It has become clear since the early 19th century that the Islamic world is experiencing a civilizational crisis. Napoleon's campaign in Egypt was enough to realize its depth and the urgent need to overcome it. The patterns of response to this crisis varied, leading to the emergence and spread of three intellectual currents:
- The Salafi current, which was concentrated in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula, believed that adhering to tradition and purifying Islamic creed and practices from distortions was enough to overcome the civilizational crisis.
- The secular or Westernization current, formed by Christian intellectuals from the Levant and some Egyptians, saw imitating the West and following its example as the only way to overcome the crisis.
- The reformist current, which spread throughout the Islamic world, both East and West, positioned itself between the two aforementioned currents. It is based on the idea of aligning Islamic values and concepts with Western modernity. Most Islamic thinkers, from Rifa'a at-Tahtawi to Malek Bennabi, belong to this current.
These three currents had impacts on the idea of identity. The Salafi current saw preserving identity as a justification for self-isolation and rejection of all Western products, while the secular and Westernization current sacrificed identity and everything related to it—symbols, ideas, institutions, and systems—in the pursuit of absolute assimilation with the other and catching up with enlightenment. The reformist current, represented by its early figures like At-Tahtawi and Muhammad Abduh, requires scrutiny regarding its stance on identity. The attempt to reconcile Islamic values and heritage with Western values along with moral and material achievements had negative effects on identity, as we believe.
The statements of the Tunisian Hayreddin Pasha represent the general philosophy of the Renaissance current on how to deal with the incoming West. In the preface of his book “Aqwam al-Masalik,” he says: “The progress in European countries is visibly apparent and needs no further clarification.” Thus, he warns Muslims against continuing to disregard the commendable aspects of others that go against our Sharia.
He quotes a European writer saying, “The kingdoms that do not emulate their neighbors in the new military apparatus and organizational structures are likely to become their spoils eventually.” He not only calls for matching them in the military or technical fields but considers it obligatory: “in everything that likely leads to progress, whether in military matters or others.”
The idea of emulating the West dominated the reformists, and they wrote extensively about it. From this came another idea: the necessity of reconciling Islamic values with Western values. However, the process of reconciliation as practiced by the reformists was conducted on Western terms and from the West’s perspective on Islam. This is evident in the works of At-Tahtawi, who, despite his traditional Azharite background, rooted the “natural rights” brought by the French Revolution in the Usul al-Fiqh. He states in his book “The Honest Guide”:
“What we call the science of Usul al-Fiqh (principles of Islamic jurisprudence) is akin to what they call natural rights or innate laws, which are rational rules, considering the good and the bad, upon which they base their civil rulings. What we call branches of Fiqh (jurisprudence), they call civil rights and rulings. What we refer to as justice and benevolence, they call it liberty and equality.” In this comparison, we observe that the West became the origin and standard upon which we measure Islamic values and sciences.
Regardless of the good intentions behind the idea of reconciliation, At-Tahtawi appears to have wholly assimilated the colonial Orientalist views regarding Islam and its history. This is most evident in his adoption of Orientalist interpretations regarding the deterioration of Egypt's conditions over the centuries. He stated in his book, “The Methodology of Egyptian Minds," that “Because in the time of the caliphs, Egypt was governed by officials and deputies, most of whom did not follow the correct path in good administration and management... When the French army came, they thoroughly examined the country and recognized the value of its living conditions. They concluded that if Egypt were governed similarly to the well-organized European states, its population could reach eight million, it could achieve growth in agriculture, industry, and commerce, and its people would have the potential to reap the fruits of intellect and the benefits of skill.”
According to this statement, the history of Egypt and other nations during the Islamic eras was a continuous sequence of decay attributed to Islam itself, rescued only by Western colonialism and its modernity, which only then set the course of history on a progressive trajectory.
While At-Tahtawi adopted the Western interpretation of Islamic history, Muhammad Abduh sought to select what was suitable from Islamic heritage as a basis for reconciling Islam with the West. He found his goal in the Mu'tazilite heritage, which prioritizes reason over Sharia sources. In “The Message of Monotheism,” he adopted the Mu'tazilite position on the issue of justice, at the heart of which is the creation of actions, asserting that they are from the individual and not from God. However, he maintained the Ash'arite stance on the nature of God and His attributes. He also had a wavering position on the issue of Quranic createdness, initially adopting the Mu'tazilite view in the first edition of “The Message of Monotheism,” but subsequently removing the related passage in later editions based on someone's advice.
In his attempt to interpret the Qur'an, which Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd considers the first seed of the contemporary reading project, he said in his book, “Text, Authority, Truth,” p. 29. “He interpreted everything in the Qur'an about jinn and devils as psychological forces and instincts driving desires. Additionally, he interpreted the birds in flocks (Ababil) as the chicken pox disease.”
Amin al-Khuli, the proponent of the “literary study of the Qur'an” and the supervisor and defender of the doctoral dissertation “The Narrative Art in the Holy Qur'an” by Muhammad Khalaf Allah, suggested that Abduh's interpretation of Qur'anic stories was the first contemporary interpretation to propose that these stories might be allegorical rather than historical facts. They were intended to represent the morals and predispositions of the human race. However, he quickly added that the issue of historicity might not have been clear in Abduh's mind (see his series of articles, “Steps of Our Artistic Development: Art and History”).
In summary, the pioneers of reform believed in the idea of reconciling Islamic values with Western modernity. In their pursuit of reconciliation, they made the West and its values the starting point, selecting elements from the heritage that could serve as a basis for connection, thus deeming most of the heritage unsuitable. This had profound implications for self-awareness and the perception of others on the one hand, and for the attempts to develop and renew Islamic knowledge on the other.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Read the Article in Arabic
