 |
|
| Director General | Education | Sciences | Culture | CPID | Cooperation | Secretariat of GC & EC | | Home | Contact |
|
|
|
|
| Director General | Education | Sciences | Culture | CPID | Cooperation | Secretariat of GC & EC | | Home | Contact |
|
|
The Orientalist View of
the Noble Prophet (PBUH)
Dr. Sabah Zankana(*)
Introduction:
The message of the seal of all messengers, Prophet Mohammed Ibn Abdullah (PBUH), tremendously impacted on the religious and cultural landscape of his times. This impact has stretched to our age, and will continue to do so until the Day of Judgement.
Indeed, the religious landscape was transformed and the people of the Arab Peninsula embraced the new faith. Islam spread to the rest of the planet for the holy promise to be fulfilled “It is He Who hath sent His Messenger with guidance and the Religion of Truth, to proclaim it over all religion.”(1) The followers of Christianity in the Arab Peninsula and surrounding areas had found what they were searching for in Islam and embraced it, except for a few who remained faithful to their monasteries and churches.
But the Crusade Wars and the coming into play of the political element of European princes and rulers set the fires of hatred and hostility alight against Islam and Muslims. These were followed by other currents on which the rulers and popes spent generously in order to study Islam and the life of Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), sabotage their pure image and stop the spread of Islam in the Western parts of the world, greatly inspired by the personality of the Prophet (PBUH), his book and his Sunnah.
Then emerged the colonial movements which set out to discover countries, continents and peoples, map out the best routes to penetrate them and find the means and ways of securing a colonial foothold in the lands of Islam. One of these movements was orientalism which sought to understand Islam, only this time as a way of serving the interests of colonial powers.
In the following and third phase, research centres, universities and competent government departments in powerful countries attempted to tarnish the image of Islam and the Prophet (PBUH) and denigrate Muslims as a tactic aimed at weakening them and breaking their spirit and morale, and at alienating them from their religion, heritage, culture and identity.
The present study will address some aspects of these various stages and how to deal with them and with real cases which represent these stages.
I chose to open with the words of a famous contemporary researcher and philosopher, Will Durant, author of major and comprehensive books about the history of civilizations. He was Christian, studied history and spent almost eight years of his life amidst Muslims and in research and study centres and universities. In his book 'The Story of Civilization', Durant wrote that in 569AD was born Amina, the greatest figure of the Middle Ages, or maybe the greatest figure of all times …
While this sentence may be positive and translated into words of a great universal truth, this great writer has erred in ways that affect the fundamentals of faith or historically proven facts. The author carried a Western culture and had been steeped in a Christian education, after which he set out to explore the history of Islam on site, amidst Muslim societies.
In order to have a clear picture of this study, we will start by demonstrating the importance of the topic: 'How Orientalists Perceive Prophet Mohamed (PBUH)'. Then we will refer to some factors of influence which account for this perception and the orientalists' own influence on the course of events, currents and decision makers. After that, we will address some of the phases of the relationship between orientalism, Islam and the Islamic world, and we will quote examples of stances and sayings. To conclude, we will attempt to infer what needs to be done and the stances to be taken in order to redress this relationship, and correct the image etched in the minds of other societies on Islam, on Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) and on Muslims.
Importance of studying the perception of orientalists:
Our intent here is not to go into an extensive study of orientalism and its schools, or whether all those who have taken some interest in Arabs, their history, language and the geography of their countries can be called orientalists, nor do we call here for pondering the term 'Orient', what it involves and what it excludes. It is not our intent either to analyse the term 'West' and wonder whether it applies to one unified block or a group of schools, currents or movements, or address any of the other issues that scholars and academicians usually address.
We will limit ourselves to saying that Orientalists are those who wrote, lectured or theorized about issues related to the East, its culture and history, whether their intention was purely academic, exploratory -born out of curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, or pursuing political designs or instructions and power-related, military, economic, cultural or missionary goals. They all share one common denominator, namely their claim to know the Orient or parts of it. This explains why the fruits of their labour were used by policy makers and other parties in the West to decide on various issues related to the states and peoples of the Eastern world, including the Islamic world.
