Debunking Edward Said

Edward Said is a frequently cited critic of how Westerners deal with the "orient" — both in terms of international politics and scholarly research. Are Said's critiques justified, though? Some may be, but many others are arguably mistaken because they are based upon errors, poor research, and incoherent text.

Ibn Warraq writes on Secular Islam:

[W]hat makes self-examination for Arabs and Muslims, and particularly criticism of Islam in the West very difficult is the totally pernicious influence of Edward Said’s Orientalism.

The latter work taught an entire generation of Arabs the art of self-pity – "were it not for the wicked imperialists, racists and Zionists, we would be great once more," encouraged the Islamic fundamentalist generation of the 1980s, and bludgeoned into silence any criticism of Islam, and even stopped dead the research of eminent Islamologists who felt their findings might offend Muslims sensibilities, and who dared not risk being labelled "orientalist."

The aggressive tone of Orientalism is what I have called "intellectual terrorism," since it does not seek to convince by arguments or historical analysis but by spraying charges of racism, imperialism, Eurocentrism, from a moral highground; anyone who disagrees with Said has insult heaped upon him.

The most pernicious legacy of Said’s Orientalism is its support for religious fundamentalism, and on its insistence that "all the ills [of the Arab world] emanate from Orientalism and have nothing to do with the socio-economic, political and ideological makeup of the Arab lands or with the cultural historical backwardness which stands behind it”

Ibn Warraq presents a very detailed and very well-documented examination of Said's writings, showing that what Said says about Western scholarship of Islam and the Middle East is not only wrong, but also very harmful for all involved. People need to get over the idea that criticism of Islam or Muslims is necessarily a form of imperialism or racism.