WİLLİAM MONTGOMERY WATT VE İLK DEVİR İSLAM TARİHİNE TARİHSELCİ BAKIŞ

Year 2008, Volume: 1 Issue: 6, 33 - 46, 30.11.2008

Hasan Hüseyin Adalıoğlu

Abstract

The views put forward by Western orientalists with regard to some aspe
cts of early Islamic history have been taken seriously in the Islamic world
and gave rise to numerous rejections by the Islamists. What made William
Montgomery Watt different from the preceding orientalists is that he intro
duced relatively different approaches to the religious identity of the prop
het and the current theories and arguements about the economic, social
and political organization of Islam. The major characteristic of the theory
developed by William Montgomery Watt is that he maintained his belief in
Christianity and adopted a historicist approach to Islamic history while he
at the same time accepted the religious identity of the prophet Muhammed
(Peace be upon Him) and declared that he had seen the message of the
prophet as a mere revelation from God. Indeed he has not considered the
prophet only as a figure reacting under the influence of religious and exter
nal cultural factors, just to the contrary, he saw Him as a person reacting
against social environment. Thus, Watt tried to analyze the social structure
of Mecca of the time sociologically and physicologically and attempted to
account for the political teachings of the prophet, which were fit for the
social structure of his environment, from the perspective of an historicist.
In spite of the fact that he is a priest, Watt today abstains from an overall
decline although perhaps he does not have a genuine belief in Islam. This
attitude of Watt, however, has attracted the criticism of various orientalists.
With his new vision, Watt perhaps should be regarded as the pioneer of a
new orientalist school or jeneration.

Keywords

William Montgomery Watt, History, Historicist, Orientalism

William Montgomery Watt And A Historicist Interpretation of Islamic History

Abstract

The views put forward by Western orientalists with regard to some aspe
cts of early Islamic history have been taken seriously in the Islamic world
and gave rise to numerous rejections by the Islamists. What made William
Montgomery Watt different from the preceding orientalists is that he intro
duced relatively different approaches to the religious identity of the prop
het and the current theories and arguements about the economic, social
and political organization of Islam. The major characteristic of the theory
developed by William Montgomery Watt is that he maintained his belief in
Christianity and adopted a historicist approach to Islamic history while he
at the same time accepted the religious identity of the prophet Muhammed
(Peace be upon Him) and declared that he had seen the message of the
prophet as a mere revelation from God. Indeed he has not considered the
prophet only as a figure reacting under the influence of religious and exter
nal cultural factors, just to the contrary, he saw Him as a person reacting
against social environment. Thus, Watt tried to analyze the social structure
of Mecca of the time sociologically and physicologically and attempted to
account for the political teachings of the prophet, which were fit for the
social structure of his environment, from the perspective of an historicist.
In spite of the fact that he is a priest, Watt today abstains from an overall
decline although perhaps he does not have a genuine belief in Islam. This
attitude of Watt, however, has attracted the criticism of various orientalists.
With his new vision, Watt perhaps should be regarded as the pioneer of a
new orientalist school or jeneration.

Keywords

William Montgomery Watt, History, Historicist, Orientalism

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