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Conditionsfor ideological production:The origins of
Islamic modernismin India, Egypt, and Iran
MANSOOR MOADDEL
Eastern Michigan University
The second part of the nineteenth century ushered in one of the most
creative episodes in the history of the modern Islamic movement, when
a group of Muslim scholars rigorously examined the sources of Islamic
jurisprudence. The central theological problems that engaged these
thinkers revolved around the validity of the knowledge derived from
sources external to Islam and the methodological adequacy of the
traditional sources of jurisprudence: the Quran, the dicta attributed to
the Prophet (hadith), the consensus of the theologians (ijma), and
juristic reasoning by analogy (qiyas). They resolved to reinterpret the
first two sources and transform the last two in light of the standards of
scientific rationality. Such prominent Islamic scholars as al-Afghani,
Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Abduh, and Amir Ali, among others, presented
Islam in a manner consistent with modern ideas and rational sciences.
They were impressed by the achievements of the West ranging from
scientific and technological progress, the Newtonian conception of the
universe, Spencer's sociology, and Darwinian evolutionism to Western
styles of living. They all argued that Islam as a world religion was
thoroughly capable of adapting itself to the changing conditions of
every age, the hallmark of the perfect Muslim community being law
and reason.
The treatises and Quranic exegeses produced by these forerunners of
Islamic modernism were astonishing not only because they reflected a
new doctrinal development in Islam, but also because they contrasted
with the fundamentalist discourse in vogue in recent decades. What
were the historical conditions that promoted this new discourse in
Islam? Who created the necessary social space and resources for the
production and growth of this ideology? What factors determined its
themes and orientation? This article answers these questions by analyzing the origins of Islamic modernism in Egypt, India, and Iran in
Theory and Society 30: 669-731, 2001.
? 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
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670
the second part of the nineteenth century. In this article, we compare
the conditions and the development of this ideology in these three
countries in that period. To this end, we develop two central propositions: (i) Ideological production is a discontinuous process and proceeds in an episodic fashion, and (ii) while resource mobilization is
necessary for ideological production, the actual production of ideas the content of what is being produced - takes place within the existing
discursive context and the location of this context in the sociopolitical
space of the social formation.
The correspondence perspective and new departures: Wuthnow and
Collins
Thus far, models drawn from the correspondence perspective have
guided research on ideology. Wuthnow departed from this perspective
by formulating an alternative articulation model, while Collins offered
an amended Durkheimian two-step model of intellectual creativity.
While all these models have advanced the social scientific understanding of ideological change, none adequately explains how ideas are
actually produced and how the specific contents of ideologies are
constructed. This study formulates an alternative episodic discourse
model to explain the proximate conditions of ideological production.
The correspondence perspective presumes a duality of, and a determinate relationship between, social structure and ideology. Durkheim
had a mimetic conception of religious ideas - they are the symbolic
representations of social arrangements. For Marx, too, ideology corresponds to social structure. It is "interwoven with the material activity
and the material intercourse of men."1Weber's approach is much more
analytical and rich with detailed subtlety than either position. He
questioned the purely materialistic analysis of ideas by arguing that,
for example, religious ideas do not neatly intermesh with interest.
Instead, he introduced the notion of "the metaphysical needs of human
mind." Nevertheless, on a lower level of abstraction, Weber conceded
that there is an "elective affinity" between diverse social grouping (for
example, warrior class, peasants, business classes, and intellectuals)
and different religious tendencies. This correspondence is established
through a secondary intellectual process of "reinterpretation of
ideas."2
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671
The literature abounds with analytical models drawn from the correspondence perspective to explain concrete ideologies. For example,
Swanson, following Durkheim, connected varying conceptions of
God's immanence in Protestantism and Catholicism to the nature of
political institutions existing in Europe prior to the Reformation.3
Using a Marxist approach, Wallerstein claimed that the rise of liberalism in the world economy was functionally related to its underlying
hegemonic power.4 Applying a corollary of this view to India, Chatterjee argued that third-world nationalism was a derivative discourse,
manifesting a general "problem of the bourgeois-rationalist conception of knowledge, established in the post-Enlightenment period of
European intellectual history."5A more general argument corresponding to the hierarchy of power in the world economy is that of the "new
discursive histories," which explain how colonial discourse constrained
the people of the periphery to ensure the hegemony of the core nations.6 Similarly, for Harvey, "postmodern fiction mimics the conditions of flexible accumulation."7
Even some of Foucault's analyses that spearheaded many of the recent
cultural studies may also be subsumed within the framework of the
correspondence perspective. As Wuthnow indicated, Foucault traced
the development of the modern concept of the individual in "the
experience ... of ordering individuals according to strict arrangements
in military regiments, of treating individuals" bodies medically, of
incarcerating them in separate classes, and later of organizing work
into specialized tasks.'8 In Discipline and Punish, Foucault held that
the development of penal law was a reflection of a single process in
which the technology of power was its organizing principle.9 The
correspondence premise is also evident in the works of his followers.
