Asadova chexrangiz salim qizi saydullayev nuriddin zayniddin o‘G‘li 35 – O‘zbek theme: idealism in tamburlane the great- the work of christopher marlowe contents

Marlowe’s resources and his understanding of Islam
Marlowe was ill-informed about the Islamic institutions. He had an interest in Turks and their religion since he referred to the Islamic Holy Scriptures, prayers, almsgivings, and faith declaration. Reading about Islam in Elizabethan Oriental library was significant for Marlowe’s thought and reaction in writing Tamburlaine. According to Jeff Dailey, in order to write Tamburlaine Marlowe used about thirteen published sources in Latin, as well as in English, which describe the beliefs of the Turks (Maclure 1979:20). The Turkish Company was licensed in 1581 to explore trade with the Turkish Empire. Like Samuel Chew, Nabil Matar reports that there were a lot of accounts about Islam and its people from Englishmen being captured by Turks, travelogues by both adventurers and religious pilgrims to the Holy Land, accounts of battles, and trade or diplomatic communications (Chew 1937:110 and Matar1999:21). T. A. Wolff refers to Marlowe as highly knowledgeable about Oriental history, events and facts because his reading of many books on the Orient and the relevant travel literature in composing Tamburlaine (1964:16). Travel sources were not very reliable, e.g. William Lithgow’s account of the Prophet’s tomb hanging in mid-air upon the Ka’aba’s roof in Makkah. Marlowe in Tamburlaine makes one of the characters, Orcanes, a sincere Muslim and captain in the Turkish forces, swear by holy Muhammad. He describes his death-place in the grand mosque of Makkah, with his body hung in a coffin on the roof of the holy Ka’aba in Mecca between the earth and the sky. Orcanes says:
By sacred Mahomet, the friend of God, Whose holy Alcaron remains with us,
Whose glorious body when he left the world, Closde in a coffin mounted up the air,
And hung on stately Mecca’s Temple roof, I swear… (Part II, 1.2.60–65)
All of these resources, along with references to the Qur’ān in medieval literature and plays, not only provided sources for Marlowe, but also allusions for his audience. Sandy’s portrayal of the Qur’an may be taken as a typical Renaissance opinion: “Besides the positive doctrine (to itself contradictory), it is farced with Fables, Visions, Legends, and Relations’; therefore, Smith believes that ‘most of the statements on the Prophet in and before Renaissance are all unjust” (Smith 1977:4).
Robert of Ketton’s translation of the Qur’ān stayed well in use in the sixteenth century. This twelfth-century Latin translation was reprinted in Basle in 1542 (Bald 1998:140). Carleen Ibrahim confirms that Marlowe makes a cautious deliberation in his use to some expressions from the Qur’ān in Tamburlaine, Part I and II. In Majorie Garber’s opinion Marlowe’s understanding of the Islamic Scripture is significant (Ibrahim 1996:31–32). Carleen Ibrahim claims that in the first Part of the play, Tamburlaine is portrayed as a Muslim, not as a Christian (1996:47). He used some verses, metaphors and words from the Holy Qur’ān. For example, after the death of the defeated King Sigismund, the Turkish chief officer Orcanes reports that the punishment of Christians and Sigismund is to be fed from a tree with bitter leaves, ‘Zoacum,’ which can only be found in hell. Marlowe uses the same name of the tree as in the Qur’ān, the tree of ‘Zaqqum’ whose branches are like the heads of devils. Marlowe portrays the tree relatively to the place of criminals in hell as it is in the Qur’ān. Marlowe formulates the same depiction:
... feeds upon the baneful tree of hell, That Zoacum, that fruit of bitterness,
That in the midst of fire is ingraffed,
Yet flourisheth as Flora in her pride,
With apples like the heads of damed fiends. (Tamburlaine, P II, II.iii.16–20)
To compare this allusion with the Qur’ānic verses, it looks as if Marlowe fully copied from the original copy of the Qur’ān in chapter 37:62–65; Allah says:

62.