Encyclopedia of Islam

Abduh, Muhammad

  

5  J

---

nationalist movement against British occupation 

of the country. This culminated in Abduh’s partici-

pation in the unsuccessful 1882 Urabi Revolt and 

his exile by the Egyptian khedive (ruler).

A major influence in Abduh’s life was J

amal

al

-d

in

 

al

-a

Fghani

, who had come to c

airo

 in 

1871. They worked closely together there and 

later in Paris, where in 1884 they organized a 

secret society and published al-Urwa al-Wuthqa

(the strongest link), a newspaper promoting resis-

tance to European expansionism through Mus-

lims’ solidarity with one another and through 

the revival and reform of Islam. Both Abduh and 

al-Afghani saw stagnation and weakness in Islami-

cate societies as rooted in the imitation (taqlid) 

of old traditions and called for the use of rational 

interpretation (

iJtihad

) to incorporate modern 

ideas into Islam. Abduh in particular saw many 

parallels between concepts in Islam and ideas 

associated with the European Enlightenment and 

drew on these for inspiration. He rejected, how-

ever, a wholesale appropriation of western secular 

values, choosing instead the middle path of an 

enlightened Islam that valued the human intellect 

and modern sciences but revered the divine as the 

source of human morality. He presented his ideas 

on theology in a series of lectures given in Beirut 

that were later published as Risalat al-tawhid (The 

Theology of Unity, 1942–1943).

In 1888, Abduh returned to Cairo, focus-

ing his energies on educational and institutional 

reform. After becoming the head (

mUFti

) of the 

nation’s 

sharia

 court system in 1899, he worked 

to liberalize interpretations of religious law. In this 

field, he was especially concerned with the status 

of women and advocated changes in family law 

and equal opportunities in education, but he was 

often countered by strong conservative forces.

Muhammad Abduh’s ideas were carried on 

by his associates long after his death. m

Uhammad

r

ashid

  r

ida

, a Syrian, published the reformist 

journal  Al-Manar (the beacon), which they had 

started together, until his death in 1935. Qasim 

Amin (d. 1908) developed further the arguments 

for women’s emancipation as integral to national 

development and a healthy Muslim society, and he 

became an inspiration to feminists in the region. 

h

asan

 

al

-b

anna

 (d. 1949) would take the spirit of 

Abduh’s activist Islamic ideology and apply it in 

the founding of the m

Uslim

 b

rotherhood

. Abduh 

died in 1905 near Alexandria, Egypt.

See also 

edUcation

; e

gypt

; 

reneWal

 

and

 

reForm

movements

; s

alaFism

; 

secUlarism

.

Michelle Zimney