CONTINUED
FROM PART ONE IN ERBzine 6625
In early 1910, while in the city of Sidi Aissa in French
occupied Algeria, a curious John Clayton stepped into one of the town’s
seedy cafés. After punching out a trouble maker, Tarzan found himself
assailed by numerous other Arabs, yelling, “Kill the unbeliever!” and “Down
with the dog of a Christian.”
Such insults directed at Whites by Arabs are familiar
to readers of the Tarzan stories. Burroughs often used such language to
reveal the open animosity that his Muslim characters felt toward his white
protagonists and villains alike. Good and evil, the struggle between what
underscored most of ERB’s literary themes, were portrayed in their extremes
by Burroughs. As noted in Part
One, ERB utilized both good and bad Arab characters. However, when
it came to their religion, nearly all of the Arabs in his stories looked
with disdain upon all Whites and Christians.
As the “kill the unbeliever” refrain mentioned above reveals,
Burroughs believed the gulf between Muslims and Christians had its foundation
in opposing beliefs of the two religions. Islam is based on the teachings
of Muhammad, an Arab born in the city of Mecca on the Arabian Peninsula
around 570 A.D. Muhammad preached belief in a single God, the God of Moses,
the same God to which Christians adhere. However, although Muslims believe
that Jesus was an early prophet of God, they reject the notion that Jesus
was the Messiah and that he was the son of God. Muslims, rather, assign
the role of God’s final messenger to Muhammad, and so strong is that belief
that the statement of faith in God and Muhammad is one of the Seven Pillars,
or obligations, of Islam. (On one occasion in Tarzan, Lord of the
Jungle, Burroughs had one of his Arab characters make the statement
of faith that is the cornerstone of Islam. When the young Zeyd was accused
of trying to assassinate his sheik, Ibn Jad, he responded with, “As Allah
is my God and Mohammed his prophet I did not do it.”) The unwillingness
of Christians to embrace the teachings of Muhammad, then, is what prompted
ERB’s Arabs to refer to them contemptuously as “unbelievers.”
The Sinister Meaning
In itself, being called an “unbeliever” would hardly seem
insulting to a Christian, but, as the above passage from The Return
of Tarzan demonstrates, that term used by a Burroughs Arab was
extremely sinister, since it was almost always accompanied by a secondary,
stronger insult and threat of violence. First the Muslim would express
his superiority over the Christian by comparing him to an animal, either
a dog or a pig, followed by a death threat, which the angered Arab often
tried to bring about on the spot.
For example, in Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar,
Mohammed Beyd expressed his deep hatred for the Belgian Albert Werper in
the following graphic terms.
“Dog of a Christian, look upon this knife in the hands
of Mohammed Beyd! Look well, unbeliever, for it is the last thing in life
you shall see or feel. With it Mohammad Beyd will cut out your black heart.
If you have a God pray to him now — in a minute more you shall be dead.”
Again, in Tarzan the Invincible, after Wayne
Colt interrupted Abu Batn’s attempt to rape Zora Drinov, the Muslim turned
his attack on the American, crying, “Dog of a Nasrâny! Lay not your
filthy hand on a true believer.” And simply for having white skin, Tarzan
almost lost his life at the hand of the Arab Fahd in Tarzan, Lord
of the Jungle. As a small band of Arabs surrounded the unconscious
Tarzan, Fahd said, “I fired at el-fil (elephant) and killed a Nasrâny
(Christian).” A companion added, “It is indeed a Christian dog, and naked
too.” When it became clear that Tarzan was not dead, Fahd drew his knife,
announcing, “I will finish him off.” When a companion stopped him, Fahd
casually responded, “It is but a Nasrâny.”
Tarzan survived that day, but in this, as well as other
instances in his stories, Burroughs clearly conveyed a feeling of contempt
that Muslims held for the lives of Christians. In fact, on a couple of
occasions, Burroughs made reference to a Muslim’s right, even obligation,
to kill Christians. Again, in Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle,
while the Arabs of Ibn Jad sat discussing the wisdom of killing Tarzan,
one of the old men cried out, “By Ullah, there never be any reason why
a true believer should not take the life of a Nasrâny!” And, in Tarzan
and the Mad Man, Sandra Pickerall was near death at the hand of
her Muslim captor. “You are an infidel,” he told her, “and for every infidel
I kill, I shall have greater honor in heaven.”
