France and the classical sociology of Islam, 1798-1962

Abstract

The classical French sociology of Islam was shaped by the arc of French imperialism in the long nineteenth century, beginning with the French expedition to Egypt in 1798 and ending in 1962 with the independence of Algeria. While its legacy can be understood as part of the discursive machinery best described by Edwartd Said, it was also part of the history of modern French social thought. The aim of this article is to explore the complex patterns of the unfolding of the French tradition of the sociology of Islam, both in its relations to the calculus of French knowledge power as well as to metropolitan social science. The genealogy begins with the Description de l'Egypte and includes other major nineteenth-century projects that mapped the scientific and ethnographic terrain upon which French imperialism would operate, including the 37-volume Exploration scientifique de l'Algerie (1844-67), the four-volume Documents pour servir à l'étude du nord-ouest africain (1892-4), the 33-volume...