Second, inspiring Mughal architecture impressed many British observers even as it attested to Muslim decline. The Mughals may have been despotic – as seemed inevitable in the Anglo-American view of "oriental" and "Muslim" states – but the benefits of their governance could be appreciated too, now that they posed no threat. James Mill, whose History of British India (1817) represents one of the most influential and tartest British appraisals of South Asians, praised Muslims for their relative sophistication relative to Hindus.

XREF: Connects to scholarship on orientalism and the legitimation of empire through narratives of Muslim decline.

Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon F…, loc. 52