Orientalists

For Muslims, the tawatur of the Quran—the fact that it has been massively and consecutively transmitted from generation to generation since the time of the Prophet—is among the most important proofs which shows that the Qur'an we have today is the same scripture that was revealed to the Prophet. However, this proof has been neglected in the studies of Western scholars on the topic of the history of the Quran. Moreover, some Western scholars, such as John Wansbrough and Gerald Hawting, claim that since the Quran does not give any information about its formation and because there are no sources with information about the Quran that date back to the first two centuries of Islam, the Quran should be considered the product of the discussions and debates between Muslims and followers of other religions, with its text finalized in the early third century AH. However, contrary to Wansbrough and other like-minded scholars, who hold that the first two centuries of Islamic history are obscure and vague, a quick look at the history of Islam shows that in the first decades of Islam, Muslims had gone to different parts of the World, including some parts of Europe,

The ‘Other’ showed up in Alexandria on July 2, 1798, in the guise of an opportunistic, idealistic 29-year-old French general. When Napoléon Bonaparte landed with 38,000 soldiers and 167 savants, the shock was cultural as much as it was military. In retrospect, the violence of the cultural encounter caused the defeat of Napoléon, but set in motion forces that would change the nation forever. Sheikh Hassan al-Attar, the only non-Egyptian (Moroccan) to hold the office of mufti of Al-Azhar and who taught Arabic to some of the expedition scientists, rightly foresaw an imminent intellectual revolution.

The present text contains an edition of W. Kotwicz’s unpublished 1938 article Rzut oka na losy orjentalistyki w Polsce (‘A glance at the history of Oriental studies in Poland’) in its possibly latest version, enhanced with sectioning, an index and an inventory of working materials preserved in the Archive of Science of Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Cracow. The edited paper focuses primarily on the 19th c. and the rôle of the Vilnius and Petersburg universities, and contains a considerable number of presently not commonly known information.

Çağımızda Portekiz ve İspanya Devletleri’nin bulunduğu coğrafya, Müslümanlar tarafından ‘Endülüs’ olarak adlandırılmıştır.
710 yılında gerçekleştirilen bir keşif harekâtının ardından birkaç yıl içerisinde fethedilen Endülüs bölgesi, 750 yılına kadar Şam Emevi hilafetinin bir eyaleti olarak kalmış, ondan sonraki üç asra yakın bir süre de Emevi ailesi tarafından yönetilmiştir.
Endülüs’te 712-1492 yılları arasında 780 yıl süre ile hüküm süren Müslümanlar, özellikle ilk üç asırlık dönem içerisinde kültür ve medeniyet alanında Batı’da o güne kadar görülen en güçlü ve ileri medeniyeti oluşturmuş, sanat ve mimarî başta olmak üzere, tıp, hukuk, felsefe ve edebiyat gibi çok sayıda bilim dalında ortaya koydukları birbirinden değerli eserlerle tarihteki öncü yerini almıştır.
Saray, kale ve cami gibi önemli eserlerine günümüzde de tanıklık ettiğimiz Gırnata (Granada), İşbiliye (Sevilla) ve Kurtuba (Cordoba) gibi dönemin önemli şehirlerinin yer aldığı bölge, bugün de İspanya’nın 17 eyaletinden birisi olarak ‘Andulusia/Endülüs’ olarak adlandırılmaktadır.
Bu makalede, Endülüs’ün Müslümanlar tarafından fethi, fetihten sonraki gelişmeler ve ortaya konulan ‘birlikte yaşama kültürü’ hakkında bilgiler verildikten sonra, tarihi süreç içerisinde ‘Endülüs medeniyetinin’ Batı Avrupa’ya etkisi, W. Montgomery Watt’ın eserleri çerçevesinde ele alınarak değerlendirilmektedir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: İslam Tarihi, Watt, Endülüs, İspanya, Oryantalistler, İslam Medeniyeti.
The territory of Portugal and Spain at present is called 'Andalusia' by Muslims.
After a discovery movement in 710, the Andalusia region being conquered in a few years, remained a province of Damascus Umayyad Caliphate till 750, and then was also ruled by the Umayyad family for about three centuries.
Muslims who ruled in Andalusia between 712-1492 for 780 years have formed the most powerful and advanced civilization seen in the field of culture and civilization during the first three centuries in the West, have taken their pioneering position in history with valuable works that have been put forth in many fields of science such as art, architecture, medicine, law, philosophy and literature.
The region in which important cities such as Granada, Sevilla and Cordoba, which we have seen some important works such as the palace, castle and mosque, is named as 'Andalusia' as one of the 17 provinces of Spain today.
In this article, first of all, it has been given information about the conquest of Andalusia by the Muslims, the developments after the conquest and the culture of coexistence, then the influence of the period called 'Andalusian civilization' to Western Europe in Western history during the historical process has been evaluated by taking the work of W. Montgomery Watt into consideration.
Keywords: Islamic History, Watt, Andalusia, Spain, Orientalists, Islamic Civilization.

