In short, contrary to the myth that the West and the East have always been in conflict, conflict has in fact coexisted with cooperation. Far from the notion that “East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,” what we have seen is that the histories of the East and the West, to the extent we can even talk about a singular East and West, are deeply intertwined. At the very least we have to say that such broad geographical and religious characterizations as “Islam and the West” are extremely problematic—not least because the Christian Byzantine Empire thrived in the lands designated as “the East” up until the fifteenth century, and Muslim rule in al-Andalus lasted for about eight hundred years. Thus, the notion of a transhistoric “clash of civilizations” between a united Christian West and a Muslim East is highly flawed.

XREF: Directly challenges Huntington's 'clash of civilizations' thesis and Kipling's 'East is East' line, both of which the reader likely knows.

Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politi…, loc. 97