The THE BIOGRAPHY OF KHĀLID IBN AL-WALĪD IN ORIENTALIST WRITINGS: THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

This study examines the biography of the Companion Khālid ibn al-Walīd (may Allah be pleased with him) as presented in the writings of the classical Orientalist school (c. 1750–1900), taking that school as a case study for analyzing the Western methodological tools used to reinterpret Islamic history. Adopting an inductive, descriptive-analytical, historical, and critical approach, it focuses on four representative figures: Edward Gibbon, Aloys Sprenger, William Muir, and Julius Wellhausen. The research centers on two principal methods: textual analysis, which compares Islamic narratives and casts doubt on reports of miracles or divine support, treating them as later interpolations; and historical-religious criticism, which strips events of their faith dimension and reduces the motives of Khālid and the conquests to purely political, utilitarian, and tribal factors. The study finds that these historians—despite their differing Enlightenment, evangelical, colonial, and philological backgrounds—unanimously acknowledged Khālid's military genius and his record of remaining undefeated, yet differed in explaining the causes of his success and all failed to grasp the spiritual and doctrinal dimension of his leadership, a shortcoming that reflects the limits of the secular materialist method. The study therefore recommends engaging this Orientalist output with rigorous critical awareness and developing a sound Islamic historiographical framework that balances the empirical event with its faith-driven motivation, so as to re-present major Islamic figures accurately.

Keywords: Orientalism; Khālid ibn al-Walīd; the classical school; textual analysis; historical-religious criticism; Islamic historiography.