Yasir Qadhi – Edward Said and His Work Orientalism

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			Smilla l salatu salam ala Rasulillah who either early he was so happy woman well I'm about today
inshallah we'll do something different. As most of you are aware, I'm speaking to those that are
visiting, I know some of you are visiting from outside. Generally we talk about obviously any phoron
see or something from our tradition. Once in a while, I think it is useful to mention a fact that is
related to our history as an OMA but not necessarily straight from our texts. And as you know, in
the last two years, I have sometimes given issues of psychology, issues of sociology, things of
benefit. And by the way, footnote here, this is sooner, our professor scimitars reporting Sahadi
		

			that many times after Salah, the Sahaba would speak of the days of jaw helliya The words of jaw
heylia they would even recite the poetry. So to have beneficial knowledge in the masjid is something
that is a part of our tradition. And so today, Inshallah, we'll go to the tangent, which is going to
be especially useful to those who are engaged in dialogue with people outside of our community, or
in trying to understand the media and current affairs. My talk today is going to be about one of the
most interesting books written in the last 100 years in Western academia. It is considered to be one
of the 10 most important books that revolutionized Western academia, written by a non Muslim, and
		

			Arab Christian, by the name of Edward St. Edward site. This is a figure that anybody who's involved
in understanding modern politics and modern media should be aware of a little bit about this person
and why we're talking about him in today's quarter, because it is a very interesting topic. Edward
side comes from a christian palestinian family. And he was raised in very elite schools in federal
saline and Cairo back in the 40s. And 50s. His father was wealthy and managed to send him to America
as a teenager. So he was one of the first out herbs to graduate from Princeton, and then Harvard
back in the 50s. And he has a PhD in English literature, like some field that is not related to us,
		

			right. So he became a professor in Columbia. So his Ivy League entire way, professor in Columbia,
English literature, but he is Palestinian. He's out of, of course, he's Christian, but he's Arab.
And he sees what's happening in this country. And he sees the news media and the analysis about how
they portray Islam, and how they talk about Palestine and how they portray the Arabs. And so even
though his PhD is in linguistics and in literature, he writes a book that literally shook the world
of academia. It has said that hardly any book impacted universities as much as this book did in the
last century. And it's a book called Orientalism, you should all be aware of this today's hot is
		

			about this book, Orientalism by Edward Saeed, published in 1978. The impact of this book is beyond
what I can mention in a hot era, it literally destroyed an entire field called Orientalist studies.
And it created multiple different fields, such as a post modernism post colonialism, post
colonialist studies is a new field, you can get a PhD and post colonial studies. This entire
discipline was created as a result of this book, one book, the book deals with us as an OMA, that's
why we're talking about it. It's about us. It's about the Muslim world, written by a non Muslim, but
because he's born and raised amongst Muslims, and because he's out of because he's Palestinian. The
		

			book that he wrote, was an amazing work that still has an impact to this day. This book itself has
been the subject of multiple PhDs. The book itself is the subject of multiple dissertations. And it
is an accessible book. It's not a very difficult, advanced abstract book. It's one that any educated
person can or you can borrow on Amazon Orientalism, by the way, before this point in time, Islamic
Studies programs were called Orientalist studies. And the person who studied Islamic Studies was
called an Orientalist. Okay, this was the term Orientalism and Orientalist. This book, demolished
the term nobody uses it anymore. This book demolished the Department of Oriental Studies. Now it's
		

			called department of Islamic studies because of this book, Department of Islamic Studies. Nobody
wants to use the term Orientalist anymore, because this book devastatingly critiqued the concept of
Orientalism, in another
		

