"Royall Tyler’s Thee Algerine Captive and the Barbary Orient”

Abstract

The first problem is constant quotations of distorted Islamic image portrayals,
and a one and a half page dialogue without evaluation. If the dialogue
does anything, it increases hostility between Muslim and non-Muslim without
providing a critical Islamic evaluation. Options are: examination of sources,
Orientalist roots, Tyler’s erroneous characterization, all with enhancement
of Islamic values, correcting the thought process. One option the paper misses
is captivity due to piracy- a Western coinage invented to cover up the West’s
illegitimate attack of Muslim shores. Historically, the Muslims were on the
defensive from the previous century, when Spain and Portugal raided their
shores and persecuted Moriscos, Moroccans, and Islamic North Africa.
America joined later, assuming the Muslims’ guilt. That captivity brings out
an awareness of the despotic American slavery system is not the sole value
of Underhill’s experience. That he continues forming erroneous judgements
based on racial biases is more important. The entire experience provides a
stroke of Islamic irony. While a Christian fails to judge Islam, Islam’s system
of equality in the eyes of God renders Underhill’s awareness stale, captivity
a legend, and blindness of war purpose ignorance. Of course the issue could
be discussed in more profundity and length. If the Islamic perspective is not
brought out, then, the casual non-Muslim reader may read the paper as an
adventure of a romantic nationalist when war was a romantic enterprise. In
this way, the Islamic thesis is lost. There has to be a definite awareness of
the historical context of such Orientalist writings. This issue is extremely crucial
for Muslim scholars and sheds light on the purpose of Orientalist works with
a political goal. We will not go so far as researching who has created racism,
or who has created slavery in the American system, which are equally valid
points for this paper, but we should see the historical milieu of this work.
Placement in context helps Muslims understand academic endeavors at
misrepresenting Islam at this point in history.
The author’s paper entitled “In Search of the Orient: The Muslim East
on the Contemporary American Literary Scene,’’ published by the International
Institute of Islamic and Arabic Studies is of much hgher quality because
of covering new ground, although it does not mention an important work by
a Muslim scholar, Dr. Layla al-Farsy; “Washington Irving’s Mahomet: A Study
of the Sources.” ...