Is it true that the Ottoman Empire in the late 19th century pressured France to ban a play about the prophet Muhammad?

by Express_Local7721

This article from Daily Sabah writes in detail about how Sultan Abdulhamid II of the Ottoman Empire successfully pressured France to censor the play called Mahomet. But doesn't cite any sources.

I have managed to find a source that the Turkish Ambassador officially protested the play in 1890, but I haven't seen anything that indicates it was actually banned (not that I'm good at looking). So I thought I would ask here. Thank you!

gerardmenfin

Yes, it is basically true. In 1889, Vicomte Henri de Bornier (1825-1901), a well-known playwright (now largely forgotten) and the chief librarian at the Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, wrote a play titled Mahomet that was to be shown at the Comédie-Française, the French National Theatre. The play was to be directed by the the head of the Comédie-Française, Jules Clarétie, with the illustrious actor Mouney-Sully in the titular role.

Unlike Voltaire's play of 1739 (Le fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophète), which was a direct attack on the Prophet's character in particular and of religious fanatism in general, Bornier's Mahomet took a sympathetic view of the founder of Islam. At that time, Islam was no longer perceived in France as Christiandom's archnemesis. Orientalism was fashionable, and "scientific orientalism" portrayed Muhammad as "completely sincere figure, convinced of his mission to bring his people the Arabs out of their abysmal ignorance and gross materialism" (Bosworth, 1970). Bornier's play was in line with this sentiment: it depicted Muhammad as an honourable man, and it used facts of his life as a background. But it was also a very Christian play, and its final scenes could certainly be found offensive by Muslims: Ayesha accuses Muhammad of hating women, comparing him unfavourably to Jesus, and the Prophet, while victorious, is tortured by guilt and self-doubt. He renounces prophethood and commits suicide by drinking poison. While the crowd chants his name, Muhammad's last words are "Jesus Christ!".

According to the newspaper Le Gaulois, the news about the play quickly arrived in Constantinople, and the Ottoman ambassador relayed the concern of Sultan Abdülhamid II to the French authorities, late 1888 or early 1889. The French Foreign ministry tried to assure the ambassador that the play did no contain anything offensive to Muslims. Bornier accepted the prohibition of his play in French-controlled Algeria and Tunisia. The preparations for the play continued, and rehearsals were announced. In October, news appeared that an Algerian man had written to protest about the play, on the grounds that it would produce "a deplorable impression in the Muslim world" (Le Temps, 12 October 1889). French newspapers downplayed this, but it was soon revealed that the Ottomans were renewing their opposition to the play. Bornier, interviewed in Le Matin, replied that France was not a vassal state of the Sublime Porte, and that, in any case, his play was actually "avenging Mahomet for Voltaire's tragedy". "Muslims", Bornier concluded, "will find nothing to complain about" (Le Matin, 18 October 1889).

Bornier was not exactly the most exciting playwright and he did not receive much support in the newspapers. His works, wrote Laerte in Le Radical, "providentially placed on a bedside table, replace morphine and chloral with advantage" (Laerte, 1889). For Emile Bergerat in Gil Blas, the Turks were entitled to demand the cancellation of the play because its author was a hack who would have the "poet of the Koran" talk in "doggerel verses" (Bergerat, 1889).

More significantly, the situation gave people the opportunity to criticize the ability of the French State to ban plays for whatever reason: moral, political, and diplomatic. Foreign intervention on French stage was not new: in January 1889, the play L'Officier Bleu, which dealt with the Russian imperial family, was banned by the governement (Calmette, 1889):

This drama could arouse legitimate international sensitivities and undermine the respect we owe to a friendly power.

In December 1889, the play Le Pater by poet François Coppée was banned simply for taking place during the Paris Commune. Bornier himself had got in trouble in the past: three of his plays had never been staged due to their political content. Le Mariage de Luther (1845) talked about clerical marriage; Dante et Béatrice (1853) may have alluded to Victor Hugo's exile; Le Chemin de Saint-Jacques, 1865 was about Charlemagne but "depicted a defeated France and a humiliated emperor" (Bosworth, 1970).

In any case, the concern about Mahomet was growing. An anonymous (French) reader in Cairo wrote a lengthy letter to the Journal des Débats (28 October 1889):

The Arab who lives in the vastness of the Sahara, the fellah bent over his land, all these millions of Muslims in a word, sincere believers, do not enter into subtleties. For them, theatre is not what it is for us. What they know of it is a response to ideas of coarseness and bad place. And if the French put the Prophet on the stage, it is because they want to mock him, to lower him, to ridicule the faith of believers. What proves that things are taken this way is that the news is already known and that there will be no lack of people to spread it further throughout the Muslim world. The malicious people who are exploiting this incident against you point out that last year, I believe, a play was banned from being performed at the Gymnasium which might have seemed offensive to the Russian emperor. They ask why the same measure should not be taken with regard to a play which offends not only the Caliph, but all believers. They point out that the circumstance is particularly appropriate, since it is a more or less official scene, which incidentally increases the gravity of the incident in the eyes of the Muslims. In any case, I wanted to bring to your attention this current concern of Muslims in Africa and Asia. Whether their opinion is childish or well-founded, it is certain that it exists and that the representation of Mohammed will be considered by the old believers as a sort of outrage against their faith.

Bornier replied a few days later by pointing out that there had been theatre "passion" plays in Teheran that had put the Prophet on stage and depicted his death, and he also quoted a letter he had received from a Muslim man who said that Bornier had been inspired by Muhammad to create "a work to celebrate the Prophet among Christians" (Le Rappel, 31 October 1889).

The story went on for a few months. Costumes were made, and once again rehearsals were announced. The Vie Parisienne published a proto-comic strip about the affair. But, in Paris and Constantinople, the Ottomans kept voicing their displeasure. The Sultan summoned several times the French ambassador, Mr de Montebello, reminding him that of the Russian precedent of the Officier Bleu, and of the danger of angering the Muslims subjects in French colonial territories (Rambaud, 1890):

You have, today, both in Algeria and in Tunisia, Muslim subjects. If they learn that, without respect for their religious faith, which is always a bit fanatical, the French are making Muhammad a theatrical character, a puppet, I can't answer for anything.

In March 1890, the French governement demanded that the play would be put on hold for an indefinite period.

Reactions in France were relatively subdued. Few people seem to have missed Bornier's latest opus, at a time when theatre lovers were discovering Henrik Ibsen and the innovations of André Antoine's Théâtre Libre. That a foreign power, and even not a very powerful one, was able to demand, and obtain, the banning of a play in Paris, was somehow infortunate, but censorship was routine after all. Some even found a positive result. The Sultan had called Algerians and Tunisians French subjects: for Grandlieu in Le Figaro, this explicit recognition from the Sultan of French sovereignty on these parts of the Maghreb was a "national success", worth the price of a banned play. Bornier, if he was a patriot, could understand this (Grandlieu, 1890).

Official reasons that led France to surrender to Turkey's pressure remain elusive, but contemporary and later observers thought that it had to do with preventing the Ottoman empire from becoming too friendly with Germany (Emperor William II was travelling to Constantinople at the time), and with assuaging the susceptibilities of French Muslim subjects (Bosworth, 1970).

Sources