XVIIth Century European Discourses on Apostasy and Conversion to Islam: A Text by French Captive Germain Moüette on Bernard Bausset and the Sultan of Morocco Mulay Ismail´s Fourteen Lions

Abstract

The story of the French captive Bernard Bausset, who survives being thrown into a den with fourteen hungry lions, as ordered by Mulay Ismail, the sultan of Morocco, is part of Germain Moüette ́s Relation de captivité, a book published in Paris in 1683. This story allows us to explore the religious and political instrumentalisation of the traumatic memory of European captives in North Africa. In particular, we will analise the construction of the martyr ́s figure, the ideas on conversion to Islam and apostasy from Christianity, and the construction of the image of one of the most important sultans in Morocco ́s history, the aforementioned Mulay Ismail.