This study presents a literary picture of the Turks, Moors and renegades in the Elizabethan and early Stuart theatre. The depiction of these figures also provides an insight into the exotic and secret world of the Mediterranean and the adjoining lands under the rule of Islam. Questions of the religious coexistence of Muslims and Christians, conversion from one faith to another and mutual relations between England and the Ottoman Empire create a mosaic of contradictory perceptions of Turkish and Moorish characters who figure in Elizabethan and early Jacobean dramatic works.