For example, Mitchell argued that cultural change in Egypt was a
reflection of the colonial design imposed by the British, and that the
order of modern life in Egypt reflected the colonial order.10Likewise,
Said believed that Orientalism had less to do with the Orient than with
the Western world and was shaped by the exchange with various kinds
of power.11
Each version of the correspondence perspective has its own difficul-
ties.12 The major problem of the perspective, however, is the absence of
a mechanism that connects ideas to social structure. Considering this
absence symptomatic of a more serious problem, Wuthnow problematized the central assumption that ideas and social structure correspond
to each other. He then argued that ideas and social structure "always
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672
relate in an enigmatic fashion."13 For him, because ideologies are
produced, there must be sufficient resources for their production and
a social space that permits them to grow. Since changes in social
structure and ideology are autonomous processes without one necessarily determining the other, then there must be "specific historical
conjunctures that made cultural innovation possible."14 Hence, the
relations of ideology to social environment is posed in terms of the
problem of articulation. In Wuthnow's historical analysis, exceptional
economic growth in Europe provided the necessary resources for the
Reformation, the Enlightenment, and socialism. But the state, by
providing the requisite social space, played the most important mediating role in the emergence of these cultural episodes.15
Wuthnow's emphasis on the significance of social resources and space
for culture production, his understanding of cultural change as a discontinuous process, and his conceptual scaffolding that specifies the
way social environment structures ideological production and how
ideologies through their discursive fields determine the central categories that shape figural actions, are important for understanding ideological production. Nevertheless, being exclusively concerned with
how meanings are articulated with the social environment, but not
with how meanings are produced, and despite the employment of a
conjuncture of complex historical factors, his model still ends up with
indeterminacy.16 Further, while Wuthnow's analysis provides the
grounds for abandoning the reductionism of the correspondence perspective and for treating ideology as an autonomous category, it is
unclear what it is that generates the internal dynamics of ideological
processes.
Collins addressed some of the theoretical issues left out in Wuthnow's
model. As it was the community of discourse for Wuthnow, Collins
considered the network of intellectuals the site of ideas. He first noted
that the vast arrays of philosophical erudition are structured by a small
number of rival positions, hardly more than half a dozen. This principle, which he calls the law of small numbers,17sets the upper and lower
bounds of philosophical expositions and debates.18 Within this structure, intellectual creativity takes place through personal contacts,
fueled by emotional energy and cultural capital. The mechanism of
intellectual creativity is contrasting positions, which are generated by
the dynamic of creation through opposition.19 Collins related the
micro-level intellectual network and broader social conditions in a
two-step model of causality. External social conditions affect intellec-
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673
tual diversity by "rearranging its material base."20Thus, when external
conditions disrupt the intellectual attention space, internal realignment takes place; and this in turn unleashes creativity for formulating
new positions, new tensions among the privileged arguers at the core
of the network.21
Collins's goal is to formulate a global theory of intellectual change
applicable to all diverse intellectual traditions of human societies.
Being concerned with a general dynamic common to all these traditions, Collins, like Wuthnow, is silent about the specific issues and
crucial nuances involved in philosophical disputations leading to the
creation of diverse worldviews. In fact, both theoreticians fail to explain how the actual content of ideas is constructed and what factors
determine its theme and sociopolitical orientation. Collins's contention that creativity moves by oppositional interactions is too general to
account for the variations in the content of philosophical production,
giving rise to diverse historical patterns.22
An episodic discourse model
The production of ideas involves (i) the expression of opinions and
beliefs, and (ii) the dissemination and consumption of these opinions
and beliefs. The first refers to the actual production of meanings, and
the other to the conditions of production of meaning. Resources and
social space, while crucial in the dissemination of ideas, are factors
external to ideological production. The actual production of ideas
involves the content of what is being produced; the message being
communicated and the conceptual vehicle used. These include conceptual innovation, the formulation of the themes, and the shaping of the
sociopolitical orientations of ideology. Explaining this internal aspect
of ideological production requires understanding the nature of the
intellectual context within which ideas are produced.
Discourse has a social referent - it is about something. The producers
of sociopolitical ideas make reference to such problems of social life as
economic development, poverty and inequality, race and gender differences, political domination and arbitrary rule, and national security.
What they actually say, however, cannot be directly derived from these
problems. Expression takes place through the medium of signs.
Although signs make reference to elements of social life, "they define
and interrelate them in an 'arbitrary'manner, that is, in a manner that
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674
cannot be deduced from exigencies [of social life].... The arbitrary
status of a sign means that its meaning is derived not from its social
referent - the signified - but from its relation to other symbols, or
signifiers within a discursive code."23 Meanings are thus produced
within the context of relationships among symbols.24 "Understanding," in Holquist's explication of Bakhtin, "comes about as a response
to a sign with signs."25 Expressions are made, meanings come about,
and ideas are produced in relation to other expressions, meanings, and
ideas that are present, occupying simultaneous but different space.26
This relationship is mutual - words are responded to with words,
rituals with rituals, symbols with symbols, and body movements with
body movements. Idea causes idea.
