Impact of Rationalistic Critical Methods on Modern Muslim Sirah Writers

Abstract

In response to the Western writers on S┘rah, the nineteenth and twentieth century Muslim S┘rah writers realized, on one hand, that most of the classical S┘rah-source materials contained both authentic and otherwise narratives which have made it easy for the Western orientalists to paint the moral and spiritual life of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) according to their desired colours, and to re-examine such materials, on the other, they deemed it necessary to set forth the criteria that could be acceptable to both the orientalists and Muslims. To this end, the modern Muslim scholars, to some extent under the influence of modern scientific/rationalistic critical methods, began to take S┘rah-writing into account with a new trend and produced a good deal of literature which may be divided into the following three categories: 1) The books in which authors have restricted themselves to the Qur’┐n, the upmost authentic source of Islam. 2) The books in which authors have also consulted, besides the Qur’┐n, those ╒ad┘th collections which they deemed authentic. 3) The books in which writers have attempted to consult, along with the Qur’┐n and authentic ╒ad┘th collections, all the available classical materials including books on history, biography, ‘ilm al rij┐l, genealogy, geography, literature, poetry, and Islamic law, etc., but not without filtering them. To evaluate such efforts with respect to S┘rah-writing, ‘All┐mah Shibl┘ Nu‘m┐n┘ from the Indo-Pakistan subcontinent and Professor Dr. Akram ╕iy┐’ al-‘Umar┘ from the Arab world, have been selected in this paper for several reasons, top of which being their thorough study of and comprehensive approach to the subject and their remarkable works in the field.