Before the Enlightenment, educated Europeans regarded Islam with curiosity rather than contempt

Evidence

Significantly, by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries attitudes toward religion began to change. While Christianity was the key framework from which to make sense of the world in medieval Europe, now religion, Hourani explains, “came to mean any system of beliefs and practices constructed by human beings.” When thought of in this way, all religions were seen as worthy of rational study and analysis as human-made systems of thought. Further, Hourani notes that among the educated classes “travel, commerce, and literature brought some awareness of the phenomenon, majestic and puzzling, of Islamic civilization.” The eighteenth-century English author Samuel Johnson noted: “There are two objects of curiosity—the Christian world, and the Mahometan world. All the rest may be considered barbarous.” — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 109

Categorization

• XREF: Complicates the vault’s implication that imperial Islamophobia is ancient or continuous; Kumar herself elsewhere locates modern hierarchized racism to the colonial era. Johnson’s ‘two objects of curiosity’ quote is citable. — connects to: European understanding of Islam was ignorant but complex until the early eighteenth century; Enlightenment thinkers retained older anti-Muslim stereotypes — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 161; European study of Islam originated in fear, not curiosity. (+2 more)
• QUESTION: If pre-Enlightenment Europe saw Islam as worthy of study rather than contempt, when exactly and why does the hierarchy flip to racialized inferiority? Worth pinning the mechanism.

Broader Connections

• European understanding of Islam was ignorant but complex until the early eighteenth century #corroborates (0.90)
• European study of Islam originated in fear, not curiosity. #contradicts (0.85)
• Enlightenment thinkers retained older anti-Muslim stereotypes #contradicts (0.80) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 161
• Europeans regarded Ottomans as equals before Orientalism’s hierarchy emerged #qualifies (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 110
• Accurate knowledge of Islam did not soften early Christian hostility toward it #complicates (0.75) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 132