ISLAM AND ORIENTALISM

Islam and Orientalism by Maryam Jameelah

ISLAM AND ORIENTALISM

The purpose of this· collection of review essays is to provide the student with a full understanding of the ideological weapons of the orientalists which are being deliberately used to mislead the Muslim intelligentsia into cynicism, heresy and apostasy.

This work is essential to help rescue tho modern educated Muslims from the fallacy of ac· cepting these unscrupulous scholars as the supreme authorities on Islam. Lastly, it is intended to show the Muslim reader how the West sees us. Prior to the middle of the 19th oentlll’y, the bulk of Western literature attacked Islam on the purely theological basis of Christian dogma.

However, as the Christian missionary enterprise became increasingly identified with the aims of British and French imperialism, the emphasis gradually shifted from the religious to the secular. For a long time, the former was completely mixed up and confused with the latter.

 At the turn of the 20th century, the favourite technique of the missionary ·was to claim that Christianity was responsible for all the achievements acredited to the Western way of life. Thus Christianity and Western civilization are inseparable and indistinguishable. The