Western countries do not move in a random way but base their actions on previously prepared studies and research. If these preliminary studies fail to provide sufficient and satisfactory answers, these countries will resort to additional research, expeditions and new studies to locate the missing pieces of the puzzle, then they will pore over the means and ways best suited to reach their goals. If we understand this modus operandi and keep it in mind, we will see that all the studies, travel literature and theories put forward by orientalists represent the cornerstone in any actual or future policy-making in Western countries.
Once we acknowledge that the vision defining these orientalits' production will also flow into the media and educational curricula and will have at the receiving end the young generations, we will understand why the minds of today's generations are imbued with prejudicial perceptions, how they are prompted into action at the smallest catalyst and how the chain reaction among the components of the West flows in the same predictable direction, giving us the impression of a grand scheme at work and a greater force at play.
Once we acquire this understanding and knowledge, we will be able to identify the appropriate ways of dealing with the West and its political apparatuses, media, universities and institutes.
The methods resorted to by the West in dealing with Muslims and with the East will not improve if the Westerners do not change, reform and sift through the tremendous historical debris which weighs down on their minds and mentality and rules their feelings and hearts.
Phases of friction:
As mentioned in this study's preface, when Islam emerged and Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) began to spread the word, some followers of the Jewish and Christian faiths were living in parts of the Arab Peninsula. Realising how many of the new religion's features were similar to their own and how this new message fulfilled some of the prophecies made in their own books, many Christians converted to Islam. When the Islamic conquests began in lands that were part of the Byzantine Empire, the populations of these countries of whom some were Christians embraced Islam, except for a small number of them.
According to Will Durant's book 'The Story of Civilization', Christians had found in Islam the fulfilment of verses 42 and 43 of chapter 21 of Mathew's Bible: “Jesus saith unto them… Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.”
This was further confirmed by the Quran in the holy verse: “And their similitude in the Gospel is: like a seed which sends forth its blade, then makes it strong; it then becomes thick, and it stands on its own stem, (filling) the sowers with wonder and delight. As a result, it fills the Unbelievers with rage at them.”(2) The Prophet (PBUH) concluded a pact with the Christians of the Arab Peninsula and granted them his protection against a small tax which they paid and lived in all peace and safety.
The renowned Iranian scholar and researcher Professor Mujtaba Minawi says in a study published in 1969 as part of the book 'Mohammed (PBUH), Seal of Prophets: “Over fourteen centuries, the most powerful and best prepared enemy of Islam has been the Christians who have departed from justice and equity and plotted against Islam, to the exception of those who found the right way via their reasoning and discernment and accordingly did not show hostility to this religion.” (Page 172, vol 2)
Minawi asserts that the conflict between Christianity and Judaism was fierce and led to several wars and long battles over many centuries. He describes what the Spaniard kings did after reclaiming Spain from the Muslim Arabs and Berbers, engaging in torture, killing and threatening with exile all non-Christians to force them to convert to Christianity. Those atrocities have remained etched in history as an example of cruelty and butchery.
As for the Jews, Will Durant writes in his book 'The Story of Civilization' that many passages of the Torah predicted the coming of the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH). The Jews also found many common factors between their religion and the new one and felt that it represented a continuation of their own religion. However, when they learnt that the new faith considered that their religion had been distorted and that they had persecuted the Christ, they withdrew away and closed ranks in and around Yathrib and started to cooperate with Quraysh against the budding state of Medinah. Faced with this, the Prophet (PBUH) was forced to drive them away from Medinah. Yet, they continued to plot against him and to insult Muslims, which finally led the latter to besiege them and then order them to move away from the outskirts of Medina, and so on and so forth.
Christians in Abyssinia were placed on a pedestal by Muslims. And the kings of Abyssinia (Habesha) nurtured the ambition of spreading out into Arab territories. History tells of the noble conduct of the king of Abyssinia when he received the Muslim Muhajeers with Jaafar Ibn Abu Taleb leading the delegation. He listened to the holy verses, and perceived in them a beautiful depiction of Jesus, peace be upon him, and his mother. He gave the Muslims safe conduct and refused to hand them over to the emissaries of Quraysh.
