Europeans regarded Ottomans as equals before Orientalism’s hierarchy emerged

Evidence

Nabil Matar, who has written extensively on the relationship between Britain, Western Europe, and the Islamic Mediterranean, argues that English attitudes toward the Ottomans, whether as ally or enemy, always constructed the Muslim as equal. The Ottoman state was viewed as on par with England if not superior to it and other European states. Orientalism based on a notion of a superior Europe and an inferior Orient had not yet emerged, not least because it made no sense given the grandeur and advances of Muslim empires both in the Near East and South Asia. If anything, the Muslim empires had superior accomplishments in comparison to their Western European counterparts both in this period and during the Middle Ages more generally, and many Muslim authors wrote of Europe’s backwardness. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 110

Categorization

• XREF: Directly complicates Edward Said’s Orientalism periodization — Europe’s sense of superiority postdates the 16th-17th centuries — and speaks against the reader’s vault’s implicit premise that anti-Muslim hierarchy is ancient. — connects to: English attitudes treated Ottomans as equals before Orientalism’s emergence; Europeans once considered the Ottomans ethnically European — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 78; Pre-modern England viewed the Ottomans as equals, not inferiors (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Pre-modern England viewed the Ottomans as equals, not inferiors #corroborates (0.97)
• English attitudes treated Ottomans as equals before Orientalism’s emergence #corroborates (0.95)
• Seventeenth-century Europeans did not yet dream of dominating the Muslim East #corroborates (0.90) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 181
• Europeans recognized Ottomans as diplomatic equals, not colonial targets #expands (0.85)
• Europeans once considered the Ottomans ethnically European #corroborates (0.80) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 78
• European superiority over Muslim empires enabled racial notions of Muslim inferiority #corroborates (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1826
• Orientalist racial hierarchy of Muslims required European military superiority to arise #corroborates (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 122