Early Dutch Orientalism and Enlightenment in Mahomets Alkoran (1696)
Only a single illustrated edition of the Qur’an has been published throughout history. Mahomets Alkoran, a Dutch translation of 1696, is adorned with six illustrations that are seemingly both informative and sensational. In this thesis, I investigate how these contradictory sentiments in the illustrations of Muslims and Muhammad worked together in the publication. The book was published in a period of interest in Islam for philosophical and entertaining purposes. Mahomets Alkoran reacted to the audience’s demand through illustrations that both informative and critical of Islamicate culture and Islamic prayer, and through illustrations that are mainly entertaining. The text itself is equally contradictory for it informs of Islam, criticizes Islam and also motivates a comparative reading with the Bible. I trace these differences to the different contexts of creation of text, paratext and illustrations, and to a concurrence of Orientalism and Enlightenment.
Orientalism is evident from the stereotyping and Othering the Islamicate world while Enlightenment has impacted the emphasis on themes like cultural relativism, iconoclasm and the oneness of God and nature, especially through effective placements of illustrations. Together, Orientalism and Enlightenment caused the physical, cognitive and philosophical charm of Mahomets Alkoran but also caused some dichotomies in the publication.