SOURCE: “Image of the Orient in English Literature—A Historical Survey,” in Orientalism in Lord Byron's “Turkish Tales,” Mellen University Press, 1995, pp. 1-33.

In the following excerpt, Kidwai presents an overview of European interest in Orientalism, starting with the Crusades and focusing on Romantic writers, whose interest in the Orient was creatively and imaginatively articulated in their work.

It was mostly in terms of religious differences and hostility that Europe learned first about Islam and Muslims. The phenomenal rise and spread of Islam in the seventh century A.D., with its military and political repercussions, made Europe all the more apprehensive. Within a century after its birth in Arabia, Islam was entrenched in major parts of Asia and Africa and was knocking at the very doors of Europe at many points: from the West, through Spain; in the centre, from Sicily to southern Italy; and in the East...