ISLAM AND
THE WEST
By Bader Malek
This study
presents and discusses some of the views of Orientalist
studies towards Islam, Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) ,
and the authenticity of Hadith literature. In this way, one can understand the origins
of Prophetic stories, where these tales are located within the legacy of Islam
and how they survived from the Orientalists'
standpoint.
Orientalists and Islam
Tens of
thousands of books and articles have been written on Islam in this century as
part of the Orientalist interest in the East. This burgeoning intellectual movement is
involved in a continuing contemporary argument, namely controversy about
whether Orientalism is a negative or positive
phenomenon.
There are
two major views: the opinion that Orientalism is a pure intellectual and scholarly field, and
the opinion that the West studies the East, and especially Islam, in order to
take political control of Islamic countries.
No doubt,
it will be impossible for any researcher to cover all materials and works that Orientalists have published to date. Yet the rapid speed of publications can give
an indication of some aspects of the present intellectual conflict between the
East and the West. It is hard to say
that there is a possible end to this clash, but it might be fair to say that
many arguments result from cultural differences and the differing perceptions
that each researcher might bring to his evaluation.
What does Orientalism mean?
The word
"Orientalism" has been used "since the
early nineteenth century to describe a genre of painting, pioneered by the
French but developed by artists from
By
reviewing the work of the Orientalists, one can
conclude that they worked in various branches of the human sciences, such as
art, theology, rhetoric and history.
During the previous two centuries, most Western studies on the East were
either concerned primarily with scriptures and literature or the
Today,
most Arab and Muslim researchers prefer to use the term "Orientalism" for works by Westerners or non-Muslims
who study Eastern culture. The term
"Orientalism" has already lost its value
for many Orientalists and has been replaced by “Human
Sciences in
It is
really hard to find many books dealing with Orientalism
and Islam either in Arabic or in English that do not refer to Goldziher. Some
Arabs believe that he is the greatest and the most outstanding Orientalist who understands Islam (al-Mawsuah al-Arabiyyh al-Muyassarah, vol. 1, p. 668). Muslim scholars might reject this, but this
statement holds some truth for Orientalists.
"Probably the greatest [Orientalist] of all was Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921), a
pious Hungarian Jew whose magnificent series of studies on Muslim theology,
law, and culture rank him, by common consent, as one of the founders and
masters of modern Islamic studies" (Lewis, 1993b, p. 144). Yet some Orientalists
suggest that Goldziher, in some of his studies, was
too skeptical and he generalized too quickly from single observations (Motzki, 1991, p. 2).
One might
suggest that Muslim educational institutions in
For many
centuries, the traditional Western view saw Easterners as savage and barbaric
people. The traditional Western view of
the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)is an
impostor, fraud, and anti-Christ (Goldberg, 1993, p. xli). The sharp offensive work of Dante (1987), the
Italian poet, and Voltaire (1964), the Enlightenment philosopher, illustrate
negative Christian views about the Prophet and how European literature has been
some times so immoderate. Phipp (1996) writes, "Lack of concern to understand
and anxiety over a potential threat are common threads found in most of the
judgments by those who have found Muhammad (peace be upon him) repulsive"
(p. 8). Did Orientalism
as an intellectual movement change this negative perception? Does the West still view the East as a dark
and backward part of the world? The
Western opinion of Africans or Muslims has always negative. Now some of these opinions and images seem
wholly ridiculous (Daniel, 1962, p. 109).
The Orientalist movement represents a new wave of imperialism
and missionary activity or a scholarly effort to serve humanity through the
power of knowledge. Does the East still
represent a threat and challenge to the West?
The most important question that faces Orientalism
is whether it is considered part of a welcomed contribution to knowledge or one
more justification for political and intellectual domination. How can Orientalism
be a way to maintain an intellectual interchange?
The Contribution of Orientalism
In 1934 Zaki Mubarak wrote that Orientalism is a real and rich field of study and most that
Orientalists are a group of serious scholars, with the whom Islamic world has to work and cooperate. He clearly writes that the advantages of Orientalist studies outweigh their mistakes and
dangers. One of his examples of the
usefulness of Orientalists' work is the fact that
they have published many books that support the survival of the Islamic
legacy.
Lewis
(1993a), who uses many functionalist arguments, agrees with this idea. He believes that Orientalists,
especially the Jewish scholars, have made very important contributions to
Islamic studies (pp. 142-144). There are
many examples of scholarly products of Orientalism. Some documents clearly confirm that Orientists from the last century began serious translation
projects, in order to understand Hadith (Denffer, 1981; Salisbury, 1859). The Encyclopaedia
of Islam (1960), is a major project of Orientalism in the field of Islamic studies. Yet the grandest project of the Orientalists is the work of al-Muajam
al-Mufahras Li-Alfaz al-Hadith al Nabawi. This giant book (see Wensinck,1988, vol. 8), began as an idea in 1916 and was finished in
1987. It is one of the best preparations
of indices on the Hadith.
Siddiqi (1993) wrote that Western scholars have taken an
interest in the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) 's sayings "for
almost two centuries, making a welcome contribution by editing and sometimes
translating many of the original Arabic works, and by the diligent preparation
of concordances and indices" (p. 124).
Lang (1994) says, "I have learned much about the science of
traditions [Hadith] from western writings that I
could not find in Muslim sources.
Moreover, western scholars have made significant contributions to its
study " (pp. 111, 112).
Muhammad
(peace be upon him) Siddiqi (1993, p. 135) agrees
with Akbar Ahmed (1992, p. 184) about the importance
of the work of American scholars in the studies of Islam. Both confirm that Americans scholars of Islam
are somewhat more sympathetic than the Europeans. Siddiqi (1993) believes
that the fact that the government of the
The
studies of Abbott (1967) and Motzki (1991) set a good
example for the study of Islam without a general bias. Their critical thinking leads them to
understand the origins of the Prophetic sayings and they, directly or
indirectly, refute Schacht (1950), Goldziher (1971), Margoliouth, (1914), Rubin, (1995), Guillaume (1963; 1966)
and many theories of Orientalist scholars who believe
that the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) 's
teachings are not authentic and the vast reports narrated about his teachings
are fabricated.
