Diminished Muslim threat let British observers admire Mughal culture despite Orientalist negative stereotypes.
Evidence
Second, inspiring Mughal architecture impressed many British observers even as it attested to Muslim decline. The Mughals may have been despotic – as seemed inevitable in the Anglo-American view of “oriental” and “Muslim” states – but the benefits of their governance could be appreciated too, now that they posed no threat. James Mill, whose History of British India (1817) represents one of the most influential and tartest British appraisals of South Asians, praised Muslims for their relative sophistication relative to Hindus. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 52
Categorization
- SEED: Article angle: how threat perception, not mere stereotype, gates whether a colonized people’s achievements get celebrated — a useful corrective to flat ‘orientalism’ readings.
- XREF: Complicates Edward Said’s Orientalism thesis by showing admiring, not only contemptuous, British portrayals of Muslims when threat recedes. — connects to: Colonial expansion and Orientalist essentializing emerged together in the nineteenth century. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 201; Mughal religious tolerance tempered some British Islamophobia before 1857 — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 57; A minority of Americans and Britons valued Islam despite dominant fear-based publications. — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear:…, 117 (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Mughal religious tolerance tempered some British Islamophobia before 1857
#corroborates(0.80) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 57 - British Islamophobia intensified only when Muslims ceased to be a safely declining power
#corroborates(0.75) - The image of Muslims shifted with military threat, not with religion per se
#expands(0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 95 - A minority of Americans and Britons valued Islam despite dominant fear-based publications.
#corroborates(0.60) — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 117