Of the Orient, By The Occident

Prof. khurshid Ahmad

International Congress of Orientalist is one of the oldest and most respected forums of International scholarship. Study of the Orient has had a long and almost open-ended tradition in the West. But Orientalism, as it is understood today, cannot claim to have such a long pedigree. During the medieval age Christian intellectuals and priests wrote a number of tracts on Islam, primarily to malign and discredit this rising force. The level of scholarship was poor and the anti- bias only too explicit. With the advent of the modern phase of Western imperialism different European powers came into contact with the Oriental world in a number of ways—in certain regions they had established their rule, with respect to others they were pursuing the path of competition and confrontation. This impressed on them the need for knowing more about the thought, religion, culture and history of these peoples. It was under the sheltering arm of the foreign ministries and colonial offices that Orientalist research began and flourished. The opportunity was seized by another group of scholars too: the Christian missionaries, who had multiplied their activities in the colonized world and were gathering fullest patronage from the colonial powers. With the rise of Zionism in the late 19th Century, Jewish scholars also began to take enhanced interest in the Middle East. All these faiths, among others, have shaped modern Orientalism. Its major areas of interest had been the Muslim world, the Indo-Pakistan sub-continent and the Chinese tradition. Many centers for Oriental studies had emerged in different parts of Europe— in particular in the universities, churches, synagogues and foreign and colonial offices. By the middle of the nineteenth century it began to be realized that they needed a joint forum to co-ordinate all this study and research and to exchange notes. While tensions between the colonial powers of Europe were reigning high on the political front, co-ordination on the academic front began. The First International Congress of Orientalist was held in Paris in 1873—the year Bismark had expounded his theory of balance of power. The academic world led the movement towards equilibrium among the antagonists.

The 1973 Congress of Orientalist was held in Paris to commemorate its centenary at the place where it was born. Paris was playing host to it for the third time. After the First Congress, the 11^th Congress was also held there in 1897. The 1973 Congress was the first one held in Paris in the twentieth century. It was also the first conference in the post- colonial period of France, if ‘post-colonial’ is the proper word for the contemporary phase of neo-imperialism. It might be of some interest to note that in the last hundred years only three of the twenty-nine Congresses have been held in the Orient—two in the Muslim world (XlVth Congress of 1905 in Algiers and XXIth congress of 1951 in Istanbul) and one in India (Delhi, 1964, XXIVth Congress). Whether this confirms the shibboleth that Orietalism is the study of the Orient by the Occidentals for the Occident, is a matter of opinion.

The Congress began on the 16th July, 1973 and concluded its deliberations on the 22nd July. Professor M. Rene Labat acted as the President of the Congress. Professor M. Yves Hervouet was its secretary. The Plenary Session was presided over by Professor Bernard Lewis of the London University School of Oriental Studies.

After the Plenary Session the Congress was divided into eleven sections, each section met independently almost every morning and evening. Five to eight papers were read in every sectional session. The Congress has grown so huge that it has become virtually impossible for any one person to attend more than one section. Two Conferences and thirteen seminars were also organized in whatever time could be snatched before, in-between, or after the sessions. The programme was overcrowded, so were the portals of the Sorbonne and College de France, where most of these meetings took place. A number of exhibitions and social functions were also organized by different cultural organizations of Paris. An idea of the variety of subjects covered and the number of papers devoted to each theme can be had from the following resume:

Sections and Sub-Sections No. of Papers

Ancient Near East
Assyriology-16
Egyptology-37
Semitic Studies-24 77
The Christian Orient 27
Hebraic Studies 13
Arabic & Islamic Studies 108
Iranian Studies (Ancient and Modern) 63
Central Asian Civilization
Ancient-22
Monogol and Tibetan-34
Turkish-44 100
India (Ancient & Modern) 167
South-East Asia
Insulindian Archipelago-50
South-East Continal Area-52 102
Chinese Studies
Pre-Modern-78
Modern China-46 124
Japanese and Korean Studies
Korea-43
Japan-51 94
Libraries and Documentation Conferences: 16
The Deciphering of Writings and Languages. 31
Contemporary Literature in South-East Asia-17 48

Seminars (Papers) 49

Total Number of Papers: 1019

Standards are bound to vary in such a diverse enormity of papers. My impression is based on the papers presented in the section on Arabic and Islamic Studies, plus those I was able to gather from the fellow delegates, particularly from the sections on India, Iran and Central Asia. Some of the papers were well researched and neatly presented. Many seemed reasonably good. But at the other end of the spectrum some were extremely superficial and patently subjective. Pc understandable! What is significant, ho’ is that the type of scholarship and the and themes which were introduced t founding orientalists have become pe ated. Almost all the papers, with rare (tions, were steeped in the classic methoc of Orientalism. There were new reses even new conclusions, but almost no re ing about the basic attitudes and methoi of Orientalism.

The dead past is still more important the living present. Oriental cultures, even living and dynamic, are dissected andexa as parts of a legacy, not as a live force de to fashion the future. The construction language has precedence over the cont thought. The criterion for judging the ‘ is still provided by the Occident—the of criticism developed in the West is rej as universally relevant. Cultures o Orient are not studied on the basis o: own value-pattern. The absolutist assun of universalism of Western paradig accepted almost without question. An is so despite two to three decades of in dence and a growing participation Oriental Orientalists! Almost half congressionists to the XXIXth Co came from the Orient. But this madi little difference to the themes, issue methodology of Orientalism.