Elizabeth I Was England's Muslim Monarch

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Alan Mikhail. England's Muslim Monarch; Without muslims, there would be no sugar in England -- or Shakespeare. Wall Street Journal, Nov 5, 2016
www.wsj.com/articles/when-england-admired-islam-1478281668
(book review on Jerry Brotton, The Sultan and the Queen; The untold story of Elizabeth and Islam. Viking, 2016)

Note
(1) The title of the review refers to Elizabeth I. You will understand if you complete reading the review. The reviewer is a history professor in Yale.
(2) photo caption: "Portraits from 1622 by van Dyck of the adventurer-diplomat Sir Robert Shirley and his wife, Teresia. PHOTO: NATIONAL TRUST PHOTOGRAPHIC LIBRARY:
(a)
(i) Anthony van Dyck
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_van_Dyck
(ii) The Dutch surname van Dyck is a variant of another Dutch surname van Dyke ("dike" in English), and pronounced the same. Van Dyck
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Van%20Dyck
(b) Robert Shirley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Shirley
(c 1581 – 1628; In "1607, he married Sampsonia, a[n Orthodox] Christian Circassian lady of the Circassian nobility of Safavid Persia")
(i)
(A) Safavid dynasty
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_dynasty
(1501–1736; The Safavid dynasty had its origin in the Safaviyya Sufi order [hence the dynasty name])

Was eventually split among an Afghan chieftain, Russia (Peter the Great) and Ottoman Empire.
(B) Safawid (n)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Safawid
(pronunciation)
(ii)
(A) Circassia (n)
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Circassia
(pronunciation)
(B) Circassia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circassia
(map)

is in the north Caucasus region.
(iii) Teresia Sampsonia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teresia_Sampsonia
(1589–1668; born Sampsonia [just one name]; in 1608 [age 19] married Robert Shirley in Iran)

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(3) "Queen Elizabeth I had bad teeth. The snaggle-toothed sovereign owed her decay to copious amounts of sugar that began flowing into England from Morocco in the 16th century. Candied fruits were her absolute favorite."
(a) snaggletooth (n; etymology): "an irregular, broken, or projecting tooth"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/snaggletooth
(b) Anglo-Moroccan alliance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Moroccan_alliance
(i) Presently Morocco fails to produce enough -- and need to import -- "grains, sugar, coffee and tea."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Morocco
(ii) JH Galloway, The Mediterranean Sugar Industry. Geographical Review, 67: 177-194 (1977).
www.rogerlouismartinez.com/wp-co ... erreanean-sugar.pdf

Read only the first three sentences.
(iii) Ina Baghdiantz McCabe, A History of Global Consumption: 1500 - 1800. Routledge, 2015, at page 54
https://books.google.com/books?i ... ropical&f=false
("Sugarcane is a tropical and sub-tropical crop with a growing season that is in excess of twelves months, sometimes fifteen. It demands large amounts of water and labor. In the Mediterranean, the production of sugarcane was possible as far south as Marrakech [in present-day Morocco; the ch ending is French spelling whereas the sh ending -- Marrakesh -- is English] and as far north as Valencia, Spain and Palermo, Sicily; the Arabs tested the potentiality of these newly conquered lands to their limits")

(4) "The story of Elizabeth's unfortunate smile is but one facet of a much larger and far more important history of economic, cultural and political relations between the queen's rather negligible island, the sultan of Morocco and the fabulously wealthy Muslim world that dominated half of the Mediterranean and controlled Europe’'s access to the east. Jerry Brotton's wonderful book reveals this instructive history of Protestant England's intense interactions with Islam, showing how Muslims shaped English culture, consumerism and literature during the half-millennium between the Crusades and the rise of the British Empire in the Middle East."
(a) "[T]he queen's rather negligible island" refers to England.
(b) "Great Britain" came into being in 1707, in the last year of the reign of Anne, Queen of Great Britain.

