Edward Said is one of my favorite social writers when it comes to Middle Eastern politics. Being a Palestenian Christian, it is obvious he wouldn't simply side with the East because of his religious ties with Islam. The book is very fair in showing exactly how the West's propaganda against the Middle East is a self-fulfilled prophecy. It's undoing will certainly be its downfall. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand some tenets of journalism and is definately a must read for anyone who has ever taken an anthropology class. Pick it up!

Edward Said is one of my favorite social writers when it comes to Middle Eastern politics. Being a Palestenian Christian, it is obvious he wouldn't simply side with the East because of his religious ties with Islam. The book is very fair in showing exactly how the West's propaganda against the Middle East is a self-fulfilled prophecy. It's undoing will certainly be its downfall. This is a must read for anyone who wants to understand some tenets of journalism and is definately a must read for anyone who has ever taken an anthropology class. Pick it up!

In the latter stages of `Orientalism', Edward Said's monumental and controversial treatise on the `otherness' of Eastern cultures as perceived by Western writers and colonial figures, the German anti-Islamist Gustave von Grunbaum - writing some five decades ago - is taken to task. Said notes his `essentially reductive, negative generalisations' about Islam and supplies quotations to substantiate the charge. Despite Said's strictures, though, von Grunebaum's statements concerning the `basic anti-humanism of Islamic civilization' which `does not separate the things of Caesar from those of God' have a definite bearing on one side of the current debate in the light of more recent catastrophic events. This view of Islam as prescriptive, authoritarian, resistant to change is by its nature `Orientalist', in the pejorative sense which Said implies, because it is held by an outsider whose Western intellectual baggage must inevitably compromise any attempt on his part to be objective. Much as I usually defer to Said's prodigious scholarship I find myself in serious disagreement with him here. Likewise, the sequel `Culture and Imperialism' contains a discussion of W.B. Yeats in which Said objects to two American commentators on post '79 Iran quoting Yeats in their reports. He feels that the words of Ireland's greatest poet about `the worst being full of passionate intensity' would be better applied to the Western colonial intervention of 1953 than to those caught up in, or leading, the upheaval which would be its eventual outcome. Of course, many would take the view that Yeats' `Second Coming' could quite legitimately be referred to when the subject of the Ayatollah Khomeini's bloodstained Islamofascist regime is under discussion.

Unfortunately this propensity for denial and omission to some extent pervades `Covering Islam'. Written in the wake of Iran's 1979 `revolution' and the ensuing hostage crisis it deals with Western media perception of Islam and the Islamic world. Essentially what is presented is a further ramification of the argument in `Orientalism', which is referred back to, concerning the problem of negative, sometimes racist, Muslim stereotypes in mainly the US media. `I have no quarrel with the view that the Islamic world is in a dreadful state', Said concedes, acknowledging that at least some of the criticism might be justified. He also admits that most Islamic societies are `poor, tyrannical, militarily inept' and `incompetent, crude dictatorships', although without any attempt to analyse the possible underlying reasons for this. When even a respected authority like Bernard Lewis refers to Islam as something `static, determinist and authoritarian' - as distinct from the rationalist, secular West - he is in effect shouted down, possibly because Said senses in the remark some hint of an explanation which Lewis would like to offer for the inherent backwardness of Islamic countries. John Kifner of the New York Times gets similar treatment for an article in which he contrasts the Western mind - post-Reformation - with Islam, noting that the latter observes no separation of Church and State and remarking on the difficulty we in the West are bound to have in grasping the power exerted by Islam. Again, these seem to me pertinent observations although Said disallows them.

