Even positive legal portrayals of Arabs were limited to their past service to Europe.

Evidence

This rare positive portrayal of Arab culture was paradoxically consistent with European Orientalism, which limited favorable depictions of Arabs to those carrying forward the ancient civilizations to Europe. The fallen cultures of contemporary Arabs, therefore, were valued only to the extent that they had provided Europe with benefits in the past. More pertinent to the time of the Mohriez decision was the US government’s courting of Saudi Arabia, now a major oil producer. At least five American multinationals were drilling oil wells in Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries. By the midtwentieth century, Saudi Arabia would be an American ally in its opposition to Communism and Arab nationalism in the Middle East. — Sahar F. Aziz, The Racial Muslim, 559

Categorization

• XREF: The Orientalist pattern — valuing a culture only for its past gifts to Europe — parallels Said’s Orientalism and the reader’s interest in how colonial categories construct identities.