04 May 2016•Update: 07 May 2016
By Tayfun Salci
LONDON
The current global conflicts have their roots in the West’s lack of understanding of history, a British author and professor has said.
In a recent interview with Anadolu Agency, Jerry Brotton, a professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London, and author of several books, including the latest “This Orient Isle: Elizabethan England and the Islamic World”, also noted how Western history tended to ignore contributions of Islamic culture to European Renaissance.
Brotton said western policy makers must refer to their history books when tackling issues in the Middle East.
“I have been writing that material since the recent catastrophes of what have happened since the 9/11, 7/7 London, and what has happened in Syria, and I wanted to say there is a longer history and also a history which is of exchange toleration and accommodation between the two faiths, which we should take into account when western policy makers are talking about the problem of the Middle East and they know nothing about it,” he said.
“They do not understand the difference between Sunni and Shia. They don’t understand the caliphate and yet they think they can make legislations based on no understanding of that history,” he said.
The writer also spoke about his support for Turkey’s accession to the EU.
“I have been saying for 15 years that Turkey should be in the EU. Because, again, there is a longer history that it has been always a part of Europe,” he added.
He also called for greater understanding of the era when there was an exchange and contact between Protestant England and the Islamic world, especially the then Ottoman Empire.
“Ottomans were key players in European Renaissance. [But] in the history of Renaissance, Ottomans are almost completely hidden. Nobody talked about them,” he said.
He noted that Mehmed the Conqueror became one of the great patrons of the period following his conquest of Constantinople in 1453.
“He commissioned Venetian painters like Bellini [who famously painted his portrait], collected Greek and Latin books, and commissioned new studies of books by Greek scholars like Ptolemy.
“Suleiman the Magnificent was also seen by many European artists and intellectuals as a great patron who corresponded with various Christian monarchs and writers. He commissioned a huge papal tiara from Venetian goldsmiths that he wore during the siege of Vienna and his grand vizier, Ibrahim Pasha, had close diplomatic and commercial links with Venice,” he said.
Brotton, who is also a leading expert in the history of maps and Renaissance cartography, said there had always been the issue of Christian-Muslim dimension in that era's history, but it was not about “conflict.”
“It was about competitive exchange between the Italian Renaissance course and the Ottomans with an absolute understanding. All those Christian powers knew that the Ottomans were more powerful,” he said.
The author noted that the Ottoman Empire had always included and embraced the presence of different faiths and cultures within their realm.
Describing an anecdote between Queen Elizabeth I and Ottoman Sultan Murad III in the 16th century, when the two discussed trade ties, Brotton said: “The English and Elizabeth goes to Murad, what we call as a supplicant. She states that she is inferior. She says I want to sign what she calls the trade capitulations where she wants to have an exclusive trading relationship with the Ottomans. And she says I do this as an inferior subject of yours.
“And Murad says yes, sure, of course, because I do not know who you are but if you want to trade with us that is fine. Because of course what Murad is saying is ‘we are multicultural, multi-faith’ empire.
“We are strength not that we are exclusive political or religious empire like Spanish. We want to embrace everybody, Jews, Catholics, Protestants... Anybody wants to trade with us as long as they accept that they are subject to us. Fine... and that’s what Elizabeth does.”
*Büsra Akin Dincer contributed to this story from London.
