Comments on Flicken's Blog: Orienting the Orientalists

Salam Sheepoo,Thanks for your comment.Actually, my...

2008-02-15T20:05:00.000+02:00

Salam Sheepoo,

Thanks for your comment.

Actually, my opinion, your opinion, and the opinion of Queen Elizabeth doesn't really matter. What matters is what really happened at the time. I am trying to avoid quoting references b/c otherwise, I will have to start writing publications as opposed to blogging. The point is that the Qur'an most definitely was used as a fundamental source of Arabic grammar rules. This is documented in a number of texts and I have studied this with a living, qualified scholar.

There is no doubt that the Qur'an is inimitable, but is also Arabic. The Arabs understood it and recognized it as not only being in their language, but also as being the very height of their language. For this reason, they deduced many of the rules of Arabic grammar from it.

As for Sibawayh and other grammarians using the speech of Arabs to derive the rules of grammar, this only happened under very stringent circumstances, where the speaker was known not to have been affected by other languages or odd dialects of Arabic. Instead of saying, "limited selections from Post-Islamic literature", I should have said, "limited selections from Post-Islamic usage." Other than that, the quote is historically correct as stated.

And Allah knows best.

You say"the rules of Classical Arabic were formed ...

2008-01-31T20:29:00.000+02:00

You say
"the rules of Classical Arabic were formed based on the Qur'an, Prophetic utterances, Pre-Islamic poetry, and limited selections from Post-Islamic literature"

I would definitely differ with the first claim. Sibawayhi, the earliest of the Arabic grammarians, used to collect data for his book Al-Kitab by listening and noticing how the Arabs speak, and the Arabs were speaking for centuries before that, while the Quran was hardly 200 years old at Sibawayhi's time. Thus, to claim that Arabic grammar is based on Quran is incorrect; in-fact, Quran has taken Arabic Grammar to such heights that the balagha contained therein has become inimitable. The same can be said of Prophetic utterances.

Just my 2 cents,

Jazak Allah!

I understand what you mean, but that may be in par...

2007-12-06T13:01:00.000+02:00

I understand what you mean, but that may be in part because of the lack of cooperation between 'east' and 'west'. Which i'A will change in the future!

It also depends on the institution itself - I know that many, for example, do not even let you begin your PhD thesis until you show near-native fluency in a major Middle Eastern language (usually Arabic), an advanced level in a second (usually Persian - especially for hadith and so on), and also require at least one European language too (French or German usually). These are tested in multiple exams in the years prior to thesis research. So this idea of not having 'original sources' available is inaccurate - many of the top Near Eastern Studies departments have tens if not hundreds of thousands of original source material available - both classical and modern works in a variety of languages (Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and so on). Check the bibliography of Jonathan Brown's PhD thesis for an example of this - 32 pages of primary sources in Arabic and Persian, plus others scattered about as secondary sources. Something like 200+ classical, medieval and modern sources relating to hadith, history and so on.

I think one thing that needs to be made clear is that no one would do a PhD or whatever in a western institution and expect to become a shaykh or mufti - no, rather one does a PhD in order to be a historian or academic and the distinction is clear - especially amongst those actually in the field who would be the first to say so.

But, that does not mean that one can't study under shuyukh whilst still pursuing doctorate study in the west - Sherman Jackson, for example did this, as did `Umar Faruq `Abdullah of the Nawawi Foundation and plenty of others more recently; sincere Muslims who seek knowledge, as well as being historians and academics for their career.

Lets be honest here though bro - the majority of Islamic literature is unavailable to both Muslims and non-Muslims - in both the east and west - due to the mountains of rotting manuscripts which remain uncatalogued and uncharted for research use. Another blogger (Abu'l Hussein) who is currently at Azhar has said in passing a number of times that he believes less than ten to fifteen percent of major manuscripts have been edited in critical edition and published. So this is not helpful for anyone, let alone the Muslims!

Incidentally, a number of critical editions have been edited and published by 'western' scholars too - my own university library, for example, has a critical edition of Maturidi's "Kitab al-Tawhid", amongst others and I am currently working as part of a team editing a critical edition of a late-Ottoman sharh of "al-Fiqh al-Akbar". Of course, my Arabic is not deep enough (yet) to be able to do this directly, but it is a team effort. It is not all doom and gloom - but requires mutual cooperation and development. Especially when there are many important manuscripts kept in University collections in Europe and the US (eg. Leiden and so on).

