Sonja Brentjes. Travellers from Europe in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires, 16Th-17th Centuries: Seeking, Transforming, Discarding Knowledge (Book Review‪)‬

Sonja Brentjes. Travellers from Europe in the Ottoman and Safavid Empires, 16th-17th Centuries: Seeking, Transforming, Discarding Knowledge. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate/Variorum, 2010. xxx+320 pp, ISBN 978-1-4094-0533-7, HC. Since the end of the nineteenth century, Muslims have been consistently characterized as ill-suited for science because of an inherent deficiency regarding rational enquiry. This disability is presumed to be embedded deep in their race, religion, languages, and cultures. In some articulations, it has been said that there is something inherently wrong with Islam and Muslims such that they are not, were never and will never be genuine heirs to scientific knowledge, whether of the ancient Greeks or modern Western science. This verdict was passed in absentia; the accused were not offered a chance to defend themselves, as it was abundantly clear to the prosecution (a la Karl Marx) that they cannot represent themselves but must be represented--an adage which is not without truth in this case, for had they been asked to defend themselves in the nineteenth century, Muslims could not have offered any concrete evidence against these charges (Jamal al-Din al-Afghani's (1838-1897) confused and emotional rebuttal to Ernst Renan's (1823-1892) racist bigotry notwithstanding). A very large amount of carefully collected data, gathered since the twelfth century in two separate phases of European interaction with the Muslim world, was ready to support these charges.