see Fjordman on Edward Said

Submitted by ... (United States), Jul 5, 2011 at 12:26

Norwegian blogger, Fjordman, has an excellent article debunking Edward Said's Orientalism book.

One of his points is that Said's assertion that ethnocentric Westerners adopted their blinkered views from the Greeks is demonstrably absurd, as such Greek historians as Homer, Herodotus and Thucydides dealt extensively with their Greek foes, being the first historians to include a view of the other side with any sympathy or depth. Fjordman also explains how a Westerner, Brit William Jones, studied Sanscrit in India and founded comparative linguistics in the 18th century.

Muslim scholars have been the ethnocentric ones. Muslims have often sought to annihilate historical artifacts from non-Muslim eras (the age of ignorance, or jahaliyya), like the Sphynx, the pyramids, or the Bamayan Buddhas in Afghanistan, just to name a few.

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