The term “Orientalism” acquired a different meaning due to the influence of Edward Said’s book “Orientalism,” published in 1978, apart from its traditional connotations of Eastern aesthetics and Eastern studies. In this book, Said criticized the concept of Orientalism itself, arguing that it was a concept created unilaterally by Westerners about the Orient.
Since the 18th century, Westerners have had a strong interest in the Eastern world and have engaged in negotiations with the Orient for military, commercial, artistic, and academic purposes, resulting in a vast amount of literature. According to Said, between 1800 and 1950, there were over 60,000 books published in Europe about the Near East, establishing systematic Oriental studies. Said, following Michel Foucault, considers all of these works as a “discourse.” He thoroughly examines and analyzes this discourse of Orientalism and argues persistently that Orientalism is a cultural form of Western domination over the East, and therefore, it is nothing more than a product of European ethnocentrism.