Orientalism is a Western creation that deals with a fabricated concept: the Orient.

When you see a travel commercial for an Asian or Middle Eastern country, how is the country
depicted? Perhaps the ad displays images and ideas of exoticism and seduction that exude a
sense of geographical and historical distance. Despite there being an outdated feel to such
images, they continue to be commonplace today, and these depictions can be linked to a body of
Western knowledge called Orientalism.

Orientalism constructed a specific image of the East – known as the Orient – as a means to
approach it. Modern Orientalism was conceived during Napoleon’s expedition to, and invasion of
Egypt in 1798. In addition to his army, Napoleon had brought along civilian scholars, scientists
and researchers who would produce a 23-volume encyclopedia on the country, entitled
Description of Egypt.

This team of researchers was responsible for defining Orientalism, and the “experts” on the East
were known as Orientalists.

This concept was fleshed out by other colonial powers, most notably Britain during the 19th
century, and was the lens through which the West viewed the entire Orient, which was
considered to include the Middle East, Asia and the Far East.

The resulting image of the East was an exotic, erotic and irrational one, while Eastern
stereotypes found in travel journals, newspapers and scientific publications began to proliferate.
These presented

the Orient as exotic and unfamiliar; as one equally strange and foreign entity, regardless of
country, people or culture; and as the place where unseemly passions could run amok.

Eroticism was viewed as the emblem of the Orient, with harems viewed as places where the
“lustful Oriental” could be found.

Finally, the people of the Orient were perceived as irrational and incapable of logic; the
accompanying assumption was that the opposite of these traits were considered Western traits.

An Introduction to Edward Said’s Orientalism

Haroon Khalid

Author: Edward W. Said

Publisher: Vintage
Year: 1994

Orientalism by Edward Said is a canonical text of cultural studies in which he has challenged the
concept of orientalism or the difference between east and west, as he puts it. He says that with
the start of European colonization the Europeans came in contact with the lesser developed
countries of the east. They found their civilization and culture very exotic, and established the
science of orientalism, which was the study of the Orientals or the people from these exotic
civilization.
Edward Said argues that the Europeans divided the world into two parts; the east and the west or
the occident and the orient or the civilized and the uncivilized. This was totally an artificial
boundary; and it was laid on the basis of the concept of them and us or theirs and ours. The
Europeans used orientalism to define themselves. Some particular attributes were associated
with the Orientals, and whatever the Orientals weren’t the occidents were. The Europeans
defined themselves as the superior race compared to the orientals; and they justified their
colonization by this concept. They said that it was their duty towards the world to civilize the
uncivilized world. The main problem, however, arose when the Europeans started generalizing
the attributes they associated with orientals, and started portraying these artificial
characteristics associated with orientals in their western world through their scientific reports,
literary work, and other media sources. What happened was that it created a certain image about
the orientals in the European mind and in doing that infused a bias in the European attitude
towards the orientals. This prejudice was also found in the orientalists (scientist studying the
orientals); and all their scientific research and reports were under the influence of this. The
generalized attributes associated with the orientals can be seen even today, for example, the
Arabs are defined as uncivilized people; and Islam is seen as religion of the terrorist.
Here is a brief summary of the book, followed by a critique by Malcolm Kerr.

Chapter 1: The Scope of Orientalism

In this chapter, Edward Said explains how the science of orientalism developed and how the
orientals started considering the orientals as non-human beings. The orientals divided the world
in to two parts by using the concept of ours and theirs. An imaginary geographical line was
drawn between what was ours and what was theirs. The orients were regarded as uncivilized
people; and the westerns said that since they were the refined race it was their duty to civilize
people; and the westerns said that since they were the refined race it was their duty to civilize
these people and in order to achieve their goal, they had to colonize and rule the orients. They
said that the orients themselves were incapable of running their own government. The Europeans
also thought that they had the right to represent the orientals in the west all by themselves. In
doing so, they shaped the orientals the way they perceived them or in other words they were
orientalizing the orients. Various teams have been sent to the east where the orientalits silently
observed the orientals by living with them; and every thing the orientals said and did was
recorded irrespective of its context, and projected to the civilized world of the west. This
resulted in the generalization. Whatever was seen by the orientals was associated with the
oriental culture, no matter if it is the irrational action of an individual.
The most important use of orientalism to the Europeans was that they defined themselves by
defining the orientals. For example, qualities such as lazy, irrational, uncivilized, crudeness were
related to the orientals, and automatically the Europeans became active, rational, civilized,
sophisticated. Thus, in order to achieve this goal, it was very necessary for the orientalists to
generalize the culture of the orients.
Another feature of orientalism was that the culture of the orientals was explained to the European
audience by linking them to the western culture, for example, Islam was made into
Mohammadism because Mohammad was the founder of this religion and since religion of Christ
was called Christianity; thus Islam should be calledMohammadism. The point to be noted here is
that no Muslim was aware of this terminology and this was a completely western created term,
and to which the Muslims had no say at all.

