Study of the Shi‘ite Islamic School
In the Western Curricula
Dr. Liyakat Takim
 adopts a phenomenological approach in his presentation of the development of the study of the Shi‘ite Islamic school in the Western curricula, and he reveals how the West draws its information on Shi‘ites and Shi‘ism from Sunni Islamic sources, and thus it reduces Shi‘ites as a schismatic group in the least to say.
Beginning in the second half of the twentieth century, Western literature based on Shi‘ite sources began to emerge, and the perception of Shiites gradually changed until the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, which sparked a surge of interest among the Western circles in Shi‘ites and Shi‘ism.
Dr. Takim was keen to come up with his presentation without discussing the value of the approaches, because the task of the paper and the method require such a thing. One of the most important themes he pointed out, as he is the specialist in the Shi‘ite situation in America, was   the incident of September 11 and the accompanying campaign against Islam in general; that incident moved a crowd of Shi‘ites to prove they became more enthusiastic about integrating into the American society and more enthusiastic about giving up the idea that they are ​​alienated since they are away from their homeland in the interest of forming a “Shi‘ite American” character, so to speak. The timing and the surge of Western interest in the Shi‘ites and Shi‘ism have been linked in some way to the political presence of Shi‘ites as movements or states in various parts of the world where Shi‘ites have a prominent presence; the West considers Islamic sects only when they begin to emerge as a political rival to the traditional scene.
The IIliteracy of the Prophet (PBUH and upon his kins) Between the plurality of text, the meanings and the cognitive deviation

A Study of Orientalist vision in the Islamic knowledge circle

By Prof. Dr. Jawad Kazem Nasrallah -Lecturer Nizar Naji Muhammad

Al Basrah University-Faculty of Arts - Department of History
The Department of Islamic Knowledge is the largest work done by orientalists. It was written by a large number of orientalists, a summary of orientalist thought, in which they wrote a special Islamic encyclopedia of the Islamic civilization, which is the birth of the Prophet‘s mission. They wanted to collect everything related to Islamic civilization and Islamic countries, The Encyclopedia of Dictionaries and Dictionaries has been prepared for easy reference.
This encyclopedia has been prepared as a reference for many Western studies towards the East. It has been written in several languages ​​(English, French and German). This work has been prepared on scientific and methodological grounds. However, in some articles we find some unfair or accurate visions of the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic message. Among the orientalists on the Prophet‘s biography is the term “illiteracy of the Prophet,” and their differences in the statement of the meaning of illiteracy in the Prophet, or as a term described by Muslim Arabs, and their reliance on those views on what is mentioned in the Islamic sources.
Islamic in the Arabic and non-Islamic editions Including cart, and a section of this research according to the terms contained in the Koran and Muslims interpret those Koranic texts, after the statement of the linguistic meanings of these concepts in language dictionaries, and then discussed the vision of Orientalists contained in the Department of Islamic knowledge.
The Image of the Arab World in the French and the Italian Literature in the Nineteenth Century
Points of Meeting and Differences and the Probable Influences
A PhD. Thesis by Valerio Vittorini on June 13, 2015
The image of the Arab world in French and Italian literature of the nineteenth century, a PhD thesis by Valerio Vittorini, reveals how French and Italian literature were devoid of looking at an Arab as another being before the nineteenth century; and by the beginning of that century, Western politics and culture collaborated to build the distorted image in such a way to serve colonial purposes. Since then, it has become unsurmountable even for those with good intentions to rid of that image; on the contrary, modern media have been reproducing it in various forms.
The efforts and methodology of Dr. Mohamed Khalifa Hassan in the study of Orientalism and its critique

By Dr. Ahmed Al-Bahnasi
Dr. Mohamed Khalifa Hassan was distinguished with a special school and methodology in the study of orientalism that he is one of the Muslim researchers whose qualifications have allowed them to have a similar scientific formation to the great orientalist in the fields of archaic and modern languages, history and religions; therefore, we find his approaches of the orientalists‘ productions used to be distinguished with comprehensiveness, profoundity and objectivity without overlooking the missionary and colonialist backgrounds of the Orientalist movement.
In his valuable research, Dr. Ahmed Al-Bahnasi presents the efforts and methodology of Dr. Mohamed Khalifa Hassan in the study of Orientalism and its critique, highlighting the distinctive features of this authentic Arab researcher in his profound approaches. The topics, ideas and conventions he has added throughout this research have become an indispensable reference for any student in this field.

Critique of the Orientalist Perspective of Jihad (Michael Bonner as a Model)

By Dr. Ghaidan Al-Sayed Ali
The Orientalist Critique of Jihad as presented by Michael Bonner is a research that opens an in-depth discussion of the concept of jihad from an Islamic perspective, and what the orientalist Bonner and his peers wanted of marketing, makes jihad in Islam equal to the spread of Islam by the sword. In fact, the problems of the orientalist, to which Dr. Ghidan Al Sayed Ali responded, sometimes with statements of faith, need further consideration of their backgrounds. Actually, the publishing of Bonner‘s book widely in French in 2003 and later in English in 2006 has had promotional obvious objectives establishing for a correlation between Islam, the sword and terrorism, which would complement the intelligence effort in establishing terrorist organizations in cooperation and coordination with the Takfiri Salafism (the anti-blasphemy fundamentalist radicals). This is in terms of media and political employment of the battle against Islam as a whole, and against the concept of “jihad” (the strife for religious missionary purposes) in Islam in particular.
The Orientalist mentions some demands as if they were postulates, leaning on them to suspect the Holy Qur‘an and the Hadith in order to evade the authority of the sacred religious text, and to mold the Islamic interpretation of jihad so it may grow subject to the practices of the unjust sultans in the Islamic history. What is required is to undermine the foundations and backgrounds that expose those researches for their academic dimension and shed light on their political employment on the one hand, and detail the ethics of fighting among Muslims, on the other hand, so that he may separate terrorism from the Islamic concept of “jihad”. In our heritage, we also have critical readings of the idea of ​​conquests that need someone to highlight them.

Understanding the Western mind
in the light of the burdens of
the past and the challenges of the present               

Dr. Muhammad Hasan Badreddin

“Understanding the Western Mind in light of the burdens of the past and the challenges of the present” is an in-depth reading by Dr. Muhammad Hasan Badreddin of the backgrounds of making the stereotype of the East, the Arabs and the Muslims starting from the time of the Prophet (Pbuh and upon his kins) till our time. This reading complements what we have published in this issue about the image of the Arab world. It highlights the role of the cultural preparation for the Crusades, and the role of the popes in financing the slander of the Prophet‘s figure first and then against the heritage of Islam and Muslims. Contemporary media and Orientalist research have been founding on those images and proceeded in complicating the scene when they contributed to the reproduction of barriers between the West and the East to prevent the pure knowledge that has not yet been able to find its way till now into the problematic relationship.
N.B. Starting with this issue, “Orientalist Studies” magazine presents an introduction to the activities of the Western studies centers and their main interests as a guide for researchers and those interested in Western approaches to the rest of the world. For this issue, we have chosen the European Institute for Religions, which is concerned with the dissemination and establishment of a secular perspective of religious knowledge and teachings and is based in France.