Nineteenth-century Orientalism essentialized Muslims as intrinsically inferior during colonial expansion.

Evidence

With nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Orientalism, increasing numbers of scholars, authors, and artists were convinced that Muslims belonged to a once great but now separate and intrinsically inferior civilization, one that not only lacked complexity and diversity but also offered little to benefit Western civilization. The fact that the tendency to essentialize Muslims in this way emerged at a time of significant European colonial expansion suggests that Orientalism was neither a disinterested enterprise nor an objective quest for knowledge of non-Western cultures and religions. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 201

Categorization

• SEED: The correlation between essentializing and colonial expansion begs the causal question worth investigating: did empire produce Orientalism or vice versa?
• XREF: connects to: The belief that Muslims had different needs enabled colonial indifference.; The fear of Islam intensified amid Ottoman decline and colonial expansion — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 166; Nineteenth-century Orientalism traded Enlightenment universalism for a hierarchy of civilizations. — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 193 (+37 more)

Broader Connections

• Orientalist Muslim dehumanization legitimizes colonial and imperial adventures #corroborates (0.82) — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 44
• Orientalist scholarship justified colonization by depicting Muslim men as innately abusive #exemplifies (0.75)
• Orientalism imagined Muslims as a monolithic Arab or Middle Eastern racial bloc. #expands (0.72) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 161
• Colonial expansion and Orientalist essentializing emerged together in the nineteenth century. #expands (0.70) — Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Introduction to…, 201
• The racist creates the inferiority of the colonized. #expands (0.70)
• Colonial prejudices sexualized and dehumanized the Algerian Muslim #exemplifies (0.70)
• Cultural practices become racialized when they are essentialized as innate to Muslims #expands (0.60) — Saher Selod, Forever Suspect_ Racialized…, 274
• Civilizational theory defined all non-Western peoples as inferior by default #expands (0.60) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 121
• Orientalist dissenters defended Islam’s internal diversity against essentializing stereotypes #contradicts (0.55)
• US post-war hegemony repurposed Orientalism and modernization theory to justify empire. #expands (0.55) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 28
• American Orientalism is the living root system that drives Islamophobia. #expands (0.50) — Khaled A. Beydoun, American Islamophobia_ Understanding…, 168
• Fantasy tropes shaped how Orientalism constructed Jewish and Muslim men #expands (0.45)
• Colonial feminism used saving Muslim women to justify imperialism #complicates (0.40)
• The oppressed-Muslim-woman narrative was fabricated to justify colonial invasion. #complicates (0.40) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 164