Seventeenth-century England did not yet racialize Muslims in official documents

Evidence

These tropes no doubt informed the orientalization of domestic populations in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, in the seventeenth century this mode of representing Muslims existed primarily in literature and in theological works. Matar’s analysis of government documents and commercial exchanges show that there was little of this racial or sexual stereotyping. This is in no small part because England in the seventeenth century was not yet capable of challenging the Ottomans. Thus, he cautions that to project a colonial framework back to the early modern period is a mistake. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 140

Categorization

• QUESTION: Matar’s point that racist tropes in literature preceded real geopolitical capacity suggests a research question: how do cultural stereotypes and material capability interact in producing racialization?
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 140
• XREF: connects to: Racial stereotyping of Muslims was absent from early modern English policy documents.; Anti-Muslim racism has no unbroken historical continuity from medieval to modern forms; Medieval anti-Muslim prejudice was protoracism, not full modern racism — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 121 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Racial stereotyping of Muslims was absent from early modern English policy documents. #corroborates (1.00)
• Anti-Muslim racism has no unbroken historical continuity from medieval to modern forms #corroborates (0.72)
• Medieval anti-Muslim prejudice was protoracism, not full modern racism #qualifies (0.70) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 121