Here we mention some opinions of Orientalists in Arab-Islamic sciences and philosophy, such as: Amil Filex Qotii, Rudyard, Renan and others, who said that the so-called Arab culture, which highlights the phenomenon of the genius Arab civilization does not has its existence at all. It is -in their opinion- created by other nations - such as Persians and Sabians, had their cultures before Islam. Arab race did not contribute to its establishment, but only poorly, which almost can not be mentioned. In fact, the Arab Science is a product of a society emerged after Islamic conquests, had the house of Islam (Dār al-Islām) its common homeland, its language was Arabic and blended the different cultures, that melted into the wisdom of Persia, India, the science of Greece and teachings of Islam, so a mediator nation grew up, which combined between the consideration, action, the scientific theory and its practice. Then the science became a collective project in that Muslim city, every effort was done to make the knowledge delivered and accessible to all people, ignoring their differences in their social classes, even their religions. It was a spacious human look and behaviour intended to disseminate the knowledge among human beings.

The links between East and West, dating back to ancient times, which had been varied through the ages, some links were cultural, some economical and some political. The links between the East and West, which were set during the last two centuries, in its cultural part, and its impact on Islam in particular, were marked, due to the particular and natural circumstances of that connection with the West, that was different to all of the previous conditions and circumstances. The connection of Islam with other civilizations and cultures was always a contact of the stronger to the weaker one, which was after equal contact, but the contact of Islam with the West in this recent period of time, was a contact of a weaker to a stronger, and "the weaker always being fond of emulation clicks of the logo, uniform, and every thing and in his every step copying the stronger one by the nature.

(First paragraph)
H. A. R. Gibb was one of the leading orientalist
scholars of his day. He published books, articles,
encyclopedia entries, and book reviews on such diverse
subjects as early Islamic history, modern Arabic
literature, political thought in medieval Islam, and
modern trends in Islamic society. He played a major role in important developments in the field after World
War II.

Islam is a religion of the soul's harmony and heart's intimacy, but most of the people do not know this reality. In the era of Muslim Caliphs, the freedom of non-Muslims, who had enjoyed with a free living status, protection and safety in Muslim states, was not in return for paying the capital tax. The taken tribute from them was not the price of their freedom, but was for the integrity of the Righteous justice between them and Muslims to protect them and their family members were living with Muslims side by side in the society and were not involved in military services to defend a nation believes in Islam. How they can defend a Muslim country and they do not believe in Islam? Jihad does not mean killing some one without any reason and right, but it is to recover the rights of vulnerable people from the harshness of powerful oppressors. Stoning of the adulterer and the adulteress in Islam is not an injustice or affront to human rights after the permission granted in polygamy. Islam is not a religion of men only, as some people think, because of their mental illness. The men and women both are created as being two sides of the one soul.