Orientalists' Criticisms on Hadith Science: A Research Study

علم حدیث پر مستشرقین کی تنقیدات کا تحقیقی مطالعہ

Abstract

If the Orientalist movement is considered a center of anti-Islamic activities, it is a fact that such activities began with the very advent of Islam. Even before it took the form of an organized movement, non-Muslims periodically expressed propaganda, opposition, and hostility towards Islam in general and the Prophet of Islam in particular, throughout various periods. One opinion is that the failure of the Crusades by Europe became the catalyst and cause of this movement. After being defeated on the battlefield, Westerners found no better way to harm Islam and the Islamic world on an intellectual and ideological front than to criticize Islam, Islamic beliefs, the fundamental sources of Sharia, the Prophet of Islam, and Islamic society and civilization. The reality is that Europe, since the Middle Ages (476 AD), has gone through the darkness of ignorance, the likes of which perhaps no other human society has ever experienced. Europe was an enemy of all forms of knowledge without religious literature, and wherever any scholar, philosopher, or thinker raised their head, they were killed. During this period, schools were forcibly closed, and millions of books were set on fire. In short, their history is tainted with incidents of hostility towards humanity, knowledge, and scholars. Their economic, social, intellectual, and moral conditions were in decline.