Forbes, James, 1749-1819, James Forbes letter, Bombay, 1769 September 25, copied between 1794 and 1800
- Call Number:
- Folio A 2023 69
- Creator:
- Forbes, James, 1749-1819
- Title(s):
- James Forbes letter, Bombay, 1769 September 25
- Date:
- copied between 1794 and 1800
- Classification:
- Archives and Manuscripts
- Series:
- Series I: A voyage from England to Bombay with descriptions in Asia, Africa, and South America
- Part of Collection:
- volume 3, page 79-89
- Provenance:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Conditions Governing Access:
- The materials are open for research.
- Conditions Governing Use:
- The collection is the physical property of the Yale Center for British Art. Literary rights, including copyright, belong to the authors or their legal heirs and assigns. For further information, consult the Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts.
- Scope and Content:
- Having completed his description of Hindu practices in India, Forbes turns to the Muslim inhabitants of the subcontinent. This letter is significantly shorter than the previous one, and dwells less on Forbes’s own experiences than his readings of history and theology. He begins with his own account of the arrival of “Islamites, or Mahometans” in India, a process, in his view, marked by violence and destruction. Citing Alexander Dow, Forbes describes the immensity of wealth carried off by the earliest Muslim invaders, and laments the misery caused by this encounter: it was a “period which presents the most shocking picture of war and famine, desolation and despair, arising chiefly from the revolt of the wretched Hindoos, struggling in vain for their civil and religious Liberties.” Conquest completed, the Muslim rulers, according to Forbes, proceeded to let the native inhabitants live in peace. This narrative of Islam as something inherently foreign, and of South Asian Muslims as either not Indian or not really Islamic, formed a central part of British thinking about religion, race, and other forms of classification under company and imperial rule. Forbes then turns to the history and theology of Islam itself. He notes the centrality of the Quran, and introduces the text as “the most extraordinary instance of imposture that ever existed,” composed by Muhammad with the assistance of a deviant monk. He presents what he understands as the key theological elements of the religion, stressing the unity of God and the “luxurious paradise” promised to believers. He briefly discusses his observations of Muslims in India, asserting that, though “called Moors…they are of a different race from the Saracens.” As they are permitted to eat meat—and, Forbes says, often partake in illicit consumption of alcohol—they have “ambition, valour, and jealousy.” Muslim men, Forbes insists, do not educate their women, and, though the Quran prohibits music, they indulge in it frequently. The closing pages of Forbes letter address the prevalence of belief in witchcraft, a tendency Forbes ascribes to less advanced societies (though acknowledging that England had only recently left such beliefs behind). He then provides a brief comparison of Islam and Christianity: the latter, of course, greatly superior to the former, such that one can only wonder why God has permitted such a faith to persist. Forbes includes a quotation from the Quran, on violence and judgement, and closes with a quotation from Bishop Thomas Sherlock, on the iniquity of Islam and glory of Christ. Portions of this text appear in <title>Oriental Memoirs</title>, volume 1, pp. 89-103. Bibliography: Viswanathan, Gauri. <title>Outside the Fold: Conversion, Modernity, and Belief</title>. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998.
- Physical Description:
- 11 pages
- Genre:
- Correspondence , Botanical illustrations, Ornithological illustrations, Travel sketches, Maps, Watercolors (paintings), Drawings (visual works), Engravings (prints), and Portraits
- Subject Terms:
- Forbes, James, 1749-1819. Descriptive letters and drawingsForbes, James, 1749-1819. Oriental memoirs
- Associated Places:
- EnglandItalyScotlandWales
- Associated People/Groups:
- East India CompanyForbes, James, 1749-1819
- Finding Aid Title:
- James Forbes archive
- Archival Object:
- https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199457
- Metadata Cloud URL:
- https://metadata-api.library.yale.edu/metadatacloud/api/aspace/repositories/3/archival_objects/3199457?mediaType=json&include-notes=1&include-all-subjects=1