Western scholars framed Islam as a failed derivative of Greek thought

Evidence

Carl Becker argued that although “Islam” (note the vast generality) inherited the Hellenic tradition, it could neither grasp nor employ the Greek, humanistic tradition; moreover, to understand Islam one needed above all else to see it, not as an “original” religion, but as a sort of failed Oriental attempt to employ Greek philosophy without the creative inspiration that we find in Renaissance Europe. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 291

Categorization

• QUESTION: Becker and Massignon’s actual arguments are worth pulling up directly — this claims they omitted the eccentricity they struggled to regularize.
• XREF: The ‘failed derivative’ framing is exactly the construction-of-the-Other pattern that recenters later Islamophobia readings.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 291