In FrontPage yesterday I reviewed Ibn Warraq's superb new book, Defending the West:
With jihad terrorists around the world making recruits and justifying their actions by reference to Islamic teachings, academic study of Islam is needed more urgently than ever. Yet in today’s universities, political correctness almost completely forecloses any honest examination of the elements of Islamic culture or belief. Much of this is the result of the work of the late Edward Said, a hugely influential professor and author of the book Orientalism, which has set the tone for Middle East Studies in the United States ever since its first appearance in the 1970s. Said contended that Western academic study of Islam and the Middle East was deformed by notions of cultural superiority, and was a racist handmaiden of Western colonialism and imperialism.Said’s word has become law. On most campuses today any examination of matters Islamic that is even remotely critical is shouted down and labeled bigotry and “hate speech.” Pre-1960 works by Western scholars on Islamic and Middle Eastern studies are disparaged or ignored. Said’s influence has for three decades now had the baneful effect of inhibiting academic and public debate about crucial issues such as how Islam must be reformed and whether or not this reform can be accomplished, and how Muslims and non-Muslims can develop a framework for peaceful coexistence as equals on an indefinite basis.
But now the fearless and clear-sighted Islamic scholar Ibn Warraq has dealt a body blow to the Saidist establishment in his new book Defending the West: A Critique of Edward Said’s Orientalism.Ibn Warraq not only reveals the sloppiness and tendentiousness of much of Said’s research; he also demonstrates that Western study of Islam and Muslims has never been as uniform, imperialist, or supremacist as Said contended, delving deeply into the work of the classic Orientalists themselves – painters, sculptors, artists, and writers, much of whose work was once influential in numerous fields, but has of late been under a Saidist cloud. Defending the West shows these men to be, as Ibn Warraq describes them, “colorful and gifted individuals” who “had their own individual reasons for exploring artistically foreign climes, customs, people and costumes,” were not racist, and were not part of some rapacious imperialist project.
But in a certain sense, the subtitle of this book is unfortunate. For while Ibn Warraq elegantly and eruditely eviscerates Said’s thesis, the scope of this book is much wider. In an epigraph, he quotes Arthur Koestler, a man who knew a thing or two about the decline of civilizations: “The predicament of Western civilization is that it has ceased to be aware of the values which it is in peril of losing.” Ibn Warraq identifies three characteristics of Western intellectual inquiry – and of the work of the Orientalists whom Said disparages – that cannot be found consistently in non-Western (including Islamic) intellectual endeavors, and which are in danger of being lost today in the West, not least because of the ideological straitjacket that Said’s followers enforce in universities. The first of these is rationalism, and the prizing of knowledge for the sake of knowledge – Ibn Warraq observes that “under Islam, orthodoxy has always been suspicious of ‘knowledge for its own sake.’ Unfettered intellectual inquiry is deemed dangerous to the faith.” Then there is universalism, the idea of the essential unity of mankind that leads to a genuine openness to other peoples and cultures. While this has characterized the West since the Greeks, Ibn Warraq notes that, in a peculiar inversion of Said’s claim, the Islamic world has generally regarded non-Muslim cultures with contempt and lack of interest – even to the detriment of its own civilizational development. And finally, Ibn Warraq points out that the West has demonstrated from the beginning a capacity for self-reflection and self-criticism that has been almost wholly lacking in Islamic cultures. He explains that “the ability to turn a stream of fresh and free thought upon our stock notions and habits” has always been “the distinctive and redemptive grace of Western civilization.”
But today in our own colleges and universities the redemptive graces of Western civilization are ignored in favor of a Saidist litany of Western crimes and misdemeanors, sapping our strength for civilizational self-defense at the time we need it the most. Erudite, enlightening, entertaining, and magnificently broad in scope, Defending the West is the antidote.
Pre-1960 works by Western scholars on Islamic and Middle Eastern studies are disparaged or ignored.
