Even leading European historians made sweeping negative generalizations about Islam

Evidence

General cultural historians as respected as Leopold von Ranke and Jacob Burckhardt assailed Islam as if they were dealing not so much with an anthropomorphic abstraction as with a religio-political culture about which deep generalizations were possible and warranted: in his Weltgeschichte (1881–1888) Ranke spoke of Islam as defeated by the Germanic-Romanic peoples, and in his “Historische Fragmente” (unpublished notes, 1893) Burckhardt spoke of Islam as wretched; bare, and trivial. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 518

Categorization

• SHARE: For a friend who reads intellectual history: Ranke and Burckhardt — pillars of Western historiography — delivering one-line dismissals of Islam.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 518