Antiquarian authority combined with field experience authorizes the expert’s pronouncements on the Orient

Evidence

Smith’s work on the Semites covered such areas as theology, literature, and history; it was done with a full awareness of work done by Orientalists (see, for instance, Smith’s savage attack in 1887 on Renan’s Histoire du peuple d’Israël), and more important, was intended as an aid to the understanding of the modern Semites. For Smith, I think, was a crucial link in the intellectual chain connecting the White-Man-as-expert to the modern Orient. None of the encapsulated wisdom delivered as Oriental expertise by Lawrence, Hogarth, Bell, and the others would have been possible without Smith. And even Smith the antiquarian scholar would not have had half the authority without his additional and direct experience of “the Arabian facts.” It was the combination in Smith of the “grasp” of primitive categories with the ability to see general truths behind the empirical vagaries of contemporary Oriental behavior that gave weight to his writing. Moreover, it was this special combination that adumbrated the style of expertise upon which Lawrence, Bell, and Philby built their reputation. — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 591

Categorization

• XREF: This genealogy of ‘the White-Man-as-expert’ scaffolds the later Islamophobia readings on how expertise manufactures authority over Muslims; connects to the expert/imam binary in Western media discourse.
• DEFINE: Defines the specific combination — grasp of primitive categories plus ability to see general truths behind contemporary behavior — that constitutes the Orientalist style of expertise.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 591