Modern Islamist Movements: History, Religion, and Politics (10 page)

are understandable to very few. In contrast, the words of divine revelation are – by their very nature – comprehensible to everyone.

Building on these foundational ideas, Afghani stated that three of the most important truths which the Quran teaches are: (1) human beings are to be rulers of the earth under God’s domain and that humans are the noblest of all created beings; (2) the religious community and society which human beings create and perpetuate in accordance with God’s decree would by definition be the best possible type of community; and

(3) humans have been sent into the world to perfect their societies and themselves in order to improve the moral and religious environments of the places where they live and to prepare themselves for eternal life in heaven.10 When people accept these truths and implement them in their lives and in society, three virtues, which form the basis of a vigorous and potentially righteous Islamic society, are manifested: modesty, trust, and truthfulness. With these virtues in mind, Afghani maintained that Muslims must be actively involved in the transformation of their societies.

For Afghani, one of the most pressing and urgent crises that nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Muslims faced was that they were not active participants in transforming their societies to embody Islam’s highest principles. Afghani believed that Muslims of his day either passively accepted the truncated Islam that Islamic religious and political leaders propagated and/or they accepted to varying degrees the deleterious ideas and practices of the secular West. Afghani’s advocacy of Islamically-based religious and political activism provided a starkly contrasting vision of Islam compared to that with which the vast majority of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Muslims had been familiar. The Islam to which these Muslims had been exposed was one that primarily shaped individual and family life, but did not involve the kind of political activism which would transform the whole of society in majority-Muslim countries into the kind that was completely adherent to Islamic law. Afghani’s totalistic vision of Islam was one of several that emerged during the modern era that came to influence future Islamist intellectuals and groups in the majority-Muslim world.

Muhammad (Abduh

Another significant Muslim intellectual and visionary, who was based in Egypt and came to have a substantial impact on subsequent Islamic thought, was Muhammad (Abduh, who was one of Afghani’s students. Unlike Afghani, who never became a member of the ulema, (Abduh did, making him a part of Egypt’s religious establishment. Both during and after the time (Abduh spent studying with Afghani, he was a student at one of the Sunni Islamic world’s most renowned and influential institutions, Cairo’s al-Azhar

University, which was founded in 970 and emphasized education in the Quran, Hadith, Islamic law and history, theology, and Arabic language, and (under Afghani’s influence) reinstated the study of philosophy. (Abduh taught at both al-Azhar and Dar al-Ulum in Cairo.

Much like Afghani, (Abduh’s discourse began with the problems of deterioration particular to Islamic societies and what he perceived as the need for inner revival, both within individual Muslims and within Egyptian society. In light of the problems that Egypt and other majority-Muslim countries faced, (Abduh wrote that God had given Muhammad revelations that would provide individuals with eternal life in heaven and that would be instrumental in establishing virtuous societies. In general, (Abduh believed that there were certain ways of acting in society that were consistent with the messages of the Quran and Hadith, and others that were not. For (Abduh, as socio-historical circumstances and contexts changed, governments and individuals sometimes found themselves faced with challenges that the Quran and Hadith did not explicitly address, and it was the responsibility of Muslim intellectuals to decide which aspects of Islam’s texts could be rigorously interpreted so as to be made applicable to Muslim societies’ contemporary problems.11

Two of several matters in the modern world which (Abduh addressed in terms of Islam were law and education. These topics are important because aspects of them are intimately related to people’s daily lives. The idea that God provided Muhammad with ultimate legal precepts is one of Islam’s central features. In addition, education has traditionally been important in Islam, insofar as Muslims believe that Muhammad taught early Muslims that knowing and practicing the principles in Islam’s texts, beliefs, and rituals should be foundational to their lives. (Abduh maintained that in order for laws to be revised properly, citizens needed to be educated so they could revise the laws appropriately as times and circumstances changed.12

According to (Abduh, the Western colonialists in Egypt together with the country’s leaders had attempted to reform the country by replicating European institutions and laws in Egypt’s vastly different milieu. (Abduh maintained that the specifics of such laws were designed for the concrete circumstances of Europe and did not conform to the needs of Egyptian society. Thus, Egyptian Muslims had to reform Egypt’s laws in such a way that properly instituted Sharia within the contemporary circumstances.

