M. A.Muqtedar Khan

This article argues that a post-orientalist discourse has emerged over the past few decades to challenge the dominance of orientalism on Western foreign policy thinking towards Islam and the Muslim world. The paper examines the geostrategic thinking of Bernard Lewis, Edward Said, and John Esposito, and their impact on Western perceptions of Islam. The paper submits that while Edward Said exposed the prejudice inherent in orientalist thought, it was John Esposito and a cohort of post-orientalist scholars who engaged in three critical debates with the orientalist to provide a more authentic vision of Islam and a more nuanced picture of the politics of the Muslim world. The paper however concedes that while post-orientalism has triumphed in the academic setting, the orientalist perspective still dominates the policy sphere and continues to shape American foreign policy.