Today's,
scholars attempt to build bridges that manifest a growing climate of openness
and mutual respect in order to understand religions. Furthermore, there is a strong tendency among
some Orientalists to study Islam, not to distort and recastit but to understand it and find a common ground
where they can usefully agree with Muslims.
Daniel (1962) says of the Islamic legacy:
these
works of theology, if we continue seriously to examine them as friends of
Islam, may sometimes give us actual light upon our own problem; more probably,
may edify us, and most probably of all, may help us to find common ground where
we can usefully agree with Muslims (p. 307).
A
Christian scholar says, "the spiritual heritage of Islam offers a profound
set of resources for all those who wish to make use of them, whether they be
Muslim, Jewish, Christian, or whatever.... All of us should
ponder the true meaning of Islam, submission to God" (Ernst, 1989, p. 99).
In the
field of history, Montgomery Watt (1972) presents Prophet Muhammad
(peace be upon him) as a great figure of history (p. 52). Watt, as Akbar Ahamed (1992) says, "is one
of the last living and best-known traditional orientalist"
(p. 181). Watt (1988) says "I
consider that Muhammad (peace be upon him)was truly a
Prophet, and think that we Christians should admit this on the basis of the
Christian principle that 'by their fruits you will know them', since though the
centuries Islam has produced many upright and saintly people" (p. 1).
In the past, Muslims have not produced
many books on Islam and Hadith in the English
language (Guillaume, 1966, preface). To
fill the gap, many important books on Islam have been translated by Orientalists. Robson
(1953, 1981), Swartz (1971), and other translators have provided the West with
many original works from Islamic literature.
Brosse (1991) claims that "thanks to the
recent work of the Western Orientalist, Djalal ad-Din Rumi is now
recognized as one of the greatest mystics of all time" (p. 48).
Gobb (1963) in
his book Islamic Contribution to Civilization, studied Islamic history
in depth in an appreciative and cordial manner. About significant contributions made by
Muslims he says; "For more than five centuries that civilization not only
led the world in science, but was the only portion of mankind actively engaged
in the systematic pursuit of knowledge" (p. 5). He also points out many factors that advanced
civilization in the Arabic-Islamic period.
One of the factors was:
The devotion of religion of the people. Islam was simple enough in its theology to by
understood by all and demanding enough in its daily
ritual of prayer and month-long fasts to enforce a discipline that engendered
piety in the daily life. Islam lifted
its adherents above consciousness of race or color, establishing an effective
brotherhood in the name of Allah (p. 82).
Regarding
educational studies, Allen and Muessig (1962), for
example, scrutinize the development of Islamic culture, and they state that
"American education has a rich debt to Islam and other Eastern
sources" (p.133). Their elaborate
article, "Islamic contributions to American education," expresses a
somewhat more sympathetic attitude towards Islamic culture in a scholarly
forum. About Islamic gifts to the Western
World, they wrote :
Perhaps the most profound and vital contribution of
the Moslems to educational theory lies in their movement toward universal, free
education. Taking the long point of view
and looking especially for one of the most direct threads which extends from
the Moslems to American education, we should note the efforts of Moslems: to encourage capable boys and girls of all
stations of life, to accept teachers of different races and persuasions, to
make library materials more accessible to more people, and to spread general
enlightenment. Long before Western
Europeans like Vives, Luther, Comenius,
and Pestalozzi championed the idea of open
educational opportunity, the Moslems were putting this idea into action in a
variety of ways. American[s]
Geertz (1995), an American anthropologist, observed two
Islamic countries for four decades. In
his book, The Religion of Java (1960), and other works (1968), he tries
to characterize and describe Islamic culture and tradition. Furthermore, he tried to understand Islam,
per se, as a religion that has a clear system of belief and behavior.
More
importantly in the field of law Islam still as a dynamic system which is
capable of providing people legal guidance in daily life, based on the command
of God, as some studies of Orientalists
advocate. God, as the Qur’an says, is the protector of the believers. He leads them forth from the darkness into
the light (S. 2, A. 257). Coulson (1964) states that:
Generally speaking, the Qur’anic precepts are in the nature of ethical
norms- broad enough to support modern legal structures and capable of varying
interpretations to meet the particular needs of time and place. And on this basis it would seem that Islamic
Jurisprudence could implement, in practical and modernist terms, its
fundamental and unique ideal of a way of life based on the command of God (p.
225).
John
Esposito is one of contemporary
Islamic law embodies a number of Qur’anic reforms that significantly enhanced
the status of women. Contrary to
pre-Islamic Arab customs, the Qur’an recognized a
woman's right to contract her own marriage.
In addition, she, not her father or other male relatives as has been the
custom, was to receive the dower from her husband (4:4). She became a party to the contract rather
than simply an object of sale. The right
to keep and maintain her own dowry was a source of
self-esteem and wealth in an otherwise male-dominated society. Women's right to own and manage their own
property was further enhanced and acknowledged by the Qur’anic verses of inheritance (4:7, 11-12, 176),
which granted inheritance rights to wives, daughters, sisters, and grandmothers
of the deceased in a patriarchal society where all rights were traditionally
vested solely in male heirs. Similar
legal rights would not occur in the West until the nineteenth century (p. 95).
Esposito's
studies ( 1982; 1985; 1991; 1992) could serve as an
example of a Western scholar who works to understand Islam and engender some
empathy. He uses Islamic sources, not to
attack them but generally to understand the landscape of Islamic revivalism and
to point out ways of reformation especially in family laws and social milieu.
Serious
contributions of Orientalists might exist in other
scientific fields. Moore (1990), a
professor and chairman of the Department of Anatomy, University of Toronto,
Canada, found, with other Muslim scholars, that the Qur’an
and Prophet Muhammad's sayings conveyed many scientific facts in the field of
embryology (p. 48). The conclusion of
their treatise is:
These facts about human development could not have
been known by Muhammad (peace be abound him) in the 7th century, because most
of them were not discovered until the 20th century. Muslims and others are justified in concluding
that these facts could only have been revealed to Muhammad (peace be upon
him)(peace be upon him) by God, Who knows all about us-not only about how we
develop but how we live and function (p. 48).
