Captain Ahab – A Muslim at heart?

Timothy Marr's paper presents the classic, 19th centaury authors (Edgar Allen Poe, Hawthorne and Melville of course) as having been fascinated by the Islamic culture and having incorporated Islamic motives into their literary work.  One might claim that the reflection of Islam in those works is to some extent based on fact.  Melville for example has indeed traveled to the Middle East and was well read on the subject.  However it is to an even greater extent the case, that the Islamic motives in the western literature of the time, euphemistically may be said to be exotic or romanticized; or less euphemistically to be downright derived from western racism and patronizing attitude towards the east.  This is clearly shown by Melville's own ideas for dividing the Muslim world into 4 categories:

DESPOT, RENEGADE, SENSUALIST, FATALIST

These sub types correspond to some extent to the geographical descent of the Muslim in question, and belonging to one of those sub groups entails the existence or absence of certain personal qualities.

According to my understanding of Marr's article, Marr proposes among others that the character of Captain Ahab manifests to some extent the qualities stereotypically associated with Muslim freedom fighters engaged in a war, which in their eyes is considered a holy war or 'Jihad', in Arabic.   Stereotypically a Jihad warrior would be strongly motivated by a sense of deprivation, injustice, loss or pain, whether inflicted personally upon him or upon a group to which he feels bound by strong personal ties.  His determination to achieve a goal would be both endless and ruthless.  He would literally never stop and would gladly sacrifice his own life as well as those of others, while striving at that goal.  This indirectly implies that those who engage in Jihad also engage in the seeking of revenge.

It may be claimed the Captain Ahab is to some extent a manifestation of characteristics along the line of a Muslim, revenge seeking, Jihad warrior – in the 19^th century sense of the word of course.   Ahab's goal is to capture the beast, which in his opinion had ruined his life. This goal is much more than just a simple goal.  It is a crusade, derived from the pain and loss of a ship he had once called home, and this pain is constantly inflamed by hate, which knows no boundaries in its determination. .  His ship, his crew, his own life, are negligible – nothing but pawns, ready to be sacrificed for the one and only true important goal – in this case revenge in the sense of eye for an eye, – also, as mentioned, a well known Muslim custom, which unfortunately to this very day, sometimes fills the headlines.