Orientalism: The West's Favor to Muslims

The term “Orientalism” has fallen from favor, taking on as it has the odor of racism, cultural imperialism, and paternalism. Most famously in the late Edward Said’s book Orientalism, but throughout post-colonial studies, Orientalism is employed as a term of opprobrium against previous generations of Western scholars and, by extension, the West itself. It charges that Western scholarship on the Middle East is hopelessly racist toward that region’s peoples and history; that Western authors construct grand edifices that serve to obscure and distort, rather than clarify, the East.

Yet today, as our need to understand the Middle East has risen dramatically, the specter of Orientalism haunts scholars of the area and serves as a foil for politicized anti-Western and anti-American partisans who oppose all efforts to liberalize oppressive Muslim regimes. That’s why it’s a welcome sign to read a newly translated article, “The Favor Western Orientalists Did Muslims,” by Ahmad Al-Baghdadi, who is described by the indispensable MEMRI as a “progressive Kuwaiti author.” That it appeared originally in a Kuwaiti newspaper is a most hopeful sign.

Al-Baghdadi, who holds a Ph.D. in Islamic thought from the University of Edinburgh, writes bluntly and truthfully about the intellectual pathologies that stifle scholarship and debate among Arabs. Unlike the East, he says, the West has an academic tradition; Westerners do not blindly rely upon a text, but dissect it, study it, translate it, and develop an understanding of it in a way unknown to Arab scholars living in their homeland. Indeed, he differentiates Arab students who study in the West into two groups: The “unfortunate ones” return home to be “shocked by the great extent of the natural and deliberate ignorance in their countries.” Their “hopes shatter on the rocks of reality, and evaporate into the aridity of ignorance.” The fortunate ones who remain in the West “continue developing; their methodological capabilities mature, and they become productive in their specialized scholarly fields.”

He continues: "What is important during the period [of study] is that when they read, the students are given an opportunity to compare the complexities of Western thought with the primitive nature of Arab and Islamic thought, as compiled by the scholars on each side.”

What’s more, Prof. Al Baghdadi writes, Western Orientalists have preserved the learning of Arabic countries: “ . . . libraries in the Western world contain unique Arabic and Islamic manuscripts, well-catalogued so that the researcher can easily locate the information. [These libraries also contain] many books of our heritage, which, were it not for the West and the efforts of the Orientalists, the Muslims would never know exist. Thanks to this intellectual heritage, the West was able to master the East, as it still does [emphasis added].”

Then he takes off the gloves: “In short, we are talking to the ignoramus graduates of religious educational institutions or Arab universities that are devoid of learning – those [graduates] who cover up their ignorance by accusing Orientalism of conspiring against Islam or distorting its image. [We are telling these ignoramuses] that had it not been for the efforts of a group of Orientalists in religious, literary, and historical studies, we would never have known much of the heritage in which we take pride – and without making any effort to discover it. Nay, it has come to us readymade, on a silver platter, thanks to the efforts of those Orientalists. We don't have to look far for an example.

"Let us ask ourselves: How much effort have the Arabs expended in deciphering the Pharaonic Rosetta Stone, and how much effort have the Orientalists expended on this? Were it not for the efforts of those Orientalists who were fascinated by Pharaonic civilization, the world would never have known how to read hieroglyphics. The problem of the Arabs is that they suffer from a compounded ignorance - namely, they are ignorant of their own ignorance.”

Al-Baghdadi isn’t hopeful about reform, as religious authorities in control of scholarly publishing prohibit the type of work that so desperately needs to be done. But his voice is itself a sign that a vibrant intellectual life exists at least in small pockets of the Arab world. Westerners have long acknowledged their debt to medieval Islamic scholars whose works preserved much of the corpus of Aristotle and other classical authors at a time of Western decline. Al-Baghdadi argues, in effect, that the West has now returned the favor if only his fellow Arabs will accept it.