			And I'm being a little bit obviously, off the cuff I haven't prepared for this and obviously has to
be simplistic for we're not doing an advanced topic is very simple talk here in a nutshell. Edward
Saeed created multiple disciplines by sifting together topics of psychology of colonialism, of
literary theory of power dynamics. And he demonstrated this is now the key point, that when people
from America and Europe, talk about Islam, and the Arab world and the Muslim world, they are not
coming from a place of neutrality. On the contrary, there is a deep psychological reality, a bias
that they're not even willing to acknowledge. And as they write about us as the Muslim community,
		

			they stereotype and caricatured us in the most basest of fashions, they generalize he goes, firstly,
there is no such thing as oriental, Chinese and Malay, are totally different. Pakistani, and you
know, somebody from the Middle East are not the same. But this construction of everybody have brown
skin is Oriental. It is done in order to stereotype. And in order to another point, he says, to
actually accuse the enemy of what you yourself are guilty of. This was one of the key points of
Orientalism, he demonstrated that, in fact, America, Europe and the academics of this country and
this nation, usually, they themselves are guilty of certain onze ideas, and they blame the Muslim
		

			world for those ideas as a psychological tactic to get the blame off of them. And he mentions two
things in the book that I can mention here that more than mentioned, number one, he goes sensuality.
Now, if you look at any movie 50 6070s 80s About Arabs in the Middle East, right? There's always
some Herim you know, there's always some, you know, lady, when you get my pointer very fireshot
whatnot. And he goes, which society has more fascia, which society has, you're accusing the Muslim
world of these things, which of the two is the producer of evil and fascia and filth? And then he
said this before 911, violence, the stereotype of the Arab terrorist throughout the 70s, and 80s,
		

			the stereotype even in the cartoons, of our Arabs, being Muslims being associated with terrorism and
violence, right. And in reality in human history, which civilization has been the most invading the
most colonizing the most bombing of other nations, which societies have killed more people, West or
East. So he says, by accusing them of what we are guilty of, he's calling himself a Western here by
accusing the Orientals of what we are guilty of, it's actually making us feel we're not guilty of
anything. Those are the real evil people, right? So there's this notion, therefore, of taking your
own faults, and accusing your enemies of having those false so that your false appear without any
		

			fault. You understand this point, right? Another point that he writes, which is a very profound
point, he says, when these academic thinkers write their dissertations, their papers, even the
movies and literature, they're not writing it from a vacuum, they are benefiting from a system of
oppression, colonialism, and their stereotypes play in to validating colonization, when you claim
that the Orient is backward, and we are civilized when you claim that Muslims are, you know, not
able to be democratic. So we must be the Democratic invaders. You perpetuate stereotypes that are
able to be used by politicians by culture, to then commit crimes against humanity invade bomb, you,
		

			oh, academics are not neutral, you are tools of imperialism, even if you don't recognize it. And
this is a very serious charge, if you understand, right, because academics, they love to say we are
neutral, we are not involved with the government. And he says no, by default, you are not writing
from a vacuum. You're writing from a power differential. You are a superior in terms of GDP and
bombs and whatnot. When you caricatured that level of people and societies, you are perpetuating the
crimes of your own people, you are sugarcoating your whitewashing, and you become a part of the
apparatus that you so willingly claim you're not a part of. Okay, those of you understand what's
		

			going on with the CRT issue as a black and white. These are all predating Edward sides mind is
thinking along those lines 30 years before what we are seeing right now of the woke culture, right?
So Edward Saeed comes with this devastating book. And as I said, the book literally caused like an
academic, you know, avalanche within the communities because he did a very thorough study of some of
the biggest names his main Nemesis was one of the worst Neo cons
		

			who eventually joined George Bush's war on Iraq? The worst academic of the other side? Bernard
Lewis, if you know his name, so after 911 he wrote an article that went viral. Okay? Why do the
Muslims hate us so much? And in the article and I kid you not literally I'll summarize it in one
sentence. They hate us because we're so good. Literally. That's why 911 happened. Forget any I'm not
obviously we don't justify, but no politics, nothing. They are evil because we are so good that
we're angels they become devils. This is Bernard Lewis, Bernard Lewis and Edward side were
completely at odds with one another, and in lifetime and even up until that's like their obituary,
		