Ideological producers develop their ideas vis-a-vis the conceptual
framework, symbolic order, and ritualistic behavior, that is, the discursive fields of competing ideologies. In addressing social problems,
they re-evaluate, revisit, or reject the arguments, claims, and even the
conceptual foundations of competing ideologies. At the same time,
they beget responses, rebuttals, and counter-arguments from their adversaries. Debates, back-and-forth discussions, and ideological disputations set the internal dynamics of ideological production as each side
of the debate structures the kind of argument its opponent is likely to
advance against it. Each side constitutes the target of ideological production for the other.
The structure of the target varies from being a single discourse to a
plurality of discourses. The constituting discourse of the target itself
can vary from being a simple set of ideas to complex philosophical
systems. The production of ideas is a function of the kind of discourses
that are present in the social environment. The target may also vary in
terms of its site. The adherents of target ideologies are individuals with
organizations and power. They may enjoy the support of the state or
powerful groups in society. The nature of the power of the target
ideology and its location within the sociopolitical space of the social
formation determine the social or political orientation of the new
ideology. This is because the production of a new ideology not only
involves a critique of the target ideology, but also a critique of its
institutional basis.
A cross-tabulation of the two variables - the structure of the target
and its location in the sociopolitical space of the social formation yields four possible conditions for ideological production. First, if the
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675
target is characterized by diverse ideologies, hence, a plurality of discursive fields, then the new ideological production tends to develop a
multiplicity of themes, and display eclectic, pluralistic, and moderate
characteristics. Second, if, on the other hand, the target includes only a
single ideology, that is, a monolithic discursive field, then the new
ideology tends to develop a set of centralized themes and display
monistic and fundamentalist characteristics. In a pluralistic intellectual environment, ideological producers must "compete for the patronage of potential consumers of Weltanschauungen."27To market their
ideas effectively, ideological producers must consider the diverse views
of the adherents of competing ideologies. Given the market character
of ideology,28 eclecticism and universalism may have a better chance of
success in a pluralistic context. The presence of competing ideologies
may also subject ideological producers to crisscrossing ideas, reinforcing the belief in the complexity of social life, directing them to develop
synthetic models, which include elements of competing ideologies. In a
monolithic intellectual environment, on the other hand, ideological
producers encounter a single, often unambiguous, dominant ideology.
In attacking a monolithic target, ideological producers often tend to
reproduce in a different form an idea system similar to what they are
criticizing. As for the location of the target, third, if the target is
loosely connected to the state or if the ruling elite remains indifferent
to ideological debates, then ideological production is confined to civil
society and tends to remain predominantly social and non-political in
orientation. Finally, if the target is strongly connected to the state or if
the ruling elite systematically intervenes in ideological debates, then
ideological production becomes highly politicized and tends to develop
a political orientation.
Episode
Meaning is produced within the context of the present, the present
being everything that transpires in the life of the ideological producers:
events, social network, resources, ideas, and memories. Insofar as
these factors remain stable, we may expect little change in the discourses of the parties involved in the dialogic process of meaning
formation. The continuity of life, however, is punctuated with dramatic
events that may cause a change in the social order or in people's
perception of the existing social arrangements. These events structure
social relations and rearrange the order of things. The interim between
such events constitutes an episode: a bounded historical process, hav-
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676
ing a beginning and an end, and displaying a certain distinctiveness by
virtue of its difference with the preceding and following episodes.
Episodes begin and end with such events as a military coup, a social
and political upheaval, the outbreak of a war or a revolution, dramatic
changes in the government's policies, a sudden economic swing, or an
important cultural innovation, whether indigenously created or imported.
The notion of episode implies that culture production is not a developmental process that would go through stages. It is rather a discontinuous process in that a currently dominant cultural movement may
have no conceptual, symbolic, and methodological affinity with the
previous cultural movement. The past cultural movement may even
constitute the target of ideological production. Depending on the social context, the present discourse may be an antithesis of, a reaction
to, or simply an ideological innovation within the past discourse. This
discontinuity is more pronounced in such unsettled social contexts as
that of the contemporary Middle East.
Islamic modernism in India, Egypt, and Iran
We use these theoretical propositions to explain the origins of Islamic
modernism. In the narrative to follow, we focus on three sets of historical factors: those that removed the institutional barriers to Islamic
modernism, those that provided the social space and resources for its
growth, and those that formed the intellectual market in relation to
which this new discourse was actually produced. The destruction of the
absolutist state and the decline of the Islamic orthodoxy were among
the first set, the rise of the modern state and the formation of new
social classes were among the second set, and the emergence of a
pluralistic intellectual market and the illumination of several of ideological targets were among the last set.