Chapter 2: Orientalist Structures and Restructures

In this chapter, Edward Said points the slight change in the attitude of the Europeans towards the
orientals. The orientals were really publicized in the European world especially through their
literary work. Oriental land and behaviour was highly romanticized by the European poets and
writers and then presented to the western world. The orientalists had made a stage strictly for
the European viewers, and the orients were presented to them with the colour of the orientalist
or other writers perception. In fact, the orient lands were so highly romanticized that western
literary writers found it necessary to offer pilgrimage to these exotic lands of pure sun light and
clean oceans in order to experience peace of mind, and inspiration for their writing. The east was
now perceived by the orientalist as a place of pure human culture with no necessary evil in the
society. Actually it was this purity of the orientals that made them inferior to the clever, witty,
diplomatic, far-sighted European; thus it was their right to rule and study such an innocent race.
The Europeans said that these people were too naive to deal with the cruel world, and that they
needed the European fatherly role to assist them.
Another justification the Europeans gave to their colonization was that they were meant to rule
Another justification the Europeans gave to their colonization was that they were meant to rule
the orientals since they have developed sooner than the orientals as a nation, which shows that
they were biologically superior, and secondly it were the Europeans who discovered the orients
not the orients who discovered the Europeans. Darwin’s theories were put forward to justify their
superiority, biologically by the Europeans.
In this chapter, Edward Said also explains how the two most renowned orientalists of the 19th
century, namely Silvestre de Sacy and Ernest Renan worked and gave orienatlism a new
dimension. In fact, Edward Said compliments the contribution made by Sacy in the field. He says
that Sacy organized the whole thing by arranging the information in such a way that it was also
useful for the future orientalist. And secondly, the prejudice that was inherited by every
orientalist was considerably low in him. On the other hand, Renan who took advantage of Sacy’s
work was as biased as any previous orientalist. He believed that the science of orientalism and
the science of philology have a very important relation; and after Renan this idea was given a lot
attention and many future orientalists worked of in its line.

Chapter 3 : Orientalism Now

This chapter starts off by telling us that how the geography of the world was shaped by the
colonization of the Europeans. There was a quest for geographical knowledge which formed the
bases of orientalism.
The author then talks about the changing circumstances of the world politics and changing
approach to orientalism in the 20th century. The main difference was that where the earlier
orientalists were more of silent observers the new orientalists took a part in the every day life of
the orients. The earlier orientalists did not interact a lot with the orients, whereas the new orients
lived with them as if they were one of them. This wasn’t out of appreciation of their lifestyle but
was to know more about the orients in order to rule them properly. Lawrence of Arabia was one
of such orienatlists.
Then Edward Said goes on to talk about two other scholars Massignon and Gibb. Though
Massignon was a bit liberal with orientalists and often tried to protect their rights, there was still
inherited biased found in him for the orientals, which can be seen in his work. With the changing
world situation especially after World War 1, orientalism took a more liberal stance towards most
of its subjects; but Islamic orientalism did not enjoy this status. There were constant attacks to
show Islam as a weak religion, and a mixture of many religions and thoughts. Gibb was the most
famous Islamic orientalist of this time.
After World War 1 the centre of orientalism moved from Europe to USA. One important
transformation that took place during this time was instances of relating it to philology and it was
related to social science now. All the orientalists studied the orientals to assist their government
to come up with policies for dealing with the orient countries. With the end of World War 2, all
the Europeans colonies were lost; and it was believed that there were no more orientals and
the Europeans colonies were lost; and it was believed that there were no more orientals and
occidents, but this was surely not the case. Western prejudice towards eastern countries was
still very explicit, and often they managed to generalize most of the eastern countries because of
it. For example Arabs were often represented as cruel and violent people. Japanese were always
associated with karate whereas the Muslims were always considered to be terrorists. Thus, this
goes on to show that even with increasing globalization and awareness, such bias was found in
the people of the developed countries.
Edward Said concludes his book by saying that he is not saying that the orientalists should not
make generalization, or they should include the orient perspective too, but creating a boundary
at the first place is something which should not be done.