Orientalism and Muslim Historical Critical Methods

Abstract

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Apart from the orientalists` ignorance, bias and grudges, there is a very basic academic reason which takes them away from the position that Muslims hold in the study of Islam and Islamic Civilization, even if they try hard to be objective in their studies. That reason, in its core, is epistemic. Muslims were forced to believe only in the truth. For that, they devised methods to determine the truthfulness of knowledge. In this article, I particularly discussed the methods with which they studied the authenticity of a transmitted knowledge; historicity. Two methods of transmission are discussed; Tawātur and Khabr al-Wāhid. What these concepts are and how they are helpful in determining the truthfulness of knowledge are explained. How tawātur provides absolute knowledge, while khabr al-wāhid does not. These methods are named as Muslim Historical Critical Methods for better understanding. Orientalists rejected many authentic contents of Islam because they were ignorant of these methods. Therefore, their rejections are sometime too absurd for Muslims to believe in the objectivity of their research.