Orientalism
The study of the East (“the Orient”), especially
the “Islamic East,” by European and American
scholars during the 19th and 20th centuries is
known as Orientalism. The ancient Greeks made
an initial differentiation between themselves in
the “Occident” (West) and the peoples of the Ori-
ent, which meant anywhere east of themselves,
from Asia Minor to the eastern Mediterranean
lands and beyond. They also assigned qualities
to this basic geographic division—Westerners
(meaning themselves) were democratic, rational,
and civilized, while Easterners were despotic, irra-
tional, and barbaric. During the Middle Ages this
differentiation was adopted by western Europeans
and invested with religious meaning through their
reading of the Bible. Europeans claimed that they
were descended from Noah’s favored son Japheth,
while Asians and Africans were descended from
Shem and Ham, Noah’s less-favored sons. In the
aftermath of the medieval crUsades some church
scholars began to investigate Islamic religion, but
they did this mainly in order to defend Christian-
ity, or to convert Muslims, whom they often called
Saracens or Moors (in andalUsia). There was a
great deal of interest in the Arabic translations of
and commentaries about Aristotle, which formed
the underpinnings of medieval scholastic theol-
ogy. Europeans were also very interested in Arabic
scientific literature (medicine, mathematics, phys-
ics, astronomy, and chemistry/alchemy). These
works were translated into Hebrew and Latin at
centers of learning in Spain and Italy, and subse-
quently carried to centers of learning in France,
England, and elsewhere in Europe.
The cumulative tradition of scholarly study
of Islam and the peoples and cultures of Muslim
lands, which would later call itself Orientalism,
did not develop noticeably in Europe until the
late 18th and early 19th centuries. This study was
stimulated by several factors: commitment to the
study of human history and cultures based on
Enlightenment rationalism rather than theology;
the exploration and colonization of the Americas,
Asia, and Africa by newly emerging European pow-
ers (Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands, France, and
England); and discovery of ancient civilizations
in the Middle East and Asia and decipherment
of their languages. One of the first Orientalists in
the modern sense of the word was Baron Silvestre
de Sacy (1758–1838), a Parisian scholar of Arabic
and other “living oriental languages” who advised
the French Foreign Ministry, and became the
first president of the Société Asiatique (founded
in 1822). Many of Europe’s leading Orientalist
scholars studied under him and regarded him as
the pioneer in their field. In india the leading pro-
moter of Orientalist research was William Jones
(1746–94), an employee of the English East India
Company with expertise in Arabic, Persian, and
Hebrew who founded the Asiatic Society of Ben-
gal in 1784. This scholarly organization furnished
Europe with English translations of religious and
philosophical literature written in Arabic, Persian,
Sanskrit, and other South Asian languages. It also
served as a model for the Royal Asiatic Society of
Great Britain and England (established in 1824).
Other societies specializing in Orientalist studies
were formed throughout Europe and in North
America where the American Oriental Society was
established in 1842.
Monuments in lands newly colonized by
European powers and manuscripts obtained from
major centers of Islamic learning such as istan-
bUl, cairo, and delhi provided Orientalists with
substantial amounts of “raw” material for recon-
structing and studying the languages, religions,
histories, and peoples of Asia/the Orient. They
published scholarly journals, reference grammars,
indexes, dictionaries, and, above all, critical edi-
tions and translations of Arabic, Persian, Turk-
ish, and Sanskrit texts. Much of what they wrote
(excluding the Sanskritic materials) concerned
Islamicate cultures and, above all, islam—its
scriptures, laws, doctrines, mysticism, and history.
Moreover, Orientalists, despite their scholarly
abilities, often stereotyped these cultures as static,
despotic, inferior, and effeminate, usually attrib-K 536 Orientalism