Great Britain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Britain

Quote:

"A single Kingdom of Great Britain resulted from the Union of Scotland and England (which already comprised the present-day countries of England and Wales) in 1707. More than a hundred years before, in 1603, King James VI, King of Scots, had inherited the throne of England, but it was not until 1707 that the Parliaments of the two countries agreed to form a political union. In 1801, Great Britain united with the neighbouring Kingdom of Ireland, forming the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, which was renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland after the Irish Free State seceded in 1922.

"The political union that joined the kingdoms of England and Scotland happened in 1707 when the Acts of Union ratified the 1706 Treaty of Union and merged the parliaments of the two nations, forming the Kingdom of Great Britain, which covered the entire island. Before this, a personal union had existed between these two countries since the 1603 Union of the Crowns under James VI of Scotland and I of England.

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(5) "It was the pope who made possible this fruitful relationship between Protestantism and Islam. Pius V excommunicated Elizabeth in 1570. Cutting her out of the Catholic Church separated England from most of Europe. Denied the markets of Spain, Italy and France, Elizabeth had to look beyond the continent for trading partners. She tried first with Russia. This worked for a time, but the White Sea proved ice-locked for too much of the year. Stretching her gaze even farther, she set her sights first on Morocco, then for a moment Iran and eventually the largest Muslim state in the world, the Ottoman Empire."
(a) "Denied the markets of Spain, Italy and France"
(i) Compare
Holy Roman Empire
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Roman_Empire
(view the first and second maps)

caption of the first map: "The Holy Roman Empire around 1600, superimposed over current state borders"
(ii) Pope Pius V
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Pius_V
(1504 – 1572; papacy 1566-1572; 1504 – 1 May 1572; section 2.5.2 Elizabeth I)
(A) People & Ideas: The Roman Catholic Church in Medieval Europe. In God in America, Oct 11, 2010.
http://www.pbs.org/godinamerica/people/catholic-church.html
(B) Clergy. In The Middle Ages, Western Reserve Public Media, 2008.
http://westernreservepublicmedia.org/middleages/feud_clergy.htm
(C) Phyland, The Church in Medieval Life. Onondaga Central Schools, undated.
http://www.ocs.cnyric.org/webpag ... medieval%20life.pdf
(sectional heading at page 1: Secular Role of the Church)
(b) My guess is that around the time of Pope Pius V, reformation was in earnest; the 3 mentioned -- Spain, Italy and France (please note Italian unification (1815–1871), that is why the review mentions MARKETS of the three, not nations of the three -- were, and are, Catholic.

Martin Luther on Oct 31, 1517 mailed Ninety-five Theses to Elector, who doubled as Archbishop, of Mainz.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elector_of_Mainz
(Archbishops-Electors of Mainz, 1251–1803)
(c)
(i) White Sea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Sea
(an "inlet of the Barents Sea * * * The major port of Arkhangelsk is located on the White Sea. For much of Russia's history this was Russia's main centre of international maritime trade * * * The White Sea is one of four seas named in English (and in other languages such as Russian) after common colour terms — the others being the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the Yellow Sea. * * *  from October–November till May–June, the sea freezes")
(ii) Arkhangelsk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkhangelsk
(which is Russian transliteration into English; also known in English as Archangel and Archangelsk; section 1 Coat of arms: reproduced in table to the right of text + name)

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(6) "The queen [Elizabeth I] started sending her merchants and diplomats to Marrakesh for sugar and saltpeter, to Istanbul for cotton and indigo and to Aleppo for Iranian silks and Indian spices"
(a) saltpeter. Online Etymology Dictionary
www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=saltpeter

is potassium nitrate: KNO3.

