Islam was the default framework through which Europe first knew all of the Orient

Evidence

D’Herbelot’s entries for Indo-Persian subjects in the Bibliothèque were all based on Islamic sources, and it is true to say that until the early nineteenth century “Oriental languages” was considered a synonym for “Semitic languages.” The Oriental renaissance of which Quinet spoke served the function of expanding some fairly narrow limits, in which Islam was the catchall Oriental example. Sanskrit, Indian religion, and Indian history did not acquire the status of scientific knowledge until after Sir William Jones’s efforts in the late eighteenth century, and even Jones’s interest in India came to him by way of his prior interest in and knowledge of Islam. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 197

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the epistemological primacy of Islam as a filter for all Oriental knowledge — a mechanism the reader can carry into how Islamic frameworks shaped later colonial knowledge systems.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: how deeply did this Arabic/Islamic-source dependency shape the structure and blind spots of early Orientalist scholarship?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 197