Philip K Hitti’s Views about the Reign of Banū Umayyad and Banū Abbās

عہدِ بنو امیہ اور عہدِ بنو عباس سے متعلق فلپ کے ہٹی کی آراء

Abstract

Philip K Hitti has tried to present the era of Banū Umayyad and Banū Abbās in his book in a comprehensive manner in “History of the Arabs”. In this book, Hitti has used important sources of Muslims, but in some of very sensitive topics he has tried to form his position on the basis of such sources which are not reasonable and worthy of inference for Muslims. For an honest historian, this aspect is very important to that he should give priority to the agreed sources over the non-agreed and disputed sources and describe the facts and events in the manner in which they would have happened. Hitti has tried to present his book on this standard, but those topics which he has taken from legendary books and collections of anecdotes put question mark on his scholarly integrity and understanding of Islamic history. While presenting the historical scenario in controversial issues, the events should not be relied on writings presented by a single class or a single author, but the positions of other schools of thought and their arguments should also be taken into consideration. In this context, the flaw in Hitti's book is that he could not keep this requirement of justice while writing the history of Muslims.