The Concept of Early Islamic Society in Terms of Determining of Goldziher’s Approach to the Hadith

Abstract

Ignaz Goldziher is accepted as the founder of hadith studies in the West. He is attributed as facilitating the method of historical criticism—which he inherited from the Western thought tradition—to hadiths. Goldziher, who significantly influenced his successors in the orientalist tradition, uses narration as the basis for his hadith evaluations and accepts them as the product of the religious, historical, and social developments in the first two centuries of Islam. In this study, Goldziher’s primary assertions—generated while evaluating the views and hadiths about the changes within Arab society following the pronouncement of Islam—are analyzed with reference to his primary work, Muhammedanische Studien. Goldziher attempts to understand the environment of Islam. The relevant period during his work, interprets the birth and development of Islamic sciences within the framework of these conditions. It is possible that Goldziher’s evaluations of hadith are influenced by his views on Islam and the history of Islam.