Hamdard Islamicus Vol. XLII, No. 4 103

BOOK REVIEW

The Crescent in the West: Image of the Orient in English

Literature up to 1832 By Abdur Raheem Kidwai, Bean Bassin,

Mauritius, Al-Ilm Publishing, 2019

Abdur Raheem Kidwai is a Professor of English at the Aligarh

Muslim University, India, and Visiting Professor Fellow, School of English,

University of Leicester, UK (2006-2016). He has specialized in the study

of Orientalism in English Literature. Equipped with amazing literary and

writing skills, he has devoted his time to penning several articles and

books, especially on the depiction of Muslims and Islam in English

Literature. This book contains material from his Ph.D. thesis originally

titled as Samples of the Finest Orientalism: A Study of the Orient in

Lord Byron’s ‘Turkish Tales’ (Leicester, UK, 1993), for an extensive

audience. The work consists of three chapters, along with a bibliography

of Byron’s Oriental reading

Kidwai starts by accentuating the factors which led Europe to learn

about Islam and the Muslims in general. The West, with the passage of

time, termed Islam to be a heresy and the Muslims’ character to be

wretched in nature. Kidwai has pointed out the biased statement of R.W

Southern, who calls the period between 700-1100 to be the ‘Age of

Ignorance.’ Southern, however, seems to not have gone through the

authentic historical records of Islam for him to have uttered and termed

the ‘Golden Era of Islam’ to be the period of darkness. Such a statement

leads to the tendency of the emergence of the penning of polemical

works. By highlighting this negative image at the very outset, Kidwai

provides a foretaste to the readers about what lies ahead regarding the

image of Islam projected by the Western writers.

In Chapter 1, Kidwai attempts to depict the causes of the initial

interaction of Europe with the Muslim world. The genesis, according to

Kidwai, being the Crusade Wars in the Middle Ages, followed by the

Muslim conquests of Spain in 711, which lasted till 1492, and another



104 Book Review

important point of interaction between the two, being the Ottoman Empire

undoubtedly. He also mentions the reasons of the distaste of the Europeans

for the Ottomans due to which they have been negatively portrayed in

the Elizabethan English Literature. Moreover, Kidwai intelligently uses

his ace of spade in the citation of travel literature. This, according to him,

paved the way, to some extent, for the Europeans to change their negative

attitude towards Islam and Muslims. Kidwai shows diligence and accuracy

in picking up the relevant materials without any sort of bias for Muslims

or the West. It is clearly visible that his toil and purpose is to provide the

readers a non-discriminatory outlook of the projection of Islam and the

Muslims in the works of these writers. What is more striking in the

writing of Kidwai is that even the minute detail has been expressed with

reference; a commendable literary skill and ability. It depicts the scope

of reading as well as the research conducted by Kidwai. It will not be

inappropriate to state that the first chapter persuades the readers to

dwell into the other two remaining chapters. What is noteworthy is that

they are very informative for those having a deep interest in studying and

comprehending the history of the insights developed by the West regarding

the Orient and Islam. The Western approach consists of amalgamated

perspectives, both positive and negative. Though, most of the

representations of Islam by the Western writers are negative, yet Kidwai

stresses the writings of those authors as well such as Thomas Gower,

Thomas Brown and William Jones, who speak of Muslims highly. By

highlighting both sides of the same coin, Kidwai portrays an impartial

picture in his writing. He is well aware of the fact that one cannot clap

with one hand, which he does delineate in his analytical study. He offers

a balanced interpretation of the sources as well.

Chapter 2 deals with the Orient’s portrayal in Byron’s Turkish

Tales. Kidwai appreciates the efforts of Byron, who first went through

a deep study of the Orient, enabling him to authenticate his writings. He

further points out that Byron prepared his own notes with relevancy in

order to bring the flavor of authenticity to his projection of the Orient.

Byron shuns the methodologies of his contemporaries, who rely heavily

on various citations to design their arguments regarding the life and

manners of the Orient. Kidwai looks satisfied with Byron’s presentation,

as he avoids extravagance and elucidates his views and thought in

connection with the text. According to him, Byron, by not falling into

overindulgence, eschews the process of disputatious writings in comparison

to other Western. This writers puts him in the list of those embarking on



Hamdard Islamicus Vol. XLII, No. 4 105

a sedulous and literary voyage, passing through a positive avenue to

reach an unbiased station. Byron also employs his qualitative analytical

method by not relying only on secondary sources. According to Kidwai,

Byron’s Orientalism is markedly different from that of the other Western

writers, marred by religious rancor and cultural astigmatism. Byron is

much more advanced in his thought thus assuming relevance in the

modern world, which is full of plural and multicultural life.

Chapter 3 deals with the projection of the Oriental female characters

in the works of Byron. Kidwai cites the earlier works of the West in

which Oriental characters have been mentioned or discussed. However,

these works, according to him, depict a loathsome image of Islam. The

Orientals are termed as unscrupulous, cannibal, polygamists and traders

of women. Kidwai brings into light their low level of understanding of the

Islamic religion. Moreover, Byron’s female characters are of utmost

importance. According to Kidwai, the female characters, Leila (The

Giaour), Zuleikha (The Bride of Abydos) and Gulnare (The Corsair),

differ from one another. Byron’s portrayal of the different shades of

femininity is notable; Leila, being submissive, Zuleikha, the sober and

obedient one and Gulnare, depicts masculine features by rescuing Conrad

from Pasha Syed’s dungeon. Besides, Kidwai highlights some essential

themes like patriarchy, tyranny, adultery and interfaith marriage. However,

they have been simply generalized by him.The absence of concrete proof

to support his statements tones down the weight of his remarks. Also,

punctuation mistakes are seen in this work, which need to be avoided so

that readers can benefit. A piece of suggestion to the author would be

that in case a new edition of the book is on the way, the above-mentioned

themes should be discussed in depth.

Reviewer: Mohammad Teisir Bin Shah Goolfee

Research Scholar

Department of Islamic Studies

Aligarh Muslim University

Aligarh-202002, India

gteisir@gmail.com