Investigating and Analyzing the Dating of Mahdavi Narrations in the Viewpoint of Western Scholars (Focusing on the Narrations Indicating the Name and Lineage of Imam Mahdi (a.s))

In the recent century, the efforts of Orientalists in determining the time of expression and spread of Islamic narrations have covered various subject fields. In the meantime, a number of Western scholars have benefited from multiple models to date them with the focus on the Mahdavi narrations. The subject of the present paper is the analytical and critical investigation of the most significant works of Orientalists in the field of dating narrations related to the name and lineage of Imam Mahdi (a.s). In this regard, the three prominent research works of Madelong, Gorke and Ilad have been described and analyzed and their positive and negative aspects have been specified. According to the findings of the current research, despite the effectiveness of utilizing the conventional methods of dating narrations, the results of these methods are questionable and distorted due to reasons such as the existence of presumption on the fabrication of narrations and their unauthenticity, incomplete investigation of narrations, as well as not considering or selectively paying attention to the characteristics of the narrators.