DefinePK

Abstract

Orientalism and these Orientalists are Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims who learned the language of the East, learned the Arabic language, and wrote about Islam and Muslims. Some of them wrote against Islam and Muslims, and some of them made their writing a means toward presenting an ugly image of Islam and Muslims. Some of them focused on a social and cultural aspect, while others focused on a religious or political aspect. They translated the Holy Qur’an, and then turned to the honorable biography of the Prophet - ﷺ- through criticism and research.
There are various factors and goals of Orientalism: Religious factor, Political and colonial factor, Economical factor, & Educational factor, but the main and primary factors of orientalism are religious and political as compared to other factors as per achieving its goals. The Orientalist approach in general was derived from the Western approach in its components, as there was no basis in the Western approach that was appropriate to the spirit and facts of the Prophet’s - ﷺ-biography, because the biography of the Prophet - ﷺ- is completely different from the details tested by experience and measured by the scale of reason & criticism. Orientalists followed different approaches in writing the biography or in criticizing it. The most important of these approaches are: The reverse approach, The impact and influence approach, The physical approach, The projective approach, The approach of denial, skepticism, and assumption, The construction and demolition approach.