The main focus of the book is Iran and the various references to Khomeini, far from being critical, seem calculated not to offend his supporters whose hysterical adulation was dramatically pointed up at the time by the Western media. Incredibly, as an example of the hostile media slant Said even mentions an edition of Khomeini's `Islamic Government', published under the title `Khomeini's Mein Kampf' and carrying a preface by one George Capozi Jnr of the New York Post which compares Khomeini with Hitler. Given the nature of the regime and the psychology of its leader this would seem fair comment, but Said chooses instead to focus on Khomeini's reputation at home as a great reader of Islamic law who thus, as the nation's guide, fulfils the requirements of Iran's new constitution. His moral teachings are mentioned in passing along with his call for an Islamic republic which should `institutionalize righteousness' and act in the best interests of the oppressed. Sadly, these reassuring indications of the tyrant's honourable intentions merely disguise the brutal reality of a system which claimed many innocent lives. Nor, with the benefit of hindsight, is this regretted in the revised 1991 introduction. We have to look elsewhere to be informed about the regime's routine murder of gays, atheists, apostates, prostitutes and adulterers, not to mention the righteous Mullah's revolting prescriptions regarding bestiality and sex with children.

Said also states, at various points, his opinions on what qualifies anyone to report from Muslim countries or comment from the outside looking in. He regrets the fact that those who express negative opinions about the Islamic world often have no grasp of Islamic jurisprudence and are unfamiliar with the languages of the region. Zionist author Michael Walzer, for example, is referred to in this light. I would not normally defend Walzer (his characterisation of the Palestinian resistance as religious rather than political is patently absurd) but this seems a little unfair. By the same logic it might be argued that, in the `30s and `40s, to have criticised Hitler one should ideally have been a German speaker and possessed an in-depth knowledge of Germany's history and culture, also its legal system.

I have too high a regard for Professor Said to dismiss his thesis out of hand. It is valid up to a point. He is right to condemn the media charade of the hostage crisis following the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, the whole point of which was to force the return of the exiled Shah from the States to face trial. Over the 444-day period of the standoff a cavalcade of network `pundits', with their 3-minute soundbite approach to history, did little to advance public awareness of the background to the crisis. Of the struggle unfolding between the clergy and various political groupings in Iran very little was said. Of course, had there been serious analysis of this and other important issues it would probably have detracted from the entertainment value of the discussions centering upon conspiracy theories rather than facts. Thus, George Ball of the Washington Post's claim that the embassy takeover was `orchestrated by well-known Marxists' (how well known or who they were, exactly, was not specified) typified the general ambience of rumour and paranoia. Other equally informed contributors to the debate alleged PLO involvement and, because the Cold War still had a decade to run, inevitably the Soviet Union must have had a hand in it also. That the Iranian people might actually have suffered under the Pahlavi dynasty and therefore wished to bring its deposed head to account seems scarcely to have been considered. When the crisis was finally resolved rumours of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on the hostages by their captors were shown to have been a cynical lie conceived as part of the media's sensationalist agenda. This attention-grabbing, racist stereotype of the Muslim whose moral backwardness is bound to lead to uncivilized behaviour - played upon at length during the seige - unfortunately continues to have wide currency.

Said also notes hypocrisy in the charge that Islamic societies are theologically backward-looking if it is not equally applied to Israel. The terrorist Begin's citing of Biblical precedent to justify his war on the Palestinians is brought to mind. Indeed, the plethora of pro-Israeli books and journals masquerading as serious scholarship and responsible journalism, in their eagerness to portray Israel as a victim of Islamic violence, say little or nothing about the bombing and invasion of several Islamic countries by Israel and the US, or Palestinian dispossession. This is familiar territory and all of a piece with, elsewhere, Said's excoriating and entirely proper denunciations of Israeli oppression in the occupied territories. Various examples of hate propaganda in American right-wing publications are mentioned, one particularly repellent example being Martin Peretz of the `New Atlantic' who is shown nailing his racist, anti-Arab colours firmly to the mast in a theatre review. Such unpleasant media stereotypes seem to have multiplied following the OPEC price rises of 1974 and the increase in the cost of imported oil. This strand of Said's argument ultimately connects with his analysis, in the concluding chapter, of the corporate or government-driven agenda which dictates the angle of Islamic studies in American universities and the careers open to graduates in the subject area.

