The Sultan and the Queen by Jerry Bolton

 The Sultan and the Queen by Jerry Bolton

England’s forgotten dalliance with Islam

Have you read Shakespeare’s plays? And if you have, have you wondered at the number of plays which include a character dark of skin, shady of origin, duplicitous in character, and described as a ‘moor’? The quaint word referred to a person of Turkish or Moroccan origin, and in later years was used to describe any North African, and within the Indian context any person of the Muslim faith. Why did plays written in Elizabethan England, meant for an English audience contain a Moorish character- often in a minor but pivotal role?

Elizabethan England was divided by the violent fissures between its minority Catholic, and majority Protestant populations (see Faith and Treason by Antonia Fraser). Even as Elizabeth put down the Catholics, and in particular the Jesuits with vengeance, the Pope excommunicated her. The catholic countries of Europe not only waged war against England, but more effectively brought all trade with England to a halt- in what in contemporary parlance would pass for an economic blockade. With no choice left, England, in those days a small ‘oriental’ island, was forced to send embassies to the Ottoman Sultan (Suleyman the Magnificent, and later Murad III), and the King of Morocco. Elizabeth was particularly short of salt petre to manufacture gun powder, and this commodity was sourced from Morocco. Private trade always existed long before Elizabeth’s attempts to formalize it, and these trade relations brought Moors to England- as Ambassadors, traders, adventurers, and travelers. It is amusing to read how both Catholic Europe and Protestant England, wooed the Moors, while being at loggerheads with each other. So deeply were the co-religionists divided, that each party of this divide imagined a closer theological proximity towards Islam, than to each other. Protestants were impressed by the Islamic hatred for idolatory, while Catholics saw a lot in common between some of their Saints and Islamic heroes who had made similar conquests. All such theological contortions were simply a mechanism to justify trade relations. With typical British duplicity, England managed to cultivate trade interests with both Shia Persia and Sunni Ottomans, who were themselves on the opposite sides of a divide as deep as the one between Catholics and Protestants. As Brotton writes (page 71):

“There is a long, undistinguished history of states, whatever their religious or ideological beliefs, being economical with the truth when it comes to selling arms to apparent adversaries, and the Elizabethans were no different.”

Brotton’s observations about the illegitimate arms trade between Elizabethan England and Morocco can be generalized to trade in other goods as well. Is it any wonder then, that Elizabeth’s portraits show her sporting veils of diaphanous silk and oriental chintz, than English broadcloth? It is an entirely different matter that King James I who succeeded Elizabeth, by deft diplomacy reestablished England’s connections with Catholic Europe, while pushing trade further East towards India, thereby giving a quiet burial to England’s Moorish connections. Fans of popular history should thank Brotton for resurrecting the story of England’s forgotten dalliance with Islamic empires.      

Faith and Treason: The story of the gunpowder plot by Antonia Fraser

 Faith and Treason: The story of the gunpowder plot by Antonia Fraser

Catholic Church and the Flames of Separatism

For a person like this Reviewer, who is not a Christian, and lives in a numerically predominant Hindu society with a miniscule Christian population, the only perceptible difference between the Catholic and Protestant Christians is that priests of the former denomination are expected to remain celibates, while those of the latter marry and raise large families. It is generally assumed that this comprises the whole of the difference between the two denominations. What unites them however, is the relatively lavish upper middleclass lifestyle of the priests aided by influx of foreign Christian money. (This is in sharp contrast to the Hindu priests, who perennially totter on the edge of poverty.) That co-religionists who believe in the same holy book, and the same God, should so divide themselves for what appears a silly reason- that of the marital practices of the priests, had always been a matter of wonder for this Reviewer.

Theological differences apart, it is the temporal manifestation of the two denominations that raises questions of nationalism, patriotism, loyalty (or its mirror image, sedition), terrorism and regicide. The predilection faced by King James I of England as he ascended the throne after the long (despotic) rule of Queen Elizabeth I, is not much different from that facing the democratically elected liberal Western European nations today in respect of their immigrant minorities. This book relating the events of sixteenth century, is remarkably relevant today.