"The Only Good Nasrâny …"
All of the Arabs mentioned above — Beyd, Abu Batn, Fahd —
clearly fall into the category of “bad” Arabs created by ERB. They were
so evil, in fact, that one might attribute their violent tendencies toward
Whites as more a factor of their depraved nature rather than their religious
beliefs. But Burroughs made it clear that even his “good” Arabs looked
down upon Christians and placed little value on the life of a Nasrâny.
The best example of “good” Arabs in ERB’s fiction is Sheik Kadour ben Saden’s
tribe in The Return of Tarzan. The ape-man admired these
“stern and dignified warriors” and even considered giving up his jungle
lifestyle to live with them in their desert abode. However, these Muslim
warriors whom Tarzan so admired, later showed a willingness to abandon
the ape-man because he was not of their religion. When Tarzan was captured
by another Arab band and delivered to the villainous Nikolas Rokoff, Ben
Saden’s daughter, whom Tarzan had earlier saved in Sidi Aissa, tried to
rally her father’s warriors to save the ape-man. She later explained to
Tarzan how their religious animosity towards Christians trumped their loyalty
to the man who had rescued their chief’s daughter from slavery.
“My father was away. I tried to persuade some of the
men to come and save you, but they would not do it, saying, ‘Let the unbelievers
kill one another if they wish. It is none of our affair, and if we go and
interfere with Ali-ben-Ahmend’s plans we shall only stir up a fight with
our own people.”
What would cause even “good” Arabs, honorable and brave
in all others ways, to abandon a man who had befriended them just because
he was a Christian (for so they thought Tarzan)? Burroughs indicated the
reason might run deeper than just a difference of opinion about religious
doctrine. In Tarzan the Invincible, Burroughs wrote that
the anger that the Arab sheik Abu Batn felt toward the Russian Peter Zveri
was, “rooted deeply in his inherent antipathy for Europeans and their religion.”
The implication is that Muslims felt the entire white race offended their
religion, and every white person they encountered was to be held accountable
for that offense. The evidence of that is in how the Arabs considered Tarzan
a Christian, even though he had never done anything to indicate that he
was one. Nasrâny or not, he was treated with the same contempt by
Muslim Arabs who felt an “inherent racial antipathy” toward anyone with
white skin.
Lest we condemn Muslims unilaterally, Burroughs also implied
in The Lad and the Lion that Whites have the same racial
antipathy toward Arabs and their religion. When Azîz, who was a European
prince by birth, saw an Arab mistreat a French girl, a fierce anger rose
up within him. Burroughs explained, “That the girl was of his own race
may have exerted some influence upon his sleeping racial instincts — who
may guess?” Of course, Burroughs did not dwell on those “sleeping racial
instincts” that affected White feelings toward Arabs. After all, he knew
which race bought and read his stories. For economic reasons, the light
of virtue needed to fall upon that race in his fiction.
A Desire to Cleanse Africa
This combined racial and religious animosity toward Whites
by Muslim Arabs in Burroughs’ fiction was closely tied to a political goal
as well. The goal was stated by one of Abu Batn’s band of Arabs, who, with
ulterior motives, had attached themselves to Peter Zveri’s revolutionary
expedition in Tarzan the Invincible. “He is but an instrument
of Allah,” explained the Arab of Zveri, “in the great cause that will rid
Africa of all Nasrâny … If we do this thing (kidnap Zora Drinov),
perhaps the great cause will be lost.” Abu Batn responded, “It is the cause
of the Nasrâny, and it is only for profit.” According to Burroughs,
then, the Arab inherent racial dislike for Whites, fueled by religious
divisions, was focused on the political goal of driving the Europeans out
of Africa.
After the death of Muhammad in 632 A.D., Muslim armies
swept across Northern Africa in a series of holy wars resulting in the
population’s forced conversion to Muslim. It is easy to see, then, how
many of ERB’s Arabs felt justified in trying to evict the European colonizers
who they felt had usurped their lands. Tarzan learned in the café
at Sidi Aissa that nearly all Algerian Arabs hated their French occupiers.
In Tarzan the Invincible, ERB explained that Abu Batn’s hatred
for Christians was, “represented by the British influence in Egypt and
out in the desert, which they considered their hereditary domain.”
It was not only the British and the French in Northern
Africa who drew Arab ire in Burroughs’ fiction. The Islamic desire to cleanse
European influence extended into Central Africa, as well, as the following
passage from Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar reveals.
