Critical Assessment of Said's Orientalism in Islamic Scholarship

This essay evaluates Edward Said's influential work, "Orientalism," and its profound impact on scholarship concerning Islam and the Middle East. It critiques Said's arguments, highlighting both his groundbreaking contributions and the criticisms leveled against his approach, such as reductionism and limitations in scope. The essay explores how Orientalism has shaped Western perspectives on Islam, often reflecting biases rooted in colonialism, and examines its influence on feminist scholarship and gender studies within the Middle East. It also discusses the complexities of interpreting Islamic and Middle Eastern cultures, considering the roles of power dynamics, cultural differences, and the challenges of representing the 'other.' The essay concludes by underscoring the strategic importance of Orientalism in the development of Islamic scholarship, acknowledging the significant resources produced by Orientalists while also recognizing the need for critical engagement with their perspectives.

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Said's orientalism although highly criticized is broadly acknowledged as 'ground
breaking ‘as well as 'profoundly influential' in a varied array of disciplines and rests as a
major work. According to Varisco (2017), Said showed great concern with the influence of
the treatise of Orientalism. In his view, when an individual thinks of Islam as well as the
Orient, there are disagreements which one needs to make use of with no information or
understanding that it is not codified. The following essay will evaluate the contribution of
Said’s Orientalism on scholarship focused on Islam as well as the Middle East. The thesis
statement of the essay is “Thus, Orientalism has arbitrarily taken a role as well as has offered
support to modern Islamic and Middle East revitalization.”
For Said, Orientalism acts as a universal Western scholarship of biased outsider
understanding influenced by the approaches of European colonialism. Said contends for a
paradigm shift in Orientalist interpretation and identifications of Islam. Nevertheless, Said
had his share of problems (Fattah, 2019). Firstly, as Malcolm Kerr had indicated that, in
inspiring the entire tradition of European as well as American Oriental scholarships with the
sins of reductionism as well as misrepresentation, whereby Said committed similar mistakes.
Secondly, Said discourse of academic Orientalism has been restricted to the late 19th as well
as early 20th century European learning. Moreover, there have been witnessed extensive
assertions that majority of part scholarship predominantly in the United States had by now
unrestricted the imperialist or the colonialist model of scholarship. Studies have found Said's
acceptance in accepting works of Bernard Lewis to be exclusion by the time of his text.
Moreover, Said further entails historical events which took place till 1977 and had recurrently
accepted his flaws. Furthermore, Warraq had asserted that while considering wide-ranging
and major criticisms, Said had realised that he had on no account of major attention in
considerably less capability for presenting true identities of the Orient as well as Islam
(Rubin, 2015). Furthermore, by 1993, Said had developed as well as modified his notions of

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his book Culture as well as Imperialism. However, Orientalism along with its subject material
had continued to encourage and inspire Muslim responses to Western studies regarding Islam
besides Muslims. In relation to Islamism, many scholars have offered the most inclusive and
wide-ranging literatures of 19 Islamist intellectual as well as activists. In the view of Cronin
(2015), the anthology elucidates clear aspects related to modernism of Islamist scholarships.
Moreover the key concern of anthology relies on the presentation of a distant wide series of
Islamist sermons such as to analyse this courses which is also known as orientalism. Such a
discourse tends to create hindrance to a more distinct accepting of Islamic and Muslim
scholarships as well as which determine the Islam West dialectic. According to Hassan
(2015), understanding the association, logic and contributions of orientalism on Islamic
scholarships would improve knowledge of as well as from apparently confronting ideologies
concepts and civilizations. Considering its effects on modern global sanctuary,
comprehending the knowledgeable, doctrinal as well as applied trends of Islamism, chiefly in
the background of its responses to consistent routes of Orientalism is of significant
scholarship and practical value (Fattah, 2019). In the context of critical conjectures, many
scholars have been chiefly concerned with approaches towards reading, comprehending and
interpreting under the outline of understanding the connection between the reader and the
text. As per studies of Samman and Al-Zo’by (2015), key attention has been given to
independence, principles, views, procedural orientation besides what Said has defined as
'contemporary realities' as well as 'lived experiences’. However, understanding orientalism
and its contribution on Islamic scholarships will always shed light on an issue which Said has
referred as reducing a fat archive to manageable dimensions. However, in relation to
European, the American practice of scholarship tends to be unprejudiced as well as value
impartial which is a subject that is playing significant role in several pertinent discussions.
Moreover, Islam is viewed more and more sympathetically from Western scholars due to the

