Muslims and Citizens: Islam, Politics, and the French Revolution

by Ian Coller

Overview

A groundbreaking study of the role of Muslims in eighteenth†‘century France
 
From the beginning, French revolutionaries imagined their transformation as a universal one that must include Muslims, Europe’s most immediate neighbors. They believed in a world in which Muslims could and would be French citizens, but they disagreed violently about how to implement their visions of universalism and accommodate religious and social difference. Muslims, too, saw an opportunity, particularly as European powers turned against the new French Republic, leaving the Muslim polities of the Middle East and North Africa as France’s only friends in the region. In Muslims and Citizens, Coller examines how Muslims came to participate in the political struggles of the revolution and how revolutionaries used Muslims in France and beyond as a test case for their ideals. In his final chapter, Coller reveals how the French Revolution’s fascination with the Muslim world paved the way to Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Egypt in 1798.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300249538
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	03/20/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
File size:	17 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Ian Coller is professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of Arab France: Islam and the Making of Modern Europe, 1798–1831.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

Introduction 1

Prologue 15

1 Paris Turned Turk 24

2 The Turban and the Axe 41

3 The Rights of Muslims 61

4 The Turbans of Liberty 82

5 The Constitutional Mosque 104

6 The Muslim Republic 125

7 Islam in the Temple of Reason 148

8 The Muslim Jacobins 169

9 Robespierre Mahomet 190

10 Bonaparte's Burka 210

Epilogue: 1799 230

Notes 241

Bibliography 297

Index 343

Editorial Reviews

Coller presents readers with a unique and compelling history that shows that the French Revolution was not for the French alone.”—Angela C. Haas, Journal of Church and State

“This book exemplifies the standards of . . . superb historical scholarship. . . . Ian Coller has given us an outstanding study.”—Larry W. Riggs, New Perspectives on the Eighteenth Century

“Groundbreaking. . . . Coller teaches us to question our own misreading of the Revolution and ask why we have failed to recognize that Muslims had been central to France’s revolutionary saga all along.”—Junko Takeda, Journal of Modern History

CHOICE Outstanding Academic Titles, 2020

“This elegant, braided history of Muslims and French citizenship is urgently needed. It will be a ‘must read’ for students of the French Revolution and anyone interested in modern France.”—Carla Hesse, University of California, Berkeley

“The ‘Coller thesis’ challenges us to rethink the internationalism of the French Revolution from the perspective of the revolutionary Mediterranean and the Muslim world, not the Atlantic alone. This is provocative and brilliant history.”—Peter McPhee, author of Liberty or Death: The French Revolution, 1789–1799

“Coller takes an apparently familiar subject—the global impact of the French Revolution—and gives it a dynamic new twist.”—Marisa Linton, Kingston University

“A fascinating and brilliant book. The way in which Muslims in France lived through the Revolution and the shaping of French attitudes towards Muslims reveals much about the French revolutionary construction of citizenship and identity in this epoch.”—Michael Rapport, University of Glasgow

From the Publisher