Islamic Modernism

Salafism and modernism

The origins of Salafism in the modernist "Salafi Movement" of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh are noted by many authors, although others say Islamic Modernism only influenced contemporary Salafism. According to Quintan Wiktorowicz:

There has been some confusion in recent years because both the Islamic modernists and the contemporary Salafis refer (referred) to themselves as al-salafiyya, leading some observers to erroneously conclude a common ideological lineage. The earlier salafiyya (modernists), however, were predominantly rationalist Asharis.

Trends

Some trends in modern Islamic thought include:

History of Modernism

Commencing in the late nineteenth century and impacting the twentieth-century, Muhammed Abduh and Rashid Rida undertook a project to defend and modernize Islam to match Western institutions and social processes. Its most prominent intellectual founder, Muhammad Abduh (d. 1323/1905), was Sheikh of Al-Azhar University for a brief period before his death. This project superimposed the world of the nineteenth century on the extensive body of Islamic knowledge that had accumulated in a different milieu. These efforts had little impact at first, however were catalysed with the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 and promotion of secular liberalism – particularly with a new breed of writers being pushed to the fore including Egyptian Ali Abd al-Raziq’s publication attacking Islamic politics for the first time in Muslim history. Subsequent secular writers including Farag Foda, al-Ashmawi, Muhamed Khalafallah, Taha Husayn, Husayn Amin, et. al., have argued in similar tones.

Abduh was skeptical towards Hadith (or "Traditions"), i.e. towards the body of reports of the teachings, doings, and sayings of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Particularly towards those Traditions that are reported through few chains of transmission, even if they are deemed rigorously authenticated in any of the six canonical books of Hadith (known as the Kutub al-Sittah). Furthermore, he advocated a reassessment of traditional assumptions even in Hadith studies, though he did not devise a systematic methodology before his death.

Influence on Muslim Brotherhood

The "early Salafiyya" (Modernists) influenced Islamist movements like Muslim Brotherhood and to some extent Jamaat-e-Islami. The MB is considered an intellectual descendant of Islamic modernism. Its founder Hassan Al-Banna was influenced by Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida who attacked the taqlid of the official `ulama and insisted only the Quran and the best-attested ahadith should be sources of the Sharia. He was a dedicated reader of the writings of Rashid Rida and the magazine that Rida published, Al-Manar. As Islamic Modernist beliefs were co-opted by secularist rulers and official `ulama, the Brotherhood moved in a traditionalist and conservative direction, "being the only available outlet for those whose religious and cultural sensibilities had been outraged by the impact of Westernisation".

Muhammadiyah

The Indonesian Islamic organization Muhammadiyah was founded in 1912. Described as Islamic Modernist, it emphasized the authority of the Qur'an and the Hadiths, opposing syncretism and taqlid to the ulema. However, as of 2006, it is said to have "veered sharply toward a more conservative brand of Islam" under the leadership of Din Syamsuddin the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council.

Connection with the contemporary Salafism

Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Rashid Rida and, to a lesser extent, Mohammed al-Ghazali took some Wahhabi ideals, such as endeavor to “return” to the Islamic understanding of the first Muslim generations (Salaf) by reopening the doors of juristic deduction (ijtihad) that they saw as closed. The modernists used the term "Salafiyya" for their movement whose proponents strove to reconcile their faith with the Enlightenment and modernity. Toward the end of the twentieth century, however, the term "Salafi movement" attached with the Wahhabism.The Salafi movement became inexplicably antithetical to Islamic modernism.

Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi writes:

Rashid Rida popularized the term 'Salafī' to describe a particular movement (i.e., Islamic modernism) that he spearheaded. That movement sought to reject the ossification of the madhhabs, and rethink through the standard issues of fiqh and modernity, at times in very liberal ways. A young scholar by the name of Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani read an article by Rida, and then took this term and used it to describe another, completely different movement. Ironically, the movement that Rida spearheaded eventually became Modernist Islam and dropped the 'Salafī' label, and the legal methodology that al-Albānī championed – with a very minimal overlap with Rida's vision of Islam – retained the appellation Salafī'. Eventually, al-Albānī's label was adopted by the Najdī daʿwah as well, until it spread in all trends of the movement. Otherwise, before this century, the term 'Salafī' was not used as a common label and proper noun. Therefore, the term 'Salafī' has attached itself to an age-old school of theology, the Atharī school.

Shaykh Nuh Ha Mim Keller writes:

The term Salafi was revived as a slogan and movement, among latter-day Muslims, by the followers of Muhammad Abduh.

Islamic modernists

Although, not all of the figures named below are from the above-mentioned movement, they all share a more or less modernist thought or/and approach.

Contemporary Modernists

Pakistan

According to at least one source, (Charles Kennedy) in Pakistan the range of views on the "appropriate role of Islam" in that country (as of 1992), contains "Islamic Modernists" at one end of the spectrum and "Islamic activists" at the other. "Islamic activists" support the expansion of "Islamic law and Islamic practices", "Islamic Modernists" are lukewarm to this expansion and "some may even advocate development along the secularist lines of the West."

Criticism of Modernism

Criticism of Islamic modernism comes mainly from supporters of Salafi movement.The salafis consider them as Neo-Mu'tazila, after the medieval Islamic school of theology based on rationalism, Mu'tazila. Critics argue that the modernist thought is little more than the fusion of Western Secularism with spiritual aspects of Islam.. Other critics have described the modernist positions on politics in Islam as ideological stances.

One of the leading Islamist thinkers and Islamic revivalists, Abul A'la Maududi agreed with Islamic modernists that Islam contained nothing contrary to reason, and was superior in rational terms to all other religious systems. However he disagreed with them in their examination of the Quran and the Sunna using reason as the standard. Maududi, instead started from the proposition that `true reason is Islamic`, and accepted the Book and the Sunna, not reason, as the final authority. Modernists errored in examining rather than simply obeying the Quran and the Sunna.

Critics argue politics is inherently embedded in Islam, a rejection of the secular principle, "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's". They claim that there is a consensus in Muslim political jurisprudence, philosophy and practice with regard to the Caliphate form of government with a clear structure comprising a Caliph, assistants (mu’awinoon), governors (wulaat), judges (qudaat) and administrators (mudeeroon). It is argued that Muslim jurists have tended to work with the governments of their times. Notable examples are Abu Yusuf, Mohammed Ibn al-Hasan, Shafi’i, Yahya bin Said, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Ismail bin Yasa, Ibn Tulun, Abu Zura, Abu Hasan al-Mawardi and Tabari. Prominent theologians would counsel the Caliph in discharging his Islamic duties, often on the request of the incumbent Caliph. Many rulers provided patronage to scholars across all disciplines, the most famous being the Abassids who funded extensive translation programmes and the building of libraries.