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continual development of religious discussions to Islam. In the view of authors, irrespective
of the case, it is highly interesting that regardless of the supposed supremacy of Islamophobia
in the West, here tends to exist in affirmative views of Islam in several scholarships in the
United States.
Meanwhile, Orientalism did not completely align with the work of feminist
scholarship or conjectures. However, it has managed to provoke the feminist scholarship and
discourses in the Middle East studies (Deeb & Winegar, 2017). Winter (2016) has cited the
illustration of Meyda Yegenoglu, a Turkish scholar who re-evaluated the query on the gender
and sexuality of Orientalism. She confronted the conjectures of Said in addition to others
lower gender as well as sexuality to be part of the analysis of colonial discourses.
Furthermore, by using more radical position, Meyda Yegenoglu has analysed ways in which
illustrations of ethnic, cultural as well as sexual differences tend to constitutive of each other.
On the other hand, Cronin (2015) have claimed that if works of Yegenoglu have been
considered as correctives to Said’s comparative disregard of gender as well as sexuality, the
abundance of work within Middle East gender scholarships has perceived Orientalism rather
than offering a robust reasoning in lieu of diligent and considerate investigation. However, by
distinguishing that typecasts of the Middle Eastern women have been vital to unconstructive
illustrations of the region as well as its culture and ideologies, number of scholars have
sought by means of ethnographic or communal historical study in order to disclose the
intricate realisms of gender as well as women in the Middle East.
Moreover, aligning with Yegenoglu’s view the influence of Orientalism instigates
from the authority of establishing the essential thing which it voices about (Deeb & Winegar,
2017). Furthermore, it also gets instigated from the power of producing a command of
certainty about the other as well as thereby establishes the individuality as well as authority
of the subject which declares about it. In the view of Micallef (2017), as long as scholars are

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inscripting for the West about the ‘other’, scholars will be concerned in writings which tend
to establish Western authority and cultural differences. On the other hand, studies have
claimed that Orientalism has been critical to Middle East gender scholarships related to the
categorization of politics of the modern Middle East feminism studies. Nevertheless, the
major contribution of Said has been to unravel the ‘worldliness’ of the cultural making even
in the theoretical domain (Point, 2016). According to Gurel (2019), major proportion of most
interesting feminist hypothesizing external and internal to Middle East scholarships has been
regarding the significance of positionality related to the insights gathered from Orientalism.
Orientalism has offered Middle East scholarships and intellectuals as a model for the types of
dishevelled political activities which they have inevitably encountered. Furthermore, Said’s
orientalism has confronted claims and criticisms instigating from several sides as he has
criticized the numerous forms as well as tools of Western domination as well as the failures
of the Middle Eastern societies as well as radical systems (Samman & Al-Zo’by, 2015).
To conclude, the role of Orientalism has been highly strategic in developing Islamic
scholarships owing to the major readable resources which the Orientalists have produced and
the in-depth research Said has conducted on Islam. Furthermore, while the ideologies of
Islamic doctrines have remained unchanged, Orientalists have found Islam to be highly
dynamic, rational as well as resilient in encountering challenges of contemporary social,
dogmatic and cultural changes. Numerous collections on Islam scholarships have been
documented by Orientalists which have significant impact on Islam behind Western scholars’
efforts to destabilize Islam and Muslims. Thus, Orientalism has arbitrarily taken a role as well
as has offered support to modern Islamic and Middle East revival.

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References
Cronin, S. (2015). Introduction: Edward Said, Russian Orientalism and Soviet
Iranology. Iranian Studies, 48(5), 647-662.
Deeb, L., & Winegar, J. (2017). Middle East Politics in US Academia: The Case of
Anthropology. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 37(1),
103-112.
Fattah, A. (2019). Critiques and Appreciation on Orientalism in the Study of
Islam. MADANIA: JURNAL KAJIAN KEISLAMAN, 23(1), 11-20.
Gurel, P. (2019). Transnational Feminism, Islam, and the Other Woman: How to
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Winter, B. (2016). Orientalism. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality
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