However, for (Abduh the laws could not be reformed until Egypt’s educational systems were changed in such a way that the Muslim intellectuals who received their education in these schools could – with sophisticated understandings and nuanced methodologies – analyze, critique, and revise Egypt’s laws. (Abduh maintained that Muslims had to establish Islamic educational systems that would strike a delicate balance between teaching the basic texts and precepts of Islam, on the one hand, and instilling students

with the ability to think critically, on the other. The educational system that he envisioned would encourage free-flowing, sophisticated, nuanced, critical and analytical thinking, while educating students thoroughly in Islam. For (Abduh, the graduates of such an educational system, that is, students who were steadfast Muslims and could think critically, were essential to Egyptian society and Islamic society as a whole. Their solid Islamic faith and practice would guide their decisions and enable them to serve as positive Muslim role models. At the same time, their ability to think critically and flexibility would position them to fashion laws in a way that would remain consistent with Islam’s teachings, while addressing societies’ contemporary needs. (Abduh believed it was essential for Muslims to create educational institutions which would produce the kind of Muslims who could reform Egyptian and Islamic societies in such a way that Islam’s “essence” was preserved in the laws and that, at the same time, society’s vitality was maintained.

In his thinking, (Abduh did not completely reject Western ideas and methods. Rather, he believed it was possible for Muslims to carefully adapt such principles in ways that would suit Islam’s needs. For example, he responded positively to the advances which the West had made in science and medicine, yet he believed that Muslims needed to learn about and appropriate these advances in ways that would benefit Muslims – without reinforcing the materialistic and consumption-oriented social and economic structures which scientific and medical advances helped promote in the West.

In the humanities, for instance, advances which Westerners had made in philology and linguistics could increase Muslims’ knowledge of the life of the Prophet Muhammad, the Quran, and Hadith, in such a way that would strengthen their Islamic faith and practice and bring them to increasingly vivid understandings of the applicability of their religion to contemporary life. (Abduh also wrote positively of the ways in which Western educational systems encouraged the refinement of critical thinking on the part of students and faculty.

Yet, while in principle (Abduh believed in the importance of fostering critical thinking, he did not fully apply this ideal to the political sphere. (Abduh, much like Afghani and other previous Muslim political philoso- phers, believed that Muslim societies could derive great benefit from a just tyrant who would govern fairly and institute the advances which (Abduh envisioned. He went so far as to say that a just despot could do more for Muslims in 15 years than Muslims could do for themselves in 15 centuries. (Abduh believed that there were limits to the advantages that fostering critical thinking could bring to society; while he maintained that it was important for Egyptian society to cultivate the kind of intellectuals who could criticize laws and other aspects of societies that needed reform, (Abduh did not envision this kind of critique taking the form of organized political protest against governments. In other words, (Abduh was not advocating

the democratization of Muslim governments, nor did he view democracy as essential for catalyzing the kind of critical thinking he had in mind. Related to this, (Abduh did not fear that encouraging critical and analytical thinking in schools might lead to those very students and others engaging in calls for democratic reform. In this and other respects, (Abduh was a product of his time. In a complex and nuanced fashion, he combined some of the ideas and habits which he learned from the West with some of those that he had inherited from Islam.

What for Westerners may seem like the unexpected combination of advocacy for a just despot and support of critical thinking is emblematic of the contrasting sources from which (Abduh drew. He adapted his ideas regarding the importance of a just despot from Islamic sources and Islamic cultural norms which suggest (either explicitly or implicitly) that when societies are not led by a strong political leader, chaos ensues. (Abduh clearly expressed this anxiety in his writings. Yet, Western sources influence (Abduh’s assertions about the benefits of critical thinking. He holds these pro-despotic and “pro-critical thinking” perspectives without believing they contradict each other.

