Volume:01, Number:09, Jan-2012 : RJSSM Page 65 www.theinternationaljournal.org THE IMAGE OF MUSLIMS IN THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMA Dr. Amal Kitishat Assistant professor, Dept. of English language and literature, wata :world association of Arab translators and linguists alisco: Arab association of culture and science Jordan Abstract The Elizabethan theater presents a racial treatment of the Islamic character. This study aims at investigating the image of Muslims as presented in Elizabethan drama . In many of the Elizabethan plays Muslims are described as infidels, pagans , barbarians, black...etc .This attitude reveals the feeling of the increasing threat of the Islamic Ottoman Empire whose armies conquered many European isles .This view supports the crusaders‟ attitude toward Muslims .The study concludes that this view is resulted from the inherited crusader thinking which is aroused by the military expansion of the Ottoman Empire which is the greatest Islamic power that time. Key words: Islamic studies, Islamic identity, Islam and the West, racism ,Orientalism