Western Stereotypes about the “Orient”

Stereotypes of the “Orient,”[1] including the Middle East, abound in Western art and travel literature of the nineteenth century, especially among Europeans and Americans.[2] Much of their art and writing reinforced racial and religious hierarchies representing the various ideologies of their day, such as social Darwinism, evolutionary theory, the noble savage, white supremacy, Romanticism, the superiority of Western civilization, white man’s burden, capitalist progress, manifest destiny, and the triumph of Christian Protestantism. Influential public academic Edward Said characterized these types of worldviews and assumptions about the Middle East as “Orientalist.” He argued that these views found their roots in the desires of Western states to gain control over and exploit Eastern societies through imperialist domination justified by characterizing these cultures, religions, societies, and peoples as backward, superstitious, corrupt, venal, uncivilized, and incapable of governing themselves.[3] Notions of Western superiority strongly influenced the views of many Westerners as they encountered the East.

Many European and American travel accounts were written based on very limited direct engagement and experience with, or even knowledge of, the contemporary Middle East, as Kim Fortuny asserts in her book American Writers in Istanbul:

Most European travel prose . . . tell[s] stories about the Ottomans, stories of a people slavish, ignorant, covetous, proud, cruel, despotic. These terms are most often found in intertextual or armchair accounts of the empire, writing based on other writings rather than direct experience.[4]

These travel narratives, however, often reveal less about the actual places they purportedly describe and more about the assumptions and biases of their authors. In other words, many Western travel writers engaged the Middle East through their own worldview and assumptions about what they thought they were going to see and experience, which was heavily colored by conceptions of ancient biblical events and places of the Holy Land. These travelers often first engaged the Orient through their imaginations about retracing the steps of biblical prophets, apostles, and even Jesus Christ rather than through intimate knowledge of what was actually happening to the peoples and places they observed while traveling in the Middle East.[5] In the case of Joseph Booth and other Christian missionaries, their engagement with the Orient was also shaped to some degree by their conviction of the truth of their ecclesiastical mission to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, their preparations for the gathering of Israel, and the return of Jesus Christ in the last days. Many of their views of the peoples, places, and conditions of the Middle East were filtered through a lens that saw the land and its people suffering from dogma, decline, and corruption—a perspective that inevitably affected their ability to understand local peoples’ situations and conditions on their own terms.

What is fascinating to witness through Booth’s journals, however, is that as he learns through direct experience the languages, customs, and specific circumstances of the people he is working with, his views become more nuanced and balanced. While his ecclesiastical mission to redeem souls and his millennialist fervor never diminish, he also becomes increasingly sympathetic to local cultural norms and more intensely involved in providing for the temporal needs of those he meets and comes to know intimately. For example, his efforts to establish a Latter-day Saint colony focus more on preserving the lives and well-being of Armenian convert in the aftermath of the deportations and mass atrocities suffered by Armenians during World War I than on hastening the second coming of Christ (see Booth’s journal entries in part 3, “The Mormon Colony Initiative”). In a 1924 letter to his brother-in-law, James E. Talmage, Booth stated that Church president Heber J. Grant had advised him “not to push the work of proselyting beyond our capacity to take care of the new converts, but to devote our efforts more to teaching” and strengthening the Church members temporally.[6]

Church members themselves were also “Orientalized.” Protestants often attempted to malign the Church by drawing comparisons between Joseph Smith and Muhammad, arguing inter alia that both leaders founded religions of a sensual character, promulgated fraudulent scriptures, and exercised absolute power over their fanatical disciples.[7] Polemicists and Orientalists claimed that Islam and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintained appeal through their “afterlife redolent with polygamous pleasure,” depicting Latter-day Saints as “more similar in character to the ‘backward’ races of the Orient than to Americans.”[8]

At times some Latter-day Saint missionaries and leaders, similar to other Westerners, expressed attitudes toward Middle Eastern peoples and cultures that reflect Orientalist themes. For example, on his journey to Jaffa, Orson Hyde wrote to Parley P. Pratt, “You will hear from me again . . . if the Arabs don’t kill me first.”[9] Additionally, George Q. Cannon, when advocating for a Latter-day Saint colony in Palestine in an editorial published by the Juvenile Instructor, referred to the Church’s converts from the “Orient” as needing to be taught “the arts of true civilization, from which they have fallen through the transgressions of their fathers.”[10] Even Ferdinand Hintze, one of the first missionaries sent to establish the Turkish Mission and a great advocate for Church assistance on behalf of indigent Armenian converts, referred to them as a “fallen race.”[11]