Compare
Peter (given name)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_(given_name)
(b) Aleppo
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleppo
(section 1 Etymology: The original ancient name, Halab [origin and meaning unclear], has survived as the current Arabic name of the city; the English name Aleppo somehow came from Halab)

Quote: "For centuries, Aleppo was the Syrian region's largest city and the Ottoman Empire's third-largest, after Constantinople and Cairo. With an official population of 2,132,100 (2004 census), it was Syria's largest city * * * before the advent of the Syrian Civil War

(7) "Trade with the east eventually led to the invention of a new financial instrument: the joint-stock company. Moving money and merchandise over such great distances with peoples whose trustworthiness and religion were both suspect proved far too risky for Elizabeth or any merchant to attempt on her or his own. The joint-stock company allowed them to share the risk and reward. As trade between east and west ballooned under Elizabeth, England remained a junior partner."
(a) joint-stock company
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint-stock_company
(section 2 Early joint-stock companies: East India Company [EIC] in 1600)
(b) Ottoman Empire
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Empire
(c 1299–1922/1923; Capital  Constantinople (present-day Istanbul) (1453–1922); section 1 Name)

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(8) "Both Catholics and Protestants—but especially the latter, given their relative political and economic precarity in the 16th century—undertook all sorts of theological gymnastics to justify their deepening relations with Islam. * * * Elizabeth wanted much more from the Muslim Ottomans than sweets: She wanted ships and guns to help her war against the Catholic powers. Both before and after she crushed the Spanish Armada in 1588, Elizabeth coveted a military alliance with the Ottomans to deal Spain the deathblow she so desperately craved. England had a strong navy, but not strong enough. And unfortunately for Elizabeth, all of the ambassadors she dispatched to Istanbul in the 1580s and 1590s left the sultan's court empty-handed. From an Ottoman perspective, the petty bickering of the weaker powers of Western Europe was not worth the time or effort. The Ottomans had far more pressing concerns with the Safavids in Iran to their east and on the Hungarian frontier in the west."
(a) gymnastic (n):
"1 plural but sing in constr[uction; ie followed by a verb in singular form] 体操
2 :  an exercise in intellectual or artistic dexterity <my earlier philosophic study had been an intellectual gymnastic — John Dewey> <mental gymnastics>"
www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gymnastic
(b) Suleiman I or Suleiman the Magnificent of Ottoman Empire (reign 1520 – 1566)
(i) Ottoman–Hungarian Wars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman–Hungarian_Wars
(1366 to 1526+; In 1526 the Ottomans crushed the Hungarian army at Mohács with King Louis II of Hungary perishing along with 14,000-20,000 of his foot soldiers)
(A) Kingdom of Hungary
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Hungary
(1000–1946 with the exception of 1918–1920; outside -- ie, not part of -- Holy Roman Empire)
(B) Mohács
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohács
(map)
(ii) Siege of Vienna
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Vienna
(1529; Result  Decisive Christian Coalition victory; Strength: coalition c 17,000–21,000 vs Ottoman c 120,000–125,000; Vienna was part of Holy Roman Empire then)

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(9) "Mr Brotton proves adept at tracing the ways in which Elizabeth’s relations with the Muslim world not only brought new goods and tastes to England but also a flood of new ideas, characters and storylines for writers like Christopher Marlowe, George Peele, Robert Greene and, of course, William Shakespeare [baptized 1564 (based on church record) – 1616].  The literary culmination of Elizabethan England's fascination with Islam was 'Othello.' Modeled perhaps on the Moroccan ambassador Muhammad al-Annuri, who was visiting England in 1600, Shakespeare's character * * * Elizabeth herself died before the play was ever staged. With her perished England's momentary dalliance with the Muslim world. Her successor, James I, negotiated a rapprochement with Spain, bringing Protestant England back into a still mostly Catholic Europe."
(a)
(i) Christopher Marlowe
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Marlowe
(1564 – 1593)
(ii) George Peele (1556 – 1596)
(iii) Robert Greene (dramatist)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Greene_(dramatist)
(baptized 1558 - 1592)
(b) Othello (character)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othello_(character)
(section 1 Role: Emilia is Iago's wife and and Desdemona's maidservant)

Iago, not Lago. (Spanish-English dictionary: lago (noun masculine): "lake")
(c) Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abd_el-Ouahed_ben_Messaoud
(was principal secretary [ie chief advisor] to the Moroccan ruler Mulay Ahmad al-Mansur, and ambassador to the court of Queen Elizabeth I of England in 1600; It has been suggested that Abd el-Ouahed ben Messaoud may have inspired the character of William Shakespeare's Moorish hero Othello, although others have argued that there is no connection)