In all the agonising about Islamism, and what to do about it, it would be a mistake to forget a very useful fact: that Britain has a special relationship with Islam and has done for centuries. The friendship with Islam is unique.
Spain was home to Andalusia, a Muslim empire for 700 years. The Germans, Poles and Austrians saw off Turkish Muslim invaders in the Siege of Vienna in 1529 and then again at the Battle of Vienna in 1683. The French lived in the shadow of 732 and the Battle of Poitiers. Britain alone, cut off from Catholic Europe, forged a relationship with Muslims built on trade, the rule of law, mutual respect and an exchange of ideas and cultures. It would be a terrible shame to forget this friendship now.
It was Queen Elizabeth I who did more than anyone to cultivate this relationship. During the Reformation, what might be considered the first Brexit, England was isolated by Europe’s Catholic monarchs and, in 1570, Elizabeth was excommunicated by Pope Pius V. The Protestant Queen refused to bow to European intimidation so she found new and willing allies in the Muslim Ottomans, then a 400-year-old empire with territories in the Balkans, North Africa, central Asia and the Middle East.
Sultan Murad III wrote to Queen Elizabeth, issuing a new law for his subjects, that if ‘her agents and merchants shall come from the domain of Anletar by sea with their barks and with their ships, let no one interfere’. This imperial edict, the rule of law, facilitated British trade in Ottoman trades and ports.
Ottoman protection of British ships and commercial envoys helped England thrive despite the boycott by European powers. The consolidation of Protestantism, free trade, and free inquiry in England that led to the Enlightenment had something to do with the Ottoman-Elizabethan pact.
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