For some
researchers, all this, and much more, suggests that Orientalism
is a branch of scholarly work that tries to contribute to Islamic studies not
to attack Islam.
Arab Scholars working in the various fields with which
the Orientalists have been concerned-history,
literature, language, philosophy, and others-have made normal use of Orientalist publication.
They have contributed extensively to Orientalist
journals and have participated generally in Orientalist
symposia, colloquia, and other international activities. Arab scholars have often differed from Orientalists in their findings and judgments, just as Arab
scholars and Orientalist scholars have differed among
themselves. These have, for the most
part, been scholarly differences, not clashes of ethnic or ideological allegiances, and
they have been discussed within the norms and courtesies of scholarly debate
(Lewis, 1993a, p. 116).
Voll (1996), from
In
conclusion, for some researchers, it will be rewarding to survey Western work
on Islamic studies. Orientalists
share their knowledge and contribute to many human
sciences in many Islamic fields. Many of
their works could be rich sources, not only for the West but also for Muslims
to take advantage of.
Orientalism as a Confrontation
In 1934, al-Harawi
concluded that the benefits from Orientalists are
less than their damage (p. 566). Many
other scholars in the Islamic world believe that Orientalism,
in general, is a modern intellectual movement which serves Western imperialism,
in order to dominate and govern the East politically. Ghorab (1991)
defines Orientalism as an academic field of
non-Islamic scholars who study Islam in order to deface and deform it; to
dominate the Muslim world in the name of human science (p. 7).
For Ghorab, most contributions of the West--such as translating
Arabic books and preparing concordances and indices--are methods to help
Westerners destroy Islam. Although
Muslims might learn from Orientalist works, this is
not their aim. His example is that the
imperialist British government developed railroads in
In his
recent book, Subverting Islam: The Role of Orientalist
Center, Ghorab (1995) states, "The history
of Orientalism shows that it was closely connected
with the needs and purposes of colonialism and with Christian missionary
ambitions. That connection remains. It has now become a part of
the geo-political strategies of Western governments and their intelligence
services" (p. 11).
In his
postmodernist view, Said, in many of his critical and genuinely intellectual
works (1978; 1981; 1993; 1995), focuses on the idea that Orientalism
in most cases supports racism, cultural stereotypes, and the dehumanization of
Arabs in general, Palestinians in particular (1978, p. 27). As one example, he notes how the West mocked
the Palestinian revolution and viewed it as "a camel about to raise itself
from the ground" (1978, p. 315).
Much of
the literature on Orientalism refers to Said's theory. Said
is a prolific writer, who has authored many books and articles on politics and
Islam. His own position can be known
from his statements, such as:
For the many reasons I have enumerated earlier in this
book and in Orientalism,
knowledge of Islam and of Islamic peoples has generally proceeded not only from
dominance and confrontation but also from cultural antipathy. Today Islam is defined negatively as that
with which the West is radically at odds, and this tension establishes a
framework radically limiting knowledge of Islam (1981, p. 155).
After his
conversion to Islam, Asad (1987), the European
writer, wrote "with very few exceptions, even the most eminent of European
Orientalists are guilty of unscientific partiality in
their writings on Islam" (p.63).
From his point of view, the Occidental prejudice can be understood in
the light of two considerations. First
of all, Westerners believe that they are racially superior to Easterners. They
also look back to the historical clash between themselves and Islam (pp.
62-65): the Christian Crusades of the Middle
Ages.
In many
cases, Orientalists study Islamic subjects from a
purely secular viewpoint in which they interpret every historical event in a
materialistic form. There are many
studies by Orientalists that insult Muslims and
blackguard them in the name of freedom of knowledge and research. Bloom (1988) misrepresents some
anthropological studies and concludes that Arabs do not hug and kiss their children, hence they are bloodthirsty (p. 116; Abu-Lughod, 1991, p. 162).
He wrote in a demeaning and denigrating way:
In much of Arab Society the cold and even brutal
approach to children has still not stopped.
Public warmth between men and women is considered a sin. An Arab adult stripped of intimacy and thrust
into a life of cold isolation, has become a walking time bomb. An entire people have turned barbaric for the
simple lack of a hug (p. 116).
Simply,
this was Bloom's explanation or exploration in response to a complex question
that he shared as "why are some cultures bloodier than others?"
Academic experts, field notes, and survey findings all were distorted to
vindicate this oppressive judgment.
It is
evident, at least for Muslims, that the Western media has associated Islam with
violence. Hofmann (1996b), a Muslim
German writer, points out that "we never read that the monumental crimes
in the Soviet Union were committed by Stalin the Orthodox Christian, and those
in Nazi Germany by Adolf Hitler the Catholic"
(p. 34). The media often calls a crimial "a fanatic Muslim", but they
do not call militants of the IRA fanatic
Catholics" (p. 33). The Western
media often focuses on many stereotypical images about Arabs. Shaheen (1984)
states:
Television tends to perpetuate four basic myths about
Arabs: they are all fabulously wealthy;
they are barbaric and uncultured; they are sex maniacs with a penchant for
white slavery; and they revel in acts of terrorism. Yet, just a little surface probing reveals
that these notions are as false as the assertions that blacks are lazy,
Hispanics are dirty, Jews are greedy and Italians are criminals (p. 4)
It seems
to be true that history repeats itself.
For a long time people in Europe considered Arabs to be stupid, for
example, as Phipp (1996) explains, "Muhammad
(peace be upon him)had faked divine inspiration by training a white dove to
pick grains from his ear while sitting on his shoulder" (p. 6). This medieval story (Daniel, 1962, p. 104)
was the source of lines by William Shakespeare (1922) such as:
"Was
Mahomet inspired with a dove?
Thou with an eagle art inspired
then" (p. 16).
As Phipps
(1996) says, "However, a dove is not a Muslim symbol for the Spirit of
God, so the story must have originated with someone aware of the story of
Jesus' baptism" (p. 6). Today,
Wright (1994) still provides his readers with a collection of some unique
quotations from both ancient and present times.