Muslim India and Egypt were predominantly Sunni, while Iran adhered
to Shi'ism. Yet there were considerable similarities in the Islamic institutions and the pattern of state-religion alliance across these three
countries in the pre-modern period. The orthodox Islamic establishment, guarded by the ulama, enjoyed considerable financial and political power. Its religious views rested on a series of binaries, which
defined the identity of Islam as a religion and its followers as a religious
community (umma). These were wahy (revelation) versus aql (reason),
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677
towhid (divine unity) versus shirk (idol worshipping), the shari'a
(Islamic law) versus jahiliyya (state of ignorance), dar ul-Islam (the
abode of Islam) versus dar ul-harb (the abode of war), wilaya (delegation by God) versus mulk (hereditary rule), khilaphate (spiritual authority) versus sultanate (temporal authority), umma (universalistic
Islamic solidarity) versus asabiyya (particularistic tribal solidarity),
and ijtihad (independent reasoning) versus taqlid (following the established rule). These concepts were the building blocks of the Islamic
jurisprudence (fiqh), which after four centuries of legal development in
Sunni Islam came to rest on the Quran, the hadith, qiyas, and ijma,
after which no new method was allowed, closing the gate of independent reasoning (ijtihad). Shi'ism followed Sunni Islam in most of its
legal and juristic practices.29
The state-religion alliance was rooted in the changes in the Islamic
conception of politics from that of the unity of the political and religious leadership in the person of the caliph to a position taken first by
al-Mawardi (991-1031),30 then by al-Ghazali (1058-1111),31 down to
Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) and Ibn Khaldun (1333-1406) that progressively amounted to the acceptance of the reality of secular politics the differentiation between religious and political leadership. Ibn Taymiyya in admitting the rulers' discretionary power added a condition
that a good government depended on an alliance between amirs, political and military leaders, and "ulama."32The conception of political
authority in early Shi'ism was different from that of the Sunnis, but the
rise of the Shi'i Safavids (1501-1722) in Iran changed the attitude of the
ulama toward the state.33 And the Shi'i ulama arrived at a political
resolution remarkably similar to that of their Sunni counterparts.
Since the ulama could not perform both religious and political functions of the Imam, they assumed religious authority and the shah
political leadership.34 This formula formed a basis for the cooperation
between the ulama and the ruling elite under the Mughal India, the
Mamluk Egypt, and the Qajar Iran.
The rise of Islamic modernism in India and Egypt followed a breakdown in the ulama-state alliance - a result of the nineteenth-century
social transformation. This alliance in Iran, in contrast, prevailed as a
major force underpinning Iran's traditionalism throughout the century. In all the three countries, however, similar types of actors - the
ulama, merchants, landowners, the state, and foreign powers - were
involved in the process of cultural change. Although these actors might
have identical vocational interests across the three countries, their
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678
varying levels of resources were factors accounting for the crossnational variations in culture production. We shall indicate that the
strength of Islamic modernism in India and Egypt was associated with
the extensive social transformation these countries experienced and,
more crucially, with the rise of the modern state, and its weakness in
Iran with the fragility of a similar development. Nevertheless, it is
inadequate to argue that the new religious discourse was formulated
to correspond to the emergent modern institutions, following the collapse of the old order in India and Egypt, and its absence in Iran to the
absence of these institutions. True, these societies according to the
Western standard of scientific achievement, were underdeveloped and
had to undergo major technological and institutional transformations
to experience a similar type of progress. But we argue that Islamic
modernism was an outcome of a dynamic quite different from that of
the "objective" process of institutional transformation. It was an outcome of the large-scale debates and back-and-forth arguments among
the old, the new, and the emerging cultural elite in the second part of
the nineteenth century.
The rise of discursive pluralism and the dynamic of ideological debates
and religious disputations constituted the proximate conditions of
ideological production. The diffusion of modern ideas to India, Egypt,
and Iran diversified their intellectual climate.35 As a result, the conceptual schema of the Islamic orthodoxy came into head-to-head collisions with alternative sets of codes in the discourse of the followers of
the Enlightenment, British Westernizers, and Christian evangelicals.
These codes included binaries like human reason versus superstition,
scientific rationality versus traditionalism, civilization versus savagery,
gender equality versus male domination, freedom versus despotism,
Christendom versus Heathendom. In practical terms, too, any serious
thought about the reorganization of sociopolitical life had direct implications for the social role and function of the Islamic orthodoxy.
Was it possible to discuss Europe's technological progress and the
principles of modern science without considering their contrast with
the Islamic sciences? Could serious intellectuals admit the superiority
of Western civilization without recognizing the decadence of the abode
of Islam? How could one raise the issue of woman's education and her
role outside the home without visiting the problem of male supremacy?
And, could any intellectual bring forward the idea of the people's
sovereignty without contemplating its congruity, or lack thereof, with
the Islamic notion of the caliphate?
