From 'Mahometan Tyranny' to 'Oriental Despotism': The Secularization of Islam in French Political Thought (original) (raw)

Since the publication of Edward Said’s Orientalism in 1978, scholars have analysed Western representations of the Orient as a window into Western contexts, identities, and ideas. Drawing on Said’s insights, recent literature has sought to complicate Said’s vision of Orientalism as an imperialist tradition that expressed and legitimised Western colonial interests. Although a growing number of works, particularly in the field of literary studies, have proposed to re-evaluate the relationship between Orientalism and Western contexts, the history of Islam’s significance to European political thought has yet to receive substantial scholarly attention. This thesis seeks to revisit representations of Islam in light of their interactions with, and contributions to, the political dynamics of early modern France, from 1610 to 1798. It analyses the ways in which images of Islam, over the course of more than a century, both reflected and helped to shape processes of political secularisation in France.