A summary of the concepts held by the Ahl al-Sunnah.
Orientalism and its role in the endeavor to remove Islam from the reality of Muslims.
Orientalism, in its origin, is intended to be the study of Eastern cultures and their heritage.
This served as the gateway through which Westerners entered to understand the lives and thoughts of Muslims.
Consequently, they sought to alter this by attacking the truths of Islam and distorting its fundamental tenets.
They distorted these under the guise of scientific study of thousands of manuscripts and what they claim to be objective criticism.
Their actions in this field are summarized as follows:
First: Attacking the truth of Islam, the Qur'an, and Prophethood.
They claimed that Islam is a distorted development of Judaism and Christianity.
Or that it is a synthesis of a collection of Eastern religions.
Born from the friction between Arabian paganism and the religions of Persia and India.
They alleged that the Qur'an was authored by Muhammad, peace be upon him.
Or that a Christian monk dictated it to him.
This is an ancient fabrication.
The disbelievers of Quraysh claimed it before, and the Qur'an proved them liars.
As Allah the Exalted says:
﴾But those who disbelieve say, "This is not but a falsehood he invented, and another people assisted him in it."﴿
“Those who disbelieve say: This is naught but a lie that he hath invented, and other folk have helped him with it, so that they have produced a slander and a lie.” (25:4)
And the Exalted says:
“And We know well that they say: Only a man teacheth him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish, and this is clear Arabic speech.” (16:103)
“And We know well that they say: Only a man teacheth him. The speech of him at whom they falsely hint is outlandish, and this is clear Arabic speech.” (16:103)
They also echoed the allegations of the Rawafid (Shi'a extremists).
That the current Qur'an accounts for only one-third of the true Qur'an.
And that the rest was suppressed by the Companions, as they claim, for their own personal interests.
And that it is hidden with the Rawafid.
In what is falsely known as the Mushaf of Fatimah.
Yet Allah, glory be to Him, says:
“Lo! We, even We, reveal the Reminder, and lo! We verily are its Guardian.” (15:9)
They also claimed that the revelation sent down to the Prophet, peace be upon him,
was merely bouts of epilepsy and hysteria.
Or, at best, a form of poetic genius.
Every scholar of the Arabic language knows the extent of the falsehood and incoherence of this claim.
Yet Allah, glory be to Him, says:
“And We have not taught him (Muhammad) poetry, nor is it meet for him. This is naught else than a Reminder and a Lecture making plain,” (36:69)
“And We have not taught him (Muhammad) poetry, nor is it meet for him. This is naught else than a Reminder and a Lecture making plain,” (36:69)
They attacked the Sunnah.
Basing their arguments on the existence of weak and fabricated hadiths within it.
They sought to generalize this to the entire Sunnah.
Or to establish that it is unreliable based on that.
They forgot that those who pointed out that the Sunnah contains more than just authentic hadiths—
that there are weak and fabricated ones—
are the Muslim scholars themselves.
And that they clarified this through precise scientific methodology.
In which they distinguished between the authentic, the weak, and the fabricated.
In what is known as the sciences of hadith and the discipline of Jarh wa Ta'dil (criticism and appraisal).
They also attacked the major narrators and preservers of the Sunnah among the Companions,
such as Abu Hurayrah, may Allah be pleased with him,
and among the Tabi'un, such as al-Zuhri, may Allah have mercy on him.
Second: The claim that Islam has exhausted its purposes.
This is a chameleon-like call appearing in various forms.
Sometimes they say it is a moral call,
which came to extract Arab society from its bad habits.
At other times, they claim it is a social movement,
aiming to transform tribal society into a civil society.
And at others, they claim it is an immature revolution
against the class of wealthy masters in Makkah.
The implication of all this is
to consider Islam a transient phenomenon for a limited period of time,
having no relation to contemporary reality.
Third: Restricting Islam to devotional rituals,
as is the case in the narrow Western concept of Christianity.
And claiming that Islam has no involvement in matters of governance, social life, or economic activity.
They overlook the fact that the Holy Qur'an
is replete with verses that mandate ruling by the law of Allah,
establish the foundations for ethics and transactions,
and regulate the economy and trade.
Allah, glory be to Him, says:
﴾O you who have believed, enter into Islam completely [and perfectly]﴿
﴾and do not follow the footsteps of Satan.﴿
﴾Indeed, he is to you a clear enemy.﴿
Meaning: follow all the teachings of Islam.
Fourth:
The claim that Islamic fiqh is derived from Roman law.
They aim for two things behind this:
The first:
To invalidate the connection of fiqh to the law of Allah the Exalted.
The second:
To trivialize the adoption of contemporary man-made laws.
For as long as ancient fiqh
is derived, in their claim, from Roman origins,
what is the obstacle today to borrowing from French or Swiss law,
and so on?
Fifth:
The claim that the Shari'ah is incompatible with contemporary civilization.
Where they label Islam as a tribal, desert religion,
whose legislations do not harmonize with modern, civilized life,
and that it is the cause of the current backwardness of Muslims.
The truth is that the cause of this backwardness
is the Muslims' abandonment of the teachings of their religion,
which allowed the West to occupy their lands,
implement their conspiracies to keep them ignorant, and plunder their wealth.
When Muslims were holding fast to their religion,
they conquered the world and became its masters through truth, justice, and knowledge.
Sixth:
The call to write in colloquial dialects
and to abandon the Arabic language,
under the pretext that it is difficult and does not suit contemporary life,
and fabricating a conflict between the rules of grammar and syntax
and the styles of the Holy Qur'an.
Seventh:
The claim that Islam despises women
and does not enable them to live a dignified life,
supporting with this the West's suspicious call for the liberation of women.
The truth is that no religion or culture has done justice to women like Islam.
Eighth:
Distorting Islamic history
and confining it to the political aspect,
as if it were a series of disputes and conspiracies.
They portrayed rulers as being drowned in debauchery, amusement, slave girls, poetry, and singing.
They relied in this on the fabrications of the Rawafid and their forged historical writings.
Ninth:
Glorifying destructive movements and deviant sects,
and inflating their roles,
such as the Batiniyyah, for example,
and the Ubaydiyyun, who are falsely called the Fatimids,
as well as the Mu'tazilah, the Druze, and the Sufis.
And being keen to highlight and praise deviant figures,
such as al-Hallaj and Ibn Saba',
and Abdullah Ibn Maymun al-Qaddah,
and the Ubaydi ruler.
Tenth:
Trivializing Islamic civilization
and claiming that it is borrowed from Roman civilization.
Eleventh:
Excavating ancient civilizations
and reviving their knowledge,
such as the Pharaonic,
the Phoenician,
and the Assyrian,
so that Islam appears, at best,
as merely one factor among several factors of Eastern civilizations.
Twelfth:
Establishing a secular methodology for scientific research,
claiming impartiality and objectivity in it,
even though the truth is the opposite.
They insist on quoting from unreliable books
that have no relation to the subject they are judging.
They take from literature books
that which they use to criticize the history of the Prophetic hadith and its sciences,
and from history books that which they use to judge the history of fiqh.
Among the examples of books they revere are:
*Al-Aghani* by the libertine al-Isfahani,
and *Al-Hayawan* by the Mu'tazili al-Jahiz.
Finally,
the Orientalists proceed in their endeavor to destroy Islam
according to a studied plan.
Therefore, it changes according to the requirements of the situation
after evaluating the results of each stage.
Currently, they are keen on avoiding provocative methods
and overt attacks,
and are implementing instead
a plan to contain Islamic thought.