Islam and the West by Christopher J. Walker

Author:Christopher J. Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780752495774
Publisher: The History Press
Published: 2013-03-04T05:00:00+00:00

After land-sweats, and many a storme by Sea,

This hillock aged Sherleys rest must be.

He well had view’d Armes, men, and fashions strange

In divers lands. Desire so makes us range.

But turning course, whilst th’ Persian Tyrant he

With well dispatched charge hop’d glad would be;

See Fortunes scorn! under this Doore he lyes,

Who living, had no place to rest his eyes.

With what sad thoughts, mans mind long hopes do twine,

Learn by anothers losse, but not by thine.55

Was there any deeper meaning or significance in the lives of Anthony and Robert Sherley, beyond the familiar features of a buccaneering spirit, a bold opportunism and a ceaseless capacity to dice with fate?

Their labours did not fashion an English policy towards Persia. In this field, it was the principles of Queen Elizabeth which were to hold sway. England never found it profitable or expedient to be a friend of Persia, except in a very minor way. There was never anything essential in Anglo-Persian dealings as there was in the Anglo-Turkish relationship.

But in the wider world of European diplomacy, there were some brief moments when their association with Persia reduced the Ottoman threat to Europe. The Sherleys may have been bad Englishmen, but they were good Europeans, for which England must be grateful too.

Was there a romantic attachment to the East? Were the Sherley brothers the first Englishmen to be drawn to the East, by the demands of a harsh and unforgiving landscape, or by an ancient and self-sufficient culture? This is doubtful. There was nothing dreamy or rhapsodic in the attitude of either brother. In their lives and in their correspondence they give the impression of doing a job that they had set themselves, with what determination and cunning that they could summon. Anthony Sherley believed that he had spotted a niche in the market of international diplomacy and aimed to fill it. His brother followed him; but being younger, and having spent more time in Persia, he grew up to be more focused and to some extent, though still capable of deception, less devious than his brother. The Sherley brothers were no more than freelance diplomats, both fluent on the world stage, the younger possessing a fraction more inner conviction. Robert Sherley, besides reforming the Persian army and thereby weakening the Turks’ ability to wage war on Europe, was also a man of two worlds, a faithful servant of the Shah and a man whose deference to his natural sovereign was also honourable. He proved that one can be at home in the East and in the West, and that anxiety about cultural treachery is an issue only for those with experience of one culture, or none.

The vision of an actual alliance between Persia and Europe to crush Turkey was unrealisable and the world leaders with whom the brothers dealt understood that. If the Sherleys had limited themselves to reforming the Persian army and improving the quality of the trade of Persia, they might have achieved more. Their impatience and boredom, and a streak of

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