So far, I have come across three scholarly articles about Islam written prior to 1960 that exhibit, in my estimation, virtually the same Politically Correct Multi-Culturalist assumptions we find so prevalent today (one goes back to 1849!):
1849 -- Edward E. Salisbury (1814-1901), in the year of 1849 writing introductory editorial notes to a translation of Conquest of Persia by the Arabs, by the Muslim chronicler Tabary (838-923 A.D.), translated from the Turkish by John P. Brown, Esq., Dragoman of the United States Legation at Constantinople, published in Journal of the American Oriental Society (Vol. 1, No. 4, 1849).
1917 -- “The Study of Arabic”, T. W. Arnold, in Bulletin of the School of Oriental Studies, University of London, Vol. 1, No. 1. (1917), pp. 112-121.
1942 -- “The Origins of Pan-Islamism”, by Dwight E. Lee, in The American Historical Review, Vol. 47, No. 2. (Jan., 1942), pp. 278-287.
A fourth example I found dates from 1963 – which I would reasonably assume is early enough in time to reflect the infancy of the mainstream dominance of PC MC, thus indicating that this article expresses a rare bias at the time. Or does it?
“Islam, History, and Politics” published in 1963 in The Journal of Modern African Studies (I, I, pp. 91-97), a review by Thomas Hodgkin of a book by Dr. J.S. Trimingham titled History of Islam in West Africa (written in 1962).
My analyses can be read on my blog at http://hesperado.blogspot.com/2008/02/when-did-pc-begin-fourth-case-study.html
Remote:
Nice hobbyhorse!
Re your discoveries: so what? It is supposed to tell us something that a few people were PC about Islam before Said? It was with Said that this perspective became dominant. And its dominance is what has chilled rational discourse about Islam and jihad.
Cordially
Robert Spencer
I agree, Mr. Spencer, with most of your statement:
"It was with Said that this perspective became dominant. And its dominance is what has chilled rational discourse about Islam and jihad."
I disagree, however, that it was "with Said" that this perspective became dominant -- if by "with Said" you mean he was not simply exploiting an already existing perspective that flourished completely without his help before he came along to exploit it and to lend it his not so terribly singular flavorings (he only really got going in the late 1970s -- the main font of his influence began in 1978 with his book Orientalism, while prior to that he was only dabbling in articles about various Islamic and Palestinian issues, beginning in 1970; see http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/said/index.html).
Thus the imortance of my "discoveries": they point to interesting and significant precursors to the dominance of that perspective, precursors whose further study may help uncover why that dominance has come to pass (and perhaps even may help in our long-term yet exigent project of unraveling that dominance): a sociopolitico-cultural phenomenon too complex, broad and deep to let a small man like Said take so much of the credit for. The mere fact that a pseudo-scholar like Said can have the influence he has had in Academe points to a phenomenon larger than him -- an already existing predisposition and predilection to swallow what he cooked up.
Focusing unduly on Said is like using metereology in dealing with problems of climate or plate tectonics, where climatology or geology would be more appropriate. There are contexts where the weather, and therefore weathermen, are important; then there are broader and deeper contexts -- and problems arising from them -- where weather reports are no longer sufficient.
I was actually thinking cantor's observations supported the review:
" ... he also demonstrates that Western study of Islam and Muslims has never been as uniform, imperialist, or supremacist as Said contended, delving deeply into the work of the classic Orientalists themselves – painters, sculptors, artists, and writers, much of whose work was once influential in numerous fields, but has of late been under a Saidist cloud. Defending the West shows these men to be, as Ibn Warraq describes them, “colorful and gifted individuals” who “had their own individual reasons for exploring artistically foreign climes, customs, people and costumes,” were not racist, and were not part of some rapacious imperialist project."
"[C]olorful and gifted individusls [sic]", as well as the more familiar antipathetic counter-cultural fifth columnist academics we've grown to adore in this society. Sometimes I wonder was Said (and others) "simply exploiting an already existing perspective", or was the time just ripe for previously idle petrodollars to be used to "exploit" a willing gas bag into an international profile, fulfilling the educational objectives of groups well illuminated by Bat Y'eor's Eurabia.
