David Motadel (ed): Islam and the European Empires.pdf (original) (raw)

A substantial amount of Muslim writings (as well as Western postcolonial and third-world literature) on the modern history of the so-called Islamic world make a living emphasizing the supposedly crusader-like nature of European colonial rule between the seventeenth and mid-twentieth centuries. While it is certainly true that colonialists were primarily motivated by strategic interests and economic exploitation rather than by altruism and charity, their behaviour in their colonies was anything but inevitably hostile. Pragmatism and accommodation reigned in many places, more often than not combined with condescension and paternalism, which did not, however, preclude periods of suppression and warfare. Islam and the European Empires,