A political study of Ashura from German and British Orientalists viewpoint

The political views of German and British Orientalists towards Ashura movement have many variations and challenges. Germany and Britain, as the leaders of Islamology in general and Ashura studies in particular, have tried to analyze the personality, goals and achievements of Imam Hussein (AS) materialistically and regardless of religion. Given that the Islamic world and the available sources have been dominated by the Sunni community from the beginning, and that the Shiite sources have been distorted or less trusted, we have mostly seen biased and less fair results. On the one hand, Orientalists view Imam Hussein (as) as an opponent of the central government who has an anti-secular ideology, and they mix his doctrinal and religious ideas with political and economic aspects; On the other hand, a small number of Orientalists have managed not to be influenced by personal, national and religious emotions and to study this movement only from a scientific point of view. The purpose of this study is a comparative study of the political positions of the German and British Orientalists on the event of Ashura and the study of their intellectual foundation and practical approach. In this research, with an analytical and explanatory approach, we seek to answer the following questions: What was the political perception of the German and British Orientalists about the Karbala event? What have been the intellectual foundations of Ashura studies from a political perspective? The prevailing assumption is that German and British Orientalists, given the prominent scholars and numerous Islamic-Shiite research institutes, have tried to overshadow the doctrinal dimension by politic.