Textual Orientalism blames the Quran for every perceived Middle Eastern failing

Evidence

It followed from this that Islam, as defined by its classical texts, was the key lens through which Muslim-majority societies were understood. If women were oppressed, it was because of the teachings of the Quran; if Muslims supposedly lacked an entrepreneurial spirit, it was due to “Islamic tradition”; if modernization was rejected, again the Quran was to blame. In short, a whole host of characteristics associated with the “West” but allegedly absent in the “Muslim world” could be explained by recourse to religious texts and the mentalities they allegedly created. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 176

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the reader’s standing interest in claims that ground abstract ideas in concrete cases; also connects to Said’s Orientalism on the circular logic of textual essentialism. — connects to: Textualism reduces every Muslim-majority failing to the Quran’s teachings; Orientalists claimed textual reading revealed the fixed essence of Muslims — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 179; Orientalist scholarship privileged a monolithic textual Islam over lived human realities — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 710 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Textualism reduces every Muslim-majority failing to the Quran’s teachings #corroborates (1.00)
• Textual Islam became the catch-all explanation for every attributed lack in Muslim societies #corroborates (0.95)
• Orientalism reduced multifaceted Muslim societies to a single doctrinal Islam #corroborates (0.85) — Hamid Dabashi, Brown Skin, White Masks, 424
• Orientalist scholarship privileged a monolithic textual Islam over lived human realities #expands (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 710
• Textualist assumptions about Islam produce the fiction of a static, homogenous Muslim civilization #expands (0.80)
• Orientalists claimed textual reading revealed the fixed essence of Muslims #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 179