The Orientalists and Prophetic Biography: The Example of Spanish Orientalism

Abstract

Some define "Prophetic Biography" as the specialised field of study that examines the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, from his birth to his death. It includes everything that happened in his life and everything that revolved around him. The Prophetic Biography also explains the prophetic miracles and the revelation. Another scholar further specified it by saying, "The Prophetic Biography is a field of study that deals with the life of the Prophet from his birth in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal in the year of the elephant until his death in the month of Rabi' al-Awwal in the eleventh year of the Hijrah. It includes the Prophet's upbringing, his life before and after marriage, before and after prophethood and the Message, his actions before and after prophethood, as well as his miracles and his character as a prophet, leader, husband, father and grandfather. It includes all aspects of his life, day and night, awake and asleep, living and travelling, in sickness and in health, whether in Makkah, the blessed city, or in the city to which he emigrated by Allah's guidance and where he was buried after his death.

At a time when the pens of the narrators and writers of the Prophetic biography were focused on compiling and transmitting its details through an unbroken chain of narrators, including the Companions and those who came after them, we find that during a period of weakness of the Islamic Ummah and the onslaught of Western powers on its territories, heritage and civilisation, Western historians, writers, religious figures and intellectuals dedicated themselves - and continue to do so - to studying the Prophetic biography and delving into its details. They are commonly referred to as Orientalists who specialise in writing about Eastern civilisation, especially Islamic civilisation. The term "Orientalism" has different interpretations. Who are the Orientalists? Can it be generalised to include anyone who writes about the East, even before Islam and up to the present day? Can non-Muslims from the East, such as Christians and Jews, be considered part of the Orientalist category? Orientalism has evolved and developed different schools and methodologies. The "Spanish Orientalist School" is considered one of the most important and early schools in the emergence of Orientalism, especially considering that the geography of the Iberian Peninsula, known as Al-Andalus, embraced Islam and its civilisation for eight centuries, and its heritage remains in the hands of Spanish Orientalists to this day, stored in libraries, manuscript centres, Spanish universities and institutes. The Spanish school of Orientalism showed interest in the biography of the Prophet, although not to the same extent as other schools of Orientalism. Its initial approach was hostile to all things Arab and Muslim, and the censorship courts helped to shape this image. More recently, however, there has been a relative change in perspective.

The Spanish Orientalists were no different in their scepticism about the prophethood. They began by questioning whether Muhammad was illiterate and tried to prove that he was not.

Then they resorted to fabricating lies, claiming that since he could read and write, he must have had access to and borrowed from the religions and cultures that preceded him and incorporated them into the Qur'an. Furthermore, as many Orientalists argue, they concluded that Muhammad claimed prophethood because of mental disorders and epileptic seizures that affected his ability to distinguish between his normal consciousness and altered states of consciousness.