THE CASE OF MUSLIM SCHOLARSHIP
(THE CASE OF NON-MUSLIM SCHOLARSHIP)  (PART  II)
Muhammad Ismail Marcinkowski

1. General Introduction

The present contribution constitutes the second and final part[1] of an essay of which the first part had already been published in a previous issue of this journal. In the course of the first part, some of the general shortcomings and deficiencies with regard to Muslim historiography as well as the problem of the proper perception of the history of the Muslims from the part of Muslim scholars had been focused on. In that context the present contributor had also emphasized the difference between the two expressions ‘Islamic history’ and ‘history of the Muslims’, insomuch as he gave his preference to the latter. The present second part shall outline selected features of non-Muslim scholarship on the civilization and history of the Muslims, which is usually in a rather generalizing manner referred to as ‘orientalism’. In the course of the first part the present contributor has pleaded in support of a more scholarly and above all, critical and rational attitude of Muslim historians and scholars on various aspects of the civilization of the Muslims with regard to the respective subject of their research. It is interesting to notice that an apparently quite similar and supporting statement had already been made by Iqbal, who in the following tries to find a balance between the requirements of reason(ing) and accurate historiographical scholarship and steadfastness in religion:

The growth of historical sense in Islam is a fascinating subject. The Quranic appeal to experience, the necessity to ascertain the exact sayings of the Prophet and the desire to furnish permanent sources of inspiration to posterity—all these forces contributed to produce such men as Ibn i  Isḥāq, ٌabarī and Mas‘ūdī. But history, as an art of firing the reader’s imagination, is only a stage in the development of history as a genuine science. The possibility of a scientific treatment of history means a wider experience, a greater maturity of practical reason, and finally a fuller realization of certain basic ideas regarding the nature of life and time.[2]

Non-Muslim scholarship (a term which, in the view of the present writer, appears to be somewhat more preferable to other expressions, such as ‘western’, which degrades the originally universal message of the Religion of Islam[3] to a quasi-ethnic ‘eastern’ or ‘oriental’ phenomenon, or ‘Orientalist’ , which is too inclusive since it encompasses also Sinology and other fields not related to the study of Islam) tends to emphasize the supposed ‘irrational’ procedure of Muslim historiography, and in fact of any non-secular approach.[4] In the following we shall have a glance on some selected aspects of the manner how non-Muslim scholarship is perceiving the civilization of the Muslims.

2. On ‘Orientalism’ And Other Labels

Edward W. Said,[5] a multifaceted and prominent non-Muslim Palestinian Arab author and politician, whose highly controversial book Orientalism catapulted him into the limelight of public attention, presented with regard to the rather academic connotation of ‘Orientalism’ (thus to something which has been defined by the present writer above as ‘non-Muslim scholarship on the civilization of the Muslims’) the following definition:

Anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient and this applies whether the person is an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, or philologist either in its specific or its general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she does is Orientalism.”[6]

On the more general, somehow more comprehensive range and supposed actual significance of ‘Orientalism’, however, Said has found the following words:

Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological distinction made between “the Orient” and (most of the time) “the Occident”. Thus a very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, novelists, philosophers, political theorists, economists, and imperial administrators, have accepted the basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the Orient, its people, customs, “mind”, destiny, and so on. This Orientalism can accommodate Aeschylus, say, and Victor Hugo, Dante and Karl Marx.”[7]

In spite of the therein (as in the rest of the book) prevailing cynicism, these two statements appear, to the mind of the present writer, to be handy ‘working-definitions’ for what is usually understood as ‘Orientalism’ and for what had been termed above ‘non-Muslim scholarship on the civilization of the Muslims’. However, Said’s restricting and therefore dangerous since misleading point of view with regard to the very nature of ‘Orientalism’ becomes apparent if we consider carefully the following two passages of his book:

The worldwide hegemony of Orientalism and all it stands for can now be challenged, if we can benefit properly from the general twentieth-century rise to political and historical awareness of so many of the earth’s peoples.”[8]

On the same page Said states:

I consider Orientalism’s failure to have been a human as much as an intellectual one; for in having to take up a position of irreducible opposition to a region of the world it considered alien to its own, Orientalism failed to identify with human experience, failed also to see it as a human experience.”[9]

In the view of the present contributor, however, it are not the ‘peoples’, ‘orientals’ in particular, which constitute the fallacious focal point of ‘Orientalism’, but rather its secularizing aspect. This is important to know in order to avoid being misled by Said who is himself a non-Muslim secular writer. To the mind of the present writer, the so far best since most precise and unequivocal outline of the principal thought which is underlying the concept of ‘secularism’ from the part of a contemporary high-calibre Muslim scholar has only been provided by Prof. Dr. Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas (b. 1931), the Founder-Director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought and Civilization (ISTAC) in Kuala Lumpur.[10] ISTAC, a renowned institution of higher learning, which is involved in post-graduate studies is an autonomous part of the International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). In the course of the past decades of his life as a scholar, the all-encompassing effects of ‘secularism’ upon the civilization of the Muslim civilization had been countered by Al-Attas with the concept of ‘Islamization of Knowledge’, a term which was coined by him, being originally his concept. The present writer (who does not necessarily agree to all the particular aspects of Al-Attas’ thought) considers nevertheless the very essence of Al-Attas’s contribution a milestone on the way towards a proper apprehension of the realities of today’s world from the part of Muslims. It is regrettable that Al-Attas’ concept of ‘Islamization of Knowledge’ has not only been misunderstood by the non-Muslim parts of the learned world, but also by certain of his co-religionists, who appear to restrict it—without proper reference to Al-Attas—to the mere observation of legal aspects. In particular the last mentioned group uses to refer to ‘Islamization of Knowledge’ without proper reference to its actual originator and more significantly without a proper understanding of its all-inclusive character. Al-Attas, on the other hand, has provided us with a detailed, comprehensive and at times even etymological definition of terms such as ‘religion’, ‘secular’, ‘secularism’ and ‘secularisation’. Unfortunately, the given framework does not permit to go deeper into this essential topic. However, the interested reader is referred to the books and monographs authored by Al-Attas, for the present purpose most relevant ones being his Islam and Secularism[11] and Prolegomena to the Metaphysics of Islam,[12] the latter being the most comprehensive elaboration of his thought.

Through a close study of Al-Attas’ various scholarly contributions as well as his analysis and refutation of the underlying intellectual, cultural and historical foundations of ‘secularism’ we should also be able to consider to very nature of the phenomenon which is known as ‘Orientalism’ in its true light: One of the basic mistakes of those from among the contemporary Muslim scholars who are desperately trying to understand the nature of ‘Orientalism’ is their constantly linking it with a supposed prevailing ‘Judaeo-Christian’, i.e. religious character of ‘the West’, which constitutes another chimera from their part and which is, to my understanding, the crucial if not fatal mistake committed by them. Contrary to this view and more appropriate to the existing facts and realities of our present world, is a characterization of ‘the West’ as ‘secular’ and ‘constantly secularising’ and ‘changing’. In fact, this constant emphasis on a supposed ‘need for change’ constitutes also the background for contemporary non-Muslim scholarship on the history and civilization of the Muslims. A scholar (and a historiographer in particular) has to be aware of these circumstances, since the current ‘clash’[13] between ‘secularism’ (presently appearing as ‘globalisation’) on the one hand and other ‘value-systems’ is actually not the result of narrow theological differences (which are anyway irrelevant with regard to the ‘secularised West’), but rather the consequence of diametrically opposing Weltanschauungen or worldviews. It is again Al-Attas who in his two afore-mentioned works has provided us with the most succinct outline of the problem of ‘change’ in our present context. ISTAC, the above referred to institution of post-graduate studies founded by Al-Attas, tries therefore to analyse those challenges of ‘modernity’ that affect the Muslim world and endanger the minds of its peoples as well as their worldview by training international as well as Malaysian students in their particular field of research and by providing them also with sufficient, accurate and well-balanced information about other domains of Muslim as well as non-Muslim value-systems. ISTAC’s perspective can therefore with full right be considered as focussing at ‘personality-building’. It is interesting to observe also in other parts of the Muslim world in this regard inspiring activities, such as at Istanbul’s Fatih University,[14] and for the near future it is intended to enter into an exchange of scholars between Fatih University and ISTAC. In the view of the present writer, those activities are highly encouraging since they appear to be aimed at a sincere and constructive exchange of ideas between Muslim and non-Muslim, in particular ‘western’, civilizations rather than at a mere repetition of accusations against each other.

