Definition of Orientalists
First, the term must be defined: By Orientalists, we mean writers who write about Islamic thought and Islamic civilization.
Classification of Orientalists
We must then classify their names into what can be called "categories" in two ways: A. By Period: The ancient category, such as Gerbert d'Aurillac and Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the modern category, such as Carrade Vaux and Goldizer. B. By General Attitude Towards Islam: There are those who praise Islamic civilization and those who criticize and tarnish its reputation.
Comprehensive Study of Orientalism
This is how every comprehensive study of Orientalism should be conducted. However, from the specific social perspective that concerns us in this research and within the narrow scope of these lines, we deliberately choose a specific chapter, justified by the exclusion of other chapters. It is clear that ancient Orientalists have influenced and perhaps continue to influence the course of ideas in the Western world without any impact on our ideas as Muslims. Their writings were undoubtedly the pivot around which the ideas that gave rise to the Renaissance in Europe revolved, while we see no trace of them in what we call the Islamic Renaissance today.
Impact of Ancient and Modern Critics
Therefore, we leave their issue to those interested in the study of general history, and we also leave the issue of modern critics of Islamic civilization, even if they had some impact on stirring our pens or gaining some fame in their time and country, such as Father Lammens. They do not enter our research topic because their production, even if it touched our culture to some extent, did not stir or direct the entirety of our ideas. This is because we had a natural readiness to face its impact automatically, an encounter in which natural defense factors for cultural identity intervened, as happened in the era when the book "On Pre-Islamic Poetry" was published, following a statement made by Orientalist Margoliouth a year before. This stirred a storm of indignation that was interspersed with retaliatory lightning bolts from the pen of Mustafa Sadiq al-Rafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him and honor his resting place.
The Impact of Praising Orientalists
Contrary to this, we find that praising Orientalists had a tangible impact that we can imagine to the extent that we realize it found no readiness in us to react. Initially, there was no justification for the defense that lost its usefulness and seemed as if its mechanism became paralyzed for this reason.
The Gap in Our Defense Mechanism
Our topic here is to show the impact of this gap in our cultural defense mechanism on the development of ideas in the Islamic community over a century, and particularly during this twentieth century.
Praising Orientalists and Their Impact
Undoubtedly, praising Orientalists like Renaud, who translated the geography of Abu al-Fida in the mid-nineteenth century, Dozy, who revived the centuries of Arab enlightenment in Spain, Sedillo, who strived throughout his life to grant the Arab astronomer and engineer Abu al-Wafa the title of discoverer of the "second lunar motion equation" in astronomy, and Asín Palacios, who revealed the Arab sources of Dante's Divine Comedy. These scholars undoubtedly wrote in support of scientific truth and history, all for their Western society.
The Influence on Islamic Society
However, we find that their ideas had a greater impact on the Islamic society, particularly its educated classes. The Muslim generation to which I belong owes these Western Orientalists the means to face the inferiority complex that afflicted the Islamic conscience in the face of Western civilization.
Mixed Effects of Praising Orientalists
However, if we examine this issue in light of our modern experience and our recent experiences, we find that this method only had a commendable impact on the development of our ideas and culture. Instead, it had a harmful effect, which we want to discuss in these lines.
Historical Context of Orientalism
To conceive this impact in its true form in our Islamic society, we must return this type of Orientalism to its historical sources. Europe discovered Islamic thought in two stages of its history: during the Middle Ages, before and after Thomas Aquinas, it sought to discover and translate this thought to enrich its culture, which indeed led to the Renaissance movement since the late fifteenth century. In the modern and colonial era, Europe rediscovered Islamic thought, not for cultural modification but for political adjustment, to align its colonial plans with the conditions in Islamic countries and to manage these conditions according to what these policies required in Islamic countries to control the subjected peoples.
Recognition of Islamic Contributions
These scientific efforts, in the eyes of their owners, perhaps merely acknowledged the contributions of these peoples and their role in forming the human cultural heritage. There is no doubt that Orientalists like Sedillo and the scholar Gustave Le Bon are characterized in their production by pure science and sincere efforts for scientific truth.
Challenges Faced by the Islamic World
However, it should be noted that this new encounter occurred in historical circumstances where Islamic science was not a living science transmitted directly from the mouths of teachers and their contemporary books. Instead, it became like archaeology discovered by European researchers by chance, who may or may not be accurate in its transmission. Then they attributed it to Muslim scholars, or to themselves or a European. Thus, major discoveries were attributed to non-owners, such as the discovery of the minor blood circulation by the Englishman William Harvey, while its owner was the Muslim doctor Ibn al-Nafis, who lived four centuries before him.
The Impact of Western Culture Shock
It should also be noted that the Islamic world, in these circumstances, suffered the shock inflicted by Western culture, causing it to experience two main effects: facing a palpable inferiority complex on one hand and attempting to overcome it by any means, even trivial ones, on the other.
