “Luther and Mohammedanism,” 167–68; David D. Grafton, “Martin Luther’s Sources on the Turk and Islam in the Midst of the Fear of Ottoman Imperialism,” The Muslim World 107 (2017): 680. He never carried out the translation.

  371 “the ‘terrible Turk’ ”: Grafton, “Martin Luther’s Sources,” 665.

  371 Leo X called for a new Crusade: Chiara Palazzo, “The Venetian News Network in the Early Sixteenth Centur
y: The Battle of Chaldiran,” in News Networks in Early Modern Europe, ed. Joad Raymond and Noah Moxham (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 849–69.

  371 a small war in Belgrade in 1456: Caroline Finkel, Osman’s Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire, 1300–1923 (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 59.

  372 “The humanists wrote”: James Hankins, “Renaissance Crusaders: Humanist Crusade Literature in the Age of Mehmed II,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 49 (1995): 112.

  372 Vatican spies reported: Natalie Zemon Davis, Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-Century Muslim Between Worlds (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006), 61.

  372 several reports claimed that twenty-seven Ottoman ships had arrived: Kenneth M. Setton, “Pope Leo X and the Turkish Peril,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 113 (1969): 392.

  372 Leo interpreted lightning storms over Rome: Davis, Trickster Travels, 60.

  372 another forty Ottoman ships (almost certainly misidentified): Setton, “Pope Leo and the Turkish Peril,” 397.

  372 In early 1518, Pope Leo . . . wrote again: Finkel, Osman’s Dream, 112–13.

  373 seeking a five-year truce: Davis, Trickster Travels, 60.

  373 “While we waste time”: Quoted in Setton, “Pope Leo and the Turkish Peril,” 410.

  373 “the diabolic Mohammedan rage”: Quoted in Davis, Trickster Travels, 60.

  373 “Instead of fearing the Turks”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 284.

  375 “an undistinguished Dominican”: Eire, Reformations, 146. On Tetzel, see 146–53.

  375 “as soon as the coin”: Quoted in Eire, Reformations, 149.

  375 The idea of indulgences arose in the twelfth century: Ane L. Bysted, The Crusade Indulgence: Spiritual Rewards and the Theology of the Crusades, c. 1095–1216 (Leiden: Brill, 2015).

  376 distributed widely across Germany: Eire, Reformations, 150.

  376 never posted on the door of the church of Wittenberg: Eire, Reformations, 149–50.

  376 focus on warfare betrayed an obsession with flesh: Egil Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part I,” The Muslim World 64 (1974): 186.

  376 The Church had often waged Crusades: Martin Luther, “On War against the Turk,” trans. Charles M. Jacobs, in Luther: Selected Political Writings, ed. J. M. Porter (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1974), 123.

  377 “The ‘big wheels’ of the church”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part I,” 181.

  377 “punished pious people by evil men”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part I,” 184.

  377 “best helpers”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part I,” 185.

  377 “Since the devil is a spirit”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part I,” 185.

  378 “In the East rules the Beast”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 275.

  378 “After the Turks”: Quoted in Wolf, “Luther and Mohammedanism,” 163.

  378 “The Turk is the ‘black devil’ ”: Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 275.

  378 “The pope kills the soul”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 276.

  378 “due to his lust”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 279.

  378 “The coarse and filthy Muḥammad”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 276.

  379 “as faithfully and diligently”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 278.

  380 “If the married women”: Quoted in Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 278.

  380 Luther developed a much more nuanced view of Muslims: Wolf, “Luther and Mohammedanism,” 161–77.

  380 “They reject all images”: Quoted in Wolf, “Luther and Mohammedanism,” 168.

  380 Luther saw a further formal similarity: Wolf, “Luther and Mohammedanism,” 163–64.

  381 Luther saw much to admire in Islam: Grislis, “Luther and the Turks, Part II,” 282–83.

  383 recent and older assertions: Exemplary of this genre is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Heretic: Why Islam Needs a Reformation Now (New York: HarperCollins, 2015).

  CHAPTER 25: AMERICAN SELIM

  386 not a word about the Americas in his memoirs: Vanita Seth, Europe’s Indians: Producing Racial Difference, 1500–1900 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010), 38.

  387 four times more works about the Muslim world: Seth, Europe’s Indians, 38.

  387 Mayflower, had begun its seafaring life trading with Muslims: Nabil Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen in the Age of Discovery (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 98.

  387 John Smith: Karen Ordahl Kupperman, The Jamestown Project (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 51–60.

  387 “the three Turkes heads,” “Cape Tragabigzanda”: Quoted in Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 97. On Tragabigzanda, see also Kupperman, Jamestown Project, 57.

  387 “The lamentable noise”: Quoted in Karine V. Walther, Sacred Interests: The United States and the Islamic World, 1821–1921 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015), 11.

