Muhammad Abduh and the Islamic Reform Movement

# Death of Abduh and Rida: Islamic Modernism

Muhammad Abduh (1266-1323 AH / 1849-1905 CE) and his student Muhammad Rashid Rida (1282-1354 AH / 1865-1935 CE) were the two most influential figures of the Islamic modernism movement in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Together, and through the journal al-Manar that Rida published, they shaped the intellectual framework through which many Muslims attempted to reconcile Islamic tradition with the challenges of modernity.

Muhammad Abduh

Life

Muhammad Abduh was born in Mahallat Nasr, a village in the Egyptian Delta, in 1849 CE to a family of modest means. He received a traditional Islamic education at al-Azhar in Cairo, where he was profoundly shaped by the thought of his teacher Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1254-1314 AH / 1838-1897 CE), the itinerant pan-Islamic activist and intellectual.

Al-Afghani awakened Abduh to the political and intellectual crises facing the Muslim world — the dominance of European colonialism, the stagnation of traditional Islamic scholarship, and the need for Muslim intellectual renewal. Abduh became al-Afghani's collaborator in political and intellectual activism, eventually following him to Paris, where the two published the influential newspaper al-Urwa al-Wuthqa (The Firmest Bond) in 1884 CE.

Intellectual Contributions

After returning to Egypt and serving as a judge and later as Mufti of Egypt (the highest religious legal authority, 1316-1323 AH / 1899-1905 CE), Abduh developed a systematic program of Islamic reform:

Quranic commentary. He began Tafsir al-Manar, a modernist commentary on the Quran that interpreted verses in light of contemporary needs and rejected what he saw as superstitious or scientifically untenable traditional interpretations. He did not complete this work; Rida continued it.

Religious rationalism. Abduh argued that Islam is fundamentally rational and compatible with modern science. He insisted that apparent conflicts between religious texts and scientific discoveries should be resolved by re-examining the interpretation of the text, not by rejecting either science or religion.

Educational reform. He worked to reform al-Azhar's curriculum, introducing modern subjects alongside the traditional religious sciences.

Fatwa reform. As Mufti, he issued controversial fatwas that relaxed some traditional restrictions, such as permitting Muslims to eat meat slaughtered by non-Muslims in Europe and relaxing restrictions on bank interest — positions that generated significant controversy.

Abduh died in Cairo in 1323 AH (1905 CE).

Muhammad Rashid Rida

Life and Al-Manar

Rashid Rida was born in Qalamun, a village near Tripoli in Greater Syria (present-day Lebanon), in 1865 CE. He came to Cairo in 1897 CE specifically to study under Abduh, becoming his most devoted student and intellectual heir.

In 1315 AH (1898 CE), he founded the journal al-Manar (the Lighthouse), which he published continuously for 37 years until his death in 1354 AH (1935 CE). Al-Manar became the most influential Islamic periodical of the early twentieth century, read across the Muslim world from Morocco to Indonesia.

Intellectual Evolution

While Rida began as a disciple of Abduh's modernism, he evolved in directions that moved beyond his teacher. Increasingly influenced by the Wahhabi-Salafi tradition emanating from the Arabian Peninsula (he maintained close ties with Ibn Saud and the Saudi religious establishment), he developed a more traditionalist position than Abduh on some issues while maintaining the modernist framework on others.

His monumental Tafsir al-Manar (the continuation of Abduh's Quranic commentary) reflects this synthesis: modernist concern with rational interpretation and contemporary relevance combined with greater respect for the textual tradition than Abduh had shown.

He also wrote extensively on the question of the caliphate — particularly after the Ottoman Caliphate was abolished in 1342 AH (1924 CE) — and on pan-Islamic political unity.

Rida died in 1354 AH (1935 CE) while returning from visiting Saudi Arabia.

Legacy

Abduh and Rida together established the intellectual framework of Islamic modernism: the insistence that Islam is rational and compatible with modernity, that ijtihad (independent legal reasoning) must be revived, and that the Muslim world's decline was due to internal corruption and stagnation rather than to anything inherent in Islam.

Their influence extended in multiple directions. The Muslim Brotherhood, founded by Hassan al-Banna in 1928 CE, was directly influenced by Rida's thought. Modernist Muslim thinkers across South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Arab world engaged with al-Manar and its approach. The ongoing debate within Islam between traditionalists, modernists, and Salafis was significantly shaped by the positions that Abduh and Rida articulated.

Sources

• Muhammad Abduh, Risalat al-Tawhid (Theology of Unity, trans. Ishaq Musaad and Kenneth Cragg)
• Rashid Rida, Tarikh al-Ustadh al-Imam Muhammad Abduh (Biography of Abduh)
• Malcolm Kerr, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida
• Henri Laoust, Le Réformisme orthodoxe des "Salafiyya"