Gibbon’s famous Islamic history chapter was unoriginal, repeating medieval themes

Evidence

Something of the same is true also of our own Gibbon. Largely the architect of our modern historical perspectives, Gibbon derived his own from different sources, and his fiftieth chapter does not represent his most original thinking. We see displayed before us accurate and balanced statements, expressed with the familiar elegance, but not essentially new. — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1627

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to historiographical questions of originality in canonical history writing, similar to how one reviews primary-source originality in Enclosure-era histories. — connects to: Gibbon’s celebrated chapter on Islam broke no new ground