Abstract:

One of the strongest schools of Orientalism is undoubtedly the German school. It is thought that Ignaz Goldziher (d. 1921), Josef Horovitz (d. 1931), and Joseph Schacht (d. 1969) -who are considered among the pioneers of German Orientalism- have a highly critical perspective to all kinds of canonical sources of Islam and they have spent serious efforts in the field of Islamic sciences for the last centuries. They are also known to educate key figures as their followers with these critical claims. There are orientalist researchers who are different, both in terms of the methodology they follow and approach for fundamental issues, apart from these mainstream orientalists who especially influenced the researchers after them in terms of methodology, theory, and study of canonical sources. Among these researchers, the Hungarian-born German scholar Miklos Muranyi should be mentioned by differentiation from others on the methodology he applied in his studies and his ability to take an effective consideration to use of the works written by Muslims. On the contrary to his predecessors, Muranyi who bears important traces of the orientalist tradition from which he emerged with his acceptance that hadīths consist of historical material about the periods it belongs to, he is not as skeptical as they are. Miklos Muranyi's works, who had a great effort in revealing the manuscripts from the second and third centuries after Hijra, loom large in both the history of hadīth and the science of fiqh in terms of content and information. In this study, firstly, German orientalism was explained briefly to notice the differentiation of Muranyi from the tradition he was educated with. Secondly, Muranyi's life and works were emphasized, and the particular characteristic perspectives of him within the orientalist paradigm were touched upon. This article covers Muranyi's views on the early period works which he has concentrated a large part of his work, concludes with his observations and assessment.