European secularization of history was partly caused by the Muslim advance

Evidence

In the spirit of Renaissance humanism, the Ottoman ascendancy was interpreted in Christian Europe in secular terms. Unlike in the preceding periods, events in the Orient as elsewhere could now be painted with the hues of human conflict rather than of the apocalyptic imagination. Indeed, the Muslim advance may actually have been not only the object, but also in large measure a cause of this overall secularization of history, which was part of “the primary event of modernity; the affirmation of the powers of this world, the discovery of the plane of immanence.” For if history was governed by God alone then how could one explain the enormous conquests of the Islamic foe? — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 109

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to book_so_far themes of orientalism-as-discourse and how the Other is constructed; also resonates with the claim that secularization was modernity’s primary event.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how much did counterfactual reasoning about Islam’s success actually drive immanence/inmanence thought among early modern Christian intellectuals?