Western scholarship and the Qur'an

Western scholarship on Islam has historically been considered an example of ‘Orientalist’ scholarship. The concept of an ‘Orient’ has roots in medieval Europe. The term ‘Orientalism’ is derived from the Latin oriens , referring to the rising of the sun, to imply the ‘East’ 1 and generally refers to the study of Eastern cultures and traditions by Western scholars. It became popular during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the term ‘Orientalists’ referred both to Western artists inspired by the Orient, and to Western scholars who specialised in the study of Oriental languages, religions and cultures. It was from an ‘Orientalist’ perspective that much of the early Western scholarship on the Qur’an developed.