It appears, however, that other contemporary Muslim scholars and scholarly institutions, if not the majority of them, are not yet aware of the just referred to challenges and dangers. As one example of them Dr. Ahmad Ghorab and his booklet Subverting Islam. The Role of Orientalist Centres[15] had already been referred to in the course of the first part of the present contribution. That Said has rather been driven by a kind of - perhaps personally motivated - ‘crusade’ against anything ‘western’ or rather ‘non-oriental’ becomes clear to his readers if they come across certain generalizing passages in his book as the following:

Positively, I do believe [...] that enough is being done today in the human sciences to provide the contemporary scholar with insights, methods, and ideas that could dispense with racial, ideological, and imperialist stereotypes of the sort provided during its historical ascendancy by Orientalism.”[16]

Unfortunately, at least for Said’s readers, it are mainly those racial, ideological and other stereotypes of his own again, perhaps motivated rather by Said’s personal up-bringing, psychological mind-setting and political affiliations and obligations which are dominating almost every single page of his book and which will become apparent if we consider also the following statement of his:

[...] the answer to Orientalism is not Occidentalism. No former “Oriental” will be comforted by the thought that having been an Oriental himself he is likely - too likely - to study new “Orientals” - or “Occidentals” - of his own making. If the knowledge of Orientalism has any meaning, it is in being a reminder of the seductive degradation of knowledge, of any knowledge, anywhere, at any time. Now perhaps more than before.”[17]

Edward Said’s approach as well as that of Ghorab (the first being a rather secular-minded non-Muslim, the latter perhaps fitting into the wobbly categories such as of ‘Islamic revivalism’ and alike)—as ‘tempting’ as they might sound at first—are rather dangerous and counter-productive, since they are presenting Islam, whether with full intention or unconsciously shall not be our concern, as something ‘oriental’, which amounts in fact to another attempt to ‘secularise’ it. Similar approaches of quasi ‘nationalizing’ the history of the Muslims vis-ō-vis the ‘European’ or ‘Western Threat’. The real challenge of today, however, is exactly this ‘secularising’ worldview, as reflected in Said’s book as well as - paradoxically - in that of Ghorab, a worldview which had been pinpointed and opposed so vehemently by Al-Attas in the course of his above-mentioned various scholarly contributions.

Dr. Ghorab’s already referred to controversial and highly polemical little book Subverting Islam: The Role of Orientalist Centres, however, has also its benefits if we consider it as an attempt of directing the attention of the Muslim public (the scholars in particular) to certain general problems, in particular in the field of education and above all, the perception of the civilization of the Muslims. In Ghorab’s usually simplifying words this perspective has been expressed in the following fashion:

The further duty [of the Muslims] is to put right what is wrong. In this case, that means sitting down with like-minded Muslims to discuss, and then establish, ways of getting the appropriate education to Muslims, of giving them Islamic aspects perspectives on Islamic history and civilization.”[18]

