The Problem of the “imaginary” in the Islamic heritage

Adnan Hashem Al-Husseini

Abstract

The matter of dealing with the written Islamic heritage and studying it – whether its contents are real or mere imagination – is something that has recently surfaced as an approach in understanding heritage. Some have offered many suggestions as examples on denying the historicity of those contents (that they are not real), showing that this heritage is full of imaginary accounts. The book "The Controversy of History and the Imaginary... Biography of Fatima" is an example on this viewpoint. There are of course several approaches for studying the Islamic heritage, like the textual approach, the rational approach, the inductive approach, the hermeneutical approach, and the approach based on literary texts. However, this particular book describes many items of heritage as imaginary, trying to destroy the Islamic heritage, saying that it is occupied with imagination, and that many opinions, which have accumulated throughout generations, are only the product of the fertile imagination scholars. However, scholars have submitted their studies to jurisprudential and traditional (hadith) standards and patterns that do not contradict reason.

Keywords: imaginary, reality, illusion, heritage, criticism.

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