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منذ أن نشر الراحل إدوارد سعيد كتابه "الاستشراق" عام 1978م وأصبح موضوع الاستشراق موضوعا أكاديميا رائجا، لاسيما في الغرب، لكن أغلب الباحثين الذين كتبوا في هذا الموضوع ركزوا على التاريخ الإسلامي والحديث؛ ربما كان ذلك راجعا إلى عدم إلمامهم بجوانب التاريخ القديم. يركز هذا البحث على الاستشراق في التاريخ القديم منذ بداية الاتصال بين الغرب والشرق، وكما سيتبين من البحث فإن جذور الاستشراق الذي درسه إدوارد سعيد توجد في التاريخ القديم.
This article concerned with the idea of Orientalism which was introduced by Edward Said as early as 1978. However, since almost all scholars who have written about Orientalism concentrate on Islamic and modem history, this article looks at ancient history. As will be seen, the root of Orientalism discussed by Said should be sought in ancient time, not least when the West (the Greeks) came into contact with the East. To write about Orientalism, it is necessary to start with Edward Said. This is because Said is one of the founders of the postcolonial movement in criticism which started with his seminal book, Orientalism, published in 1978. Said’s hypothesis of Orientalism is too complex a one to be treated here. However, two aspects of his argument can be singled out. First, building on Foucault’s idea that academic disciplines produce power as well as knowledge, Said attributes European imperialism to Orientalism. Since Europe had knowledge of the East (given by the Orientalists), this power (knowledge) is used to justify its invasion of the Orient. Here, Said cited Balfour’s justification of the British occupation of Egypt as an example. For Balfour, since the British knew more than anyone else about Egypt, they could control it for the benefit of both the natives and the Europeans at large. Such "authority of knowledge" claimed by the West, Said went
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