Tag: Arabic

Reflections: Orientalism 11.07

What we (Muslims) say/believe is Islam is like a garment. We fit ourselves into it not the other way around. If we try to adjust this garment to our feelings and conditions, then each one of us Will make appropriate adjustments. At the end, each person’s garment will be unique to himself/herself and different from that of others. In this case we cannot say that we all follow one religion since we have all modified our religious practices that we don’t practice the same religion anymore. On the contrary, if we adjust ourselves to the demands of the religion, then everyone’s religion (garment) will be identical.

One might ask: who represents the real Islam? The majority of people take their understanding of Islam from the mass media, which is in the control of certain individuals with certain agenda. There individuals always present people with a escape-goat to cover the reality of the world and to cover their real plans. Anyone who reveals them will be labelled with names such as conspiracy theorist. This means that whatever the mass media feeds us is the reality and the truth. Anything else will be conspiracy and lies.

This article is a combination of summary of the book: Orientalism by Edward W. Said and my reflections on the contents of the book and today’s current world events.

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Reflections: Orientalism & Language

The importance of appealing to men through their minds by using their language. Having orient studies is not for entertainment but a policy. As was mentioned earlier, orients cannot rule themselves nor can they think for themselves. These must be done for them by the occidents. To be able to think for him, we need to get into his head. To control his mind, we need to learn his language. This is why we see Arabic and Islamic studies in every major North-Aemrican and western European universities. Arabic is the language of Islam. Closer a western country is to an Arabic (Muslim) country, more control they have on that country and the laws being passed in that country. Recently we have witnessed new and monumental events in the middle east such as new liberal rules and laws in the Kingdom to revelation and publicising of Arab-Israeli relations. What is incomprehensible is why this event was named as peace talks or peace treaties. Was there any war between the UAE and Israel? Or a war between Bahrain and Israel? The answer is definitely no. Then why is this treaty called a peace treaty. All these Arab countries have had relations with Israel for years. All they are doing now is making these relations public. The real war is between the Palestinians and Israel. Were the Palestinians part of this treaty or so-called peace talks? All these Arab/muslim governments are friends of the the big boss. Question is how much of these events are part of the US foreign policies? What is next?

Let’s not forget what was mentioned earlier: orients cannot represent themselves. They must be represented. Another point brought up by orientalist is the antiquity of Islam and that Islam needs to learn from the west and westerners. In another word, Islam needs to up-to-date itself since it is out-dated and needs to be revived and modernized. For this to happen, Islam need to adapt itself to the modernity of the western culture.

This article is a summary of the book: Orientalism by Edward W. Said and my thoughts and reflections from this book and current world events.

https://amzn.to/40b3OBI

As an amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Reflections: Orientalism 4.11

What the orientalist thinks of an oriental is that the orientals cannot rule themselves nor can they manage their riches. The westerners (orientalist) take it upon themselves to do the job for the orient. The westerners see orientalist as incapables whose only interest is their lust. The occidents not only take it upon themselves to take over and control the riches of the oriental countries, but go further and claim that “we have to run their country for them as well”. This case is different from the colonialism in that they are not directly, or let’s say publically, running the show but some local puppets are. Puppets who are either trained in the west or trained in the east by missionaries or orientalists themselves. By riches we don’t just mean oil fields as in Iraq but oil pipes and rich mineral mines (e.g. uranium) as in Afghanistan and some African countries. The westerners pretend they respect the orient but they don’t and it is, actually, on the contrary. They look down upon the orients. To the westerners, an oriental has no value. They believe the oriental is happy as long as he has his partner and animals. In western movies, the orientals (Arabs, Muslims, Africans) are shown as the source of evil and the source of problems in the west. One example in early 90s is showing Arabs as the source of gas shortage in the US.

This article is both summary of book “Orientalism” by Edward W. Said and my reflections.

https://amzn.to/40b3OBI

As an amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.