Bernard Lewis - Debates With Edward Said

Debates With Edward Said

Lewis is known for his literary sparrings with Edward W. Said, the Palestinian-American literary theorist whose aim was to deconstruct what he called Orientalist scholarship. Said, a professor at Columbia University, characterised Lewis's work as a prime example of Orientalism in his 1978 book Orientalism. Said asserted that the field of Orientalism was political intellectualism bent on self-affirmation rather than objective study, a form of racism, and a tool of imperialist domination. He further questioned the scientific neutrality of some leading Middle East scholars such as Bernard Lewis on the Arab World. In an interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, Said suggested that Lewis' knowledge of the Middle East was so biased it could not be taken seriously, and claimed "Bernard Lewis hasn't set foot in the Middle East, in the Arab world, for at least 40 years. He knows something about Turkey, I'm told, but he knows nothing about the Arab world."

Edward Said considered that Lewis treats Islam as a monolithic entity without the nuance of its plurality, internal dynamics, and historical complexities, and accused him of "demagogy and downright ignorance."

Rejecting the view that western scholarship was biased against the Middle East, Lewis responded that Orientalism developed as a facet of European humanism, independently of the past European imperial expansion. He noted the French and English pursued the study of Islam in the 16th and 17th centuries, yet not in an organized way, but long before they had any control or hope of control in the Middle East; and that much of Orientalist study did nothing to advance the cause of imperialism. "What imperial purpose was served by deciphering the ancient Egyptian language, for example, and then restoring to the Egyptians knowledge of and pride in their forgotten, ancient past?"