Questioning how degenerate Muslims inherited a glorious land was a routine Orientalist move

Evidence

After political commentary on its sorry state, Chateaubriand asks himself the routine question about “difference” as a result of historical development: how can this degenerate stupid mob of “Musulmans” have come to inhabit the same land whose vastly different owners so impressed Herodotus and Diodorus? — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 444

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘decline from past glory’ trope is foundational for later Islamophobia readings about Muslims as failed heirs of civilization.
• SEED: The recurring question ‘how can these people inhabit this land that impressed our classics?’ — a template for tracing contemporary civilizational-decline rhetoric about Muslim-majority lands.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 444