Again, this is slightly detracting from the initial topic of 'Orientalism', which as I initially said is changing and has been changing for some time. The issue of qualification is a separate issue from accurately reflecting Muslim thought and sentiments in ones work, and a great many academics in the West generally do this. At least the ones that I read. I maintain that the issue of 'originality' is not entirely accurate either. Yes, to get a doctorate one generally has to contribute an 'original' piece of research, but this is how history and so on has always worked - building on top of the precedent set by others before, and investigating further. I see no difference between this and the 'Islamic' sciences either - was Shatibi's contribution to usul al-fiqh unacceptable because he advanced a new paradigm for legal though based upon the pre-existing work of Ghazali, Razi and others? Sure, he did this by using the mechanism of taqlid to keep the continuity of thought and knowledge, but his work was very original at the time even though many take it for granted today. The issue of Mustafa al-Zarqa too, for example, and his series of books "al-fiqh al-Islami fi thawbihi al-jadeed" - there are plenty of modern scholars who have broken new ground whilst still remaining connected to and part of the tradition, Zarqa is one who immediately comes to mind. This is how a tradition remains relevant in every age, after all. Again, there are those who work on the issues of clarification (through studies and annotation), and those who delve in to deeper, perhaps more 'uncharted' grounds. I don't see a problem with this at all - it is clear that every society has done this including the Muslims.

This is a great discussion bro! :)
Ma'a salama

Salam Dawood,Thanks for your informative comments....

2007-12-06T06:56:00.000+02:00

Salam Dawood,

Thanks for your informative comments. My blog entries and comments are often written in haste, and I look forward to people like you to give informed feedback.

What's important to realize is that the majority of the corpus of Islamic literature is still unavailable to Western academics, as it's in Arabic and Persian. As such, many people are centering their academic contributions at this point at making this corpus available. (The fact that NYU accepted a badly translated Hanbali fiqh manual as a PhD dissertation points to the acute need for any sort of textual migration to European languages.) Thus, the existence of these migratory works (whether translations or summaries) does not negate the fundamental desire for originality that so many academics aim at. Compare this, for example, to late classical Muslim authors, who often focussed on clarity and accuracy because originality would essentially amount to departing from the tried and true conclusions established by earlier generations of scholars.

Asalam 'Alaykum... great blog by the way Flicken.H...

2007-11-30T22:27:00.000+02:00

Asalam 'Alaykum... great blog by the way Flicken.

Hmmm, I am not sure about your assertion really, there are various different 'camps' inside academia that are all working at the same time. I am not at all convinced that academia is concerned with 'originality' at all costs... this is, of course, depending on the area in question.

For example, some of the key recent reading I have been doing regarding hadith, has followed these lines:

Brown, J. (2004) Criticism of the Proto-Hadith Canon: Al-Daraqutni's Adjustement of the Sahihayn [concerned about dealing with al-Daraqutni's criticism of Bukhari and Muslim, and situating it in its proper place]
Brown, J. (2006) The Canonization of al-Bukhari and Muslim:The Formation and Function of the Sunni Hadith Canon [concerned with studying the process which led to the works of Bukhari and Muslim becoming accepted by the Sunni scholars as canon - which took a period of time and was not unanimous until long after their lifetime]

Dickinson, E. N. (1992) The Development of Early Muslim Hadith Criticism: The 'Taqdima' of Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi (d.327-938) [Incidentally, this academic is responsible for the recent published translation of Muqaddima Ibn al-Salah]

Fadel, M. (1995) Ibn Hajar's Hady al-Sari: A Medieval Interpretation of the Structure of al-Bukhari's 'al-Jami al-Sahih' - Introduction and Translation {Mohammad Fadel is well known, so needs no comment]

Ibramsa, H. R. (1999) The Development of the Science of Hadith: An Analytical Study of Ibn Hajar's Contribution to the Science of Hadith [This is a fascinating study of Ibn Hajar's work and contribution in posterity to the science of hadith]

Lucas, S. (2002) The Arts of Hadith Compilation and Criticism: A Study of the Emergence of Sunnism in the Third-Ninth Century [This is a fascinating thesis looking at key muhaddithun and biographical data in order to chart the emergence of Sunnism at its most formative period after the Prophet and Sahaba]

Melchert, C. (2001) Traditionist-Jurisprudents and the Framing of Islamic Law
Melchert, C. (2002) The Piety of the Hadith Folk
Melchert, C. (2005) The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal - How It Was Composed and What Distinguishes It from the Six Books [Melchert has done a lot of interesting work and is well worth reading even though we may not agree with all of his thoughts]