“Werper’s eyes went wide, and his heart sank. He was
in the clutches of the most notorious of cutthroats — a hater of all Europeans,
especially those who wore the uniform of Belgium. For years the military
forces of Belgian Congo had waged a fruitless war upon this man and his
followers — a war in which quarter had never been asked or expected by
either side.”
Bridging the Gulf
Although Burroughs clearly portrayed most of his Arab characters
as Muslims who hated and looked down upon all Whites for racial, religious,
and political reasons, the author at times included elements in his stories
that softened that negative image. In a couple of instances, ERB showed
that the wide gulf between Arabs and Europeans could be bridged, particularly
if religious fervor were left out of the equation. After Zeyd fled the
tents of Ibn Jad in Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, Tarzan found
him alone in the forest. “I am but a poor man,” pleaded Zeyd. “I but followed
where my skeykh led. Hold it not against Zeyd, skeykh of the jungle, that
he be in thy ‘beled.’ Spare my poor life I pray thee and may Allah bless
thee.” Tarzan assured Zeyd, “I have no wish to harm thee, Beduwy. What
wrong has been done in my country is the fault of Ibn Jad alone.” When
Tarzan sent the rest of Ibn Jad’s band into slavery in Abyssinia, Zeyd
and his sweetheart Ateja asked Tarzan if they could serve him in his home,
and Lord Greystoke granted their request.
In Burroughs’ fiction, though, the best example of Arab
and European bridging the gulf is in the novel The Lad and the Lion,
written in 1914. A young Prince Michael, forced to flee his European principality,
eventually found himself in the North African desert. There he met the
young Arab woman Nakhla, who at first had a typical Muslim reaction to
the strange white man. “She neither expected nor hoped to meet anyone along
the way, and least of all a white stranger who was more beast than human
and who, in addition, was doubtless a Nasrâny — hated of her people
— dog of an unbeliever.” Eventually, the young prince overcame Nakhla’s
racial antipathy to Europeans and won her love. Then, though, he also had
to win over her father, whose racial and religious hatred of Whites was
much more deeply ingrained.
“You, dog of a Nasrâny — naked white beggar —
you have the temerity to aspire to the daughter of a great sheik? You —
a worthless vagabond without a following — without even a burnoose to your
back. Where, pig, would you find the twenty camels with which to pay me
for my daughter’s hand, even is she would have such vermin as you?”
Final Analysis
These two examples of religious tolerance aside, still it
is clear that the predominate image of Arabs and their religion in Burroughs’
fiction is a negative one. In the end, though, too much should not be made
of ERB’s cynical portrayal of Arabs. After all, he wrote primarily to entertain
his readers and to sell books, not to make social comment. His kind of
adventure required villains, and Arabs fit the bill for his predominately
white reading audience.
In addition, Burroughs was critical in his fiction of
all organized religions, including Christianity. In Tarzan Triumphant,
for instance, he painted darkly the Christian tribe of Abraham and their
fundamental beliefs. In a 1929 letter to his son Hulbert, ERB explained
his attitude toward all organized religions.
“I was pained to discover how badly you misinterpreted
my attitude toward religion. I have no quarrel with religion, but I do
not like the historic attitude of any of the established churches. Their
enthusiasms and sincerity never ring true to me and I think there have
been no great changes in them all down the ages, insofar as the fundamentals
are concerned. There is just as much intolerance and hypocrisy as there
ever was, and if any church were able to obtain political power today I
believe that you would see all the tyranny and injustice and oppression
which has marked the political ascendancy of the church in all times. This
does not mean that I am not religious. I believe that I am a very religious
man, but I do not subscribe to any of the narrow, childish superstitions
of any creed.”
The focus here has been on ERB’s contempt for Islam,
and in particular on the Twentieth Century “intolerance and hypocrisy”
that Burroughs felt had been passed down through the centuries unchanged
since Islam’s founding in a much different era. However, we do not have
to take ERB’s word for it that all organized religions were the same in
this respect. It is a final thread that winds its way discernably through
all his fiction. Whether it was Islam or Christianity or some other religion
of his own creation, Edgar Rice Burroughs revealed his perceived “intolerance
and hypocrisy” in them all. As badly as he treated Islam in his fiction,
in the final analysis, when it came to organized religions, to ERB Islam
was no worse than all the rest.
— The End —
