عناية المستشرقين المعاصرين بعلم الحديث: المستشرق كريستوفر ميلتشرت أنموذجا: The Interest of Contemporary Orientalists in the Science of Hadith: Orientalist Christopher Melchert as a Model

Abstract

Orientalists paid great attention to studying Ilm al-Hadith (the science of Hadith), as they began writing about it in nineteenth century AD. It is noted that critical studies of their efforts focus on the writings of the famous predecessor orientalists Goldziher (1921 AD) and Schacht (1969 AD), which makes the contemporary picture of the oriental studies in Hadith science unclear. The present article aims to introduce one of the prominent figures of contemporary orientalists, namely Christopher Melchert, and to give a brief account of his writings related to the Prophet’s Hadith and its sciences Riwayatan wa Dirayatan. The article relies on two main approaches: the Inductive approach to trace the writings of Melchert on the science of Hadith; and the Descriptive-Analytical approach to introduce his writings in this specific field and explain his general position on it. The article found that Melchert’s studies specifically focused on four main axes: Hadith collections; Biographies of prominent Hadith scholars; Hadith science; and studying the texts of some Prophetic Hadiths related to various topics. The total number of his writings in Hadith science reached approximately 50 scientific papers, all of which were published in various scientific journals.