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679
Ideological debates and religious disputations resulted in the rise of
several important issues. Among these issues, five stand out: (i) the
empirical versus the Islamic sciences, (ii) the rational basis of law
versus the shari'a, (iii) Western civilization versus the abode of Islam,
(iv) gender equality versus male supremacy, and (v) constitutionalism
versus the Islamic conception of sovereignty. In their re-examination
of the Islamic worldviews, the Islamic modernists pointed to the methodological and conceptual inadequacy of the Islamic orthodoxy. In
India and Egypt, the active presence of the followers of the Enlightenment, the Westernizers, and the Evangelicals resulted in the rise of a
pluralistic discursive field, where modernist Muslim scholars faced a
multiplicity of issues. In India, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan was preoccupied mostly with theological issues, Chiragh Ali with legal reforms,
Mumtaz Ali with Islamic feminism, and Shibli Nu'mani and Amir Ali
with historical Islam and hagiographical studies. Likewise, in Egypt,
al-Afghani organized a circle of Muslim scholars to address the sociopolitical and theological issues facing Islam. Abduh focused his attention on theology. Qasim Amin addressed the issue of women. Wajdi
dealt with Islam and civilization. And al-Raziq re-examined the
Islamic conception of authority. In Iran, on the other hand, the Shi'i
ulama blocked the missionaries' activities and exhausted attempts at
reforms by state officials. As a result, the cultural climate remained
relatively monolithic during the nineteenth century. These ulama, however, were organizationally decentralized and pluralistic. They were
subject to crisscrossing pressures coming from different social forces,
leading to the emergence of diverse factions in their ranks. This phenomenon was most apparent in the Constitutional Revolution (19051911), where they were divided into pro- and anti-Constitutionalist
ulama. Within this context Ayatollah Na'ini formulated a defense of
the idea of constitutionalism from the Shi'i standpoint.
Social change, cultural pluralism, and Islamic modernism in
nineteenth-century India
Islamic modernism in India followed a social change that was rooted
in the gradual intensification of economic, political, and cultural crises
from the seventeenth century on.36 The decline of the Mughal Empire
did not indicate a situation of anarchy, but signified a major social
transition in which the Indians "remained active agents and not simply
passive bystanders and victims in the creation of colonial India."37
Such social groups and classes as the Hindu and Muslim revenue
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680
farmers,Indian merchants,and local gentryand the zamindars(landowners) emerged into the limelight. By the middle of the eighteenth
century,the indigenousmerchantswerea powerfulinterestgroupin all
the majorstates that had emergedfromthe declineof the Delhi power.
The zamindarsbegan to tax marketsand trade and to seize prebendal
lands that the Mughalshad once triedto keep out of theirhands.Many
of these elements later provided capital, knowledge,and support for
the East India Company.38Political change and the rise of social
classeswerethusassociatedwiththe developmentof Islamicmodernism.
The decline of the Mughals,by underminingthe politicalpowerof the
ulama, stimulatedthe rise of differentIslamic trendsin India, among
whichthe reformismof ShahValli-Allah(1703-1762)was prominent.39
Shah Wali-Allah'semphasis on the ulama's right to independentreasoning contributedto Islamic modernism,inspiringthe neo-Mu'tazilite modernism of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Shibli's scholasticism, and
religiousreconstructionin the thoughtof Iqbal.40It is not clearif these
trends would have led to an Islamic modernist movement in the absence of British reforms.What is clear, however, is that without a
serious change in the culturalorder, a modernist like Sayyid Ahmad
Khan would have faced a very difficult time expressing his views
among Muslims.41Britishreformsin India underminedulama power
and institutionalbasis. At the same time, the influx of Westernizers
and the missionariestransformedthe country'sculturalarena, further
diversifyingits discursivecontext.42
Tripartiteculturalencounters:Britishwesternizers,the Evangelicals,
and the Ulama
The early nineteenthcenturymarkeda major shift in the intellectual
foundationof Britishadministrationin India.The romanticschool of
Sir WilliamJones and WarrenHastings that sympathizedwith Indian
culturewas replacedby the rationalismof James Mill and Lord Macaulay.43Mill's History of India (1817)pioneered westernizingpolicy,
givingits rationale.The criteriaof civilizationused by Mill weredrawn
from (i) "conjectural"history,(ii) the Benthamiteprinciplesof utility,
and (iii) the intellectualheritageof the Enlightenment.Millar's Origin
of the Distinctionof Ranks (1781)was quoted as the authorityfor the
test of civilizationprovidedby the status of women."Thecondition of
the women,"said Mill, "is one of the most remarkablecircumstances
in the manners of nations. Among the rude people, the women are
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681
generally degraded; among civilized people they are exalted."44 The
utilitarian principles of exactness and completeness, laissez-faire economics, Newtonian conception of natural law, deistic religion, the idea
of progress as the organizing principle of a universal history - all were
used to judge Indian society. For him, the organizing principle of
history was the scale of nations. Conjecturing the place of Indians on
the scale being low, he condemned "every single aspect of their way of
life as barbarous, not only their science, but their philosophy, their art
and their manners."45
Mill's History and his official connections to the East India Company
effected a complete change in the British administration in India.
