The introduction of Calormenes into the Chronicles of Narnia is found in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. While on the Lone Islands Edmund, Lucy, Reepicheep and Eustace were captured and put on the slave market. After some adventure, King Caspian, supported by the Lord Bern, a former friend of Caspian’s father, mounts a rescue. The slave market is closed for good and the slaves are set free. At that point two Calormene merchants approach our heroes. Lewis describes the encounter as follows:
Yet, Lewis builds into Calormen society certain ideas which are patently at odds with a model of an Islamic Empire. First, the religion of Calormen is certainly not Islam. The chief deity of the Calormenes (though not the only one) is Tash who has four arms and the head of a vulture. The Calormenes worship idols of Tash and are said to practice human sacrifice. Tash is also regarded as the ancestor of the line of the Tisrocs (the empires of Calormen). All of which is totally at odds with Islam, a monotheistic religion which rejects idols and images of God. Why? If Lewis was seeking an Islamic enemy to Narnia, make the country fully Muslim!
I humbly suggest that the Muslim-like characteristics of Narnia's enemy is effectively a red-herring. Lewis endows Calormenes with some physical and cultural features of Muslims from the Middle Ages simply to recreate a Crusader-type defense of the Holy Land atmosphere in the Chronicles. However, the true conflict between Narnia and Calormen is not religion.
The major difference between Narnian society and Calormen society is the relationship between the common-folk and the great Lords, be they human or spiritual. In Calormen the populous is worthless in the eyes of the great leaders. Laws in Calormen are created by and for the elite. No man is allowed to stand in the presence of the Tisroc (who must be blessed upon mention of his name), and the traffic regulations in the capital city of Tashbaan are described as, “There is only one traffic regulation, which is that everyone who is less important has to get out of the way for everyone who is more important; unless you want a cut from a whip or punch from the butt end of a spear.” In Narnia, and its ally Archenland, however, “The king's under the law, for it's the law makes him a king.”
The same is true with the relationship towards the Gods. Tash seeks to conquer. He demands human sacrifice, he stretches his arms to “snatch all Narnia.” Borrowing from the description of the devil in the Screwtape Letters, Tash seeks to “draw all other beings into himself.” Aslan, of course, is the very opposite. Tash seeks human sacrifice, Aslan sacrifices himself for a human (Edmund). Tash seeks to swallow up Narnia, Aslan sends the Calormene crown-prince home to Calormen to be transformed back into a man in the Temple of Tash. Upon seeing Tash, Rishda Tarkaan falls face down to the ground. Upon seeing Aslan, Lucy’s face lights up and she runs towards him with joy.
This is the actual battle between Carlomen and Narnia. What is the purpose of the masses? To be servants whose will and very being are consumed by the elite, or to be sons who can receive blessings from He who seeks to give?
The Calormen have dark faces and long beards. They wear flowing robes and orange-coloured turbans, and they are a wise, wealthy, courteous, cruel and ancient people. They bowed most politely to Caspian and paid him long compliments, all about the fountains of prosperity irrigating the gardens of prudence and virtue - and things like that - but of course what they wanted was the money they had paid.These sentences paint a picture of Calormen as somewhere out of the Arabian Nights. Calormenes wear the clothes of the Middle East (and also carry scimitars rather than straight swords). They are courteous and speak with great eloquence but are really seeking something base and mundane. The fact that the Calormen currency is the crescent, cements the connection between it and the Ottoman Empire.
Yet, Lewis builds into Calormen society certain ideas which are patently at odds with a model of an Islamic Empire. First, the religion of Calormen is certainly not Islam. The chief deity of the Calormenes (though not the only one) is Tash who has four arms and the head of a vulture. The Calormenes worship idols of Tash and are said to practice human sacrifice. Tash is also regarded as the ancestor of the line of the Tisrocs (the empires of Calormen). All of which is totally at odds with Islam, a monotheistic religion which rejects idols and images of God. Why? If Lewis was seeking an Islamic enemy to Narnia, make the country fully Muslim!
I humbly suggest that the Muslim-like characteristics of Narnia's enemy is effectively a red-herring. Lewis endows Calormenes with some physical and cultural features of Muslims from the Middle Ages simply to recreate a Crusader-type defense of the Holy Land atmosphere in the Chronicles. However, the true conflict between Narnia and Calormen is not religion.
The major difference between Narnian society and Calormen society is the relationship between the common-folk and the great Lords, be they human or spiritual. In Calormen the populous is worthless in the eyes of the great leaders. Laws in Calormen are created by and for the elite. No man is allowed to stand in the presence of the Tisroc (who must be blessed upon mention of his name), and the traffic regulations in the capital city of Tashbaan are described as, “There is only one traffic regulation, which is that everyone who is less important has to get out of the way for everyone who is more important; unless you want a cut from a whip or punch from the butt end of a spear.” In Narnia, and its ally Archenland, however, “The king's under the law, for it's the law makes him a king.”
The same is true with the relationship towards the Gods. Tash seeks to conquer. He demands human sacrifice, he stretches his arms to “snatch all Narnia.” Borrowing from the description of the devil in the Screwtape Letters, Tash seeks to “draw all other beings into himself.” Aslan, of course, is the very opposite. Tash seeks human sacrifice, Aslan sacrifices himself for a human (Edmund). Tash seeks to swallow up Narnia, Aslan sends the Calormene crown-prince home to Calormen to be transformed back into a man in the Temple of Tash. Upon seeing Tash, Rishda Tarkaan falls face down to the ground. Upon seeing Aslan, Lucy’s face lights up and she runs towards him with joy.
This is the actual battle between Carlomen and Narnia. What is the purpose of the masses? To be servants whose will and very being are consumed by the elite, or to be sons who can receive blessings from He who seeks to give?
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