One of these is from the English philosopher Francis Bacon (see p.
69). In that comment, Bacon confirms his
view that the Prophet "was a bungling miraclemonger "
(Phipps, 1996, p. 6). Mass Western
literature tells us that the West was willing to believe and widely accept any
demeaning or ridiculous story about Islam.
About Western views of Muhammad (peace be upon him) in the Middle Ages
Southern (1962) says before the first Crusade
I have found only one mention of the name of Mahomet
in medieval literature outside
This
ignorance, as Esposito (1992) notes, reflected not only lack of knowledge but
also the common human tendency to denigrate and dehumanize the enemy (p.
45). Daniel (1962) says:
A mass of literature gave Muhammad (peace be upon him)a very much worse, and highly melodramatic death, one that
now seems wholly ridiculous. A reader of
mediaeval writings comes incidentally across reference to the Prophet's
shameful death. These take it for
granted that he knows what this means - that Muhammad (peace be upon him)was eaten by dogs, or that he was eaten, or suffocated, by
pigs (Daniel, 1962, p. 104).
Based on
some of their publications from the past to the present day, one can conclude
that many Orientalists seem to think they are the
only civilized people who have the "Truth" and authority to speak
about Islam in a scientific way. They
present their opinions as experts to say or even to discover that Islam itself,
not some Muslims, exports terror (Benesh, 1995, p.
15).
From
their point of view, it seems that Orientalists not
Muslims, who studied the Hadith in scientific methods
(Schimmel, A.
1992, p. 53) are the only people who can understand historical facts in
a scientific way. Some of their ideas on
Hadith are presented as brilliant discoveries and
superb contributions that became the cornerstone of all serious investigations
(Schacht, 1950, p. 4), as if such ideas "were the final authorities on the
subject whose verdict could never be questioned" (Jameelah,
1990, p. 102). However, some of these
great contributions and brilliant theories of Orientalists
were rejected totally, not only by Muslim scholars, but even by other Orientalists (see Powers, 1986, pp. 5, 6). This leads to a problematic issue about text
analysis, ways of gaining knowledge, and methods. Sometimes scholars claim that they use a
correct or even concrete analysis, yet in the social field there is no one
complete theory that owns the "Truth". Using the term "scientific method"
sometimes misleads the reader as well as researchers, especially when the
Western-trained scholars use such terms while studying what they call the
The Orientalists focus on minor or odd events and then present
them as being important subjects to the study of Islam. They like to make elaborate studies about Mu'tazilite rationalists, Jihad (holy war) as a sixth
pillar of Islam, Sufi symbolism, al-Hallaj and the unIslamic thoughts of Ibn Arabi. They
presented these subjects as important issues and as an introduction to Islam
(see Denny, 1994).
It is
only in the West that one can find al-Hallaj, who was
killed for his blasphemy, to be a great martyr (Brosse,
1991, p. 76) and great mystic (Campbell, 1993, p. 149). Again it is in the West where one finds a man
attacking and discrediting the Qur’an or the
Prophet's life, and he is considered a distinguished Muslim scholar (Morey,
1992, p. 108) or even
a great reformer. It is
common in the Occidental literature to recognize the phenomenon of focusing on
heresy as they present Islam.
Many
Western writers deal with Islam, as Charles says, "by taking the extremes
to be the norm" (quoted in The Times,
1993, p. 19). Maududi
(1986) says whenever there is a scope for two interpretations of anything about
Islam, the usual course for Orientalists is "to
try their level best to give the worst meaning to it and to adopt the darkest
possible view" (p. vii). Some of
the Western writers like to choose what they want, not what really exists. Artists in the West “visited the
Reviewing the work of Morey (1992), one can find
how the West continues to study the Prophet of Islam in a denigrated
manner. Dr. Morey is the executive
director of Research and Education Foundation In
Newport, PA. Morey is an internationally
recognized scholar in the field of theology.
He scornfully dismisses Islam as Arab racism (p. 22). Morey claims that Western scholars apply
"scientific standards to search for truth (p. 8). Thus, as a Western scholar, he supports his
findings by the following words: Careful
scientific scrutiny (p. 11), according to
In his
biography of Muhammad (peace be upon him) , he writes
about Muhammad (peace be upon him) 's mother by saying she was of an excitable
nature and "often claimed that she was visited by spirits, or jinns" (p. 71).
He mentioned that some scholars suggest "that perhaps Muhammad
(peace be upon him) 's early visions were the result
of the combination of epileptic seizures and an overactive imagination"
(p. 71). About Muhammad (peace be upon him) 's major
weaknesses, he says "the first was greed" (p. 84) and his greatest
weakness, as Morey claims, was women.
Muhammad (peace be upon him) , as Morey
advocates was "involved in many acts which must be deemed as immoral and
unjust" (p. 98). This insulting
study confirms the ideas of Montgomery Watt (1972) who notes:
None of the great figures of history is so poorly
appreciated in the West as Muhammad (peace be upon him) . Western writers have mostly been prone to believe
the worst of Muhammad (peace be upon him), and, wherever an objectionable
interpretation of an act seemed plausible, have tended to accept it as fact (p.
52).
Some
recent non-Muslim writers reject the Western idea that accuses the Prophet of
sensuality and they mention that most of Muhammad (peace be upon him) 's marriages had political and social motives (Esposito,
1991, p. 18; Parrinder, 1987, pp. 86, 87). Parrinder (1976a),
a British author argues that:
No great religious figure has been so maligned as
Muhammad. Attacked in the past as a
heretic, an impostor, or a sensualist, it is still possible to find him
referred to in otherwise academic writings as "the false prophet." A modern German writer accuses Muhammad of
sensuality, surrounding himself with young women. This man was not married until he was
twenty-five years of age, then he and his wife lived in happiness and fidelity
for twenty-four years, until her death when he was forty-nine. Only between the age of fifty and his death
at sixty-two did Muhammad take other wives, only one of whom was a virgin, and
most of them were taken for dynastic and political reasons (p. 121).