Endowed with a full consciousness of racial superiority, a new generation of administrators followed this changed outlook, believing that
through educational reforms and the natural operation of knowledge,
changes in the religions of the natives will be effected, without any
interference in their religious liberty.46It provided the British an ideological justification to attack various functions of Islam. Its laws of
crime were treated as barbarous, irrational, and void of a distinction
between private and public law.47 The lack of separation of religious
from civil laws, and the treatment of women were also judged
harshly.48
Evangelical revival in Europe, the rise of the Rationalist school, and
the change in the cultural policies of the East India Company aided the
missionaries.49 Although united in their common hostility to Indian
culture, the Evangelicals and the Rationalists had separate agendas.
The missionaries had passion but generally no interest in philosophy
of history. They were however quick to attribute Western progress to
the influence of Christianity, while viewing Islam as "an active and
powerful enemy" of Christianity.50 Their criticisms of Islam ranged
from assaults on the Prophet of Islam to the censure of the Islamic
conception of family and gender relations.51 Along with the Westernizers, the missionaries viewed various practices such as suttee, female
infanticide, and gender segregation as yet another indication of Western cultural superiority and the backwardness of India.52
The ulama, for their part, did not remain silent to the onslaught of the
missionaries. In Hardy's veiw, "the official British policy of religious
neutrality enhanced the position of the ulama in the Muslim community. If Christian missionaries were free to attack Islam, so the ulama
were free to defend Islam."53 Muslims published treatises and books,
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682
and participated in enlivening disputations refuting the arguments of
the missionaries and emphasizing that Trinitarianism was a travesty of
the real Christianity; Jesus's mission was not universal and was intended
only for the Jews; the Divinity of Christ and the Trinity were absolute
impossibilities; and the Bible was no longer a genuine scripture.54The
years 1855-1857 marked Muslim counteroffensives against missionary
polemics. In a remarkable encounter between Pfander, a well-known
polemicist, and Muslim theologian Rahmat Allah Kiranawi, abrogation and corruption of the Bible, the doctrine of the Trinity, the
prophecy of Muhammad, and the inspiration of the Quran were debated. The disputation, held in the presence of a number of British
officers, including the scholar-polemicist Sir William Muir, Hindu,
Christian, and Muslim scholars, and the general public, raged for three
days. After presenting the doctrine of abrogation that the revelations
in the Quran had abrogated certain passages of earlier revelations,
Rahmat Allah and Wazir Khan took Pfander to task on the crucial
Muslim point that the New Testament contained contradictions that
can only be explained as "interpolations." The discussion on this point
according to the Muslim accounts came to an end when Pfander
admitted that abrogation of the scriptures was a theoretical possibility.
Muslim opinion hailed the 1854 debate as a great victory for Islam,
and Pfander was clearly disturbed about the outcome.55
The Mutiny of 1857-1858 and a new episode for cultureproduction
By 1820, the East India Company subdued virtually all the major
Indian states and practically displaced the Mughal emperor, although
his authority was still nominally revered and respected. At the same
time, it faced all the problems that naturally came with conquests and
centralization of power. The Company inherited the conflict between
the desire of the Indian kingdoms to squeeze up land revenue and the
entrepreneurship of merchant and peasant. There were also the periodic revolts of zamindars who were fighting off demands for higher
revenues and revolts in cities and town. Finally, there was the threat to
sepoys' interests and status from the British cost-cutting reforms, trimming their perquisites, and widening the area of recruitment. All these
factors underpinned the rebellions of 1857-1858.56 Yet the form of the
rebellion was developed not so much from these exigencies but emanated from the uniform cultural treatment of the natives by the Anglican-missionary alliance.57
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The defeat of the Mutiny ended any hope of revitalizing the old order.
For the British too, it was instructive of the political consequences of
too zealously disregarding the Indians' cultural sensibilities. The event,
however, ushered in a new episode for culture production. The Mughal
rule was formally ended. The control of India was passed from the East
India Company to the British government. Major economic developments, including the construction of railroads and other infrastructures took place after 1860. Insofar as the Muslims were concerned,
the defeats not only signified the reality of British presence in India but
also brought to the fore the dynamics of its culture and social organizations that underpinned its military invincibility.
British power notwithstanding, there was no real political alternative.
Given the existing pluralistic context of ideological contention, the
problem for Muslim scholars became more cultural and theological
than political. Diverse ideological contenders were raising serious
issues about Islam and Islamic history. The ulama's worldview was
unable to account for Europe's breathtaking progress and for the
decadence of Muslim societies. In their attempts to resolve these issues, the Islamic modernists found it necessary to revise the methodological foundations of the Islamic orthodoxy, to give primacy to reason
in the interpretation of religion, to equate revelation with natural law,
to reject the institution of male supremacy, and to devise a rationalist
approach to Islamic history. The dynamic of ideological polemics
appeared to have directed these thinkers somewhat away from demonstrating the validity of Islam and toward, via a rationalist exegesis,
showing its congruity with modernism.