Ghorab made in the course of his brief writing in fact some other interesting observations more with regard to his focal point ‘Orientalism’. However, his fully legitimate plead for a more balanced consideration of Islam as a whole falls all too often back into the mere attribution of his own attitudes, desires, feelings, or suppositions to ‘others’, ‘the orientalists’, as a naive or unconscious defense against his own anxiety or guilt, thus into a phenomenon which is among psychologists known as ‘projection’. However, what is needed today is rather a scientific investigation of the epistemological differences between Muslim and non-Muslim civilizations, as already initiated by the afore-mentioned Al-Attas or, prior to him, by Iqbal. In the next following part then we shall refer to some of the essentials of contemporary non-Muslim historiographical scholarship on the civilization of the Muslims.

Unfortunately (and besides the usual avoidable editorial shortcomings), also Professor Mehmet Maksudoglu’s book Osmanlı History 1289-1922,[19] one of the most recent historiographical studies on the Ottomans carried out by a Muslim scholar has to be mentioned in this connection, although its author might have intended rather the opposite. In his preface, Maksudoglu states in this regard:

[...] from my previous experience, I knew that works in English on this subject [i.e. on Ottoman history] were far from being satisfactory. Therefore, I decided to write a book in this language based on original sources while making use of research written in Turkish, English, and Arabic. The outcome of this effort is this book in which I have tried to study Osmanlı history from an Osmanlı perspective, and to present its people as they perceived themselves.”[20] 

Unfortunately however, Professor Maksudoglu has not kept his promise, to present Ottoman history from the angle of the people, who in his book seem to consist merely of the ‘Ruling Class’, i.e. the imperial household and those associated with it. Even the extremely exciting domain of Ottoman arts and literature is almost not present at all. However, what apparently did matter to the mind of the author was a characterization of the Ottoman phenomenon as a mere ‘devlet’ or ‘state’ rather than a civilization or ‘way of life’ which dominated for centuries—up to the present day—the political, social, cultural, and at times ethnic realities of the Middle East and Northern Africa as well as those of the larger part of Southeast Europe. As a positive antipode I should like to mention Professor Halil Inalcik’s excellent The Ottoman Empire. The Classical Age 1300-1600 [21] and the various scholarly contributions by Professor Suraiya Faroqhi. To the last-mentioned scholar we shall return in the course of the following part.

3. Selected Aspects of Contemporary non-Muslim Historiography on The Civilization of Islam

It is always more appropriate to refer to Islam as a civilization, rather than as a religion, a system of thought, a culture or similar restrictive terms alike. It is this  very connotation of civilization which appears to be the most comprehensive. With regard to the difference between culture and civilization the controversial Turkish journalist, patriot and sociologist Ziya Gِkalp (1876-1924) provides a useful since convenient aid. Although he too is associated with a rather ‘secular’ worldview, in particular with the very early period of Republican Turkey, his view shall nevertheless be referred here in full since it provides us with a useful ‘working-platform’. He stated:

There is both similarity and difference between culture and civilization. The similarity is that both encompass all aspects of social life—religious, moral, legal, intellectual, aesthetic, economic, linguistic and technologic. The sum of these eight kinds of social life is called both culture and civilization and thus provides the point of similarity and identity between the two.”[22]

In the following he qualifies this view further:

First of all, culture is national, whereas civilization is international. Culture is a harmonious whole of the eight above-mentioned aspects of the life of a single nation. Civilization, on the other hand, is a mutually shared whole of the social lives of many nations situated on the same continent.”[23]

In conclusion he stated:

[...] civilization is the sum total of social phenomena that have occurred by conscious action and individual wills. For example, religious knowledge and the sciences have been created by conscious action and will, just as all our knowledge and theories relating to ethics, law, fine arts, economics, philosophy, language and technology have been created by individuals. Thus, the sum total of all concepts, knowledge and sciences to be found within the same continent constitute what we call civilization. The elements included in culture, however, have not been created by conscious action and individual wills. They are not artificial”.[24]

In the light of those views it would be fully expectable to speak of Islam, too, as a civilization rather than a mere culture and it is characterization as a civilization which places it therefore far beyond ethnic and national boundaries.