By the beginning of the twenty-first century, (Abduh’s ideas – sometimes in refashioned forms – were adapted by Islamists and Islamic liberals. The Islamists adapted the aspects of (Abduh’s ideas which they interpreted as suggesting the need for a highly specific (and rigid) implementation of Islamic codes in every aspect of society. Islamic liberals, for their part, interpreted (Abduh as encouraging Muslims to think critically and to carefully integrate aspects of Western thought into their own worldviews.

Muhammad Rashid Rida

Another influential intellectual of this late nineteenth- and early twentieth- century Egyptian school, who had a substantial influence on subsequent Islamic thought, was Muhammad Rashid Rida. Rida was heavily influenced by the thought of Afghani and (Abduh – at times restating their ideas while, at other times, reshaping or even departing from them. Rida was as concerned as both Afghani and (Abduh about the deteriorating state of Islamic societies. He was alarmed by the accelerating moral decline in such countries with respect to a number of areas including the increased use of “immodest” dress among women and men, looser sexual standards, increasing alcohol consumption, gambling, noticeable greed and materialism, and the availability of Western publications, which promoted these and other morally objectionable attitudes and ways of life. Rida was also deeply concerned about the political, economic, and cultural influence of colonialist powers – particularly Great Britain and France – in the majority-Muslim

world. He attempted to conceive of ways that Muslims could strengthen their religion in order to thoroughly assert Islam’s vital truthfulness and to combat colonialist influence.

In this context, the primary question which concerned Rida, (Abduh, and Afghani was,“Why have Islamic societies fallen substantially behind Western societies in terms of technological advancements, economically, and in other respects?”13 These intellectuals’ answer to this question is based on the idea that there is an inherent and necessary relationship between obedience to Islam’s principles, on the one hand, and prosperity and technological advancement, on the other. Rida, (Abduh, and Afghani believed that since Islam contains supreme truth, obeying its principles can lead to every manner of fruitfulness and benefit for the individual and society, which would include worldly power, respectability, as well as the rapid, efficient, and vigorous advance of faithful and obedient Muslims. In contrast, if Muslims do not adhere to Islam’s teachings the results would be weakness, lack of respect, poverty, and decline of both the individual and society. According to these three intellectuals, the reason for the deterioration of Islamic societies is that Muslims have lost sight of Islam’s most important teachings.14

One of many reasons that Rida believed that Muslims had lost sight of Islam’s important teachings was because of political rulers who, while claiming to be Muslim, either did not fully understand Islam or, if they did, chose to ignore it as they made political decisions. For Rida, two of Islam’s most important teachings as they applied to his context were that God is one and that political leaders must make their decisions based on the reli- gion’s true and properly understood principles. Rulers claiming to be Muslims have induced the Muslim populace into forgetting the importance of basing political decisions on Islam by subtly encouraging Muslims to release themselves of their obedience to God. Yet, for Rida, the momentous events of the seventh century – God’s creating the first Islamic community and inculcating them with Islam’s truth – can, albeit on a lesser scale, be reinstituted if Muslims return to Islam’s true teachings.15

According to Rida, technical skill can be learned by many different kinds of people – both Muslims and non-Muslims. Yet, one of the tasks of Muslims – in addition to being properly grounded in Islam – is to learn the habits of mind and gain the intellectual faculties which would enable Muslims to develop modern technical aptitudes, because in the hands of Muslims, the correct application of those skills could lead to more technologically advanced Islamic societies that could benefit large num- bers of Muslims. Yet, like (Abduh, Rida believed that Muslims were obligated to limit the negative effects of technologically advanced societies, such as consumerism, greed, and selfishness. Both of these intellectuals believed that faithful Muslims living in Islamic societies where Sharia was properly instituted could harness the best aspects of