AN EVALUATION OF A. J. ARBERRY’S VIEWS ON ISLAMIC TRADITION OF SUFISM

تصوف کی اسلامی روایت سے متعلق آرتھر جان آربری کے افکار کا جائزہ

Abstract

The revival of sciences and the Renaissance movement in Europe is a paradigm shift in human history. Various sciences were edited, introduced and invented. A group of Western scholars made research and study in social sciences as well as Islamic sciences and Eastern arts as part of their research and studies.  A number of scholars spent their lives in an Islamic tradition of knowledge. As a result of this research, a modern version of Islam was written in English, French, German and other well-known European languages ​​in the last two centuries, which can be called the western interpretation of Islam. The Islamic world benefited from the research and studies of the people of Europe, and a valuable collection of Islamic manuscripts came out of the libraries and reached the hands of the scholars after publication, and when the scholars had the opportunity to do more research. However, a lot of irrevocable damage was caused by these studies. A group of Jewish, Christian and atheist Western scholars started a movement to create doubts about Islam, the Quran, the Prophet of Islam, Islamic culture and civilization and Islamic sciences started an intellectual war against Muslims. In general, the Orientalists have made all the Islamic sciences their study and research centres. Among them, the Orientalists have also studied the subject of Sufism in addition to the Qur'an, Hadith, Fiqh, Sirah, and History. This research article presents an analysis of one of the Orientalists' Arbury studies on Islamic Sufism. Arthur Johan. Arberry is widely recognized as one of the leading British scholars of Oriental Studies in the mid-twentieth century. In this context, this study is an attempt to make to investigate Arberry's thoughts on the Islamic tradition of Sufism. The Critical Research Methodology has been adopted in this study with a qualitative approach. This study perceives that AJ Arberry's opinion regarding Islamic Sufism is moderate and based on justice. He says with reference to Islamic Sufism that Islamic Sufism should be taken from the Quran and Hadith which is original Source of Islamic Sufism. It is important to refer to Arabic sources and original references. It is recommended on the behalf of this study that a comparative study should be made on Arrbry's thoughts with other western scholars.