It was Carlyle (1993), the British
historian and essayist, who struggled in the last century to correct these historical
errors by saying that it is time to dismiss such an
untenable hypothesis about Muhammad.
Furthermore, he says "the lies, which well-meaning zeal has heaped
round this man, are disgraceful to ourselves
only" (p. 38).
The West
also stereotyped Islam as a religion spread by the sword. On the contrary, some Western writers seem to
reject this old
Western myth. Zeep
says, "the historical reality is that the
expansion of Islam was usually by persuasion and not by military power"
(quoted in Ally, 1995, p.7). Today,
Islam is one of fastest growing religions worldwide, which makes Ally (1995), a
Muslim writer, say "What explains this
phenomenon? Who is forcing anyone today
to become Muslims? Muslims
are not engaged in active preaching in any noticeable degree" (p. 6). He means that the nature of Islam is not
military power. It is one important
reason for expansion of Islam both in the past and today. People, as Ally says,
"are voluntarily coming into Islam because they find that Islam makes sense"
(p. 6). In his introduction,
Esposito (1991), from
Some Western
writers admit openly that the West "has never really known Islam. Ever since they watched it appear on the
world stage, Christians never ceased to insult and slander it in order to find
justifications for waging war on it" (Pasquier,
1994, pp. 5, 6). In the past, as
Esposito (1991) says, "Christian fears were fully realized as Islam became
a world power and civilization while Christianity staggered and stagnated in
its Dark Ages" (p.59). Today, many
Western writers might swallow "the old medieval prejudice"
(Armstrong, 1992; see Ahmad, 1986, p. 18).
In the end of her book Muhammad , A Biography of the Prophet,
Karen Armstrong (1992) says, "If Muslims need to understand our Western
traditions and institutions more thoroughly today, we in the West need to
divest ourselves of some of our old prejudice" (p. 266).
Orientalism could be for many Eastern thinkers a form of
corruption. The West translates the Qur’an not to understand its message, but to attack
it. As Sale clearly writes about the
vision and mission of studying Islamic texts in the West, “The Protestants
alone are able to attack the Qur’an with success; and
for them, I trust, Providence has reserved the glory of its overthrow” (A
Comprehensive Commentary on the Qur'an, 1975,
Sale’s Preface; see Arberry, 1955, pp. 10-11).
Orientalism, as Hourani (1991)
points out, has become suspected in the last few years (p.62). The work of Orientalists
misunderstood the Muslim Orient out of prejudice, as Hourani
mentions. The Western
work "has been too closely linked with the political interests of their
countries" (Hourani, 1991, p. 63; see al-jundi, 1983, p. 142; al-Turyi,
1996, p. 231; Weld, 1993, p. 35).
Generally,
Orientalism failed to present Islam in its complete
reality. The myth of the Islamic threat,
ignorance, systematic denigration, and other factors all played a major role in
the negative misre-presentation. Said (1995) believes that both scholars and
journalists in the West are responsible for this confusion (p. 52).
Not
surprisingly, many Americans tend to stereotype Muslims as "uncivilized,
unwashed, barbaric and irrational people. . . ." (Nixon, 1992, p.
184) It is worthwhile here to confirm
the fact that Americans' perceptions of Islam and the Arab world would be
better if they succeeded to understand their own minorities better (Siam, 1995,
p. 142).
As a
result of all this corruption and misrepresentation, Islamic contributions to
human civilization are still unknown to most people.
The rise and decline of Islamic civilization is one of
the major phenomena of history. For five
centuries, from 700 to 1200, Islam led the world in power, order, and extent of
government, in refinement of manners, in standards of living, in humane legislation
and religious toleration, in literature, scholarship, science, medicine, and
philosophy (Durant, 1950, p. 341, see Braudel, 1993,
p. 73).
Constantly,
in the literature of the history of education, it is hard to find the
contribution of Muslim educators being noted.
As the great philosopher John Dewey (1993) illustrates, "(We)
usually overlook (the) indebtedness of Christian civilization to Mohammedan
civilization, (which was) greatly in advance" (p. 105). The Orientalists
cannot be fruitful if the West thinks that the war with communism is to be
replaced by a war between the West and the Muslims (Esposito, 1992, p. 3). Orientalists' works
can be fruitful if their approaches are not biased and prejudiced as Abbott
(1967, vol. 2, p. 83) and Ahmad (1986, p. 61) mentioned.
Al-Jaralla (1996a) explains the problem of the method of many
Western studies, to say:
The problem of many Western scholars in dealing with
Islam and its heritage is not (merely) their lack of reliance upon sources
considered authentic by the Muslims, or their lack of adherence to standards of
scholarship identified by their own scholars.
Rather, you find them arriving at "incontrovertible"
conclusions which become established realities in their studies, based upon baseless
or weak reports or sources which cannot be relied upon to prove their
contentions. At the same time, reports
from the likes of Sahih Al-Bukhari
are rejected, and sources which are trustworthy are avoided (p. 3).
Al-Jaralla (1996 b) attended the twenty-ninth annual
conference of the Middle East Studies Association. As a Muslim observer, he found that many of
their programs are devoted to instilling doubts about Islam. The conference, as al-Jaralla
argues, was not a medium for understanding Islam according to accepted Muslim
standards of scholarship (p. p3).
Thus,
according to all these critics, Orientalism might be
viewed as a way of domination, not sharing knowledge. It is a form of intellectual confrontation,
not a contributive effort.
Orientalists and the authenticity of Hadith
Swartz (1995)
says, "Serious questions, however, have been raised regarding the
historical authenticity of the Hadith" (p.
479). Even though most Orientalists are very doubtful about early Hadith, there
is no one clear theory with which all or even most of them agree. Still in the West, much dispute, controversy
and even conflicting views continue to be presented in this debate. Patricia Crone (1987) says " for
practical purposes it is impossible to prove a certain tradition authentic
(with a very few exceptions), and it is often impossible to prove it
inauthentic too" (p. 31).