With the spread of Islam in Mesopotamia and its drawing nearer to the frontiers with the Christian Byzantine Empire, fear from the new religion and its spread grew among the kings of the European statelets.
At another phase, when the Islamic civilization was living its golden age and Europe was wallowing in total intellectual and social darkness, the movement of translation from Latin languages began and various scientific and philosophical schools emerged and prospered.
At that time, there was no collective awareness among European rulers and scientists about the extent of the scientific progress that Muslims had achieved. But there was nonetheless a feeling of regression and jealousy on the one hand, and fear of the spread of Muslim sovereignty, on the other. At the time, no movement that could rival the Islamic thought and Islamic civilizational currents existed in Europe.
Towards the 7th century of the hegira, and after the division that affected the central government in Baghdad, giving way to the emergence of statelets and to a power conflict among the dynasties ruling the Islamic world then, Europe's princes and rulers took advantage of the situation and rallied their armies to regain control over the 'Holy City', Al Quds Al Sharif. In this, they were supported by the Church's bishops and popes who issued ordinances exhorting for the liberation of the cradle of the Christ, peace be upon him, and of wrenching the holy land from the hands of the “heathens.”
This phase, which lasted for almost two centuries of ebb and flow, victories and defeats, was marked by a fervent intellectual and spiritual current which focused all its efforts on attacking Islam and the noble Prophet (PBUH). Such movements made use of their presence in the region at certain points in time to dispatch their scholars and priests on missions to learn about Islam, prepare the counterattack, and denigrate and attack the person of the Prophet (PBUH) since he represented the beating heart and nerve of the Islamic thought and way of life.
Professor Mujtaba Minawi says: 'The Christians fell short because of the attacks and military expeditions against the lands of Muslims who had conquered these lands without shedding a drop of blood.'
In a lecture delivered in 1957, the renowned philosopher Bertrand Russell said that the attributes of chivalry and honour in Muslims were immense and striking through their behaviour towards the Christians who were considered disbelievers and apostates, adding that the Muslim chivalry exceeded by far that of the Byzantine Empire itself towards Christians.
Echoes of fanaticism and extremism can still be felt today in Western thought and writings when they address the subject of the Crusade Wars.
Professor Naderbur Naqshind, a lecturer at the German University of Halle says that the age of renaissance in Europe alleviated the aggressiveness and vehement approach that used to mark orientalist writings. This was for example perceived in books such as Gotthold Lessing's “Nathan the Wise” written in the late 18th century. However, the contemptuous and derogatory stance continued to prevail among orientalists.
Professor Mujtaba Minaw maintains that the first European author to have written about Islam with a degree of objectivity was William of Malmesbury (12th century England). This is corroborated by Norman Daniel in his book 'Islam and the West', published in Edinburgh in 1960.
Minawi goes on to say that the behaviour of Christian Europeans towards Islam continued to manifest itself through the use of the sword, force and brutality, and was seldom tempered by tolerance and ease towards Muslims till the 18th century. Once the Europeans established their military and economic superiority, they proceeded to the translation into European languages of the literary, historical and religious books and works of Muslims.
We must not forget to name another author who became famous for his objective writings about Islam and the Prophet (PBUH). This was Petros Alphonse, a Jew of Spanish descent who converted to Christianity in 1106, then travelled to Britain where he tried to spread Islamic sciences and published a book on the life of the noble Prophet (PBUH).
But these two examples do no represent a general trend of understanding and communion with the Orient and Islam, but rather rare exceptions.
In a study titled “Orientalists and Muslims” which was published in the book 'Mohammed (PBUH), Seal of Prophets', Mr Ghulam Reda Saidi quotes a sentence of Arnold Toynbee, “for the past four or five centuries of interaction and exposure between the West and the rest of the world, the Islamic world received many slaps from the West, the like of which the West did not receive from it” (page 272).
