Muḥammad ՙAbduh

Egyptian writer and nationalist leader

• Born: c. 1849
• Birthplace: Mahallat Nasr, Gharbiyyah Province, Egypt
• Died: July 11, 1905
• Place of death: Alexandria, Egypt

ՙAbduh was a major figure in the articulation of modern political, ethical, and social values in an Islamic context. His writings were a major stimulus to the development of Egyptian nationalism and, in a wider sense, to the elaboration of social and political thought throughout Islam.

Early Life

Muḥammad ՙAbduh (ahb-dew) was the child of Egyptian peasants of the the great Nile River’s delta region. His family life appears to have been serene and his father highly respected in his village. Although without formal education themselves, ՙAbduh’s parents went to considerable effort, and no doubt sacrificed much, to ensure his receiving educational opportunities. ՙAbduh was trained in basic literary skills and, when ten years of age, went to learn recitation of the Qur՚ān with a professional. Few other educational opportunities were available to Egyptian peasants at the time.

ՙAbduh shortly became restless with Qur՚ānic memorization and Arabic grammar. Instead, he became enamored of the teachings of a number of Sufi mystics. From them, ՙAbduh first perceived the relationship between the true practice of and devotion to Islam, and the pursuit of morality and ethical conduct. He gravitated toward Cairo and the great theological center of Al Azhar, where he continued his education and increasingly rigorous Sufi practices.

ՙAbduh’s mentor at Al Azhar was the famed Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī , perhaps the most important Muslim intellectual figure in the nineteenth century. Although equally devoted to Sufism, Jamāl, a dynamic reformer and pan-Islamic advocate, turned ՙAbduh from the internal contemplation that had absorbed nearly all of his energies to more worldly avenues of learning and social involvement. With Jamāl’s encouragement, many of his students, ՙAbduh included, began writing articles for newspapers on a host of subjects related to the state of Egypt at the time and the challenge of modernization.

Despite his outstanding academic work, ՙAbduh’s outspoken opinions on Egyptian society and the suspicion that he meant to revive the skeptical philosophical movements characteristic of earlier periods in Islam drew the wrath of conservative clerics at Al Azhar. It required the intervention of the more liberal rector for ՙAbduh to receive passing marks on his examinations and his teaching certificate in 1877.

Life’s Work

Although he held numerous positions throughout his life in addition to his explicitly educational ones, ՙAbduh always regarded himself as a teacher. The essence of his teachings is first a concern for the state of Egypt. He and fellow intellectuals deplored their country’s drift during the 1870’s toward financial chaos and foreign intervention. They understood that only internal reforms could change Egypt’s fortunes. ՙAbduh’s experience at Al Azhar convinced him that the most essential reform must come in education. At a time when European economic and technological forces were closing in on Egypt, its greatest academic institution was still under the control of rigidly conservative theologians who resisted curricular innovation. ( ՙAbduh had been obliged to seek instruction in mathematics and natural sciences in the streets, among unofficial, black market classes held outside the walls of Al Azhar.)

However, it was not merely these additions to curriculum that concerned ՙAbduh. He also argued that the study of religion itself must be subject to the same rigor and philosophical scrutiny that attended the sciences and other secular studies. Further, he believed that leading institutions such as Al Azhar must, in their own reforms, assume leadership in rebuilding and expanding the entire Egyptian educational system. ՙAbduh’s ideas and teaching methods generated much controversy at Al Azhar but also earned for him support from the reform-minded prime minister Riad Pasha, who in 1878 appointed him to the experimental school Dar al-’Ulum, founded as a pilot institution for educational reform.

In 1879, the Egyptian ruler Khedive Ismā ՙīl, who had been intent on modernizing Egypt but went far beyond the country’s limited financial means, under European pressure abdicated in favor of his son, Tawfiq. The new khedive expelled Jamāl from the country and fired ՙAbduh, placing him under virtual house arrest. ՙAbduh was rescued from potential oblivion by Riad Pasha, who appointed him to the editorial staff of the official Egyptian government gazette al-Waqa ՙi al-Misriyyah. ՙAbduh quickly turned this rather stodgy publication into a vibrant, reformist organ, with contributions from many Egyptian intellectuals and government critics. In his own editorials, ՙAbduh continually returned to the need for educational reform and his campaign to cast Egyptian national consciousness in a new Islamic mold. Islam, he argued, should return to its basic simplicity and revive the spirit of inquiry and pursuit of knowledge characteristic of its early history.

In 1881, Egyptian army officers, led by the nationalist firebrand Colonel Ahmed ՙArabi, mutinied. The uprising sparked a general confrontation between the government and its critics. Alarmed at the prospect of violence against Europeans, British troops landed in Egypt in May, 1882. ՙAbduh, though opposed to ՙArabi’s methods, spoke out as usual in favor of national revival and reform. In September, a government tribunal ordered him expelled from Egypt.

ՙAbduh went first to Syria and later to Paris, where he was reunited with Jamāl. In exile, he continued to speak and publish actively. The wide venue of his travels led ՙAbduh to perceive the potential vitality of a unified Islam and the cultural renaissance of all Muslims. Increasingly he drew on the early history of Islam as a source of inspiration. On the other hand, his experiences in Syria, a country rife with ethnic and religious factionalism, led him to question whether Islam was a suitable rubric for the expression of modern Arab national aspirations. ՙAbduh’s reservations about pan-Islamic agitation caused him to part ways with Jamāl, who was disposed to intrigue and political maneuvering. ՙAbduh insisted that his role should be educational and instructive rather than activist.