The practice of the Catholic faith has many difficulties:

1. The Catholics pledge their loyalty to the Pope in distant Rome, and not to their sovereign. When asked to take the ‘pledge of supremacy’ (or later, the so called ‘Bloody Question’) to acknowledge the primacy of the crown over the Pope, the Catholics prevaricate, evade the question, or take refuge in silence. Catholicism calls this the ‘principle of equivocation’.

2. The Catholics are prone to resort to anti-national activities, instigated by the Pope or any other foreign Catholic power (most notoriously, Spain), and thereby attempt to unseat the Protestant English monarch by propagating their creed overtly or covertly. In this effort they may even resort to violent activities, activities known to all Christians to be a sin, but Catholicism by resorting to the Confessional offers a route to the alleviation of such sin. Often the pardon afforded by the Confessional, is secured even before the act, so that the violent act is perpetrated with spiritual fervor, without fear or remorse.

3. The collateral damage or hurt caused to innocents in the course of a violent act is condoned by the principle of ‘double effect’, as the good intended to be propagated (that is, the spread of the Catholic faith) far outweighs the bad effects that are brought about in a closely linked or simultaneous manner (sounds like ‘collateral damage’ during the bombing of Afghanistan or the invasion of Iraq?).

4. Catholic literature both directly, and indirectly, provides for the removal of an ‘unjust’ Ruler. Regicide, that is ‘King killing’ or ‘Queen killing’, is sanctioned if it amounts to ‘Tyrranicide’.  

 Little wonder then that Queen Elizabeth I put down the Catholics ruthlessly (hanging, drawing and quartering being the preferred protocol). The tendency of Catholics to ‘equivocate’ was seen by the Protestant sovereign as being unpatriotic, and loyalty to a transnational power such as the Pope was seen as sedition. Not an entirely unjustified stand, as the Popes in those days could wage war, expiate sin against payment of money, and glorify genocide as that carried out against the Protestant minority in France (and elsewhere).

James a survivor of numerous conspiracies before he could ascend the throne of England, was wary of all such activities and held out the promise of enhanced religious freedom to the Catholics supposedly to stop them from conspiring to overthrow him. His feelings are best expressed in his own words:

“I will never allow in my conscience that the blood of any man shall be shed for diversity of opinions in religion, but I should be sorry that catholics should so multiply as they might be able to practise their old principles on us.”

Fraser describes the predilection facing the King:

“The King indicated that catholics might be tolerated, just so long as their numbers did not increase. But catholic toleration almost certainly would bring about an increase in numbers. The religious climate would be balmier and the Church Papists would venture forth again under their true colours.”

This Reviewer would not be surprised if the President of France, in the face of race riots spreading across his country shares the same thoughts, in respect of his immigrant Muslim population, who in many ways today, share the characteristics of Catholics of sixteenth century England. The role of the Church in fomenting separatist unrest in the North Eastern States of India has been the worst kept secret in India that every Indian politician acknowledges in private, and denies in public. Fraser’s book inadvertently sheds light on the theological foundations that impels the Church to foment this separatist unrest.

Mr and Mrs Jinnah, The Marriage that Shook India by Sheela Reddy

 

Mr and Mrs Jinnah, The Marriage that Shook India by Sheela Reddy

A Marriage Made in Hell?

India is even today, a poor country with a per capita income which falls in the lower half among the comity of nations. In the first decades of the last century, it was not only poorer, but was also ravaged by the inequities of colonial rule, disease (remember the 1918 flu pandemic), religious tensions, the fall out of the first world war, not to speak of the political unrest arising out of an increasingly belligerent freedom struggle. Even in such times, a small fraction of the population, rich Parsis among them, lived a life of fabulous wealth, owning luxurious properties in London and the French Riviera, travelling the world often with their pets, pet attendants, nurses and ayahs, and living both within India and outside in famous, expensive hotels.

Ruttie Petit (later Jinnah) belonged to such a family. The Petits owned several textile mills. M. A. Jinnah, the son of a bankrupt small time business man, rose to fabulous wealth, as a ‘Rolls Royce lawyer’ (his words) by combining his knowledge of law, with the timing of an actor (Gandhi, Rajmohan in Understanding the Muslim Mind) in the Bombay High Court. These were altogether different times when girls matured early, and could write letters about unrequited love when barely into their teens. Under such circumstances, it was not unnatural, though it was unusual, for a nearly forty year old Jinnah to fall in love with 14 year old Ruttie Petit. That he was a Muslim, and Ruttie a Parsi complicated life, and their marriage led to Ruttie’s excommunication from Parsi society.