Motzki, H. (1991) The Musnnaf of 'Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanani as a Source of Authentic Ahadith of the First Century A.H.
Motzki, H. (1999) The Role of Non-Arab Converts in the Development of Early Islamic Law
Motzki, H. (2001) The Collection of the Qur'an - A Reconsideration of Western Views in Light of Recent Methodological Developments
Motzki, H. (2001) The Jurisprudence of Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri - A Source Critical Study
Motzki, H. (2005) Dating Muslim Traditions - A Survey [Motzki is fascinating reading and well worth a look at if you can get hold of any of these journal articles or his books. There is a lot of good historical information in his work]

Now, most of these articles are not really bringing anything "new" at all, they are perhaps bringing fresh insight on to old issues, but this is how academia works - in the West and the Muslim world. Many of these works are similar to 'tahlil' and other key genres common in Muslim academia - taking key works and authors, studying them deeply (both their life and work) and discussing the key issues they raise with insight. Others are more historical in nature, but all are representative of at least one 'camp' in contemporary scholarship - in this case the area of hadith. We can also see how, for example, Brown and Lucas (both Muslim as far as I know) have disagreed with specific points from the likes of Melchert and Dickenson (both definitely non-Muslim), but still continued engaging the discourse and contributing.

It is not as black and white as you are making out in your comment, and this is a good thing!

Dawood,Thank you for your informative comment. It...

2007-11-30T09:46:00.000+02:00

Dawood,

Thank you for your informative comment. It's good to see that things are progressing in western studies of Islam. Some fundamental issues remain, though. One is that academia is concerned with originality at the cost of mostly everything else. There is still a long way to go before western studies of Islam reach saturation, but eventually, all honest examinations of certain issues will be covered and all that will remain will be rehashing or coming up with original, yet intellectually dishonest, examinations. This is not the case in subjects that will continue to evolve, like the fiqh of modern issues, etc. However, it will become the case with many subjects, such as linguistic analysis of the Qur'an, classical hadith compilation, etc.

Great post! The good thing is that these days ther...

2007-11-30T04:26:00.000+02:00

Great post! The good thing is that these days there are plenty of Muslims getting Ph.D. and so on and producing some amazing scholarship - the likes of Dr. Jackson, Dr. Fadel and so on from 10 or more years ago, plus the "new school" of Dr. Scott Lucas, Dr. jonathan Brown, Shahab Ahmed and so on.

They are known for their use of classical and medieval sources, in multiple langauges (e.g. in Dr. Brown's study of the canonization process of Bukhari and Muslim he used both Arabic and Persian sources, as well as French, German and English).

On top of that there are non-Muslim intellectuals who are academic in the real sense, and although we may not agree with everything they say, they do use classical and medieval work so support their points (which are generally not that far off point). The likes of Christopher Melchert and Harald Motzki in hadith studies, for example, are excellent examples of this.

Islamic Studies in the West is becoming a much more exciting area these days - most of the "old gods" (Schacht, Goldziher and co.) are long gone, and although still get referenced (as any 'classic' in a genre does), many (if not most) people have moved away from the more crazy ideas they had - check out Harald Motzki's work on the Musannaf of 'Abd al-Razzaq al-San'ani for example). This is also because of the increase in critical editions of key texts published in the Muslim world and elsewhere, which helps (e.g. Goldziher and Schacht looked at Imam Shafi'i's work as an example of the muhaddithun - yet not any of the later works really, so of course their views were a bit off because things developed!)

I feel very excited to inshallah be moving in to this area more deeply with my studies - although want to focus on the development of contemporary usul al-fiqh rather than hadith and so on. We are living in interesting times for sure!

To the first 2 anonymous comments: I really hope ...

2007-11-03T23:27:00.000+02:00

To the first 2 anonymous comments: I really hope you're tongue in cheek.

If not: The guy is writing a blog- which needs no referrences other than his own thoughts on the subject. Had he been writing an academic article I'm positive he most surely would have quoted referrences.

Either way you are still funny.

Jazak Allah khair. I had a murtad "teacher" in co...

2007-10-30T01:50:00.000+02:00

Jazak Allah khair. I had a murtad "teacher" in college (I say teacher because quotes because he was really a student that talked about things that no one else really knew about so therefore he was deemed an expert so he was allowed to teach classes (?!))... who tried to tell me there were grammatical errors in the Qur'an. I didn't know what to say as my Arabic is not at such a high level (and this was even before my Qasid days). I could not help but to wonder though why this concept was not more touted in the face of Muslims. And there you have it, because it is full of errors.

And it would be helpful if you could quote some re...

2007-10-29T23:57:00.000+02:00

And it would be helpful if you could quote some references.

Which works are you referring to?

2007-10-29T23:56:00.000+02:00

Which works are you referring to?