Orientalism’s decline thesis attributes Muslim stagnation to an immutable inner essence
Evidence
To some writers of the History Islam is a politics and a religion; to others it is a style of being; to others it is “distinguishable from Muslim society”; to still others it is a mysteriously known essence; to all the authors Islam is a remote, tensionless thing, without much to teach us about the complexities of today’s Muslims. Hanging over the whole disjointed enterprise which is The Cambridge History of Islam is the old Orientalist truism that Islam is about texts, not about people. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 771 (
#expands, via linked claim)
Categorization
- corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
- XREF: connects to: Orientalist essentialism painted Muslim societies as timelessly stagnant.; Orientalist decline theories explain Muslim failure via a fixed inner flaw; Orientalism treats Islam as a fixed essence rather than living society — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 771 (+4 more)
Broader Connections
- Orientalist decline theories explain Muslim failure via a fixed inner flaw
#expands(0.90) - Orientalism treats Islam as a fixed essence rather than living society
#expands(0.85) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 771 - Belief in a timeless Muslim essence underwrote the East-West hierarchy of progress
#expands(0.85) - Orientalism reduced multifaceted Muslim societies to a single doctrinal Islam
#expands(0.80) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 424 - Orientalism treats Islam as an essentialized cultural synthesis insulated from economics and politics
#expands(0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 294