With nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Orientalism, increasing numbers of scholars, authors, and artists were convinced that Muslims belonged to a once great but now separate and intrinsically inferior civilization, one that not only lacked complexity and diversity but also offered little to benefit Western civilization. The fact that the tendency to essentialize Muslims in this way emerged at a time of significant European colonial expansion suggests that Orientalism was neither a disinterested enterprise nor an objective quest for knowledge of non-Western cultures and religions.

XREF: Connects directly to Edward Said's foundational thesis in Orientalism about knowledge production serving colonial power.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 201