The Description de l’Egypte founded Egyptology but not Arabic studies

Evidence

Bonaparte had hoped that its publication would retrospectively turn a military and political disaster into a cultural and scientific triumph. The Description seems in part to have been modelled on the work of the Russells on Aleppo. Though the French savants covered the manners and customs of the Egyptian people, their trades, industries, costumes, musical instruments and so forth, it is evident from the briefest acquaintance with the Description that what they were chiefly interested in was Egypt’s Pharaonic legacy. Egypt’s Islamic heritage was much less significant. Therefore, though the scholarly invasion of Egypt was a milestone in the history of Egyptology, effectively its founding document, it had little or no influence on the way Arabic and Islamic studies developed in the following century. — Robert Irwin, For Lust of Knowing, 251

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to a recurring theme across the book (in earlier chapters) that orientalist scholarship often preferred the ancient/Pharaonic past over contemporary Islam — same preference the Russells’ Aleppo work and Jones’ vision embody. — connects to: Vast scholarly knowledge of Egyptians was compiled without native input to serve French domination

Related

• Vast scholarly knowledge of Egyptians was compiled without native input to serve French domination (similarity 0.83)
• French colonial scholarship displaced Egyptians’ own self-understanding (similarity 0.80)
• Napoleon’s failed Egyptian invasion modeled scholarly exploitation for later empires (similarity 0.79)
• Napoleon’s 1798 invasion of Egypt modeled scientific cultural appropriation (similarity 0.79)
• Colonial scholarship amassed vast knowledge about Egypt without any native input. (similarity 0.79)
• Napoleonic scholarship framed Egypt entirely through its ancient European-connected past (similarity 0.78)