Indeed,
many studies have been done on both the "matn"
of Hadith, which is the text, and the "isnad", which is the chain of transmitters. Yet for many Orientalists, "The isnad is
always a design to make the tradition look authentic, and going into the
question of whether or not the isnad is really
authentic seems futile" (Rubin, 1995, p. 234). Thus, some Muslims believe that this Western
view on the Hadith is the most insidious attack on
Islam (see al-Sibai, 1993, pp. 10-11; Nadwi, S. 1992, p.76). This is
not to say that all of the Islamic researchers reject the views of the Orientalists.
However, there are a few Muslim writers who do not have confidence in
the authenticity of much of Prophetic Hadith such as Bucaille (1979, p. 244) and Haykal
(1995, p. lxxxii).
Considerable work has been done by Western scholars on early Hadith taking the opposite side. They have provided us with many scholarly
treatises refuting and rejecting the traditional doubts about early Hadith that have been held in the West. This trend in the West seems to be stronger
with the work of Abbott (1967) and, very recently, with the studies of Motzki (1991). Some Orientalists are in the middle because they believe that at
least part of Hadith possibly comes from the age of
the Prophet. Power (1986) put the
monograph of Juynboll (1969, 1982) in this category
and he calls it a "middle position" (p. 6), but Lang (1994) does not
agree with this conclusion and he sees Juynboll's
position as belonging to the Goldziher-Schacht school
(pp.100, 111). These three scholars, in
the end have no belief in terms of the authenticity of Prophetic Ahadith. For Juynboll, (1982) "Even if an isnad
seems sound by the most severe standards, it is still possible that is was
forged in its entirety" (p. 174).
This statement more likely indicates that he belongs to the school that
discredits the authenticity of Ahadith.
In order
to understand and present both theories, those who accept and reject the
authenticity of Hadith, the forth coming discussion
will explore this debate. Four Western
scholars have been chosen to be presented in order to understand the various
views of Orientalists on Hadith
literature.
(1) Ignaz Goldziher (1850-1921)
“The first comprehensive and systematic Western study of hadith was prepared by Ignaz Goldziher” (The Encyclopedia of Religion, 1987, vol.
6, p. 147). It is very hard to
find Western scholarly studies on Islam and early Hadith
without referring to or presenting Goldziher's
views. Many believe that he is the
founder and the father of modern Orientalism
(Pryce-Jones, 1991, p. 150), as a branch of the study of Hadith
(Lewis, 1993a, p.144; Murad, 1981, p. 5). His theories on Islam have affected most Western
thinkers and researchers. Some Eastern
writers have also adopted his views on different aspects of Islamic
studies. Al-Mawsufiah
al-Arabiyyah al-Muyassarah
(1965), Badawi (1984) and safwat
(1996) confirm that Goldziher is the best of the Orientalists who understands Islam.
According
to Goldziher's diary, he visited many Islamic
countries and attended many lectures, especially in
It is not at all rare in the literature of traditions
that sayings are ascribed to the Prophet which for a long time circulated in
Islam under the authority of another name, so-called Ahadith
mawqufa, i.e., sayings traced back to companions or even
successors, were very easily transformed into a hadith
marfufia, i.e., sayings traced back to the
Prophet by simply adding without much scruple a few names at random which were
necessary to complete the chain (Goldziher, 1971,
vol. 2, p. 148).
Goldziher (1971) believed that some Companions might have
written a few Ahadith, yet one cannot check or find
strong evidence for this (vol. 2, p. 182).
The Hadith, from Goldziher's
perspective, began to be made up and spread during al-Zuhri's
lifetime (b. 670). He felt that
political influences, always with other factors, shaped many Ahadith (vol. 2, p. 44).
Goldziher spoke about Hadith as a
means of edification and entertainment and he found that "many theologians
were less strict with Hadiths which did not belong to
the category of the law but offered pious tales, edifying maxims and ethical
teachings in the name of the Prophet" (vol. 2, p. 153). His proof for this argument was what al-Nawawi said about passing weak Hadith
for moral purposes (vol. 2, p. 146).
General comments on Goldziher's
views:
It seems
that Goldziher took many facts that Muslim scholars
wrote on particular issues and adopted them for general framework. Another point, one might observe while
reading Goldziher's argument, is that he built his
theory, sometimes, from a single sentence taken from a scholar, without
reviewing the original work of the scholar.
He
mentioned that most Ahadith were forged simply by
putting the name of the Prophet at the end of the Hadith's
chain, which may be true in cases of weak Ahadith. However Muslim scholars already discovered
and explained these weak Ahadith in most of their
writings.
Goldziher accepts from history and Muslim sources things
that support his views and rejects those things that do not. He accepts that al-Zuhri
was the first and the official person who began to write or collect Hadith in written form, but he rejects all historical
evidence about how accurate and pious this man was. In general, he painted a picture that is too
dark of early Muslim scholars and used questionable procedures to paint those
pictures. For instance, Goldziher accepted some reports on the
Al-Nawawi, and many scholars, when they speak about weak Hadith, are careful to set many
conditions. One of these is to make a
clear distinction between authentic Hadith and weak
ones (al-Nawawi, n.d., p.
63). This method allows them to take
advantage of the best from some of the weak Hadith but
with the condition that it is not recorded or reported as the real word of the
Prophet. One needs to mention the status
of the Hadith before delivering it. By reviewing al-Nawawi's
books one can find that, in reality, he used authentic Prophetic stories and he
eschewed and avoided weak stories that are famous in Hadith
literature.
Goldziher mentioned the fact that there are many ways in
which a Hadith can be fabricated, as Muslim scholars
have been saying for a long time. What
he did not mention in depth was the complementary fact that Muslim scholars
developed a systematic method of sifting Hadith
literature. He did not give credit to
the many historical proofs of the procedures that have been developed in order
to protect and preserve authentic Ahadith from the
early times of Islamic history.
Finally,
many Orientalists believe that Goldziher
was too skeptical and he generalized too quickly from a single observation (Motzki, 1991, p. 1).
(2) Joseph Schacht (1902-1969)
Another
important figure in Islamic Oriental literature is the German scholar, Joseph
Schacht. In his book, The Origins of
Muhammad (peace be upon him) an Jurisprudence
(1950), he concludes that traditions from companions and successors are earlier
than those from the Prophet (p. 3).
