Orientalism is interpreted in most cases as a field of study that aims at studying the Orient for further domination. In other words, Orientalists serve the world Superpowers and colonialists and provide the information that they need to advance their influence and domination through a series of particular epistemic tools. Orientalism in this sense is against the very nature of Iranology as a field of study devoted to the advancement of scholarly knowledge of Iran as a cultural and political phenomenon. The outspoken critic of Orientalism Edward Saeed has written a brilliant work in order to cast light on what he describes as the objectivization of the Orient as a source of power for the west. "It is quite common to hear high officials in Washington and elsewhere speak of changing the map of the Middle East, as if ancient societies and myriad peoples can be shaken up like so many peanuts in a jar. But this has often happened with the "Orient," that semi-mythical construct which since Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in the late eighteenth century has been made and re-made countless times by power acting through an expedient form of knowledge to assert that this is the Orient's nature, and we must deal with it accordingly. In the process the uncountable sediments of history, which include innumerable histories and a dizzying variety of peoples, languages, experiences and cultures, all these are swept aside or ignored, relegated to the sand heap along with the treasures ground into meaningless fragments that were taken out of Baghdad's libraries and museums. My argument is that history is made by men and women, just as it can also be unmade and re-written, always with various silences and elisions, always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated, so that "our" East, "our" Orient becomes "ours" to possess and direct." This shows exactly what Edward Saeed wants to present as a true study of the eastern lands. Appropriation of the east is what Saeed sought to reach.
Iranian Studies in Europe and United States in Twentieth Century