Conversely, some Church leaders and intellectuals found positive parallels between the Church and Islam, especially their two founders. Orson Spencer drew on this comparison to justify Joseph Smith’s role as Nauvoo’s military leader: “[The Latter-day Saints need] a military chieftain, like the ancient Mahomet, . . . [to convey] fear and dread . . . [to those] who watch for prey, and spoil, and booty.”[12] Other Church leaders such as Joseph Smith, Parley P. Pratt, and George A. Smith spoke favorably about Islam and Muslims, highlighted their important role in religious history, and drew comparisons between the persecutions and misrepresentations that both Muslims and Latter-day Saints have suffered.[13] In sum, the Church’s official and layman views toward the Middle East were still coalescing as Joseph Booth set out to further the Church’s missionary efforts in the Ottoman Empire. The writings and observations of Booth and other missionaries evince these sundry and evolving perspectives about “Oriental” culture.

Interfaith Matters and Governmental Relations

The Ottoman Empire ruled over the holy lands of three major world religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. The historical record reflects the constant interfaith engagement of Latter-day Saint members and missionaries with all these religious communities. The Church was not well known in the early years of the mission, except for its most salacious stereotypes (such as polygamy and new scripture). Print media of the day often ran stories comparing Islamic and Latter-day Saint polygamy. Additionally, the United States Department of State worked actively to thwart Church proselytizing and immigration efforts through the promulgation of the Evarts Circular in 1879.[14] Populations in the interior of the Ottoman Empire, however, had limited access to newsprint. Opposition gradually increased as Church missionary activity reached more and more inland cities and Protestant proselytizing competitors agitated locals against it. Additionally, most of the problems encountered by the missionaries at the hands of the dominant Islamic community took the form of government restrictions and social taboos that sought to prevent public distribution of Christian literature and the conversion of Muslims.

There were large, thriving Jewish communities scattered throughout the Ottoman Empire with whom Latter-day Saint missionaries were always eager to share their message. Jews and Judaism hold an important place in Church doctrine regarding the end of days, the gathering of Israel, and the imminent return of the Jews to Palestine. However, even though the missionaries had many opportunities to engage in lengthy religious discussions with both Muslims and Jews, only a few individuals from these groups ever converted and were baptized. While most of the elders visited Jerusalem and other areas of the Holy Land and enjoyed generally cordial relations with Jews and Muslims, it became the accepted practice throughout Western missionary work in the Middle East to work primarily among the Christian communities in the region.

Relations between the various Christian churches of the Ottoman Empire were generally characterized by rivalry, jealousy, and strife, and Church missionaries soon realized that, ironically, fellow Christians were the source of some of the strongest opposition to their work. Most of the problems occurred when Catholic and Armenian priests or Protestant ministers circulated biased information about the Latter-day Saints to turn local government leaders against the elders and to encourage the community to resist their teachings. In several instances, children of Armenian converts were told they could not attend private Christian schools, a fact that effectively denied them educational opportunity because of limited access to public schooling in the Ottoman Empire. There were very few public schools for poor families in Central Anatolia at that time. Rumors that all Latter-day Saint men had many wives, that the missionaries were guilty of sexual promiscuity, and that they paid others to join their church and emigrate to Utah were widely circulated. As a result, it was common for missionaries and their converts to be harassed in the streets and stores, arrested and jailed on flimsy charges, physically threatened, and even assaulted.

A few examples illustrate the intense resistance that the missionaries frequently encountered. Elder Booth recorded a “very sensational report” that deeply affected the members in Aintab: “It was to the effect that the Mormon Missionaries were guilty of gross crimes in the city and the news was spreading like wildfire that we were adulterers etc. A number of the brethren came to see what they could do about it. We advised them to trace the story to its origin and nail it as a lie.”[15] Elder Hintze described mob violence, a “cyclone of persecutions,” that followed in the wake of “vile stories” distributed by local Protestant missionaries concerning polygamy, blood atonement,[16] and the Mountain Meadows Massacre.[17] Bands of ruffians harassed the elders, disrupted Church meetings, and threatened members and investigators:

Morning meeting was all we could hold . . . to avoid the mob. Afternoon meeting we had to suspend. On the streets we were followed by curious, shouting mobs, occasionally stoning us, and all the time whistling and yelling Mor-r, Mor-r-r, rolling out the r in a real comical way. Now Mor means purple in Turkish so they yelled, “sovy, mavy, Mor-r-r” (yellow blue Purpel-l-l). This, of course, was fun for the Aintab hoodlums, hundreds followed us in the streets. Men, women and children in the gates and on the flat house tops taking in the sight afforded. Why, it was a real circus to them to see what they thought to be the much married Mormons. Wherever we called, if they [the mob] were not admitted, the houses were stoned and an attempt was made to break in until we had, at last, to call in the police to protect us.[18]

In Zara, a town in north-central Anatolia where a small branch of Armenian Latter-day Saints flourished, the Protestants were incredulous when one of their own was baptized into the Church:

This baptism nearly upset the town. They would not believe that Luke, the Protestant, had been baptized and become a Mormon. Some, to satisfy themselves, came and asked me, “How has he become a Mormon?” They all have the idea that Mormons are paid for being what they are. One man declared to me that he knew that a certain Mormon was receiving sixty piasters a month. He would not believe me to the contrary. You may be sure there was joy in Zion’s camp that night, but the enemy was very restless.[19]

Sometimes problems resulted because the missionaries refused to yield to corrupt government practices:

Our meetings have been stopped by the government, and as the demand came direct from the “Kaimakum” [local mayor], who read to us the order from the “Voley” [governor] we could do nothing else but close, and refer the matter to President Herman, as we have not been advised to give “bribes,” and that is what it means. One brother, who had been removed from Aintab to Killis, has been brought back in chains for being too conspicuous, the trouble being brought on by a Catholic priest.[20]

Occasionally opposition was manifest when the missionaries publicly taught the Church doctrines of plural marriage and the nature of God, which were considered blasphemous in Middle Eastern religious society. In Aintab, for example, a great disturbance erupted when the missionaries taught these two doctrines in public and was quelled only when some friendly townspeople intervened on their behalf.[21]

Many missionaries in the Ottoman Empire noted how persecution frequently facilitated rather than inhibited their work. Elder Booth described how he and his companion learned to respond positively to the constant ridicule they faced in Aintab and thus discovered a unique proselytizing method used frequently thereafter by the missionaries:

We scarcely ever go on the street without being saluted with a “Mur-r-r” from the tongue of both boys and men. It is the way in which they express their disfavor of Mormons. . . . On our way home as we were passing the door of a weaving room we were met with the usual expression Mur Mu r r r, from those inside. Suddenly we turned in and Bro Maycock in a jolly tone began a conversation with them which brought shame on their features which they could not hide. It was not long before the little place was crowded and the door and windows jammed with people eager to hear what was going on inside. . . . Thus the tongue of the scoffer was the means that day of a number of people hearing the gospel.[22]

Rounding out the picture of the Church’s relations with other Christian groups in the Ottoman Empire is the fact that the written sources contain many examples of genuine friendship, kindness, and compassion on the part of Christians, Muslims, and Jews toward the missionaries. It is interesting to note that, unlike today, missionaries often attended Protestant and Catholic meetings and were given the opportunity to expound their religious views. Frequently they reciprocated, inviting priests and pastors as guest speakers to their sacrament meetings and other gatherings. Joseph Booth’s extensive journals reveal that Dr. Fred and Mrs. Fanny Shepard, two of the most renowned Protestant missionaries in Central Anatolia, were good friends of Joseph and Reba Booth in Aintab, spending many pleasant hours playing chess and conversing on subjects of mutual interest to fellow Americans living in an isolated corner of the globe. The Shepards nursed Elder Booth back to health when he was suffering the near-fatal ravages of smallpox. Protestant ministers played a prominent role in the funerals of two missionaries, Elder Simmons in Aintab and Elder Huber in Aleppo, volunteering to make burial arrangements and to give the main eulogy.

Notes

[1] The term Orient in today’s common English vernacular usually refers to East Asia, but in the nineteenth and much of the twentieth centuries it also applied to any place in Asia that was “east” of Europe, which includes today’s Middle East, South and Central Asia, and East Asia. This coincided with the founding of “Orient Institutes” at European and North American elite universities for the study of ancient texts and civilizations, such as the University of Oxford’s School of Oriental and African Studies. To differentiate between areas of the Orient, European and North American parlance used terms such as Near East, the Indian Subcontinent, Central Asia, and Far East, according to the particular region’s proximity to Western and Central Europe. In fact, the Balkans (technically in Southeastern Europe) were often considered the Near East when they belonged to the Ottoman Empire. By the end of World War II the term Middle East generally replaced Near East as the common term for referring to the region of Southwest Asia and North Africa that encompasses today’s Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, Israel/Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Oman, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco.