Similarly, Professor Suraiya Faroqhi, one of the leading contemporary Ottomanists and currently holding the Chair for Ottoman Studies at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilians University, focuses in her writings on a somewhat broader  setting of civilization. When referring to the attitudes of non-Muslim, ‘Orientalist’  scholarship on the civilization of Islam, her views appear to be far more balanced than those of Ghorab and they are therefore of considerable interest to our present purpose. In her latest book Approaching Ottoman History: An Introduction to the Sources we find her also in support of Edward Said’s already referred to controversial book Orientalism. Her views are, however, somewhat more qualified that those of Ghorab and Said. She declares:[25]

Apart from the dubious claims resulting from nationalism, orientalism constitutes the major trap into which, given prevailing assumptions, many Ottomanist historians are likely to fall. The pervasiveness of Orientalist assumptions in secondary studies down to the present day has been shown to us by the critical work of Edward Said and his students. Orientalism involves a persistent tendency to define the Islamic world as the eternal ‘other’ and an unwillingness to concede that Middle Eastern societies have a history and dynamic of their own. In some instances, such a dynamic may be conceded, but then it is assumed that Middle Eastern history is something sui generis and not amendable to historical comparison. It has often been claimed that ‘original observation’ as opposed to reliance on authority characterised European high culture since the Renaissance. Yet orientalism also involves an excessive reliance on literary sources from long bygone times, so that ancient prejudices get carried over from one generation to the next without much regard for historical realities [...]. When discussing the European sources on Ottoman history, this problem must never be left out of sight.[26]

Professor Suraiya Faroqhi is, in spite of her siding with Said, an excellent example for a scholar who is dealing critically with history and culture—Kulturgeschichte so to say—in their totality by considering them as civilization, which encompasses also aspects that are usually known as ‘popular culture’ and ‘folk religion’, perhaps in the sense of Chittick’s further below referred to statement,[27] or even as an unconscious reminiscence to the Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818-97) and the approach followed by him in his renowned History of the Renaissance in Italy.[28] Professor Faroqhi’s way of presenting history - Ottoman history in her case - is therefore highly recommendable and productive in the context of our present setting.

Professor Suraiya Faroqhi stands, however, alone if we were to compare her wide-ranging and inclusive approach with some of the still prevailing characteristics of non-Muslim, in particular ‘Western’, scholarship on the civilization of Islam. Within the given framework I would like to refer only in brief to some selected features of contemporary ‘Orientalist’ scholarship which deserve the full attention and concern of Muslim scholars. It might be true that the ostensible interest of ‘Orientalist’ scholarship has during the second half of the 20th century shifted from a ‘consideration’ of the ‘purely religious aspects’ of the civilization of Islam to reputedly rather ‘neutral’ areas, such as the study of dynasties and their respective cultural significance and achievements. However, this approach, too, is not devoid of shoals and obscure (misinterpretations shall here only be illustrated by a brief example from the experience of the present writer’s background as an Iranologist: In his field of particular interest, i.e. the genesis and early history of Iran’s Safavid dynasty (1501-1722), under which Iran was conquered and unified and Twelver Shī‘ism introduced throughout the country as the ‘official creed’, an increasing interest from the part of in particular ‘Western’ scholars in the supposed significance of the ‘ethnic background’ of Muslim dynasties (such as the Safavids in this case) can be noticed.[29] Such emphasis on ‘ethnic factors’, however, which might be relevant in the context of certain developments within the context of 19^th century Europe is rather an indicator for the degree of ‘secularisation’ in ‘the West’ and can in no manner be ‘projected’ to the societies of the Muslim lands, in particular those of much earlier historical periods. Muslim scholars should be aware of such kind of approaches, which are not scholarly at all and in fact, more suspicious than earlier ‘Orientalist’ activities of a indeed rather missionary character, such as those of the notorious Samuel Zwemer, outlined in his book Islam: A Challenge to Faith.[30] Whereas other early high-calibre, although biased, ‘orientalists’ such as Ignaz Goldziher, Theodor Nِldeke and others alike (most of them too with a background in Christian missionary activities), belong to the category of ‘scholars’, Samuel Zwemer, the initiator of the journal The Moslem World during the first decades of the past century,[31] might have had considered himself as a kind of ‘vanguard’, if not a belated ‘Apostle of the Muslims’.