The empirical vs. Islamic sciences. Natural theology and the
rationalization of religion
Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) was the leading figure in India's
Islamic modernism. His natural theology was a bold attempt to graft
rational reasoning onto Islamic methods of exegesis. Sayyid was influenced by the problems of his community, particularly the tumultuous
days of the Mutiny.58His ideas, however, were developed in relation to
the discourses of the missionaries, British civil servants, and Westernizers. In conformity with their views, he acknowledged the decadence
of Muslim societies. He accepted the Western rationalist model, and
some features of his speculative system showed the influence of Unitarianism as well as an appreciation of Christianity in terms of religious pluralism. In particular, he did not accept that the Bible was
altered and tampered with.59
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Sayyid Ahmad Khan's natural theology is a prime example of the
influence of the dialogic of debate in the production of discourse. The
theology he was espousing was not an outcome of an unsparing
criticism of the orthodoxy. Sayyid's point of departure was rather on
how Islam could be interpreted to accommodate rationalist thinking
and the discoveries of modern science in order to overcome the
charges of mediocrity that were leveled against his faith. To this end,
he realized that the ulama were ill-equipped to deal with the problems
that had besieged Islam. He abandoned all pillars of the Islamic Jurisprudence except the Quran as the sole authority in all matters of judgment. He accepted the explanation of the Quran by reference to the
Quran only, not to any tradition or the opinion of any scholar.60 He
abandoned the orthodoxy in order to base his exegesis on "reason" and
"nature:" reasoning is applied to examine prophetic messages in light
of the laws of nature. His natural theology sought a correspondence
between the Quran, as the word of God, and nature, as the work of
God. The Quran and nature having one Creator cannot contradict
each other. Revelation and natural law were identical.61
Using this exegetical method, Sayyid then tried to show Islam's conformity with science and to rationalize religious dogma. For him, the
idea of evolution and the Islamic tenets of Creation were compatible.
The Quran affirmed that the law of evolution was observable in relating one species of created being to another. "Semen" or "seed" were
symbolic imagery of the nucleus of life, referring to the primeval movement of life emerging out of inert matter. Sayyid offered rationalist
interpretations of such supernatural phenomena as Muhammad's accession to heaven, angels, Satan, jinn, the parting of the sea by Moses,
and Noah's flood.62 Sayyid Ahmad Khan also subscribed to the prevailing nineteenth-century European paradigm of society and history.
Societies were ranked in terms of their level of technological progress
and the modernity of their social organizations.63
The rational basis of law vs. the Shari'a.' Revealed law and common law
In the same manner that Sayyid Ahmad Khan's theological expose
reflected the existing discursive pluralism, the discourse of his associates on law, women, and historical Islam carried a similar imprint. To
construct a rational basis for the Islamic legal system, Chiragh Ali
(1844-1895) disengaged the pillars of the orthodoxy. "There are," said
Chiragh Ali, "certain points in which the Mohammadan Common Law
is irreconcilable with the modern needs of Islam.... [T]hose on politi-
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cal Institutes, Slavery, Concubinage, Marriage, Divorce, and the Disabilities of non-Moslem fellow-subjects are to be remodelled and rewritten in accordance with the strict interpretations of the Koran."64
Chiragh Ali's views on law were formed in response to Reverend
Macoll, who argued that reforms in Islam were not possible because
Islamic states were branches of cosmopolitan theocracy bound together
by a common code of essentially and eternally unchangeable civil and
religious rules.65 In his rebuttal, Chiragh Ali made a distinction between the Muhammadan Revealed Law and the Muhammadan Common Law that was developed in the course of Muslim history. Islamic
jurisprudence, he argued, was compiled at a very late period, and as
such it cannot be considered essentially and eternally unchangeable.66
For him, "the fact that Mohammad did not compile a law, civil or
canonical, for the conduct of the believers, nor did he enjoin them to
do so, shows that he left to the believers in general to frame any code,
civil or canon law, and to found systems which would harmonize with
the times, and suit the political and social changes going on around
them."67
Islamic feminism
The situation of women in India was among the most visible targets of
the missionaries' and Westernizers' polemics. Sayyid Ahmad Khan
contended that while Islam treated women more favorably than other
religions, historical Islam displayed anti-women attitudes and practices, and in India there were such unworthy and humiliating carryingson that one can only cry out, "May God have mercy on us!" On the
more sensitive issue of polygamy, Sayyid and Chiragh Ali re-examined
the Quranic injunction on polygamy and concluded that the institution
was practically illegal in Islam. The pertinent verse in the Quran
stated, "marry such women as seem good to you, two, three, four; but
if you fear you will not be equitable, then only one...." They claimed
that justice in a husband-wife relationship can only be synonymous
with love; and since a man is emotionally incapable of loving more