In sum, more than twenty-five years after its initial publication `Covering Islam' remains thought-provoking and merits reconsideration in the context of the post 9/11 debate. For the sake of balance, however, I would strongly recommend Muslim apostate scholar Ibn Warraq's rigorous critique of Islam `Why I Am Not A Muslim' as a powerful refutation of Said's assertion in his introduction that the religion is `doctrinally blameless' vis-à-vis the absence of personal freedoms in many Islamic societies. Also, those who might be persuaded of Islam's allegedly benign attitude towards women could do worse than read `Price Of Honour', Jan Goodwin' chilling account of its practical realization in some of these very societies. Of particular relevance to this discussion is her chapter on Iran entitled `There Is No Fun In Islam' - those being the Ayatollah's very words - which shows how the initial euphoria following the Shah's overthrow soon gave way tragically to the realization that one barbaric torture state had been swept away only to be replaced by another.

First published in 1981 and updated in 1997, Said's critique of the media's coverage of Islam, particularly in the Middle East, is a thought-provoking challenge to any reader's perceptions of what is reported as news from that war-torn part of the world. Written before 9/11, subsequent military intervention in Afghanistan, and the current conflict in Iraq, the book's interpretation of events unfolding there (the aftermath of the Islamic revolution in Iran) are often prophetic. An understanding of Islam based solely on Western "interest," he argues, will lead to further and protracted conflict rather than resolution of differences.

Despite a carping tone that becomes irritating and a tendency to make its points with a thoroughness that seems like overkill, the book throws a searching light on how Islam is represented by news gatherers, experts, and policy makers. Emphasis on violence, anti-American rhetoric, and resistance to "modernization," for example, belie the fact that there is not a single monolithic Islam but many Islams and that what news organizations perpetuate is an undifferentiated form of cultural stereotyping - as if it were sufficient to say about the Dutch that they all wear wooden shoes.

Said's arguments are dismissed (see other reviews here) for reasons that may have some validity (as a Palestinian-American, his sympathies are clearly not pro-Israeli), but readers can benefit nonetheless from his contrarian views, especially since they throw into question assumptions about the Middle East, which so far show a tendency (as in the case of Iran and Iraq) to seriously misjudge political and cultural realities.

First published in 1981 and updated in 1997, Said's critique of the media's coverage of Islam, particularly in the Middle East, is a thought-provoking challenge to any reader's perceptions of what is reported as news from that war-torn part of the world. Written before 9/11, subsequent military intervention in Afghanistan, and the current conflict in Iraq, the book's interpretation of events unfolding there (the aftermath of the Islamic revolution in Iran) are often prophetic. An understanding of Islam based solely on Western "interest," he argues, will lead to further and protracted conflict rather than resolution of differences.

Despite a carping tone that becomes irritating and a tendency to make its points with a thoroughness that seems like overkill, the book throws a searching light on how Islam is represented by news gatherers, experts, and policy makers. Emphasis on violence, anti-American rhetoric, and resistance to "modernization," for example, belie the fact that there is not a single monolithic Islam but many Islams and that what news organizations perpetuate is an undifferentiated form of cultural stereotyping - as if it were sufficient to say about the Dutch that they all wear wooden shoes.

Said's arguments are dismissed (see other reviews here) for reasons that may have some validity (as a Palestinian-American, his sympathies are clearly not pro-Israeli), but readers can benefit nonetheless from his contrarian views, especially since they throw into question assumptions about the Middle East, which so far show a tendency (as in the case of Iran and Iraq) to seriously misjudge political and cultural realities.

In Covering Islam, Edward W. Said makes some vitally important points that remind us that our relationship with many countries (and not just in the countries/cultures/peoples who are Arabic or Islamic or in the Middle East) is informed by a media that does not always do justice to the people they cover -- in many cases, the media generalizes and demonizes. Making one of the most important points in the book, Said reminds us that Islam (like "Christendom" or "the West" or any broad cultural category) is not a monolithic homogeneous structure, but that many journalists, pundits, spokespeople, and citizens see and portray it as such.

Said cites many examples of journalists (and academics) who fall into lazy habits when looking at and writing these cultures. Unfortunately, it seemed to me that Said makes many generalizations himself, about American media and journalists (although, to be fair, he does give some examples in the last chapter of academics and writers who he believes have a more broad and insightful and accurate viewpoint) which made it harder for me to stay engaged with the book.