My apologies for assigning my own typo to Mr. Spencer (hangs head in shame).
cantor,
Your above link does not work. Could you check it out and see what the problem is and if you could correct it so that I can access what that link leads to?
Thank you!
Concerned Citizen,
"I was actually thinking cantor's observations supported the review..."
Yes, insofar as part of that variety of Western Orientalists included proto-PC MC; though neither the review nor perhaps Warraq (at least from three reviews I've read plus a brief description by Warraq of his book) seem to show sufficient (if any) interest in the irony that the very same Orientalism Said castigated harbored the "virus" so to speak of the sociopolitico-cultural pathology that eventually made Said's fame and influence possible. The focus seems to be on locating the virus in Said himself. (And of course, it wasn't only Academe that harbored the proto-PC MC "virus"; the phenomenon has been much broader than that throughout Western societies.)
"Sometimes I wonder was Said (and others) "simply exploiting an already existing perspective", or was the time just ripe for previously idle petrodollars to be used to "exploit" a willing gas bag into an international profile, fulfilling the educational objectives of groups well illuminated by Bat Y'eor's Eurabia."
I'd say both. For one thing, if it was only the latter, that would not explain why not only Leftists, but also most conservatives throughout the West also swallow (and regurgitate) the main tenets of PC MC with regard to Islam.
FredIsinglass,
If you meant this link -- http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~scctr/Wellek/said/index.html -- I think the problem was that in my text I put a parenthesis at the end which apparently got sucked into the URL. It should work now.
Interesting contributions Cantor. Thanks.
I would only suggest that before Said, there was a large body of "orientalist" (read: objectively critical) study of Islam, much of it from German scholars whom Ibn Warraq rightly points out did not and could not have anything to do with the "imperialist project" since Germany had no colonies in the near-east.
After Said, these sources have faded into disrepute and non-use...at least as far as academe is concerned. The influence of Said's 'Orientalism' was singularly critical in this development.
As you suggest, depositing a false benignity on 'the other' has roots in the academy that transcend Said...and the virtual strangulation of critical scrutiny of the Islamic world may have eventually occurred without him, but it would never have been accomplished with such rapidity and comprehensiveness.
I read the book and had a mixed reaction to it.
It is very informative about the history of Orientalists, but it is not the point by point refutation of Said's work that I was expecting when I picked it up. Since Warriq's trying to make the point that Said's work is sloppy, he should avoid being sloppy himself.
There is no philosophy-based discussion of Said's illegitimate use of the phenomenological concept of "the other". Instead, Warriq takes the guy to task for punning, for cripes sake!
A consise refutation of Said begs to be written.
Cornelius,
While I agree with certain points of your comments, I'll have to disagree with their thrust.
"The influence of Said's 'Orientalism' was singularly critical in this development."
I agree that the influence was critical and important, but not singularly so. Said's talent lay in style and packaging; but all of the substance and content (not to mention the psychological predisposition) was already there, all around him not only in Academic culture, but in Western culture in general.
"As you suggest, depositing a false benignity on 'the other' has roots in the academy that transcend Said"
It's not merely the idea of "the Other": there is a whole rich complex constellation of ideas other than this "Other" that constitutes the PC MC construct, including the increasingly morbid culture of self-criticism in the West going back at least 200 years.
skevin,
"It is very informative about the history of Orientalists, but it is not the point by point refutation of Said's work that I was expecting...A consise refutation of Said begs to be written."
Such a concise refutation would be unable to avoid the larger issue of the context and matrix in Western Academe and in Western culture in general whence Said derived not only his substance & content but also his subsequent influence. Or, if it did manage to avoid that larger issue, it would be a curious exercise in the study of a phenomenon in a vacuum -- or even worse, resting on the assumption that the West around Said is simultaneously un-PC/MC with regard to Islam (for how could the West at the time when Said began to become influential be PC/MC with regard to Islam, when Said invented PC MC with regard to Islam?), and amazingly susceptible to becoming PC MC at the instigation of this single dastardly cultural Moriarty.