European anxiety about Jews drove Western interest in the Semitic race

Evidence

The continuing decline of the Ottoman Empire was probably not the only reason for the Semitic Arabs replacing the Turks as Europe’s chief oriental interest. Preoccupation with the European Semites may have been another. There can be no doubt that the Semitic race was of concern to many Western people mainly because they were interested in either the Jews of the Bible or the Jews of their own time, rather than the Arabs. At the time the place of the Jews in Europe was hotly debated by both themselves and their friends and enemies. Identifying the Jews as Semites gave a scientific sheen to the discussion—especially in the beginning and the middle of the century, when colonial expansion was still in its infancy. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 123 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

For at least a millennium, Iran has been associated with Islam, and in the more recent centuries with Shi’ite Islam, which some have seen as an expression, a reappearance of the Persian national genius in an Islamic disguise. Some have gone even further—nineteenth-century European writers like Gobineau claimed to see the triumph of Shi’ism as the resurgence of the Aryanism of Iran against the Semitism of Islam. Such ideas are rather discredited nowadays, though they were popular at one time, and still have their adherents. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 303 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Europe’s racial anxieties about blackness paired the Muslim with the Jew — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 859; European views of Jews shaped and were projected onto colonial peoples; Jews were racially Whitened while Arabs were raced as non-White threats — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim: When Racism Quashes…, 637 (+14 more)

Broader Connections

• European interest in Semites was driven by the Jews, not the Arabs #corroborates (0.95) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 123
• Nineteenth-century Europeans racialized Shi’ism as Aryan resurgence against Semitic Islam #complicates (0.73) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 303
• Jews challenged Europe’s binary classifications from the nineteenth century onward #complicates (0.72)