			so very harsh enemies, because he quoted Bernard Lewis multiple times as the quintessential example
of this type of person that, by the way, the irony of ironies, Bernard Lewis actually joined the Neo
con cabal after 911. Literally, the book came out in 1978. And Bernard Lewis said, I'm not to the
politician, I don't have any through politics. And after 911, he actually visited George Bush in the
White House, he instructed George Bush about words to use, he wrote articles that justified Iraq's
invasion, literally what Edward side had predicted back in 1978. That person became because of this
book, as I said, Orientalism became a taboo word, nobody calls themselves Orientals anymore, because
		

			he mentioned and he proved that the notion of studying the east as you're a Westerner is not
neutral, you are a part of the apparatus that kills and rapes and ponders and lutes. And when you
perpetuate these crude stereotypes, when you portray the the Muslim world as backward, and us as
civilized, then when your countries bomb, your peoples understand, okay, we're the better people,
your people overlook what your governments are doing. So you are an accessory to mass murder.
Obviously, nobody likes that accusation, the entire name was eliminated, departments changed. So he
also pointed out, by the way, a fact and I will testify to this fact myself, in my own studies and
		

			whatnot, up until the 70s and 80s. The only people who would study in these departments were
Caucasian people, if you are out of or Middle Eastern, or Muslim or brown skin, you would not get
admitted to the program. You would it would the assumption would be you're not qualified to study
yourself. Only we can study you. He pointed out this hypocrisy, because of this book, active
recruitment began that we should bring in some Middle Easterners and some whatnot. So when I applied
to my Ph. D program, I was one of the very, very few people in that timeframe that was an openly
practicing Muslim doing a PhD in Islamic Studies. The default was that people doing patient Islamic
		

			studies are not Muslim, much less practicing. It was very rare. It still is very rare to find
somebody like this because Edward side pointed it out, they open door a little bit, but still the
door remains just a small amount of opening. Also, as I said, he began an entire discipline of
literary studies and of history. This discipline is called post colonialist studies, this
discipline, you can now have an undergraduate degree in it or a PhD in it. What is this discipline?
This discipline seeks to examine the relationship between the colonized and the colonizer. Because
that's a very deep topic. Those countries that have broken away from colonization, that's all of our
		

			countries, by the way, right? Our identities, whether we like it or not, are shaped by by whom? The
colonizer, okay, our identities, even as we broke away, we cannot help but be shaped by the very
countries that we broke away from the classic example our own home countries of India, Pakistan,
what is the national language of India that the parliament itself speaks in? English? English is a
national language, right? And almost every educated Pakistani speaks English and Bengali speaks
English. How why Where did that happen? Our own construct of what it means Boxen India itself comes
from colonization as we were right not to get too, too controversial, but it's the reality. So he
		

			brings up this topic, can you even have an identity without the other? So he goes down this very
philosophical notion of looking at literature and, you know, movies and of the rhetoric between
nations, in any case, summary of it all these types of books and these types of disciplines, even
though he was not a Muslim, it really benefited the Ummah very much and our professors and I'm said,
sometimes Allah helps this OMA with a ritual Kaffir so Hadith, in Allah, Allah, you know, how the
deen berjudul Kaffir. And these types of people had they been Muslim. Their books would not have
been given much credit. It was Allah's hikma, actually, the fact that he's a Christian and his
		

			writing in a discipline. That's not really you know, he became famous because of this book. By the
way, this book literally made him a world household name in academia, and he died right after 911 He
died 20 something years right
		

			In a year or two after 911, he passed away and he wrote things about 911 as well by the way that you
should read. So this book is actually a very useful introduction to the mentality of those people
who study Islam and call us to call themselves Orientalist. I went in to introduce this book, the
author and the topic to you, Inshallah, tada if you're interested, you can read summaries online or
buy the book, believe it or not, it's a very easy read. It was meant for anybody who's interested in
this notion you will find in shallow views and interests. Next time inshallah we'll do a more
standard mainstream Doctor Don't worry is that Kamala Harris Santa Monica wanna hula? barakato?
		

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