The Sultan and the Queen: The Untold Story of Elizabeth and Islam
Tom Verde
Jerry Brotton
2016, Viking, 978-0-241-00402-9, $28 hb. (Published in the UK as This Orient Isle.)
In 1570, with Catholic Spain and Rome breathing down her Protestant neck, Britain’s Elizabeth I turned to her enemies’ enemies, Morocco and Ottoman Turkey. The treaties and trade agreements she struck with these sultanates infuriated her Continental rivals while enriching Tudor England with “exotic commodities from Islamic lands that included cotton, rhubarb, currants ... and intricate textiles, as well as the Moroccan sugar” that Elizabeth consumed “in such copious quantities” it blackened her teeth, writes historian Jerry Brotton. As “Sultana Isabel” (her Moroccan title) dispatched envoys to major Muslim capitals, “Tudor fascination with the Islamic world” infused domestic English culture with clothing and carpets “after the Turkish fashion” and influenced the works of Marlowe and Shakespeare (e.g. Othello), among others.
You may also be interested in...
Untold Stories of British Muslim Women as Agents of Change
Sociologist Sariya Cheruvallil-Contractor and historian Jamie Gilham present 100 years of Muslim women who have contributed to the dynamism of Islam in Britain.
Umayyad Family Dynasty Creates Unprecedented Empire
Explore the development and history of the Umayyad Caliphate, one of the most consequential empires the world has ever known.
British Museum Curator Takes Readers on Journey Spanning 6,000 Years
Southeast Asia curator Alexandra Green takes readers on a journey spanning 6,000 years, highlighting objects from Neolithic stone tools to contemporary paintings.