Scholarly sequencing can smuggle in claims that revolution is alien to Islam.

Evidence

The scholarly centerpiece of Vatikiotis’s collection is Bernard Lewis’s essay “Islamic Concepts of Revolution.” The strategy here appears refined. Many readers will know that for Arabic speakers today the word thawra and its immediate cognates mean revolution; they will know this also from Vatikiotis’s introduction. Yet Lewis does not describe the meaning of thawra until the very end of his article, after he has discussed concepts such as dawla, fitna, and bughat in their historical and mostly religious context. The point there is mainly that “the Western doctrine of the right to resist bad government is alien to Islamic thought,” which leads to “defeatism” and “quietism” as political attitudes. At no point in the essay is one sure where all these terms are supposed to be taking place except somewhere in the history of words. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 797

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘defeatism and quietism’ attribution is a key orientalism component that later Islamophobia readings on Muslim political passivity will assume; connects to ‘Western doctrine of resistance is alien to Islam’ claims.
• SEED: Angle: how rhetorical sequencing—burying the modern meaning until after historical context is set—functions as an argumentative device in scholarship.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 797