Arab and Islamic studies resisted the 1960s scholarly revolutions that revised other area studies

Evidence

Only the Arabists and Islamologists still function unrevised. For them there are still such things as an Islamic society, an Arab mind, an Oriental psyche. Even the ones whose specialty is the modern Islamic world anachronistically use texts like the Koran to read into every facet of contemporary Egyptian or Algerian society. Islam, or a seventh-century ideal of it constituted by the Orientalist, is assumed to possess the unity that eludes the more recent and important influences of colonialism, imperialism, and even ordinary politics. Clichés about how Muslims (or Mohammedans, as they are still sometimes called) behave are bandied about with a nonchalance no one would risk in talking about blacks or Jews. At best, the Muslim is a “native informant” for the Orientalist. Secretly, however, he remains a despised heretic who for his sins must additionally endure the entirely thankless position of being known—negatively, that is—as an anti-Zionist. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 763

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘Arab mind / Oriental psyche’ reification is precisely the construct later Islamophobia criticism deconstructs; the native informant status connects to representation theory.
• SEED: The anachronistic use of the Koran to read contemporary societies is a strong angle: how timeless texts get weaponized to erase colonial and political history.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 763