English anxiety imagined Islam converting good Protestants into violent beasts through sensual temptation

Evidence

Othello expresses another threat—the danger of “Turning Turk,” where an Englishman (or woman) would become Turk, transforming into a violent beast. The English were fearful that Islam would turn “good Protestants to a state of damnation” due to the Muslim’s “sexual/sensual temptation” and his (or her) “wrathful passion for power.” In Othello, this is expressed clearly in the lines, “Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do that, Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?” The only way for Othello to extinguish this part of himself is by suicide, “killing the Turk he has become.” — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 322

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the ‘Turning Turk’ concept as a Western anxiety about apostasy through sensual seduction.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ theme about moral panics over sensual temptation across cultures.