Europe’s historical fear of Islam derived from its military expansion reaching multiple continents

Evidence

Yet where Islam was concerned, European fear, if not always respect, was in order. After Mohammed’s death in 632, the military and later the cultural and religious hegemony of Islam grew enormously. First Persia, Syria, and Egypt, then Turkey, then North Africa fell to the Muslim armies; in the eighth and ninth centuries Spain, Sicily, and parts of France were conquered. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Islam ruled as far east as India, Indonesia, and China. And to this extraordinary assault Europe could respond with very little except fear and a kind of awe. Christian authors witnessing the Islamic conquests had scant interest in the learning, high culture, and frequent magnificence of the Muslims, who were, as Gibbon said, “coeval with the darkest and most slothful period of European annals.” — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 163

Categorization

• XREF: Factual foundation for why Islamophobia reads as a historically and politically motivated fear rather than a natural response - connects to the stated reading purpose’s need to understand Islamophobia’s genealogy.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 163