User:OmarKamalOthmanKhalifa/sandbox

Orientalism is an academic field that focuses on the Orient as an object of study. The term became popular in Europe primarily from the nineteenth century, following Napoleon's Egyptian campaign that inaugurated a phase of European colonial rule in Asia, until the mid-twentieth century, which was marked by a renewed interest in the world of the "Orient."

Initially, the term orientalist, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, was used to refer to the philological scholar of ancient Oriental texts. With the extension of colonial empires and political interests in the area from the nineteenth century, Orientalism, from an object of philological study, became a tool to justify European colonialism, especially in the Arab countries.

Following the book "Orientalism" by Edward Said, published in 1978, the term took on a strongly negative meaning, indicating a Western approach relating to the East. According to Said, Orientalism is an approach that is based on a deeply essentialist view of civilizations. According to this approach, civilizations are monolithic, unchanging entities that have definite distinguishing features. Europe, the West, is the civilization of modernity, rationality, progress, and liberalism. The East, the Islamic world, is a civilization of backwardness, irrationality, and despotism. According to this view, the Arab world, by its nature, is essentially inferior to Western culture.