In the Field of English Literature

ISLAM IN WESTERN LITERATURE time, the threat posed by Turkey to Christian Europe had diminished, and the Ottoman Empire opened up for trade and travel. While there is little evidence of English visitors to Persia before the latter half of the sixteenth century (Venetians had been there since the fifteenth century), the creation of the Oxford chair marked the emergence of professional European Arabism. As its first occupant, Edward Pocock was arguably the most prominent Arabist of the century. He edited and translated Arabic manuscripts, introducing a critical approach to Islamic material. Pocock debunked the widely accepted tale of the suspended coffin, stating that Muslims laughed at it, recognizing it as a Christian invention. He also questioned the famous story that the founder of Islam had trained a white pigeon to sit on his shoulder, pick grains from his ear, and pass for an angel dictating to him. This story persisted until the nineteenth century. In Shakespeare’s play Henry VI, there is a passage (Act I, Scene ii, lines 140-141) that alludes to the contrasting inspiration of Mahomet with a dove which is described in these lines: “We Mahomet inspired by a dove, Thou with an angle art inspired then.” Long before Shakespeare, John Lydgate (d. ca. 1451), an early English poet, provided a detailed account of Muhammad’s life and even mentioned the colour of the dove associated with him, describing it as “milk white.” Interestingly, in the eighteenth century, bird enthusiasts named a pigeon breed “Maumet” (derived