Muhammad ‘Abduh (d. 1905) was an Islamic reformist, jurist, and eminent scholar whose influence substantially altered the course of contemporary Islamic thought. He graduated from Al-Azhar University, where he encountered and became a student of reformist theologian and activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. ‘Abduh was employed as a teacher through the Ministry of Education, and, following Afghani’s political exile from Egypt, was himself sent into early retirement before being hired to edit al-Waqa’i al-Misriyya, a prominent Egyptian newspaper. As editor, he expressed criticisms of Egypt’s leadership and colonial rule; his nationalist views led to his exile in Beirut in 1882, then Paris, where he joined Afghani. Together they formed al-‘Urwa al-Wuthqa’ (The Strongest Link) and a newspaper of the same name, which they used to condemn colonialism and promote Egyptian nationalism. They were also dedicated to combating the perception that Islam was unable to meet the needs of a modern society.
‘Abduh was well-aware of the problems of economic, political, and social stagnation plaguing the Muslim world, and sought to address it by addressing modern questions in light of Islamic thought—that is, making Islam relevant and central to modern contexts. He advocated the advancement of the sciences, educational reform, social reform (including Islamic feminism), European political structures (parliamentary constitutionalism), and pan-Islamism, citing the dislocation of the Muslim world into separate states as one root cause of its decay. While affirming the foundational importance of Islamic source texts, he maintained that they were open to interpretation by qualified scholars and was critical of rigid Islamic thought. However, he underscored that the primary relationship is between individual believers and God, thus questioning the authoritative primacy of religious leaders.
These ideas and those of his students, particularly Rashid Rida (1865-1935), laid the foundations for Islamic modernism that would prove deeply inspirational for Hassan al-Banna and other later Islamists, and for the Salafi movement.
Sources:
John Esposito, Islam and Politics (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1991).
Yvonne Haddad, “Muhammad Abduh: Pioneer of Islamic Reform,” Pioneers of Islamic Revival, ed. ‘Ali Rahnama (London: Zed Books, 1994), pp. 30-63.