Desert geography was held to cause Muslim irrationality and untrustworthiness

Evidence

The notion that the Oriental was trapped in time is expressed in W. M. L. de Wette’s description of Judaism as a “degenerate, petrified” state, and originates in descriptions of the Orient as an extreme, dangerous, and stagnant region. Such descriptions originate in ancient times. One example is found in Procopius’s statement, “it seemed to the Homeritae a difficult thing to cross a country which extended so far that a long time was required for the journey across it, and then to go against a people much more warlike than themselves.” The condition of the Oriental was believed to be a product of his “desert mode of existence… [that] foster the extremes in emotions so characteristic” of Muslims, which resulted in “blurred perception and the inability to distinguish between truth and falsehood.” Neither Jew nor Muslim could be trusted because of the irrational nature that their wild and uninhibited desert environment engendered. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 404

Categorization

• XREF: This environmental-determinist explanation of Muslim character parallels the climatic/geographic theories of Ibn Khaldun’s asabiyya and Montesquieu’s climate theory; connects to how colonial geography naturalized racial hierarchy.
• QUESTION: De Wette’s ‘degenerate, petrified’ Judaism bridges anti-Semitism and Islamophobia through the same environmental determinism — worth tracing this shared earlier lineage of both prejudices.