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Muhammad Abduh said Islam should be adjustable to the modern life without changing the stable basics.
Emergence of Islamic Movements
The period of stagnation ended after a very long time. The period had different names like closing of the doors of ijtihaad etc. In Islamic Jurisprudence, there was a notion that everything has been said and even the hypothetical ideas were considered to be still valid.
The term hawashi, in Arabic is used to describe a book that has margin, and so the scholars at that time allowed themselves to write within the margin of their school of thought, that is only commenting on or explaining the original manuscript.
In 1908 A.D. in Egypt, the scholars were allowed to borrow from other school or madahib, but within those four schools of thought only.
French invasion of Egypt really shocked the Muslims. When the first fleet bomb hit Alexandria, Muslims realized clearly that there is something called West, which was something behind the dark. When the Mamluk ruler Ali Pasha took his sword to defend against the French, he was killed by the fleet bomb, only then the Muslims realized and life changed.
Napoleon, when he came to Egypt brought scientists and researchers. He called the Muslim scholars and demonstrated to them that there is something called electricity. Muslims realised that there is a whole new world. This created shock waves among the Muslim community.
The Caliphate was collapsing, Arab world was divided and everything went under the authority of the West, mainly under British and French. Dutch controlled Indonesia, Italy had Libya, then the Muslims decided to put madahibs in the backburner and there was a shift to Movements.
Within a Movement, more than one madahib did exist. The movements were organised as collective responses to the new challenge. It meant “We Muslims need to exist; we need to survive as a religion and to have a place in this modern human civilization”.
Each Movement was preceded by the harbingers and precursors.
The three movements that we like to mention are:
- Jamaat ulamaa al-Islam, a movement in Algeria founded by Abdul-Hameed bin Badees. (1889 A.D. – 1940 A.D)
- Ikhwan al-Muslimeem (The Muslim Brotherhood), a movement in Egypt led by Hasan al-Banna (1906 A.D. – 1948 A.D)
- Jamaat-e-Islami, a movement in India (later Pakistan) led by Abu Ala Maududi (1903 A.D. – 1979 A.D.)
Ikhwan al-Muslimeem (The Muslim Brotherhood) - Egypt
Jamaluddin Afghani
* Jamaluddin Afghani deserves volumes to be written about him. Everywhere he went, he sowed the seed of revolution.
* He lived most of his productive years in Egypt.
* He was a very remarkable man in his vision. He considered that madahibs brought all confusions to Muslims.
* Around 1805 A.D. he had a simple message. He said Muslims should fight tyranny. This happened even before the collapse of Khilafate.
* His theory was Islam is universal and eternal. Islam gives good life to both Muslims and non-Muslims. This cannot be achieved until authoritarianism is defeated.
* He went to Iran and laid the seed for revolution against the King.
* He went to Sudan and sowed the Mahdi revolution.
* He went to Egypt where he formed Halaqa (a circle for discussion) in a café called Matatia, which was later destroyed in order to build high rise buildings. His halaqa included Christians, Jews and Muslims. His student Yaqub Sanwa was a Jew, who founded the Egyptian theatre. His student was Shibli Shumayyil, a Christian who founded the nationalistic party in Syria.
* His student was Muhammad Abduh. Muhammad Abduh was an intelligent man and his profile will fit with Jamaluddin Afghani’s profile to a much greater extent.
* Jamaluddin Afghani’s first objective was to get rid of the oppressive ruler.
* He did not write much. He was sent out of Egypt and went to Paris. He taught himself French.
* He and Muhammad Abduh published a magazine in French called “The Tied Knot”.
* The rumour was that Jamaluddin Afghani was lured back to Khilafate in Turkey where he was believed to be poisoned. There was also a rumour that they cut his tongue but it might be due to cancer.
* He later died and we were left with Muhammad Abduh.
Muhammad Abduh
* Muhammad Abduh appeared to be very frustrated after the death of Jamaluddin Afghani. He was kind of disillusioned to a great extent and he felt that the revolutions are leading to nowhere.
* During the later part of his years, Muhammad Abduh distanced himself from politics and considered politics as something disastrous, but he still did not give up fully.
* He felt that if one needs to make correction in the society, one should correct the ulema because people were nurtured by the ulemas.
* So Muhammad Abduh decided to focus on correcting Al-Azhar institution. At that time, Egypt was under the British rule. Hence he befriended Lord Cromer, the British Ambassador to Egypt that resulted in assigning him as the Mufti of Egypt and the one in-charge of Al-Azhar.
* Muhammad Abduh entered Al-Azhar institution like a firestorm. He fired people in Al-Azhar and he was even described as “Kafir” by some ulemas who disliked his views.
* He said Islam should be adjustable to the modern life without changing the stable basics.
* He said that art is not haram, if it is expressing the human feeling. Music is fine and likewise theatre, but the most important thing to him was democracy.
* His very close student was Sheikh Rashid Rida, who did a great deal of writing on the ideas of Muhammad Abduh.
* Muhammad Abduh wrote a great tafsir of the Quran, Tafsir al-Manar in Arabic. It is equivalent to Muhammad Asad’s translation in English that we have today.
* Rashid Rida took Muhammad Abduh’s incomplete tafsir and started working on it.
All that we discussed so far were the precursors to Hasan al-Banna, who was a student of Jamaluddin Afghani and Muhammad Abduh that led to the Ikhwan al-Muslimeen movement.
(The writer is Sr. Advisor, Muslim Public Affairs Council -MPAC)
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