Try this idea, an English minister sails with the East Indian Company in 1670, in most worlds his mother was killed by an emotionally distrubed Royalist as a small child. In this world he's a gifted linguist who writes a dictionary of Sanskrit by 1693. One of his proteges starts a translation project and translates
the Ocean of Stories several years before Galland translates the
Arabian Nights. Galland drops translating the
Arabian Nights to translate the Indian work.
The Arabic stories never make an impression in the West. India becomes the place were Eastern fantasies are set. Djinni are totally obscure in the West, but Indian folklore is well known and commonplace in Childrens books. When Edward Said comes around, all he can complain about is Weatern ignorence of and inattention to the Arabs. No one cares about his books. T.E. Lawrence is obscure as well. The Near East means nothing to the West. Oil was bought and sold, but that's it.