European scholarship on Islam turned disinterested only once Islam ceased threatening Europe.

Evidence

If our own day sometimes resembles more the Middle Ages, we must remember that about three hundred years ago Europe had just begun the ascent to the watershed we may be passing; and then was the moment when Islam ceased to be a danger to European society. It is natural that it began then to be studied disinterestedly; we may reasonably assume some causal relation, if we cannot precisely define it. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1712

Categorization

• XREF: Corroborates the vault’s claim that Western ‘knowledge’ of Islam is shaped by power relations — connects to Said’s orientalism framing echoed in the Aziz/Razack cluster.