Unquestionably, Schacht was the best of the Orientalists
who elaborated on Goldziher's theory on Hadith. He then
expanded on Goldziher's work to say:
A great many traditions in the classical and other
collection were put into circulation only after Shafei's
time [d. 819] ; the first considerable body of legal
traditions from the Prophet originated towards the middle of the second
century, in opposition to slightly earlier traditions from companions and other
authorities, and to the living tradition of the ancient schools of law. Traditions from Companions and other
authorities underwent the same process of growth, and are to be considered in
the same light, as traditions from the Prophet; the study of isnads often
enables us to date traditions; the isnads show a tendency to grow backwards and to claim higher
and higher authority until they arrive at the Prophet; the evidence of legal
traditions carries us back to about the year 100 A.H. only; at that time
Islamic legal thought started from late Umaiyad
administrative and popular practice, which is still reflected in a number of
traditions (Schacht, 1950, pp. 4-5).
For
Schacht (1950), and many of his students, "It is common knowledge that isnad started from rudimentary beginnings and
reached perfection in the classical collections of traditions in the second
half of the third century A.H." (p.
163). He provides much evidence for his
argument. Basically, he compares many
chains of Ahadith and he finds these chains of
transmitters were not completed in the second Islamic century but they were
completed in the third Islamic period, as books showed.
Although Schacht spoke mainly of legal hadith, he was convinced that his findings held good for
traditions "relating to history" as well. The hypothesis of the backwards growth of isnad has been
taken up without much hesitation by more recent Islamicists
(including myself), who have elaborated on Schacht's theories. Even scholars who do not consider themselves
members of the Schachtian school have adopted it
(Rubin, 1995, p. 235).
Thus,
many modern researchers agree that
Goldziher, Schacht, and others have convincingly shown that
most-and perhaps all-of the traditions (hadith) were
forgeries put into circulation in the first few Muslim centuries. If this fact is allowed, then the entire
foundation of Islamic law is seen to be very shaky indeed. The whole of Islamic law is but a fantastic
creation found on forgeries and pious fictions (Ibn Warraq, 1995, p. 170).
General comments on Schacht's views
What has
been said about Goldziher can, in general, also serve
here, even though the radical skepticisim of Schacht
carries Goldziher’s perceptions to an extreme
(Graham, 1993, p. 509). In addition, one
needs to be aware that Schacht focuses on the idea that
al-Shafifii was the first Muslim scholar to
define Sunnah (Prophetic teaching) as the model
behavior of the Prophet. But although
al-Shafiei might be the first scholar who wrote about
Sunnah in a systematic and comprehensive way, this
does not mean that people and scholars before him did not focus on this
concept. What al-Shafiei
did was to put things straight in one book, and to elaborate and support the
idea of imitating the Prophet as a model by providing many Qur’anic evidences. Esposito (1982) says "Prophetic Sunnah served as
the point of reference for the Companions, and through their example, for the
Successors who followed. The
admissibility of an action was judged in the light of the Prophetic" found
in the Sunnah values (p. 115).
One of the
major weaknesses detectable in the work of Schacht is the failure to take an
adequate account of the Qur’an and its explanations
in the early Islamic period (Burton, 1994, p. 149). Moreover, the later fabrication of Hadith is not at all a sign or evidence of the late
appearance of emphasis on the Sunnah (Graham, 1977,
p. 12) as Schacht suggests by the “misperception of the basis of Muslim
traditionalism, which is the conviction of the sacred nature of the Prophetic
revelatory event” (Graham, 1977, p. 12).
Clearly,
Schacht's focus was on studying the work of schools of law, especially in the
second half century of Islam. The
problem of Orientalists, in studying Islam, is
related to their method. They "have
not chosen the right field for the study of isnad. The writing of Abu Yusuf and Shafifii clearly
shows the inadequacy of law books for the study of isnads"
(Azami, 1992a, p. 247).
Schacht
found that some Ahadith that Al-Shafifii
presented were not originally written as they later appear in Hadith books. He
found that the Hadith in the second century of Islam
have had additional transmitters added to them, which means that these Ahadith are fabricated.
It seems
quite clear that Schacht has not paid any attention to the differing nature of
books of Hadith and books of law. Books of Hadith are
concerned with presenting the full and complete status of each Hadith as a document, whereas the law books use parts of
the Hadith, where appropriate, just to support their
points. "The
researches of the orientalists are based on the
investigation of the wrong materials, consequently producing wrong
results" (Azami, 1994, p. 51; see al-Azami, 1985, p. 183).
Schacht's
excessive theory, that all Prophetic reports are fake, goes back prior to 722
A.D., as a theory, completely dismisses the Muslim science of Hadith criticism and verification as Esposito (1991) argues
(p. 82). He (1987) says, "The
wholesale inaccuracy that Schacht and those who follow him in this matter
attribute to this Muslim science is unjustified" (p. 113). Esposito (1982) maintains:
To state that no tradition goes back prior to 722
creates an unwarranted vacuum in Islamic history. To consider all hadith apocryphal until they are proven otherwise is to reverse the
burden of proof. Rather, a hadith accepted for over ten centuries should
stand until proven otherwise. This
sifting process, while more laborious than Schacht's approach, seems sounder
(p. 113).
Moreover,
Esposito mentions that such a theory "does violence to the deep ingrained
sense of tradition [attributed to the Prophet] in Arab culture, which all
scholars, Muslim and non-Muslim, have acknowledged" (p. 82).
The Arabs, who memorized and handed down the poetry of
their poets, sayings of their soothsayers and statements of their judges and
tribal leaders, cannot be expected to fail to notice and narrate the deeds and
sayings of one whom they acknowledged as the Prophet of God (Rahman, 1962, p. 4).
