Turning Turk in Othello: The Conversion and Damnation of the Moor

Shakespeare’s Othello, as we all know, is a tragedy involving the "Noble Moor" who turns Turk and is cursed with eternal damnation after killing his wife and himself. In this article by Vitkus, he explains what the term "turking Turk" means and how it affected European culture between the medieval and post modern period.

During this time, the fears of religious conversion were paramount in post-Reformation England. Not only did they dread their Roman Catholic enemies and their threats of forceful conversion, but the growing imperial power of the Ottoman Turks and their colonization of Christian territories across Europe. Their fears of being captured, conquered, and converted were born from the sense of immediacy that early modern English authors created in their works about the Turks. After the Turkish siege of Malta in 1565, one English diocese established a common prayer asking God to protect England and Christendom from the Infidels.

When Othello was first performed in 1604, there had already been many run-ins with Muslim pirates along the Mediterranean. Throughout the 17th century, many Christians were captured during these raids, and were either enslaved, held for ransom, or they converted their religion. The English authorities were deeply upset and set up sermons to condemn the practice and promote martyrdom. As said by Kellett and Byam, "it is better to die than to turn Turk." However, most people who were converting to Islam were doing so due to economic reasons, and to avoid martyrdom and persecution, not because a sudden change in heart.

The thing that I personally found most interesting was how religious conversion was described in such erotic and sexual terms. Many English writers compared the Ottoman sultan with the Antichrist, and to convert to Islam was to engage in "spiritual whoredom" and "fornicate with the Devil’s minions" (pp. 153). John Donne, an English poet, also established a sexual relationship between the Christian worshipers and various other branches of Christianity. Personifying the worshipers as men and the various branches as women, he eroticizes the pursuit of "true religion" as the search for a pure female body in a world "full of whores."

Desdemona’s alleged infidelity is seen by Othello as a "turning" in his mind. He imagines her and Cassio in bed together and allows his heart to be turned to stone, filling him with a vengeful passion. Again, the sexual connotations associated with "turning Turk" are exemplified.

This erotic viewpoint of religious conversion is related, in part, to the way Islam was defined during this time period. "A licentious religion of sensuality and sexuality, Mohamet’s Islam was denounced as a system based on fraud, lust, and violence" (pp. 156). This is demonstrated in Othello when Iago plants the false sexual fantasy in Othello’s mind of Desdemona and Cassio in bed. As Vitkus states, "Iago is the evil angel who communicates a false message to Othello urging and justifying acts of cruelty and violence" (pp. 156). Othello is persuaded by Iago and he kills his wife; something he thinks is warranted. And as such, Othello was so lust driven by Desdemona that he allowed himself to convert to the cruel ways of the Turks.

As we have already discussed in class, the term "Moor" was widely used for peoples in Africa and other parts of the Middle East. Othello is Christian Moor, who is allegedly not "treacherous, aggressive and unstable" as early modern European texts have characterized them. However, in the end, as proven by the ancient proverb, "the Moor shows his true color-demonic black, burnt by hellfire and cursed by God" (pp. 161).

I also found the sense of urgency for Othello to go to Cyprus and defeat the Turks interesting, because what this article tells us about the timeline of events, Cyprus was formally ceded by Venice to the Turks almost thirty years prior to the first performance of Othello in London. I also agree that the first scenes of the play set up the stage for a grandeur battle between the Turks and the Venetians. This is anti-climactic for the audience, and the frustration and violence once aimed at the Islamic Other is now turned onto the feminine Other. This also forges a link between military aggression and sexual transgression, between the Turkish threat to Christian power and the contamination of female sexual purity (Vitkus, pp. 169).

Overall, I found this article very informational. We covered several aspects of Othello and its characters in class, but this article really took apart the play piece by piece and provided a very extensive background to the issues and controversies during the period.