Explorations in George Eliot's Perception of Islam

In 1854 Eliot reviewed in The Leader Reverend N. Davis’ Evenings in My Tent and revealed, in the introduction, the mental picture of the Arab that she had constructed from her childhood readings over the years, and which was particularly fascinating and “magical”:

How little do we still know of Africa. In our childhood, its name exerted a mysterious power over our imaginations, dating from that terrible ‘African Magician’ of the Arabian Nights … In riper years, poetry and romance peopled this grand stage with fitting actors, — with the lofty, generous Arab, dwelling like a patriarch of old, in his goat-skin tent; scouring the sands on his matchless horse, yielding but to numbers, incapable of deceit or treachery. It must be owned that either the spell of the African magician still somewhat blinds our eyes, or these simple and noble sons of the Desert have degenerated strangely.

Modern travelers, she then tells us, draw a picture of the Arab that is totally different than that of her childhood and her “riper years”: “singularly cunning, rapacious, and cowardly, apparently incapable of truth, and sunk in abject superstition; in fact, as exhibiting all the vices of an oppressed race”. Although Eliot did not clearly decide whether the picture of the lofty, generous and noble Arab from her “riper years” should be updated in the light of fresh information by modern travelers, she nevertheless admitted that his vices were those of an oppressed race. She chooses, however, to say nothing about the real identity of the oppressor.

Ten years later, after this review, Eliot would re-encounter these two opposed portraits of the same Arab when she started writing her poem The Spanish Gypsy in 1864. This time, however, the dual mental picture she had constructed of him materialized somehow in the actual, real historical figures of two Muslim Moorish emirs, Boabdil and El Zagal, the former being the latter’s nephew and declared enemy who usurped his uncle’s throne and caused a bloody civil war during the last few years before the fall of Granada in 1492. In her depiction of these two royal characters, Eliot drew on a reliable historical source: Al-Makkari’s The History of The Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain.

El Zagal’s nephew, Mohammed XII (commonly known to Europeans as Boabdil), was the twentieth emir of the Beni Nasr dynasty of Granada and last emir of the same town whose fall marked the end of the Spanish Reconquista. Boabdil rose against his father, and was first proclaimed at Granada in 1482. In 1483 he was taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and was replaced by his uncle el Zagal, but he was soon restored to his liberty and his throne in 1487 after a raging civil war against his uncle and decisive help from the Spaniards. Five years later, he was ultimately compelled — by these same Spanish allies — to surrender and leave Granada in 1492 for the town of Fez, in Morocco, where he settled until his death in 1536. In Eliot’s The Spanish Gypsy, Boabdil incarnates the “cowardly” Arab, capable of “deceit” and “treachery”, and “apparently incapable of truth” as described in her review of Rev. Davis’s book: “Not Boabdil the waverer, who usurps / A throne he trembles in, and fawning licks / The feet of conquerors,” (The Spanish Gypsy 4). He apparently matches the picture of the “noble son[s] of the Desert” who has “degenerated strangely”. It is true that Boabdil’s unwise management of the political situation that led to the eviction of Muslims from al-Andalus2 at the time brought upon him bitter reproach from most Muslim chroniclers, yet Eliot’s criticism of this historical character sounds much harsher and turns, in her own words, to utter humiliation when she makes him literally “lick” the feet of” Christian “conquerors” — an expression that serious historians known for their objectivity, like al-Makkari, never used in their historical accounts. Eliot’s blatant, uncompromising condemnation of the last emir of Granada makes her directly involved, as a writer, in expressing her own personal views on characters that are in no way fictitious, but all the more real and historical. Indulging, thus, in transmitting non-factual information, through prejudiced idiom, makes Eliot prejudice the reader against one of the major Muslim political figures in the history of al-Andalus. Throughout the eight-century history of Moorish Spain, and particularly during the last one when the pressure of the Spanish Reconquista was getting greater, many Muslim emirs struck deals and even made alliances with Christian kings against each other, but this was obviously part of the political game. This is also true of el Zagal, Eliot’s somewhat favorite Muslim royal character in the poem, who surrendered to King Ferdinand and made a political deal with him.

El Zagal, Boabdil’s uncle and political rival for the throne of Granada, is officially known as Mohammed XIII, the twenty-first emir of the Beni Nasr dynasty of Granada. He first rebelled against his brother, and was proclaimed at Granada in 1483 to be dethroned four years later, in 1487, by his nephew Boabdil. El Zagal retreated to

Guadix until 1489 when he surrendered to King Ferdinand who “gave him the investiture” of all his former dominions “on condition that he would do him homage for that”. El Zagal went then to war against Boabdil who was assisted by Christian troops. When he saw that the situation was becoming hopeless el Zagal decided, shortly after 1490, to cross over to North Africa. In fact, Eliot respected to the letter el Zagal’s exile itinerary given by al-Makkari: the emir first sailed to Oran, and from there headed to Telemsan (both in present day Algeria), “where he settled and where his descendants are residing to this day; being well known under the appellation of (the sons of the Sultan of Andalus)” (Al-Makkari 386). In The Spanish Gypsy, el Zagal’s men are accompanied by Fedalma’s gypsy band to whom the emir had promised “a grant of land / Within the Berber’s realm” (201) for their military assistance against the Spaniards.

El Zagal is portrayed by Eliot in completely opposite terms to his nephew. In contrast to the “trembling”, “fawning” “waverer” Boabdil, el Zagal is metaphorically portrayed as a “fierce lion”:

… but that fierce lion

Grisly El Zagal, who has made his lair

In Guadix’ fort, and rushing thence with strength,

Half his own fierceness, half the untainted heart

Of mountain bands that fight for holiday,

Up to this point in The Spanish Gypsy, Eliot clearly shows her preference for the “brave” uncle (180). In doing so, she is true to her childhood mental image of “the lofty, generous Arab … scouring the sands on his matchless horse, yielding but to numbers, incapable of deceit or treachery” that she depicted ten years earlier. El Zagal, too, was true to his word when he promised his allied Gypsies safe exile in North Africa. He honored his written pledge to the Gypsy chief Zarca and his community, and never deceived them.

Yet, these highly distinguishing qualities are also clearly attenuated, if not negatively counterbalanced, by the choice of a different vocabulary that equally reveals Eliot’s disapproving criticism of the Muslim warring character. Thus, “brave el Zagal”, “rushing thence with strength” turns into a “grisly” warrior, or “a besom of destruction” with extreme, barbaric cruelty when he “wastes the fair lands that lie by Alcala”, or when he wreathes his “matchless … horse’s neck with Christian heads”. This “noble son of the Desert” has finally “degenerated strangely” in Moorish Spain.

Harry Rochester demonstrates the overall growth of Jane throughout the novel, who developed into an individual capable of deciding her own fate.

Essentially, Bront incorporates the supernatural to create an atmosphere of suspense, yet also achieves a deeper meaning by doing so. When Jane encountered the supernatural, she often grew from the experience and triggered a change in her demeanor despite her initial fears.