Renaissance-era Arabic scholarship in Europe cast Islam more sympathetically than the Crusades had

Evidence

In addition to profound economic and political changes, the early modern era also saw a shift in intellectual life. The Renaissance, a cultural movement that began in Italy in the fifteenth century and spread to the rest of Europe by the sixteenth, brought new ways of thinking. The sixteenth century saw the emergence of some of the first studies of Europe’s Near East to adopt a more open-minded and disinterested tone. The study of Arabic in France, England, and the Netherlands and the scholarship from academics in these countries cast Islam and the Prophet in a more sympathetic light compared to what existed during the Crusades. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 108

Categorization

• XREF: Contrasts with the Crusades-era vilification claims in the existing Islamophobia vault cluster — this is evidence that premodern European views of Islam were not uniformly hostile. — connects to: Europeans’ sense of superiority over Muslims shifted from religious to cultural grounds across centuries — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 56; Seventeenth-century European Orientalists pursued rigorous Arabic scholarship even in polemical works — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1694

Broader Connections

• Seventeenth-century European Orientalists pursued rigorous Arabic scholarship even in polemical works #expands (0.80) — Norman Daniel, Islam and the West, 1694
• Europeans’ sense of superiority over Muslims shifted from religious to cultural grounds across centuries #corroborates (0.75) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 56