Categories of Orientalists

Orientalists are divided into various categories based on their intellectual attitudes, linguistic skills, and historical periods to better understand their work and objectives. Here, their classification is divided into four main categories:

1.    Classification based on intellectual and psychological attitudes

2.    Classification based on linguistic proficiency and academic depth

3.    Post-colonial classification (Edward Said's theory)

4.    Classification based on historical and civilizational periods

To understand this classification, references from various authentic books are provided below:

1. Classification Based on Intellectual and Psychological Attitudes

This classification is made in the context of Dr. Mustafa Sibai's famous book "Al-Istishraq wal-Mustashriqun Ma Lahum Wa-Ma Alayhim". According to this, there are four major types of Orientalists:

• Moderate Orientalists: These are the researchers who tried to maintain academic integrity in their research and acknowledged the greatness of Islam and the Prophet of Islam (PBUH). Although they made mistakes, their goal was not to distort Islam.

  • Book Reference: Thomas Arnold's book "Preaching of Islam" is the best example of this group. Other researchers include Karen Armstrong and Annemarie Schimmel.

• Prejudiced and Spiteful Orientalists: This is the group that created doubts and suspicions regarding Islamic history, the Holy Quran, and the science of Hadith under the guise of knowledge and research. They deliberately relied on weak narrations to prove that Islam is a mere copy of Judaism and Christianity.

  • Book Reference: Ignác Goldziher's book "Vorlesungen über den Islam" is a clear example of this.

• Professional Orientalists: These are the researchers who are hired by Western colonial powers, security agencies, and media houses for specific remuneration. Their purpose is not the pursuit of knowledge but the achievement of colonial interests and the spread of Islamophobia.

• Atheist Orientalists: During the Middle Ages, in the war between Christianity and science, some atheists used Islam as a symbol (proxy) to avoid the Pope's punishments instead of directly attacking the Church.

  • Book Reference: The French thinker Voltaire's play "Le Fanatisme ou Mahomet le Prophète" is a major example of this, which he wrote and dedicated to the Pope.

2. Classification Based on Linguistic Proficiency and Academic Depth

In the light of Najib al-Aqiqi's masterpiece "Al-Mustashriqun", Orientalists are divided based on their knowledge of Arabic and access to original sources:

• Those ignorant of the Arabic language and reliant on translations: These are the researchers who did not know the Arabic language and relied solely on the translations of other European authors. For this reason, they repeated old mistakes.

  • Book Reference: Edward Gibbon's famous book "The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" is a prominent example of this, in which he used inappropriate language about Islam.

• Orientalists with access to original sources: This is the group that acquired extraordinary mastery over the Arabic language and directly studied the original Arabic texts (such as Musnad Ahmed). However, despite their high academic caliber, their political and religious prejudice dominated their writings (such as D.S. Margoliouth and Arthur Jeffery).

3. Post-Colonial Classification (Edward Said's Theory)

The founder of post-colonial thought, Professor Edward Said, in his world-renowned book "Orientalism", described Orientalism as a colonial intellectual structure and divided it into two parts:

• Latent Orientalism: This is the permanent and unconscious ideology present in Western minds that the East is always backward, stagnant, and inferior, while the West is advanced and rational.

• Manifest Orientalism: The visible and practical expression of latent Orientalism that appears in the form of travelogues, dictionaries, historical books, and political policies.

4. Classification Based on Historical and Civilizational Periods

Dr. Al-Mabrouk Al-Mansouri, in his book "Al-Dirasat Al-Diniyyah Al-Mu'asirah", has divided Orientalism into three parts according to historical periods:

• Colonial Orientalism: This period lasted until the 1960s, and its primary purpose was to provide intellectual strength to the military conquests and colonialism of European countries.

• Post-Colonial Orientalism: After the end of military occupation, work was done in this era to maintain cultural, linguistic, and intellectual dominance so that the educated class of the East would become suspicious of their own heritage.

• New Orientalism: This is the modern trend of the 21st century in which researchers like Christoph Luxenberg are trying to bring the linguistic understanding of the Holy Quran into the context of Syriac and Aramaic languages to strike at revelation from new angles.