With
regard to the science of the Hadith some Muslim
researchers such as al-Faruqi and al-Faruqi (1986) conclude "there is no doubt that the
methodological sciences of Islam were among their greatest achievements. Nor can there be any doubt that the religion
of Islam, because of these sciences, achieved for itself the most authentic
status among the religions of the world (p. 263)." In his epilogue,
They [Muslims] denounce the studies of Goldziher
and Schacht as alien and dismiss them as "unscientific in method" and
based on nothing more than mere spite and jealousy of Islam which, alone of all
the major religions, has been blessed with the institution of the isnad. Some Western scholars, too, have expressed
reservations about the hypotheses of Goldziher and
Schacht (p. 181).
"
(3) Nabia Abbott (1897-1981)
The
American scholar and the distinguished papyrologist (Directory
of American Scholars, 1978, vol. 1, p. 1; Irwin, 1994, p. 51), Nabia Abbott, as well as many researchers in the West and
East, believes that the approach used by Orientalists
in studying the Islamic tradition has been prejudiced and biased (vol. 2, p.
83). She collected some Arabic papyrus
documents concerning Hadith in the early period of
Islam. "Abbott
set herself the laborious task of identifying, transcribing and
translating" (Siddiqi, 1993, p. 131). She and other scholars "have opened new
perspectives by their investigation of recently discovered material" (The
Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, vol. 2, p. 85).
Unlike
her many Western fellows, Abbott (1967) found that the Prophetic sayings are
unquestionably from early Islam. She
wrote in her findings:
Analysis of the content and the chains of transmission
of the traditions of the documents and of their available parallels in the standard
collections, supplemented by the results of an extensive study of the sources
on the Sciences of Tradition, olum al-hadith, lead me to conclude that oral and written
transmission went hand in hand almost from the start, that the traditions of
Muhammad (peace be upon him)as transmitted by his Companions and their
successors were, as a rule, scrupulously scrutinized at each step of the
transmission, and that the so-called phenomenal growth of Tradition in the
second and third centuries of Islam was not primarily growth of content, so far
as the hadith of Muhammad (peace be upon him)and the hadith of the
Companions are concerned, but represent largely the progressive increase of
parallel and multiple chains of transmission (vol. 2, p. 2).
It is clear that she rejected Goldziher's
theory, especially by focusing on documents of early Islam papyrus, which she
found very substantial (Siddiqi, 1993, 132). It seems that Abbott, in the next to the last
sentence, is responding to Schacht's theory and rejecting it based on her
study.
Powers
(1986) says in 1967, Fuat Sezgin
published his study on Prophetic Hadith. Like Abbott, in both her method and findings,
he concluded that Hadith are well documented. Powers (1986) says:
On the basis of
examination of extant manuscripts, together with an analysis of the formulas
used by the transmitters of hadith, he [Sezgin] argues that the process of recording hadith began during the lifetime of Muhammad (peace be upon
him)and continued in an uninterrupted fashion until
the emergence of the great hadith collections of the
third/ninth century (p. 5).
(4) Harold Motzki
Most recently, "attempts at refuting Schacht and at proving
the authenticity of traditions from Companions, and even from the Prophet
himself, have been made in various studies of Harold Motzki"
(Rubin, 1995, p. 237). The
important work of Motzki came to seek proofs
"that authentic hadith can be found that date to
earlier than 100 A.H., which Schacht had laid down as the earliest limit"
(Bonner, 1994, p. 343).
In his study of the Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq
al-sanfiani, Motzki
(1991; see Schneider, 1994, p. 684) finds that there are several formal
features of Abd al-Razzaq's
presentation of transmissions that indicate that they are authentic. "One of those is the fact that he [Abd al-Razzaq] is sometimes
uncertain about the precise origin of a tradition and that he admits this
openly" (1991, p. 4). He views this
particular book of Hadith as a source of authentic Ahadith of the first century of Islam.
Based
upon his studies on Hadith, Motzki
(1991) concludes that the Muslims' method of preserving Hadith
is generally accurate. He concludes his
study by this finding on the historical value of Prophetic texts by stating:
While studying the Musannaf of Abd
al-Razzaq, I came to the conclusion that the theory
championed by Goldziher, Schach,
and, in footsteps, many others- myself included- which
in general, rejects Hadith literature as a
historically reliable source for the first century A.H, deprives the historical
study of early Islam of an important and useful type of source. It goes without saying that this material
cannot be regarded as completely truthful.
This even the Muslims themselves did not claim. Their method of sifting through the material
by means of the critical study of the transmitters was a quite workable method
of examination that may be of some use even for the modern historian, but it
was not entirely satisfactory and could not avoid misinterpretation (p. 21).
It is an
understandable fact that Muslim scholars do not claim that all Ahadith are authentic or that their method is totally
perfect. However, the main point is
centered around the fact that collecting Ahadith
began in a systematic way very early, both orally and in writing. This great care in dealing with Hadith literature enables scholars in the past and even
today to check errors and discrepancies.
Conclusion about Orientalism
and Islam
Orientalism is the study of Eastern religions and cultures
by non Muslims, generally from a Western perspective. This growing movement can be viewed, in
general, either as part of a cultural clash between civilizations or as a way
to maintain an intellectual interchange.
This
section was limited to the relationship between Islam and Orientalism. The study shows that researchers view Orientalism from two different perspectives. The first is based on the idea of order,
function, appreciation, respect and contribution where Orientalists
are seen, in general, as true researchers with pure motives for seeking
knowledge in order to share it with others and contribute to it in the name of
human science.
The
second perspective from which one can view Orientalism
is related to conflict, domination, imperialism, fanaticism, intolerance
and taking control over others. This
study labels this view as one of confrontation, where Orientalism
became a way to humiliate other cultures in the name of human science in an
academic setting. It seems that both Orientalists and Muslim scholars need to build new
approaches of openness and trust between each other.
There are
some Western scholars who share the views of Muslims on the origin of early Hadith. While many Orientalists have made contributions to the field of Islam
and Hadith literature, there are still many who are
restrictively skeptical--have prejudged or even are biased toward the secular
or Western views. It is impossible to
understand another culture with a biased approach. The field needs researchers who can study
areas of agreement. Moreover, for
non-Muslims a better understanding, not more judgment, seems to be vital in
order to study Islamic legacy in depth.