Finally, I wanted to know his solutions and suggestions, not just the problem. If everything an American journalist or adademic touches in a country such as Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan is tainted by post-colonialism and oil and government, how can the average person learn about that part of the world in a genuine manner? What information is trustworthy? Said has told us the problem, or part of it, but did not seem, in this book anyway, to offer solutions.

In Covering Islam, Edward W. Said makes some vitally important points that remind us that our relationship with many countries (and not just in the countries/cultures/peoples who are Arabic or Islamic or in the Middle East) is informed by a media that does not always do justice to the people they cover -- in many cases, the media generalizes and demonizes. Making one of the most important points in the book, Said reminds us that Islam (like "Christendom" or "the West" or any broad cultural category) is not a monolithic homogeneous structure, but that many journalists, pundits, spokespeople, and citizens see and portray it as such.

Said cites many examples of journalists (and academics) who fall into lazy habits when looking at and writing these cultures. Unfortunately, it seemed to me that Said makes many generalizations himself, about American media and journalists (although, to be fair, he does give some examples in the last chapter of academics and writers who he believes have a more broad and insightful and accurate viewpoint) which made it harder for me to stay engaged with the book.

Finally, I wanted to know his solutions and suggestions, not just the problem. If everything an American journalist or adademic touches in a country such as Iran or Iraq or Afghanistan is tainted by post-colonialism and oil and government, how can the average person learn about that part of the world in a genuine manner? What information is trustworthy? Said has told us the problem, or part of it, but did not seem, in this book anyway, to offer solutions.

As a student of English at Oxford University, I was force-fed Edward Said daily. His utterly one-sided and completely politicised interpretations of works by everyone from Rudyard Kipling to E.M. Forster always came to the same conclusion: if a white European ever so much as sneezed in the direction of the East, he was exploiting the natives and robbing them of their right to self-expression.

'Covering Islam' may cast its eye over mid-20th century press coverage of the Muslim world, but its conclusions are exactly the same. Even worse, they're contradictory. After pontificating at great length about the East-West divide, about the inability of the Western press to understand or even want to understand Islam, Said grudgingly praises the French press (in particular 'Le Monde') for its objective work on the Iranian Revolution. So much for Western stereotypes.

What I find most galling about Said's work is that he imagines that no-one has the right to comment on Islam apart from him. Now I appreciate that there are a lot of ignorant journalists out there reporting on what they don't understand, but this should be pointed out wherever it is noticed, not just where Islam is concerned. For Said, however, nobody seems qualified to cover Muslim countries. He wonders how anyone could dare comment on Morocco without knowing Berber culture - as though that would make ANY difference when discussing divorce laws!

Postcolonialism can be a very dangerous philosophy indeed. It can lead otherwise very intelligent people to imagine that the world is made up of ethnically, racially and culturally discrete peoples with no overlap between them whatsoever. Thus, to listen to Edward Said, one would imagine that he had lived in the desert all his life - in fact, he lived and taught in the United States from the age of 18. One would also imagine that colonisation has only ever been a Western crime perpetrated on Eastern lands - despite the Arab conquests that led to the occupation of Spain, or even the Ottoman Empire (which outlasted British/French imperialism by centuries).

Despite noble intentions, the argument made in 'Covering Islam' is one that is as biased and one-sided as the newspapers it purports to condemn.

How Islam is portrayed in the Western media shows how the tail wags the dog - a minority determines how the majority sees the rest of the world by giving them access to selective information about the Other.

This book should be added to your post-9/11-book shelf.

Dr. Edward Said had done a great job writing this brilliant book. Unlike most Americans, Dr. Said is a respected intellectual, who had traveled around the world, observing, learning and lecturing.

This is a good book for all those who want to learn about Islam from a neutral point of view - since Dr. Said was a Christian. His unbias and fair views reminds me of Dr. John Esposito's books on Islam.