This book, a conjoined biography of M.A. and Ruttie Jinnah provides the intimate details of their life together. The author has accessed a goldmine of correspondence carried on by Sarojini Naidu with her children (mainly her daughters, Padmaja and Leilamani), and Ruttie. There is enough in this book to give us a glimpse into the life of Sarojini. We have heard of Sarojini as the poet, the ‘nightingale of India’, though the naturalist M. Krishnan has a dim view of her poems (Guha, Ramachandra Ed., Nature’s Spokesman M. Krishnan and Indian Wildlife). What this book reveals is the wealthy life Sarojini led, living permanently at the Taj in Bombay on a monthly rent basis, entertaining lavishly, travelling world over (and within India) first class, and all this with funds provided by her husband, who we are told ran ‘a household of modest means’ (page 286). This ‘modest household’ could fund the expense of one daughter’s education at Oxford, one son and one daughter’s addiction to drinks, and another son’s medical education in Berlin, where he checks himself into a sanatorium to undergo therapy at a ‘nerve clinic’! It was in such company in both India and Paris, that Ruttie, ignored by her ageing, grim, and humourless husband, alienated from her family, ‘found her feet among the idle rich set’ with ‘funds Jinnah uncomplainingly provided’ (author’s words).

However, to be fair to Ruttie, what were her options in life? She is portrayed as an intelligent, politically aware girl, who read voraciously, wrote well and aspired to be a published poet. But these were not times for a woman of intelligence- as most professions were barred for women, if not legally, at least culturally. She could have chosen to marry a rich conservative Parsi, and lived an idle life of partying, shopping, holidaying, and socializing, spending her husband’s money (like her mother, Lady petit did) with no connect to the outside world, which was in constant churn. Alternatively, she could marry Jinnah, and be close to the very man who was causing the churn. She chose the latter option. But alienation in her marriage set in soon enough, as Jinnah turned increasingly to Muslim politics, and his conservative followers, bearded Mullahs among them, would yield no place for a woman in their midst, specially one who dressed in transparent diaphanous sarees with sleeveless blouses to top it all. This drove her to a ‘deracinated’ life of partying, shopping, holidaying, and socializing, spending her husband’s money with no connect to the outside world. She really had no choice like the poet in O. Henry’s “Roads of Destiny”. Therein lay her tragedy. Ultimately she takes her own life, although her death is not recorded as such.

There is one question about Jinnah that has occupied the mindspace of this Reviewer. How much was he influenced by Nazi politics? His call for a ‘homeland for Muslims’ resonates so closely to the Nazi call for ‘lebensraum’ (literally living space) for Germans, which meant the expulsion of Jews, Gypsies, and the Slavic people from what Nazis considered their homeland. What the Nazis achieved partially before their obliteration, Jinnah (and his political progeny) achieved fully when they drove out Hindus and Sikhs from what they considered their Holy land (today’s pariah, Pakistan). However this question is perhaps beyond the scope of the present book which concludes with Ruttie’s death in 1928.

In short, this is an interesting book.

There is an interesting tidbit in this book about Motilal's daughter (later Vijayalakshmi Pandit). This young lady supposedly fell in love with a young Muslim journalist. Motilal the doyen of modernism in his heyday, panicked, and immediately sent his daughter to Mohandas' (later Mahatma Gandhi) ashram, and latter, the greatest proponent, of Hindu-Muslim unity was horrified at the prospect of such a union and advised the young lady to treat her paramour as a brother and practice celibacy (preferably for the rest of her life). Fortunately for the young lady, she was only amused about the bizarre goings-on in the Ashram. However the combined might of Motilal and the future Mahatma made her give up her first love and she later married a Maharashtrian brahmin, by whose surname we now know her. The contemporary proponents of the theory of love-jihad will be happy to know that they have such eminent forbearers.