1st Edition

Jews and Muslims in Seventeenth-Century Discourse From Religious Enemies to Allies and Friends

By Gary K. Waite Copyright 2019
    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    306 Pages
    by Routledge

    Jews and Muslims in Seventeenth-Century Discourse explores for the first time the extent to which the unusual religious diversity and tolerance of the Dutch Republic affected how its residents regarded Jews and Muslims.

    Analyzing an array of vernacular publications, this book reveals how Dutch writers, especially those within the nonconformist and spiritualist camps, expressed positive attitudes toward religious diversity in general, and Jews and Muslims in particular. Through covering the Eighty Years War (1568-1648) and the post-war era, it also highlights how the Dutch search for allies against Spain led them to approach Muslim rulers. The Dutch were assisted in this by their positive relations with Jews, and were thus able to shape a more affirmative portrayal of Islam.

    Revealing noticeable differences in language and tone between English and Dutch publications and exploring societal attitudes and culture, Jews and Muslims in Seventeenth-Century Discourse is ideal for students of British and Dutch early-modern cultural, intellectual, and religious history.

    1. Introduction

    Two Turkish Slaves in Limburg

    The Religious Other

    Pamphlets, Newssheets, and Chronicles

    England and the Netherlands in the Seventeenth Century

    Religious Conformity and Dissent – the Netherlands and England

    Christians, Jews, Muslims

    Transgressing Confessional Boundaries

    Contents of the Book

    2. Jews in England and the Netherlands, 1550-1620 – Anti-Semitism, Religious Polemics, and Realpolitique

    A Hebrew Army

    Dirck Volckertsz Coornhert

    Religious Conflict and Tolerance in the Dutch Republic

    The Sad Case of Dr. Rodrigo Lopez

    The Jews in Amsterdam

    Hugh Broughton and Rabbi David Farar, Amsterdam, 1605

    Abraham Costerus, 1608

    Hugo Grotius’s Recommendations, c.1615

    Regulations and Petitions, 1616-20

    Jews in Pamphlets, 1600-1620

    Jews in Reformed Polemics

    Henry Finch and the Great Restauration, 1621

    Samuel Pallache

    Conclusion

    3. Christian Nonconformists and Jews, 1540-1650

    The Lisbon Pogrom of 1506

    Anabaptists and Spiritualists on Jews

    Mennonite Pieter Jansz Twisck’s Chronicles, 1609 and 1620

    Joost van den Vondel’s Hierusalem Verwoest, 1620

    The End of the Twelve Years Truce and Rosicrucian Efforts

    Reformed Reaction

    The Conversion of Isaac Pallache, c. 1631

    Conclusion

    4. Muhammad: Christian Fantasies of the Prophet and the Qur’an

    Signs and Wonders and Muhammad’s Birth

    Muhammad’s Biography

    Pre-Reformation Imaginings of Muhammad

    Muhammad in Sixteenth-Century Reformation Polemics

    Muhammad in the Hands of Christians, 1600-1620

    Dutch Mennonites – Pieter Jans Twisck, 1620

    Broer Jansz, 1627

    Two Later Divergent Histories of Muhammad, 1666 and 1671

    English Catholics and Ottoman Antichrists

    Liberal Dutch Mennonites and the Qur’an

    Conclusion

    5. Moors and Moriscos, 1550–1620

    The Jesuit and the Blackamoor

    Europeans, Moors, and Jews

    English Merchants in Morocco

    The Enemy of My Enemy

    The Dutch Republic Joins the Fray

    A Muslim Convert to Reformed Protestantism?: Henri Chérif

    European Reports on Morocco’s Civil Wars, 1603–09

    Moors, Jews, and Doopsgezinden in Amsterdam

    Europeans and the Moroccan "Saint-King," 1612

    The Expulsion of the Moriscos from Spain, 1609-14

    Conclusion

    6. Europeans and the Ottomans: Fantasy and Reality, 1610-1648

    The Scourge of God?

    Turks in Reformed Polemics

    Pamphlets and Newssheets – Sixteenth Century

    Dreaming Sultans

    Ottomans and the Lost Tribes of Israel

    Persians and Prester John

    War and Peace with the Ottomans

    The Dutch and the Ottomans, 1607-14

    Cornelis Haga’s Mission to The Porte

    Chroniclers and the Turk

    News from Turkey, 1618: Sultans Ahmed and Mustafa

    Elect Nations

    Pieter Jansz Twisck on the Turks, 1620

    Dutch and English Pamphlets on the Turks, 1621-30

    Dutch and English Writers on the Turks after 1630

    Conclusion

    7. Millenarian Dreams, Ecumenical Prophets, and the Lost Tribes Found, 1648-65

    The Ten Lost Tribes of Israel in the Americas

    Jews, Christians, and Muslims c. 1648

    1648: Spain and the Netherlands at Peace

    Jan Zoet of Amsterdam, 1648

    The Lost Tribes Discovered

    Menasseh Ben Israel and his Circle

    The Hope of Israel

    English Christian Israelites

    Menasseh ben Israel’s Plea to Oliver Cromwell, 1655

    The Baptist Henry Jessey

    Reaction to Menasseh ben Israel

    Margaret Fell and Quaker Pamphlets

    Jews and Turks in the Dutch Press, 1650-65

    Costerus, Buxtorf and Zoet

    Jews as Equals?

    Johannes Serwouter’s Hester

    Christians and Muslims after the Peace with Spain

    Conclusion

    8. The Sabbatai Zevi Experience: Jews, Christians, and Muslims, 1666-1700

    The Messiah Arrives?

    The Year of Living Messiahly: Sabbatai Zevi, 1666

    Christian Responses to Sabbatai

    Petrus Serrarius, Anthoinette Bourignon, and Jean de Labadie

    Georgius Hornius and Balthasar Bekker

    P. Cornelius Hazart

    Mennonites and the Jews after Sabbatai Zevi

    Rabbi Saul Levi Morteira’s Praise of New Reformed

    Baruch Spinoza

    The 1680s: Anti-Semitism Redux?

    Conclusion

    Conclusion

    Jan Jacob Mauricius and a Ritual Murder Accusation in Nijmegen, 1710-16

    A Counterfeit Jew in Newcastle, 1653

    A Quaker Turned Jew

    Rethinking Religious Identity

    Biography

    Gary K. Waite is a professor of early-modern European history at the University of New Brunswick. He has published widely on religion, drama, and culture in the Low Countries, on Anabaptism and spiritualism, witchcraft and demonology, and is currently preoccupied with seventeenth-century Dutch religious nonconformists and the early Enlightenment.

    'This insightful and original study offers an ambitious dual comparison, exploring attitudes to Jews and Muslims, in England and the Dutch Republic, during the seventeenth century. Approaching this topic from a wide range of angles – individual, diplomatic, commercial and theological – and making use of a rich and diverse corpus of primary sources, this book will be of great interest to scholars and teachers of early modern European history, religious studies, and the history of community relations and toleration.'

    Adam Sutcliffe, King's College London, UK