Furthermore, a number of orientalists cast doubts as to the veracity of the writings left behind by the Prophet (PBUH) because the famous biographies (As-Sira by Ibn Hisham, Al Maghazi by Al Waqidi, At-Tabaqat by Ibn Saad, and Attarikh by Attabari), had been written several centuries after the fulfilment of the prophecy. Some of these orientalists included the German Theodor Nöldeke in his book 'The History of the Quran'(3), and Goldziher in his book 'Muslim Studies'. A number of other orientalists followed their lead such as the German Hubert Gareme, the Belgian Henry Lammens, the Italian Leone Caetani, and the German Joseph Schakht.
Then two other researchers came along, the Dane F. Buhl, a Protestant Cleric, and the Swede Tor Andrac, both of whom tried to explain some of these misunderstandings.
But the great German orientalist Johann Wilhem Fük put an end to these allegations and theories and confirmed the veracity of what had been reported on the Prophet in a book he called 'The Authenticity of the Arab Prophet'.
The writings of Montgomery Watt in the fifties and sixties of the twentieth century were of equal importance, as were those of Maxime Rondinson and Rudoldf (Rudi) Paret's book 'Mohamed and the Quran'. All of these scholars studied the historical texts in a scientific and critical manner and in most cases confirmed their authenticity.
Rather than go into the detail of the doubts cast by these and other people, we prefer to analyse the course taken by orientalists particularly when it came to addressing the subjects of Islam and Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).
The emergence of new schools of thought in the West has influenced an important share of intellectual activities. One of these schools was the Hermeneutic phenomenology of Heidegger and Gadamer which attached utmost importance to texts in the study, authentication and inference of meanings and concepts, contrary to the former schools which focused more on subjective circumstances. Then the post-modern, post-metaphysical schools saw light and great thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu and Jacques Derrida emerged, all of whom managed to break the hard shell of Western arrogance and highlight the merit of other cultures and civilizations.
Condescension continues:
Nonetheless, other phenomena continue to betray the existence of a superiority complex in the West towards the Islamic world and its noble Prophet (PBUH). Among these, we can cite Salmane Rushdie's book which triggered the ire of Muslims, was condemned by Imam Khomeini and provoked scholars throughout the Islamic world into action.
There were also the caricatures which first appeared in the Danish press, then spread to other European media and caused a considerable furore.
Last but not least, we can point out the statements made by the American president and where he used the term “Crusades” for which he apologized, but then he relapsed by using the term 'Islamic fascism'.
Then, Pope Benedict XVI, the erudite philosopher, gave a lecture in a German University which cast light on many confused issues which dominate the Christian thinking as well as European and Zionist thought.
In that lecture, the Pope tried to prove that Muslims were people of force and sword and that knowledge and reason were concepts foreign to their behaviour.
Two noteworthy observations:
The Pope's lecture came at a very sensitive time and juncture and contained hints and statements that deserve analysis and study. Following are passages from a study published by Dr. Abdulaziz Othmane Altwaijri, Director General of the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, and in which he says(4): 'That the Emperor's interlocutor was a Persian hints to the feelings of apprehension as to Iran's persistence to acquire nuclear technology; which poses a threat to the West and to Israel, both of which were mentioned by the Pope when he made a reference to the relation between Judaism and Christianity and their convergence with Greek thought. The Pope says: “Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed the Lord of heaven and earth.”
According to Dr. Altwaijri, it has been historically proven that it was the kings of Byzantium, including Manuel II, who first ordered the Crusades against the Muslim Orient when they urged Europe's kings and the Catholic Popes to lead military expeditions against the Muslims (Arabs, Persians, Seljuk and Ottoman Turks). Manuel II, himself, quoted by Pope Benedict XVI, ordered the Crusade expedition led by the Hungarian King Sigmund against Muslims, and which failed in 1396.