Another conspicuous feature of contemporary ‘Orientalist’ scholarship is the over-emphasis of formal matters in ‘reviewed’ works, in particular when dealing with those authored by Muslims, even if the work under ‘review’ is formally (i.e. from the point of view of editorial matters, if not even in its contents and scholarly contribution) comparable to a study in the respective field which had been carried out in ‘the West’. With regard to the rather dubious and obscure genre of ‘review’ then it has to noted that most scholarly journals do in fact reserve a considerable section to ‘reviews’ of published books and articles and some of the oldest ‘Orientalist’ journals such as Britain’s Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society or the French Revue Asiatique who date back to the first half of the 19th century contained since the days of their foundation always a ‘review-section’. However, to the mind of the present writer, the underlying sense of such ‘review-sections’ does not easily emerge. In fact, with regard to non-Muslim journals, there seem to exist two kinds of ‘reviews’. Both of them are usually referred to as ‘blind review’, but we shall see that reality is at times somewhat different from this noble but all too often ostensible claim: The first kind could be considered as ‘supportive review’, the all over prevailing tenor of it being that of appraisal. However, if we were to look deeper into the subject we would soon discover that in this case of ‘supportive blind review’ ‘reviewer’ and ‘reviewed author’ do in fact often know each other. In some cases they might even stand in a (former) student-teacher relation to each other. In opposition to this we come across the second kind of ‘review’ which could be referred to as ‘discouraging or negative review’. The tone of ‘reviews’ of this kind is mostly kept in a somehow haughty and at times even arrogant and patronizing language, often containing stereotype locations such as ‘not suitable for a scholarly journal’ and similar alike, even if the ‘reviewed’ piece of scholarship would be technically comparable to a work compiled by a ‘western’ scholar’. ‘Discouraging reviews’ of this kind appear to prevail in case the author of the respective ‘reviewed’ contributor is in the course of his work ‘deviating’ from the given ‘secular’ framework (here in the sense of Al-Attas definitions). It does not need much imagination to realize that it is mostly the Muslim authors who are afflicted by this kind of ‘review’.

For the reason of avoiding such kind of biased practices some renowned scholarly periodicals, among them ISTAC’s biannual journal Al-Shajarah, do not contain ‘review-sections’ at all. Exemplary with regard of the manner in which even first-ranking contemporary Muslim scholars are ‘dealt with’ is the controversy that occurred during the mid-1970s between ISTAC’s Founder-Director Professor Syed Muhammad Naquib Al-Attas and the Dutch ‘Orientalist’ Professor G. W. J. Drewes, formerly Professor of Arabic at the University of Leiden, after the latter had published his ‘review’[32] on Al-Attas’s book Ranīrī and the Wujūdiyyah.[33] In his refutation of Drewes’ ‘review-article’[34] Al-Attas endeavours to reject substantially false allegations made against him under the pretext of ‘re-examination’ of one of his early works in Drewes’ ‘review’, one of the noted Dutch orientalists. Al-Attas’ refutation exposes “undue bitterness, ignorance, arrogance disguised on false modesty, malicious motives in a work claiming to be a product of sincere scholarship”[35] on the part of the ‘reviewer’. Therein, Al-Attas introduces also the true interpretation of facts and ideas that are false presented, implied and interpreted by the ‘reviewer’ of his work. He demonstrates the validity of his objections and rejection with detailed analysis, thereby exposing the weak and unfounded display of deceptive pedantry on the part of the ‘reviewer’. More interesting for our present purpose, however, is what Al-Attas has to say in connection with the genre of ‘review’ from the angle of traditional Islamic learning vis-ō-vis presently prevailing standards in ‘Orientalist’ scholarship:

