Abstract:

Islam played an evident role in the common imaginary of European people through Crusades, Ottoman conquests and corsairs of Maghreb, as well as pre-colonial “encounters” accompanied by an increase in Islamic studies. The latter revealed that Islam may captivate religious and/or intellectual imagination and even contribute to build some positive perception in this respect. That was the case especially for the British Enlightenment as “Anglo-Islamic” encounters particularly in Ottoman Empire and India coincided with a period of emerging radical Protestant interpretations invoking Islamic monotheism, while orthodox Anglicans also invoked the “Mahometan Christians” bogyman to rationalise exclusion of dissents from rites of citizenship. Multi-faceted effects of the encounters concerned can also be observed in the leading British Enlightenment philosophers” writings. Their perception of Islam was influenced by their thoughts on the religion and deity as well as that of the society they lived in. Yet their considerations or criticism toward Islam remained secondary comparing to Christian orthodoxy. Locke embarked upon proving the reasonableness of Christianity at the cost of being accused of “heretic” or even “Mahometan’. Locke introduced “tolerance” as a basic principle promoting equal treatment to all religions including Islam. Hume, making no difference between monotheist religions, approached religious matters in a skeptical and even sometimes pejorative way. Islam received from Hume some sarcastic wit and ironical reference. Hume was in favor of polytheist-pagan religions in terms of courage, reason and tolerance. Paine constantly displayed a deep refusal of religions. Imposing Deism against all religions, he gives some sample from Islamic beliefs and practices when trying to show absurdity of existing religions. Despite their different approaches representing Tolerant, Skeptical and Deist viewpoints, it should be noted that they all agree on the conceivability of God by reasoning and experience

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