Islam’s entanglement with Christianity’s history has blocked objective Western study of it.

Evidence

The American Catholic priest Starbuck recognized this when he observed in the nineteenth century, “We know Mohammedanism better and worse than Hinduism or Confucianism or Buddhism. It has been implicated inextricably with Christianity as a tremendously aggressive and intensely hostile force during all the twelve centuries of its existence. This, until our own day, has made objective study of it almost impossible.” — Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon Fear, 124

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels Edward Said’s critique of Orientalism and the politics of knowledge production. — connects to: Accurate knowledge of Islam did not soften early Christian hostility toward it — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 132; Reformation-era Christian scholars rarely studied Islam seriously — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 147; Islam threatened Christianity because it mounted a rival revelatory claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 64 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: Does proximity and rivalry — rather than distance — explain why insiders know a religion ‘better and worse’?

Broader Connections

• Encyclopedists used Islam as a disguised symbol for criticizing Christianity #exemplifies (0.55)
• Islam threatened Christianity because it mounted a rival revelatory claim #corroborates (0.50) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 64