The Critical Reception of Edward Said's Orientalism in the Arab World: A Critical Study

In his attempt to uncover the complicity between Orientalist knowledge and Western imperial expansion, Said has empowered numerous Arab scholars despite their disagreement with some of Orientalism's theses. Orientalism has provided a context for scholars from different convictions to position themselves within the Arab cultural arena. That is why this study takes Orientalism to be representative of Said's reception in the Arab world. The book's themes seem to have retained a topicality that made it survive more than a quarter of a century of criticism without its ideas being made obsolete. Orientalism has been taken up by Marxists, Islamists and liberal critics in the Arab world which created an interesting debate that engaged the the critical discourse in the Arab world.