The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed a flourishing of European scholarship, literature, and art that focused on the Orient. It is important to stress that some Orientalists held great admiration and respect for the Orient and Islam. Thomas Carlyle, a prominent nineteenth-century British author, presented a famous lecture in 1840 on Muhammad. Contradicting the medieval Christian accounts of Muhammad as an imposter and false prophet, Carlyle insisted that Muhammad was a legitimate prophet and indeed a hero, a person of great vision who instilled hope in millions upon millions of people and whose impact qualified him to hold a place of honor alongside other transformative figures in history, including Martin Luther, Shakespeare, and Frederick the Great.

XREF: Contradicts simplistic post-Said readings of Orientalism as uniformly hostile — early Orientalist scholarship held genuine admiration, anticipating the tension Said would later critique. DEFINE: Clarifies that Orientalism was not monolithically derogatory, complicating the common conflation of all Orientalist scholarship with prejudice.

Green, Todd H, The Fear of Islam_ An Intro…, loc. 192