You might want to read this book while traveling across the Islamic World (instead of sitting at home, in front of your TV, with a McDonald's burger in one hand and a Pepsi can in the other - reviewing a book that is too sophisiticated for you.)

I personally agree with most of the things Said is saying in this book. However, some of the things he condemns, such as using blanket statements to describe an enormous amount of people, Said himself is guilty of in this book.

However, reading the reviews on this page just confirm everything that Said says in this book. There are several reviews on this site that claim that Said's work suggests covering up for injustices in the Islamic world. This is not what Said is arguing. Said argues instead that nothing but these injustices are focused upon, which I agree with. How many American's know anything realistic about Islamic society? In fact, Islamic society isn't even a relevant term due to the fact that there are SO MANY DIFFERENT GROUPS within Islam.

Instead of pinning all the blame on "Islam," the media should learn to seperate the innocent Muslims from the guilty Muslims. Just as there are Protestant and Christian terrorists, there are Arab terrorists.

Attempts to accurately describe what "Islam" is all about have failed. Islam is a religion and therefore conclusions about society in Muslim countries cannot be seen as Islamic Society. Even if you include Muslim countries in which there are many injustices towards many groups, you're only getting a small slice of the Islam pie. Remember, Islam is one of the largest religions on the planet, it's not as if it is confined to a few countries.

That's all just my opinion. As far as the book goes, it raises some important points and it appears as though it is well researched though I can't say that I've fact checked. Overall, however, the book is uninteresting and tends to contradict itself. It is impossible to completely avoid contradiction, but when it is quite noticable even to a reader who agrees with the author, it indicates that the book could have been written more carefully.

Just my two cents.

The gist of the argument herein is that since Westerners either A) arn't Muslim or B)arn't native speakers therefore all their reporting is biased. It is an interesting theory, and given it one must conclude that therefore the West should either A) only hire muslims to report on Muslims or B) not report on the Islamic world.

This is not however the conclusion. Rather the conclusion is that the West becuase it is 'bad' and 'colonial' is projecting a false image of Islam everywhere it reports about it.

Let us take some examples and see what this is talking about. The argument is that the west is always biased and always giving us the wrong view of wonderful islam.
1) Saudi Arabia-where women cannot drive, cant vote and can be beheaded for adultery. All this is a fact but apparently to report these facts would be biased, thus by doing so the western media encourages the unfair analysis that muslim countries discriminate against women, even though they do.

2) Chechnya, Bosnia and Israel- in both cases the media is strongly pro-musim in the West, however this is overlooked in this case. In a case where the media is pro-Muslim this book simply ignores the fact.

3) Afghanistan and Pakistan: to islamist states where blasphemy is illegal, where a woman can be beaten by her husband and where a woman who is raped can be killed by her family. WOnderful, and if the media reports these things then the media is anti-Islamic, becuase it dared to report something that might make westerners who are used to this 'colonial' idea that women are equal, wonder about Muslim societies where they are not.

The myth is clear and the argument is clear. 90% of Muslim countries have laws that discriminate against women. For the media to report this would be wrong becuase then westerners might getthe idea 100% of Muslims discriminate against women. Since this is the basic argument here then probably the conclusion should have been that no culture should ever be allowed to report about another culture since by doing so the one culture might be coompared to the home culture and thus it would be biased reporting. Total nonsense.

Seth J. Frantzman

Why would Ed Said, a famous thug, have written in defence of Islam? After all, he was a Christian. The answer is that the majority of his fellow terrorists in Arafat's gang were Muslims.

Said took sides in the Arab war against Jewish rights. In this war, there are two basic sides.

The Arab argument, rarely stated in English, is simple. There are vastly more Arabs than Jews. Sooner or later, Arabs will be in the same league as the Jews militarily. Twice as good per person, half as good per person, it doesn't matter. Sooner or later, the rest of the world will stand by idly and let the Arabs defeat the Jews. The Arabs, being more numerous, are going to kick the Jews out of most of Asia, most of Africa, and maybe Europe too. That is what happens to small minorities that are disliked. It's silly to oppose any of this. After all, the Arabs may benefit somewhat by the presence of Jews, but they'd rather just start a war to get rid of them. And that is what counts.

