Said’s Orientalism has its true origins in Christian defensive reactions, not colonialism

Evidence

Orientalist representations of the Jews have always been at the very center of orientalist discourse (which we believe to be based historically in the Christian West’s attempts to understand and to manage its relations with both of its monotheistic Others). Strangely, perhaps one benefit of studying the Jews as a topic in orientalism may be discovering how much orientalism has been not only a modern Western or imperialist discourse, but also a “politico-theological,” Christian one. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 69 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Terence Hawkes has said that “a colonist acts essentially as a dramatist. He imposes the ‘shape’ of his own culture, embodied in his speech, on the new world and makes that world recognizable, habitable, ‘natural,’ able to speak his language.” The same could be said for the colonized, in this case for Eastern Christians during the first two Muslim centuries. Refusing to acknowledge the fundamental and irreversible nature of the advent of Islam, they imposed the familiar forms of the old Christian Roman commonwealth on the new world of Islam, casting their adversaries (especially Muhammad) in familiar and despised roles, roles that allowed the Christian writer to hope for a happy ending. … The negative “orientalist” portrayals of Islam that Edward Said denounces in his Orientalism as the ideological underpinnings of French and British colonialism in fact have their origins in the defensive reactions of Christian “orientals,” unwitting subjects of the new Muslim empire. — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 418 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Said’s Orientalist tropes originated with Eastern Christians, not Western colonizers — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 418; Orientalism originated as a Christian politico-theological project, not merely imperial ideology — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 69; Said’s critique of Orientalism implicitly reinforced the very modernism it attacked

Broader Connections

• Said’s Orientalist tropes originated with Eastern Christians, not Western colonizers #expands (1.00) — John V. Tolan, Saracens, 418
• Orientalism originated as a Christian politico-theological project, not merely imperial ideology #corroborates (1.00) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 69
• Said’s critique of Orientalism implicitly reinforced the very modernism it attacked #complicates (0.90)