Some scholars dispute outsiders’ right to study Middle Eastern history at all

Evidence

In the early 1970s there was a Festival of Islam in London, a great cultural event, organized with the cooperation of many Muslim govern­ ments which provided funds and lent objects. Among the ground rules for the Festival of Islam—the lectures, publications, exhibitions and the like—was a guideline laid down by the sponsors: Islam influences, Islam is not influenced. The discussion of possible influences on Islam was avoided. I have the uneasy feeling that a rather similar point of view is beginning to gain ground, I won’t say to prevail, in some circles in Israel. It is wrong and dangerous. For almost two millennia, Jews were a minority in a large, developing and relatively ad­ vanced civilization and society, and it requires no great effort of scholarship to detect influences going both ways. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 326 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Middle East scholars were demonized on ethnic rather than scholarly grounds; Denying outside influence on Islam distorts historical scholarship — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 326; Orientalist scholars impose external analytical categories that Muslims themselves would not recognize — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 716 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Denying outside influence on Islam distorts historical scholarship #complicates (0.73) — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 326