The Jewish argument is simple too. Yes, there are more Arabs than Jews. But the Jews are almost impossible to defeat in peacetime. Only a war can really get rid of the Jews. And in a world that insists on human rights to life, liberty, and property, all sorts of people have a chance to survive and contribute to the prosperity of their societies. Sooner or later, people will allow minorities to survive, just because it helps everyone to do that. It's silly to oppose any of this. A few minorities may get hurt badly if enough people gang up against them. But in the long run, that won't help anyone, and eventually, minorities will be allowed to have rights and aggressors will get spanked.

Said picked the Arab side here. And this is one of many books he wrote as a weapon in his war against human rights.

We certainly ought to be honest when we cover Islam in the media. But that means we should avoid any advice given to us by a dishonest thug like Said. Instead, we ought to discover the basics about Islam and its role in the world without his "help."

Said wanted the Muslim extremists to win, so, especially since he was writing before 2001, he tried to tell people not to fight Islamic extremism. That is why in this book, he took great pains to attack and defame people such as Martin Peretz, Bernard Lewis, David Pryce-Jones, Charles Krauthammer, and Judith Miller. What bothered him about them certainly was not any of their mistakes. It was their honesty and accuracy.

In this book, Said used a sentence of over 100 words to mention Ziad Abu Ain. Now, I know that Said was a thug. But he did go to college and I think he even took more than one class in English in college! He ought to have known that such a sentence is too long. Let's look at part of that sentence. Said said that Abu Ain was just a poor Arab youth who "was undergoing the prolonged agony of extradition proceedings (plus the denial of bail and of a habeas corpus writ) with the active collaboration of the State Department, just because (and only because) the Israeli government had claimed - with a third-party confession extracted from and later retracted" by another Arab "in an Israeli jail in Hebrew, a language he did not know - that he was a terrorist, responsible for a bomb incident two years before."

Two years! That is a long time. Maybe we ought to forget it, or at least forgive. No, let's make this "youth" a hero! By the way, why ought we assume that Israeli justice is unfair? Said implied here that Jews will do anything to hurt an innocent Arab. But that's manifest nonsense. If Jewish authorities really were like that, most Jews would convert to other religions in minutes, to avoid having anything to do with such a suicidally demonic people. And the rest wouldn't last a week.

Now, what did Abu Ain really do? On May 14, 1979, he put a time-bomb in a public trash basket next to a bus stop. The bomb was timed to go off when many children would be there, near the start of Lag b'Omer celebrations. Two boys were killed, and 36 people were maimed and wounded, including an American citizen. Abu Ain fled the country, and an accomplice told authorities what happened, and confessed. The accomplice retracted the confession, but there was easily enough evidence for an extradition. Abu Ain's lawyers fought extradition, claiming that what Ain did was a political act, not a criminal one. Besides, they said that for Abu Ain to be held by the Israelis would be cruel and unusual! You may want to read about this in some other book!

Would you have guessed any of this from what Said wrote?

Just avoid this book.

Ed Said is dead but his silly writings still continue to be published.

Don't waste your time or money, forget this book.

I was forced to suffer through this rubbish in a college class. This book is merely propaganda packaged under a thin dust jacket of objectivity. The arguments are weak and contrived. Said seems to be just another appologetic for Islamic barbarism. The very premise for the book seems irrelevant -unfair potrayal of Islam in the western press. It's the very typical "don't believe what you see, believe what I say" sort of drivel that only appeals to mindless drones in dusty lands.

To see why the author is dishonest, read the work of Irshad Manji, THe Trouble with Islam. Manji is honest about her faith, and she offers honest criticism of authors like Edward Said.

Said is a very honest man, a very honest christian at that. For a christian to speak out against the media about one of it's most inaccurate views of life (The Muslims)he has to be a very dedicated and God loving person. There are 1.7 billion muslims in the world today, and not all of them are rotten apples as the media portrays them to be. As we know, in any culture, race, or gender, majority suffers for minority and thats how it is.