As a high school history teacher in Vermont I do not currently teach antiquity studies. However, the historiography presented in the reading is something that I would absolutely use as a proof of concept example for discussions surrounding the idea that “how history is written” is just as important as the history itself. The singular focus on Western Antiquity and the Greco/Roman tradition that is so common in medieval studies truly does a disservice to discussions of the overall progression of Western civilization by excluding the important contributions that medieval Islam was responsible for.

Indeed, as the article mentions, historians such as Said attempted to change the Orientalist attitude so common amongst scholars of Western civilization and in the process provided “the ensuing field of postcolonial studies the freedom to see Islam as a dynamic force with a direction and a sense of purpose within its changing global context, which extended significantly beyond but always included Europe.”

For Said and others, medieval Arabia and Islam share a similar developmental trajectory to the dominant Roman Catholic Church, and while the former is more often than not ignored, it’s impact on culture, law, science, society, and economics brought about by the blend of peoples of Arabic, Buddhist, Manichean, Turkic, Indic, and Persian descent should not be understated. This is because medieval Islam played as much as a role in the development of the ideas of what we refer to as Western civilization as any of the other major monotheistic religions and their associated social, political, and economic structures.