"Mahomet and the Mahometan Religion"
Given the importance of both the Tunisian captivity narrative in Vincent's hagiography and the constant efforts to redeem captive Christians from Barbary pirates, one might think that Vincent himself would address the issue of Islam in a substantial fashion in his writings. On the contrary, Vincent, in keeping with the practice of his time, refers indifferently to Muslims of all regions as "Turks," and advises avoidance rather than engagement. Those who correspond with Vincent refer regularly to Turks they have baptized, but Vincent himself warns those missionizing among the captives: "You are not responsible for the souls of Turks or renegades, and your mission does not extend to them but to poor captives," (CCD, IV: 126).
Whatever the real danger of piracy, slavery, and forced conversion, "Turks" are viewed by Vincent and his contemporaries primarily as a threat to Christians and Christian faith.
And yet there are indications of humane relations between Christians and Muslims, and even grudging respect (while maintaining suspicion) in this story, which is part of a conference given to the Daughters of Charity in 1658:
"Now, since you have this holy custom of asking forgiveness, what I recommend to you is, when you've given reason to someone to feel annoyed, don't fail to kneel down at once-or at least in the evening-to ask her forgiveness for the mortification you've caused her. This is in conformity with the Word of God that says, 'Do not let the sun set on your anger.'
"Would you believe that the Turks are better in this respect than many Christians? A Priest of the Mission, sent to convert the infidels, related that a Turk and a Christian, both of whom had been baptized, had some disagreement, with the result that they couldn't bear the sight of one another. This priest said to one of them, 'My friend, I heard that there was something between you and him; oh bien! you have to forgive him.' The poor slave replied, 'But, Monsieur, he did this and that to me; there's no way I can forgive him. I can't stand the sight of him.' 'It's human nature that's causing you this pain,' said the priest, who went off to the other man on the same errand. He spent a whole hour going from one to the other before he could convince them to be reconciled. A Turkish man of rank who noticed this said to the priest, 'Say, what were you doing with those two men, to whom you were talking so much?' The priest told him that he was trying to get them to be reconciled. 'I thought so,' said the Turk; 'but what kind of a religion is yours? How is it that those who belong to it have such a hard time forgiving one another? We certainly act otherwise, for we never allow the sun to go down on our anger.'
"That's what the Turks do. Consequently, a Daughter of Charity who harbors any coldness in her heart against her neighbor and doesn't take the trouble of being reconciled with her is worse than the Turks. So, I recommend this practice to you; and to the one who has been hurt I recommend that she humble herself and receive her Sister kindly when she asks her forgiveness." (CCD, X: 377)
George Sandys (1577 – 1644), an English Protestant, was roughly a contemporary of Vincent de Paul. In 1615 he first published A Relation of a Journey Begun Anno Domini 1610, which subsequently went through many editions. It recounts his trip to Constantinople by way of France and Venice, returning home through Egypt, Palestine, Cyprus, Italy and Rome. Although he did not visit the Barbary Coast of North Africa, his work is nonetheless important to us for his views on the significance of the Ottoman Empire after its defeat by a Catholic alliance in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, and more generally for his attitudes towards Islam vis-à-vis Protestant and Catholic Christianity.
Sandys, along with his direct encounters with Islam and Turkish ways of life in his travels, borrowed from and was in dialogue with an earlier work, Richard Knolles' A General Historie of the Turkes (1603). James Ellison, in George Sandys: Travel, Colonialism and Tolerance in the Seventeenth Century (2002), detects in Sandys' writings several shifts away from Knolles' attitudes of rabid hatred and fear toward the Turk. Sandys, following the views of his elder brother Edwin, a statesman, regarded the Ottoman empire as decadent and in decline, but saw an advantage in its long engagement with Catholic southern Europe—the Ottomans were thereby unlikely to attack the Protestant north. Not surprisingly, both brothers saw Islam, like Judaism, to be a pestilence toward Christianity. Sandys begins his account of "Mahomet and the Mahometans" with a scurrilous narrative of the Prophet's life. Early in his discussion of Islam, he characterizes its doctrine as "despicable," but then proceeds to a rather accurate description of Muslim practices, such as prayer, almsgiving, the observance of Ramadan, etc., stopping to be shocked at the sensual elements of the Muslim paradise. The climax of this account is reached in an approving discussion of some theological points of Avicenna (Ibn Sina), the Persian polymath (980 – 1037). Yet he says, finally, "the Mahometan religion, being derived from a person in life so wicked, so worldly in his projects, in his prosecutions of them so disloyall, treacherous, & cruel; being grounded upon fables and false revelations, repugnant to sound reason, & that wisedome which the Divine hand hath imprinted in his workes; alluring men with those inchantments of fleshly pleasures, permitted in this life and promised for the life ensuing; being also supported with tyranny and the sword (for it is death to speak there against it;) and lastly, where it is planted rooting out all vertue, all wisedome and science, and in summe all liberty and civility; and laying the earth to waste, dispeopled and uninhabited; that neither it came from God (save as a scourge by permission) neither can bring them to God that follow it." That is, despite his rather positive account of the practice of Islam and its thought, Sandys seems to be committed to discounting it on the basis of his version of its Prophet's life.
Similarly, we find that Sandys throughout his book is impressed with the traditions of tolerance among the Turkish rulers, the mercantile success, learning and family life of Jews, and the good works of Catholic friars—all the while expressing disgust at their foundational beliefs . Thus we can see a parallel here with Vincent's approval of Muslim forgiveness while despising what he sees as the inherent error and evil of Islam. In both the Protestant Sandys and the Catholic Vincent, there is the impossibility of acknowledging truth in another religion while affirming the truth of one's own. Yet in their modest acceptance of at least the behavioral virtues of the "other," we may detect a slight movement toward the broader tolerance that was to prevail among some segments of European society in the next century.