[2] For an insightful discussion about Orientalism and European art, see Macfie’s Orientalism, chapter 4. For Western travel literature, see Schull, “Amalgamated Observations.”

[3] Said, Orientalism. For an excellent overview of the impact that Edward Said’s Orientalism had on academia, policymakers, and the general public, see Lockman, Contending Visions of the Middle East, 183–215.

[4] Fortuny, American Writers in Istanbul, xx.

[5] Schull, “Amalgamated Observations.”

[6] Booth correspondence with James E. Talmage, 1924, 1928–29, Armenian Mission.

[7] Toronto, “Interreligious Discourse,” 19–25. This paragraph and the following two draw heavily from this article.

[8] Wells, “Muslims under the Mormon Eye,” 63; and Talbot, “Turkey Is in Our Midst,” 364.

[9] Wells, “Muslims under the Mormon Eye,” 65.

[10] Cannon, “Topics of the Times,” 390–91.

[11] Hintze, “Proselyting in the East,” 5.

[12] “Letter of Orson Spencer,” Times and Seasons, January 2, 1843, 57, quoted in Toronto, “Interreligious Discourse,” 30.

[13] Toronto, “Interreligious Discourse,” 28–37.

[14] This circular, written by US Secretary of State William Evarts, was sent to all US consulates and embassies instructing US officials to enlist their consular counterparts to “harass, monitor, and prevent” so-called Mormon “Agents” (missionaries) from proselyting in their countries, because they were part of a criminal network to enslave women into their harems. This circular also urged foreign governments to prevent Latter-day Saint converts from immigrating or traveling to the United States. See “Diplomatic Correspondence, Circular No. 10, August 9, 1879, Sent to Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United States,” Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1879, 11–12.

[15] Booth Journals, vol. 7, April 24, 1899.

[16] See Snow, “Blood Atonement,” 131, for a discussion of this concept and its relation to Church doctrine. Simply stated, this concept suggests that if a person commits a grievous sin such as murder after having converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ, joined the Church through the ordinances of baptism and confirmation, and received a remission of sins, further forgiveness can be received only through the shedding of that person’s own blood on the ground. According to Snow, while some early Church leaders, particularly Brigham Young, openly spoke of “blood atonement,” it was never an official practice or doctrine of the Church.

[17] The Mountain Meadows Massacre was a horrific act of violence orchestrated and carried out primarily by a Latter-day Saint militia and Paiute Indians against a party of settler pioneers (the Baker-Fancher party) making their way to California from Arkansas as they crossed through Utah Territory in 1857. In total, about 120 men, women, and children were murdered. Scholarly literature on this atrocity is divided on the issue of whether Church president Brigham Young knew about the planned massacre and gave approval for it. Walker, Turley, and Leonard, Massacre at Mountain Meadows; King, “Aftermath of Mountain Meadows”; Turner, Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet, chapters 7–10; and Bagley, Blood of the Prophets. This event made international headlines across Europe and followed the Latter-day Saint missionaries into the Middle East.

[18] Letter from F. F. Hintze, in “Letters from Palestine,” 9.

[19] Elder A. L. Larson, letter of March 19, 1900, written from Sivas, Asia Minor, in “Abstract of Correspondence,” 235.

[20] Elders J. A. Holdaway and Willis Mangum, letter of November 18, 1900, written from Aintab, Syria, in “Abstract of Correspondence,” 796.

[21] Hintze’s journal, June 4 and 7, 1889 (cited in Lindsay, “History of the Missionary Activities,” 35). However, on an earlier occasion in Beirut, some people attending a Latter-day Saint missionary meeting, presumably Muslims, who accept polygamy as a divine principle under certain conditions, were more open to the doctrine of plural marriage than the general public. According to Hintze’s account, the people were keenly interested in their message but disappointed that they were not told how to obtain multiple wives (Lindsay, “History of the Missionary Activities,” 34; and Hintze, “Round about Beirut”). Church theological teachings about a plurality of gods and anthropomorphism would generally be deemed blasphemous by Muslims, Jews, and other Christians.

[22] Booth Journals, vol. 7, January 31 and February 2, 1899.