  387 coat of arms proudly displayed in the bottom right corner: Kupperman, Jamestown Project, 55–57.

  387–388 William Strachey . . . George Sandys: Kupperman, Jamestown Project, 64–71; Jill Lepore, These Truths: A History of the United States (New York: W. W. Norton, 2018), 36.

  388 Native American dancing somehow had roots in Old World Muslim dances: Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 101.

  388 “the fashion of the Turkes”: Quoted in Kupperman, Jamestown Project, 132.

  388 “If any great commander”: Quoted in Kupperman, Jamestown Project, 132.

  388 “If it should please God”: Quoted in Kupperman, Jamestown Project, 14. See also Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 93–94.

  389 when juxtaposed with their ongoing skirmishes: Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 83–107.

  389 Barbary pirates: On Barbary pirates and early America, see Paul Baepler, “The Barbary Captivity Narrative in Early America,” Early American Literature 30 (1995): 95–120; Paul Baepler, “The Barbary Captivity Narrative in American Culture,” Early American Literature 39 (2004): 217–46.

  389 North Africa remained the primary locale of England’s overseas operations: Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 43–82.

  389 more enslaved Englishmen in North Africa than free ones in North America: Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 92, 96.

  389 “Conquerors in Virginia”: Matar, Turks, Moors and Englishmen, 15–16.

  389 “God hath given up”: Quoted in Walther, Sacred Interests, 14.

  389 no qualms about . . . the American and English enslavement of African Muslims and non-Muslims: Walther, Sacred Interests, 12.

  390 Muslims might have constituted up to a tenth: Michael A. Gomez, “Muslims in Early America,” Journal of Southern History 60 (1994): 682.

  390 the question of whether or not a Muslim could be president of the United States: Denise A. Spellberg, “Could a Muslim Be President? An Eighteenth-Century Constitutional Debate,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 39 (2006): 485–506.

  390 “eternal enemy without”: Spellberg, “Could a Muslim Be President?,” 485–86.

  390 a theoretical, though reluctant, yes: Spellberg, “Could a Muslim Be President?,” 487.

  391 Lincoln and his wife, Mary Todd, discussed a trip: All quotes in this paragraph are from Hilton Obenzinger, American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 161.

  391 “dusky men . . . whole tribe”: Quoted in Obenzinger, American Palestine, 190.

  391 “These people about us”: Quoted in Obenzinger, American Palestine, 194.

  392 “Three Indian mounds”: Quoted in Obenzinger, American Palestine, 97.

  392 “Well do ye come”: Quoted in Obenzinger, American Palestine, 109.

  392 Washington Irving: Zubeda Jalalzai, ed., Washington Irving and Islam: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2018).

  392 “Catholic
Arabs?”: Quoted in Obenzinger, American Palestine, 109.

  392 “was a person . . . before”: Quoted in Obenzinger, American Palestine, 258.

  393 projected these stereotypes on screen: Jack G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009).

  393 The Beatnik writers: Brian T. Edwards, Morocco Bound: Disorienting America’s Maghreb, from Casablanca to the Marrakech Express (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2005).

  394 white nationalists . . . have accounted for more terrorist attacks: Janet Reitman, “U.S. Law Enforcement Failed to See the Threat of White Nationalism. Now They Don’t Know How to Stop It,” New York Times Magazine, November 3, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/03/magazine/FBI-charlottesville-white-nationalism-far-right.html (accessed February 17, 2019).

  394 regular targets of both discriminatory legislation and hate crime: Tanvi Misra, “United States of Anti-Muslim Hate,” CityLab, March 9, 2018, https://www.citylab.com/equity/2018/03/anti-muslim-hate-crime-map/555134/ (accessed February 17, 2019).

  394 forty-three states introduced 201 bills: Swathi Shanmugasundaram, “Anti-Sharia Law Bills in the United States,” Southern Poverty Law Center: Hatewatch, February 5, 2018, https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/02/05/anti-sharia-law-bills-united-states (accessed February 17, 2019); Michael Broyde, “Sharia in America,” Washington Post, June 30, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2017/06/30/sharia-in-america/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.e076f3b95241 (accessed February 17, 2019).

  395 “I would not advocate”: Quoted in Nick Gass, “Ben Carson: America’s President Can’t be Muslim,” Politico, September 20, 2015, https://www.politico.com/story/2015/09/ben-carson-muslim-president-213851 (accessed February 17, 2019).

  395 President Donald Trump tweeted an endorsement: Aaron Rupar, “Trump’s Unfounded Tweet Stoking Fears about Muslim ‘Prayer Rugs,’ Explained,” Vox, January 18, 2019, https://www.vox.com/2019/1/18/18188476/trump-muslim-prayer-rugs-tweet-border (accessed February 17, 2019).