Early orientalism imagined islam and the notion of sublime power

Includes bibliographical references and index.

The obscene father: Allah, Jehovah, and the Oriental despot -- Orientalism: what has and what has not been said -- Proto-orientalism: ancient and Medieval views of the East -- The abduction from Asia: the fall of Constantinople and the beginning of modern Orientalism -- The Turks of Prague: the mundane and the sublime -- Rembrandt's Orient: where earth met heaven -- The sublime East: the soft Orientalism of Bishop Lowth -- The sublime is not enough: the hard orientalism of G.F.W. Hegel -- Letter and spirit -- The lord's command is greater than the lord -- The all-seeing eye -- The bad shepherd: pastoral government and its Oriental discontents -- Sex in paradise: what suicide fighters die for -- Epilogue on the value of submission: a eulogy for soft Orientalism.