Dr. Muḥammad-Javad Eskandarlū’s Mustashriqān va tārīkh-gudhārī dar Qur’ān [Orientalists and Chronology in the Quran: A Study on Quranic Chronology from the Perspective of Orientalists] (2006) critically examines Orientalist perspectives on the chronological order of Qur’ānic revelations, originally presented as the author’s PhD dissertation. The study explores key aspects of Qur’ānic chronology, including the sequence of revelation, Meccan and Medinan sūras, and abrogating and abrogated verses, while focusing on critiquing the methodologies of Western scholars. The book begins with an overview of Orientalism and the concept of chronology, emphasizing the importance of historical narrations, such as those from Ibn Abbas, and Muslim scholarly works like Asbāb al-Nuzūl and Al-Itqān fī ʿUlūm al-Qur’ān. It critiques eight prominent Orientalists—Gustav Weil, Theodor Nöldeke, John Medows Rodwell, Regis Blachère, William Muir, Hartwig Hirschfeld, Richard Bell, and Hubert Grimme—for their reliance on subjective criteria, such as stylistic differences between Meccan and Medinan sūras, and their dismissal of authentic Islamic narrations. The author argues that Orientalist approaches often lack historical rigor, proposing instead a methodology grounded in credible narrations and textual analysis.
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