Dr. Altwaijri goes on saying that: “Emperor Manuel II fought bloody wars with his brother Andronicus IV, and his nephew John VII, to seize the Byzantine throne and used the sword to defeat and eliminate his rivals. What is most striking is that Emanuel II concluded a friendship and peace agreement with Sultan Mohamed Al-Fatih. The agreement stipulated the payment of Jizya (poll tax) to Muslims. This perhaps explains Emanuel II's hatred for Muslims and Islam.’(5)
Concerning this lecture, Dr. Altwaijri says: “This text cited by the Pope in his lecture on the link between faith and reason -a text which, incidentally, had nothing to do with the main subject of the lecture- was deliberately chosen to draw attention to some issues of concern to western societies, which are mostly Christian. This is even more relevant in view of the growing interest in the study of and conversion to Islam by large numbers of Westerners, and given the increasing visibility of the Islamic presence in these societies. The text was also meant to draw attention to Turkey's eagerness to join the European Union, and to remind all that this country was the heir of the Ottoman Empire which held a siege to Emperor Manuel behind the walls of Constantinople where he took refuge after he fled the court of Sultan Bayazid I in the city of Bursa.”(6)
Striking features of contemporary times:
It is true that awareness has increased and that the information and communication revolution has removed many barriers and crossed continents. New intellectual schools have certainly turned the sceptical theories into a thing of the past. It is equally true that some scholars and orientalists have shown objectivity and fairness in reviewing the life of Messenger Mohamed (PBUH) and in shedding light on the Islamic history and research in the project of Islam. But other features remain unchanged despite differences in the means used:
1- The slur campaigns against the Prophet (PBUH) by Western entities and individuals have increased.
2- These campaigns are making a greater use of the information and communication revolution to cause influence ripples regionally and internationally, ensuring a far-reaching and rapid spread.
3- Phobia about the spread of Islam in the Western world is still motivating many people, especially among the clergy.
4- The rise of the Christian-Zionist trend with its provocative policies, its blindness to the other's truth and its claims of monopoly over the truth. It allows its myriad mechanisms, instruments and symbols to use any means of coercion and persecution in order to impose its vision on the rest of the world.
5- The incomplete, doctored and embedded studies that have served colonial and expansionist purposes still dominate the general mentality of authors, reporters, media, and people in charge of culture and education in the West.
We need to take stock of the situation that is facing the Islamic world today in its values, history, present and achievements. We need to act without tergiversation or hesitation, without injustice or repression, and without frustration or exaggeration.
The role of scholars and thinkers remains of paramount importance in confronting these unhealthy phenosmena.
There is also the highly important role of Muslims in weeding out all that may be adversely received by the Other as to the tolerant faith of Islam and the moral Islamic conduct, but without forfeiting the constants and fundaments that Islam and the true Sunnah affirmed and that were further confirmed by reason, logic and the quest for the greater good.
Islamic states also have an important role to play in coordinating their actions and joining ranks against the destructive campaigns, and in making dialogue a means towards achieving these goals and laying down international legal rules that ban, or even consider as a crime, the act of denigrating sanctities.
(*) Advisor to the Head of the Judiciary in the Islamic Republic of Iran
(1) Tawba, verse 33.
(2) Al Fath, verse 29.
(3) The first edition of the first volume of this book was published in 1898AD, and the second one in 1909AD. The second part was published in 1920. In 1937, a student of the author (Otto Pretzel) published a third volume. In 2000, Olms reprinted the three parts in one volume. The first Arabic translation was published in 2004 by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation which is active in development in the Middle East. The translation was the work of George Tamer, a Lebanese lecturer at the University of Arlengen. Dr Radwan Sayyed says in an article published in the 'Tasamuh' Magazine (fall of 2004, page 290): 'The philological approach adopted in this book is not suitable for an in-depth reading of the Quran. Furthermore, this book has become obsolete and therefore of no value to specialists, apart from being a historical relic.' (The editor)
(4) Cf. full text in Arabic, French and English in Issue No 24 of the present journal, Rabat, 2007, and in ISESCO website: www.isesco.org.ma.
(5) Ibid.
(6) Ibid.
|
top of the page |
| - All Rights Reserved To ISESCO 2010 - | |