The Review of Petrushevsky’s Opinions on the Hajj in His Book “Islam in Iran”

Since the distant past, non-Muslim scholars, or orientalists as they are more commonly known, have been interested in the study of the core and basic Qur’anic and Islamic teachings. The book Islam in Iran by the Russian orientalist and historian, Ilya Pavlovich Petrushevsky, is one of the works in this field that is taught as a textbook. He outlines the Hajj rituals under the topic of Islamic religious teachings and rites as the fifth pillar of Islam. His explanations and viewpoints regarding the traditions, rituals, and essence of the Hajj should be scrutinized. This article employs a descriptive-analytic methodology to study the Islamic Religious Rituals section of Petrushevski’s book, Islam in Iran, and to quote his viewpoints on the nature of the Hajj and its rituals. The article then evaluates and critiques these points, highlights the benefits of his thesis, and takes into account the drawbacks of his viewpoints. The findings of the article show that, like the majority of orientalists’ studies, Petrushevski’s viewpoints on the nature and rituals of the Hajj suffers from some structural and content flaws because of a lack of knowledge of Arabic, and a lack of access to reliable and authentic sources without citing the verses of the Qur’an. Of these drawbacks, one can refer to the misunderstanding of the concept of affordability for performing the Hajj or the confusion between the required and suggested rites during the Hajj, both of which were investigated and criticized in the research that follows.