Pre-Orientalism: Islam in the Christian Thought

The Center for Arab Unity Studies has published the second edition of the book Pre-Orientalism: Islam in the Christian Thought, by Dr. Abdelilah Belkeziz.

The issue of Orientalism still raises more questions about the roots and the historical and religious background of Orientalism. So is the Orientalist thought- that emerged from the European Enlightenment Age, and has presented stereotypes about Islam and Arabs, and considered colonialism and interference in the lives of non-western people and the destruction of their cultures and lifestyles- a the product of “modernist” “rational” European-centered enlightenment thought only, or does its roots go back to Some texts of Christian religious thought in the Middle Ages and beyond, which are texts that are not less stereotypical and distorting Islam than many modern Orientalist texts? Is talking about an actual break between modern and contemporary European enlightenment thought and the Christian religious heritage in the medieval era is realistic talk, or is this heritage still present in some way in Western enlightenment thought, especially in Orientalist thought?

This book examines the deep intellectual roots of modern and contemporary Western visions of Islam, and its social, political and cultural world, and in particular the visions expressed by Orientalism. They (the roots) are deeply rooted in the history of Christian religious thought, and have expressed themselves in the texts of some theologians and historians, both Orientalists and Latins, on Islam in the Middle Ages, whose ideas and images on Islam remained present and reproduced in modern and contemporary Orientalist thought. The book deals with the negative images that were formed about Islam in the medieval Christian consciousness, and analyzes the historical contexts in which these images were formed, but without being led by general judgments about Christian religious thought in that era in general.