The Cultural Inferiority Complex
This shock caused a sort of paralysis in the cultural immunity mechanism among a group of Muslim intellectuals, leading them to turn away from the Western cultural invasion and throw down their weapons in the field, like the remnants of a defeated army at the moment the intellectual conflict between the Islamic community and the West began to heat up. This group of intellectuals started seeking their salvation by adopting Western attire and imitating all that bore the Western stamp in their tastes and behavior, even if this stamp was merely a facade with no real value behind it.
Cultural Conflict in the Islamic Community
The new idea appeared in the Islamic cultural horizon after the 1858 revolution in India, which moved the establishment of Aligarh University and prompted the call of the Islamic renaissance by Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. Thus, Islamic thought, as a result of the cultural shock that overwhelmed it and the inferiority complex it caused, split into two camps: one advocating the acceptance of Western arts, sciences, and things—even clothing—and the other trying to overcome the inferiority complex by taking pride in itself.
The Two Intellectual Currents
The first current had an impact in two ways: the establishment of Aligarh University and the call of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, with different goals and similar means that imposed a development on the Islamic world leading to materialism and accumulation. The second current, the subject of our discussion due to its connection to the production of Orientalists, found its natural anesthesia in the literature of pride and glorification created by Orientalist scholars like Dozy about Islamic civilization.
The Mixed Impact on Islamic Thought
We cannot entirely separate these two currents, as the second one is not systematically an independent school from the first. Instead, we find it infiltrating Islamic thought in general, seeking a shot of pride to overcome the humiliation inflicted by the triumphant Western culture, just as an addict seeks a dose of the drug to temporarily satisfy his pathological need.
The Role of Praising Orientalists in Preserving Islamic Identity
This does not deny that this current and the type of literature it produced had any positive impact on the fate of the Islamic community, as it played a significant role in preserving its identity. The generation to which I belong owes it, at least in part, the preservation of its Islamic identity.
Personal Reflections on the Impact of Praising Orientalists
For example, I discovered the glories of Islamic civilization in my teenage years through Doslan's translation of Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah and the writings of Dozy and Ahmed Reza after World War I. I am fully aware of what I owe to these readings, as I mentioned in the first part of "Memoirs of a Witness to the Century." Now that I have passed the age of sixty, I can better appreciate this treatment for thought and conscience, not just on a personal level, but in the broader context of the Islamic community over forty years after my experience. Here, with the necessary brevity, I can state that the drawbacks of this treatment method appear to me more than its benefits for several reasons.
The Psychological Effects of Historical Glorification
The first reason is obvious: observing the psychological effects of educational methods, i.e., pedagogy, highlights this automatically with a simple example. When we talk to a poor person who can't find enough to eat today about the immense wealth of his ancestors, we only offer him a temporary distraction from his troubles with a means of anesthesia that temporarily isolates his mind and conscience from feeling them. We soothe the pain; we do not heal it.
Addressing the Ills of Society
Similarly, we do not heal the ills of society by mentioning the glories of its past. No doubt, those skilled in storytelling have narrated the tale of "One Thousand and One Nights" to Muslim generations during the post-Almohad period, leaving (after every night) an intoxicating rapture that accompanies their listeners until they sleep with a vision of a luxurious past. But these masses will awaken the next day to face the harsh reality surrounding them in their current deplorable situation.
The Impact of Literature Glorifying Islamic Civilization
The literature that glorifies the golden ages of Islamic civilization primarily achieves two things. It provided a suitable response to the cultural challenge posed by Western civilization, preserving the Islamic identity along with other factors. But on the other hand, it instilled admiration for the foreign element without adapting it to the age of activity and productivity.
The Role of Praising Orientalists in Preserving Islamic Identity
This is why this observation, though seemingly marginal in this presentation, is worthy of attention. Not only does it matter from a sociological perspective, but it is even more significant when considering its implications in the context of the current intellectual struggle facing the Islamic world.
Defining Intellectual Struggle
To define what we call the "intellectual struggle" in the Islamic world, we must consider this general principle: whenever Muslims raise an issue related to the fate of their society, we must assume that colonialism has either already raised it or will raise it soon. It is not hidden from those specialized in Islamic studies; they have either already addressed it or will address it. They will strive to distort any correct solution found by Muslims or widen any existing flaw if the solution is incorrect. This is the simplest definition of intellectual struggle.
The Role of Western Specialists
If an initiative arises in the Islamic world, even if unnoticed by us, Western specialists will quickly detect it and place it under the microscope of analysis, especially if it pertains to the movement of ideas or the renaissance in the Islamic world. They will examine it thoroughly, distilling and purifying it through numerous processes until the initiative, when presented, contains as little truth as possible and as many errors as possible, practically ensuring that it has the least chance of successful application and the greatest chance of failure.
The Importance of Intellectual Guidance
The primary challenge lies in guiding ideas, either forward or backward if they are looking backward in a pathological manner. This is crucial, particularly in the context of the ongoing intellectual struggle in the contemporary Islamic world.
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Source: "Al-Waie Al-Islami Magazine," 1969.
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