Medieval Islam’s worldview inverted onto its own periphery the Orientalist hierarchy

Evidence

Not all unbelievers were the same, nor were they all seen in the same light. South and east of the Islamic lands, in what Europeans but not Muslims called Asia and Africa, there were polytheists and idolaters, with many gods and no divine scripture recognized as such by Islam. Some were primitive, others were civilized, and might even have useful lessons to teach the Muslims in the arts and sciences. But there was no world religion to compete with Islam, and no world empire to rival the Caliphate. China, which might have seemed an excep­ tion, was remote and little-known, and in any case the Chinese made no great effort to impose their beliefs, their culture, or their power beyond their imme­ diate neighbors. For the Muslim world, the east and the south were inhabited by teachable barbarians who could in time be converted to Islam and recruited into the service of the Muslim state and faith. This was indeed the historical experience of Islam in Asia and Africa. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 652

Categorization

• SEED: The Islamic world had its own graded geography of civilized self versus teachable barbarian — a symmetry that complicates any claim that such hierarchies were a Western invention.