“The orientalists have had a major weakness in their studies about Islam. The problem is that they don’t analyze the Rewayat sources through a Muslim eyes.” Said Dr. Kariminiya, the researcher of the Quran and university professor.
In his viewpoint, Muslims are not the only researchers of Islam, but also many of the non-Muslims have presented new theories and articles about the issue. Kariminiya views this as a natural point in science which in his words “is not limited to a particular region or individual”.
Indicating the westerns studies, Kariminiya said, “The orientalists have paid little attention to the Shiite Rewayat sources and their studies are affected mostly by the Sunni sources. They also limited the formation of Ahadith to the Holy Prophet (S.A) and apostles and not having attention to Shiite sources has caused a major defect in oriental Islamic studies.”
As for the critiques about the works of orientalists about Islam, he said, “In analyzing their works there are two approaches; first method relies on the Hadith and Rewayat sources and the second is a theory based on which such sources are basically unreliable.”
Dr. Kariminiya mentioned the poor works of orientalists saying that the majority of the published books and articles in the Hadith field are not informative in terms of subject and theme and are rather in the form of journalistic works for the public.
“Utilizing the science language is a must in developing the scientific fields, in other words, we need to know the science language in studies concerned with Islam and Hadith so that we can be effective and present in western societies. Therefore relevant books should be translated into English language by experts.” Said Dr. Kariminiya.
