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Christian apologists nearly every time that Islam is discussed.” 290 Sale later adds that“the Mohammedan divines […] call the sword the key of heaven and hell”. However,having done so, Sale then demonstrates balance by proceeding to censure Christianityfor its failure to match its own practice to its pacifistic philosophy, describingChristians as having “shown a more violent spirit of intolerance than either” Jews orMuslims, both of whom Sale describes as having divine commissions for warring. 291Byron, then, is following the common trend in connecting Islam with violence. In theTales, the association with violence is, on one level, simply the connection betweenIslamic cultural activities and militant behaviour. Thus, The Giaour describes theFeast of Bairam (Eid al Fitr), as being announced with gunfire:The flashes of each joyous pealAre seen to prove the Moslem’s zeal.To-night – set Ramazani’s sun –To-night – the Bairam feast’s begun[.] (G 226-9).Byron’s note reads, “‘Tophaike’, musket. – The Bairam is announced by the cannonat sunset; the illumination of the Mosques, and the firing of all kinds of small arms,loaded with ball, proclaim it during the night” (McGann 3.417:225). The initialimage of serenity of the Mosque on the hill (G 222-4) is rather undercut by the use ofthe musket and cannon, which “prove the Moslem’s zeal”, not least because theweapons are indeed loaded with shot, instead of powder alone for the noise. Thisrepresentation would not be terribly significant but for the multiplicity of others, notleast of which is that of the Muslim convert Alp in The Siege of Corinth, and how he“proved, by many a deed of death, /How firm his heart in novel faith” (SC 5.112-3).The association with warfare is also an association with the tools of warfare, and thusMuslim characters in these Tales connect their religion with their own personalswords. Selim, for example, promises Zuleika,290 Pailin, p.103. See also Paul Rycaut, The Present State of the Ottoman Empire (London: JohnStarkey and Henry Brome, 1670), p.104, and Richard Knolles, Turkish History (London: Isaac Cleave,1701), 1.455, for more examples of this. Rycaut and Knolles are listed in Byron’s 1807 catalogue ofreading in Moore’s The Life, Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, 5.46-7.291 Sale, pp.152, 153.189