Islamic tradition does not recognize such presumptuous and conceited preoccupation as “reviewing”, which is now widely practised among scholars who regard highly this legacy of the Western tradition in modern scholarship. A Muslim scholar, with the work of another before him, would either - according to Islamic tradition - refute it (radd), or elaborate it further in commentary (shari‘ah) as the occasion demands. There is no such thing as “reviewing” it, whether “review” is termed as such or as any other term, which describes it. If there are petty mistakes they turn a blind eye on them; if there are obscurities they explain them in commentary, they polish a positive work and make it shine. In this case we find that it is neither a refutation nor a commentary. Both refutation and commentary require positive knowledge and confidence; there is no question of doubt and wavering on important issues. But here we find neither refutation nor commentary; we find instead what can only be called meddling, bungling and fumbling! As to errors in transliteration, we know that even the works of genuine orientalists are not free of such “imperfections”, for in that sense no one is “perfect”. To allow free rein to practise meddling and bungling and fumbling by one scholar on the work of another, dealing with a subject not quite understood by the former, is not only not fair; it is to say the least ridiculous!”[36]

4.  Concluding Remarks

The main purpose of the present bipartite contribution consisted in the intention to create a certain degree of awareness a consciousness with regard to the respective worldviews which are underlying historiography, in particular to the epistemological approach towards the history and civilization of the Muslims and in fact to those of any other value-systems as well. In the view of the present author, those varying epistemological approaches ‘secular’, ‘non-secular’ should remain always recognizable in published historiographical works, since it is not the reputed ‘scientificality’ or ‘un-scientificality’ which marks the major difference between works written by Muslims and non-Muslims, respectively, but rather the fundamentally different Weltanschauungen. The respect for the worldview and the foundations of one’s opponent in a discussion does not necessarily mean to ascribe to them. To the mind of the present writer, this and only this signifies the real meaning of dialogue, anything else being insincere.

With regard to that appropriate and balanced attitude or ‘mood’ with which a scholar should approach the civilization of Islam (and in fact any civilization on which he or she is going to write) the final word should be given to William C. Chittick, who in his excellent introduction to Al-Ṣaḥīfah al-Sajjādiyyah, the well-known collection of the invocations of the Prophet’s great grandson Imām ‘Alī b. al-Ḥusayn b. ‘Alī b. ‘Abd al-Muṭṭalib, known as Zayn al-‘Ābidīn (d. 95/713), has found the following beautiful words. They may serve as a kind of constant reminder of how to proceed with regard to the study of Islamic history and civilization:

Islamic civilization as a whole is much like a traditional Muslim city: The outer walls make it appear dull and sombre and it is not easy to gain access to the world behind the walls. But if one becomes an intimate with the city’s inhabitants, one is shown into delightful courtyards and gardens, full of fragrant flowers, fruit trees and sparkling fountains. Those who write about Islamic history, political events and institutions deal with the walls, since they have no way into the gardens. Some of the gardens are opened up through the study of Sufism, art and architecture, poetry and music, but since all of these have appeared in specific historical forms influenced by the surrounding environment, their deeply Islamic roots can easily be lost to sight. The most traditional and authentic gardens of the city and the most difficult to access are the hearts of the greatest representatives of the civilization. It is here that the supplications handed down from the pillars of early Islam can open up a whole new vision of Islam’s animating spirit, since they provide direct access to the types of human attitudes that are the prerequisite for a full flowering of the Islamic ideal.”[37]

NOTES AND REFERENCES