Orientalism

Orientalism

By: Dr Mohammad Akram Nadwi
Oxford

Orientalism can refer to the whole approach of Western countries to the orient. The orient usually means the Islamic world. Orientalism also can refer to the purpose and method of scholars and institutions devouted to study of the orient. As with any discipline there is tremendous variety in quality of attention that individual scholars give to their subject matter. One part of this effort is to catalogue and collect works of interest. These works are detached physically, intellectually and culturally from their own context. In just the same way as material artefacts can be lifted from their location in the place of origin and deposited and displayed in the museums of West. So also the great works of literature, laws, commentary can be lifted from their cultural context and deposited in academic libraries of the West.

The assumption of this approach is (a) that the culture of origin has no further independent existence (b) the works of that culture are classified and valued against the standard of the West. So for example, Islamic philosophy is valued because it preserved and developed the ideas and techniques of reasoning originated by the Greek sages, and continued in the philosophy of the scholastics of the Western Middle Ages. The modern period represents a radical departure from that philosophy: so neither Islamic nor scholastic philosophy has any relevance for the present except for antiquarians. Similarly Islamic sciences, Islamic achievements in engineering, agriculture, town planning, civil infrastructure, religious architecture, medicine, hospital and on all are of historical interest without current value.

The rise of orientalism coincides with the rise of empire building. The latter entailed cutting off conquered peoples from their economic and cultural past, a sort of wiping the slate clean. When a slate is wiped fragments remain. But the ability to link their fragments into a history and culture is weakened because (1) the economic and educational institutions are no longer functioning and (2) general trust in the effectiveness of the culture has been severely weakened. For example, when the British converted huge areas of India from agricultural production which fed the local population into farms for the production of opium, they produced profits for the East India Company, a powerful liver to force the door of trade with China, and famine for the people of India. However what they also produced was paralysis among Indians so they could no longer believe that they have ability even to feed themselves. It was very quickly forgotten that India had been the biggest exporter of manufactured goods and most prosperous region of the world. In the same way when educational institutions were shut down directly or indirectly by cutting off their funds, the connectivity between the different elements of culture was lost. So just as in the West the cultural heritage of the orient and specially of the Islamic world was only accessible in bits and pieces, isolated sites of historical or architectural interest with little cultural meaning but good potential for the tourist industry.

When studying the works of individual orientalists, it is very important to distinguish carefully and honestly between those whose work is advocacy, usually intended to disprove Islam or demonstrate its inadequacies, and those whose work is the serious effort to preserve (in the form of careful editions) and to present the writings that they have studied. Some people are obviously missionaries who want to provide their field agents with ammunitions to approach and convince orientals. Some people are obviously agents of empire, gathering intelligences about the differences between tribes and sects, which would be relevant to the purpose of governing them; or getting data about geography and economic potential of the land with or without these people. Yet for all that there are also scholars from the West who fell in love with their subject matters specially poetry, ornamentation, soft furnishing and garden design, and therefore translated or in some other way transported these beauties into their own world. In even these cases they favoured arts never became more than strend or flavour in the arts of the West. The general or common principle underlying orientalism seems to be that orientals or Muslims can achieve excellence in very specific techniques, which the West can appreciate if not imitate, but as for the whole purpose of human life or human society the orient Islam has nothing to teach the West. This attitude of a general (not specific) cultural superiority survives any demonstration of the destructiveness cultural and material, which West has visited upon the land and people of the rest of the world.

FOLLOW THE الشيخ محمد أكرم الندوي CHANNEL ON WHATSAPP:
HTTPS://WHATSAPP.COM/CHANNEL/0029VBAXP2QGPLHHQQ3LOY0W