Islam in Marlowe's Tamburlaine the great

Abstract EN

This paper seeks to present a providential approach to Tamburlaine.

This approach is justified in terms of the divine punishment which guilty figures suffer as a result of their misdeeds.

When facing misfortune or penalty, characters supplicate to different divine powers: the Persian supplicate to Jove, the Moslem Turks supplicate to the Prophet Muhammad, and the Christians appeal to Christ.

But Tamburlaine, who introduces himself as the Scourge of God, always supplicates to a generalised God.

Through its invocation of Jove, the play combines these divine forces into a generalised God.

It is this generalised God Who punished Tamburlaine for burning the holy Koran and other Islamic texts.

Tamburlaine's sudden sickness in the wake of his sacrilegious action will be seen as showing God's refutation of Tamburlaine's assertion that In vain...

men worship Mahomet'.

This refutation emphasizes the play's defence of Islam, and shows the play to be a tragedy of divine justice.