Orientalism Q&A

Said relies on literary analysis to discover the ideas linked with the Orient as depicted in Aeschylus’s The Persians. The author highlights the section of the play that deals with the aftermath of Xerxes and his army's defeat. An ode from that section of the play expresses the empty and hollow feeling of defeat that the Persians experience on learning about Xerxes’s defeat, a feeling that is depicted to pervade all of Asia. Said explains that the play depicts a weakened and hollow Asia after the battle, and it serves as an indication of the consequences for those that seek to challenge the Europeans in the form of Greeks from the play.

The prophet of Islam, Mohammed, is believed to have died in 632 AD, and yet the power and influence of Islam only grew after his demise. Muslim conquerors reached Europe and held the land until the 8th and the 9th century. It would have been rational to assume that the followers of Mohammed would feel discouraged after his death, but instead, Islam hegemony grew as Muslims went out of their lands to conquer and convert the lands of the other religions. This was a dire threat to the Europeans, not only because of the loss of land but also because the rise of Islam circumvented the spread of Christianity which was one of the core aims of the European nations.

The Ottoman Peril was the threat of the spread of Islam that had the potential to diminish European ambitions, and their way of life, as Islam’s spread throughout the world was led by the Ottoman Muslims. The Europeans who were chiefly concerned with the spread of Christianity, claimed that the Ottomans were employing inhumane and cruel methods to forcefully convert others to Islam. In essence, the Ottoman peril was derived from an Islamophobia that affected the Europeans.