In 1886, having received a government pardon, ՙAbduh returned to Egypt a national hero. He was now able to use this influence to implement his earlier ideas of curricular and institutional reform at Al Azhar, in order to make it a model of education in Islam. In 1895, the new khedive, Abbas II, at ՙAbduh’s instigation created an administrative committee for Al Azhar, dominated by ՙAbduh and other reformists.

In an effort to enlist faculty support for curriculum changes, the government provided significant new sums for salaries, to be distributed according to a merit system rather than at the discretion of the rector. Students, many of whom lived under appalling conditions, received double their previous board allowance. New dormitories with running water and suitable furniture appeared. The committee significantly lengthened the academic year, organized it according to European standards, and eliminated many disruptive holidays. It also established modern administrative systems for the university’s finances and organized its library collections.

Fears that these changes would turn students away from theology and ancient history disappeared when the student success rate on examinations increased by nearly an order of magnitude in the first two years of reform. ՙAbduh himself produced statistics that he claimed proved that students who studied modern subjects along with the traditional ones performed better in both areas on examinations.

The climax of ՙAbduh’s career came with his appointment as mufti of Egypt in 1899, from which post he was the final arbiter of questions of shari ՙa, or Muslim canon law. In this position ՙAbduh had to confront, more than ever before, his own ambivalence about the relationship between Islam and modern nationalism. His arguments with respect to interpretation of shari ՙa generated more controversy than anything else in his career. Like many other Muslim scholars, particularly in Egypt, ՙAbduh regarded shari ՙa as possessing a divinely inspired core of behavior and values to which all Muslims are expected to adhere. The community, however, by consensus might accept amendations to shari ՙa pertinent to its own experience and circumstances.

ՙAbduh perceived the emerging Egyptian nation as the logical outgrowth of this sense of community in Islam. However, he believed that the nation, because it contained citizens who were Christian or Jewish rather than Muslim, and because it aspired to a role in a secular world not anticipated by shari ՙa, should exercise a consensus of its own. Thus ՙAbduh decided that Muslims could eat animal flesh killed by Christians or Jews. Despite the ban on usury, in shari ՙa Egyptians could, and should, make use of modern postal savings and banking systems opposed by traditional clergy on the grounds that their strength contributed to the welfare of the nation. These positions ՙAbduh regarded not as a repudiation of Islam but as an act of defense of Islam, in that they reconstituted Islam as an open and tolerant culture capable of meeting the demands of a changing world.

Significance

When Muḥammad ՙAbduh died in July, 1905, he received the equivalent of a state funeral. The public demonstration of respect and reverence from all political factions and religious communities was unprecedented in Egypt. The country sensed that it had lost a singular patriot and scholar, and one of the most important figures in Egypt’s transformation. Later generations have borne out this assessment. Because of ՙAbduh’s reforms and the new intellectual environment they created, Al Azhar, and other large Egyptian universities, remain in the forefront of higher education in Islam and are recognized as among the world’s major institutions of higher learning.

In all of his teachings, ՙAbduh struggled to articulate an Egyptian sense of identity that reconciled the inconsistencies and often conflicting perceptions of Islam, the Islamic community, the modern nation and its role in a European-dominated world, and the tensions between modernity and tradition.

ՙAbduh is most fairly regarded, perhaps, as one who, rather than answering the multitude of questions arising from these issues, helped to air the issues and suggest ways in which they could be addressed satisfactorily. ՙAbduh is a symbol, rather than a model, for the contemporary, educated Egyptian. His intellectual journey represents what each Egyptian individually—and the nation as a whole—must consider in the process of finding a satisfying and rewarding identity in the modern world.

Bibliography

Adams, Charles C. Islam and Modernism in Egypt: A Study of the Modern Reform Movement Inaugurated by Muḥammad ՙAbduh. Reprint. New York: Routledge, 2002. Includes one of the most extensive biographical accounts of ՙAbduh. Attempts to analyze his personality and ideas in the light of his life experience.

Ahmed, Jamal Mohammed. The Intellectual Origins of Egyptian Nationalism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960. A survey of the varied sources of inspiration for Egyptian nationalism. Stresses how this variety contributes to the often conflicting roles of issues such as Egyptian ethnic identity, pan-Arabism, Ottomanism, and Islamic and pan-Islamic values.

Badawi, Muhammad Zaki. The Reformers of Egypt. London: Croom Helm, 1978. Treats ՙAbduh as a product of the same circumstances that produced other Egyptian nationalists and intellectuals, and attempts to draw comparisons among the careers of these figures.

Jankowski, James. “Ottomanism and Arabism in Egypt, 1860-1914.” Muslim World 70 (1980): 226-259. During the late nineteenth century, many Egyptians regarded the Ottoman Empire—to the extent that it stood for Islam as a whole—as a more legitimate outlet than identifying with the Arabs. This article shows how Ottomanism provided a more vigorous environment for the growth of Egyptian ethnic nationalism.

Kedourie, Elie. Afghani and ՙAbduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam. London: Frank Cass, 1966. Reprint. Portland, Oreg.: Frank Cass, 1997. A brief but controversial essay when it appeared. Argues that ՙAbduh was an atheist and subverter of Islam, and a Machiavellian who behaved as a Muslim only to advance his career.

Kerr, Malcolm. Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muḥammad ՙAbduh and Rashīd Ridā. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966. Considers the many influences that contributed to ՙAbduh’s ideas about the nature of the state and the legal system.