than one woman equally at any given time, polygamy was therefore
prohibited.68
Sayyid Mumtaz Ali (1860-1935) went beyond proclaiming the illegality of polygamy in Islam. Although he was trained in the Deoband
conservative school, his involvement in Muslim-Christian disputations
affected his views, and for a time he had come under the influence of
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the missionaries. In his treatise on Huquq un-niswan (Women's rights)
and the journal Tahzibal-niswan (Reforming women), he developed an
Islamic defense of gender equality. He rejected male supremacy and
explained away the Quranic injunctions that were brought to bear on
its support. He reinterpreted the much quoted Quranic verse that was
the basis for the traditionalist justification of men's authority over
women: "Men are the managers of the affairs of women for that God
has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they
have expended of their property."69For him, this verse only dealt with
such areas of activities as business where men had greater knowledge
than women, but it did not declare that women should be subordinate
to men in all spheres of life. In the case of witnesses in the Islamic court
that considered the testimonies of two women as equal to that of one
man, Mumtaz Ali argued that the Quran referred specifically to business matters in which women might be less experienced than men. This
lack of experience was the result of social conditions, not an inherent
defect in her character. In such other areas as marriage, divorce, and
adultery, where both sexes were equally experienced, the Quran did not
make a distinction between the testimony of men and women.70
Civilization and Islamic history
The glaring contrast between the European civilization and the Islamic
nations naturally gave rise to a pervasive consciousness of decadence
among the modernists, which necessitated an account of the Muslim
decline.71 There was also the need to defend and rehabilitate early
Islamic history against the assaults of its critics.72 Chiragh Ali addressed the issue of jihad - a sore point in Muslim-Christian history.
His book-length expose on jihad was in response to such people as
Muir, Robertson Smith, George Sale, and Sprenger and the Christian
missionaries like T. P. Hughes, Samuel Green, and others. These writers claimed that in his zeal to spread Islam, Muhammad, holding the
Quran in one hand and the scimitar in the other, pursued wars of
conquest against the Quriesh, other Arab tribes, the Jews, and Christians. Chiragh Ali rejected these claims by first presenting the historical context in which Muhammad's alleged actions had taken place.
Then, by recourse to international law, religious liberty, and the legitimacy of defending one's freedom, he claimed that Muhammad's conduct was justified, and that none of his wars was offensive, nor did he
in any way use force of compulsion in the matter of belief.73
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The writings of Shibli Nu'mani (1851-1914) and Amir Ali (18491928) were also an exercisein the presentationof historicalIslam in a
mannerthat was acceptableto the modernmind. Shibliwas among the
conservativemembersof the AligarhCollege.Yet his writings,far from
being traditionalist,reflectedthe historicalmethodsand the normative
criteriain vogue in Europe.He used this method to refutethe charges
Westernauthors leveled against Islam on the treatmentof Christians
and Jews living under its domain and on slavery. For him, Islamic
historiographyshould go beyond the style of the early Muslimwriters
of the life of the Prophet.These writerswere preoccupiedwith reporting the facts without caring how these facts affected their religion.74
Shibli consideredhis principle of rationalistanalysis to be implicit in
Islam and not to have originatedfromWesterncivilization.
His analysis of Islamic movement under Omar, the third caliph, is
telling of his modernist approach.In explaining his success in conquests,he consideredthe emphasisof Westernhistorianson the weaknesses of Eastern Roman and Persian empires to be inadequate.He
refrainedfrom referringto supernaturalforces. The real cause of the
success of Muslimswas rather"the enthusiasm,resolution, steadfastness, courage and daring which the Holy Founder of Islam had instilled in them and whichOmarhad furthersharpenedand fortified."75
These conquests were also successful because these empires did not
enjoy much popular support.The system of governmentunder Omar,
and other Rashiduncaliphs,was democratic,not autocratic.Therewas
a consultativeassembly,citizens had a role in his administration,and
no special privilegewas accordedto the caliph.76On the treatmentof
non-Muslims,Shibliarguedthat underOmartheirlives and properties
were placed on the same level with those of Muslims.77On slavery,
Shibli arguedthat while Omardid not abolish slavery- even if he had
tried, probablyhe could not have succeeded - he used various means
to curtailthe custom.78
The historicalworks of Amir Ali, an orthodox Shi'i from the Calcutta
school, are even more deeply embeddedin the conceptual scaffolding
of the nineteenth-centuryEnlightenment. In discussing polygamy,
slavery,and life after death, Amir Ali made referenceto other religions, thus giving a comparativeview to his theological exposition. A
spirit of religious tolerance permeatedhis presentationof Islam and
Islamic history. He, for example, attemptedto resolve the Sunni-Shi'i
debate on the issue of succession by making a distinctionbetween the
Shi'i notion of apostolical Imamat and the pontificalcaliphateof Abu
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Bakr,Omar,and Osmanwho precededAli. The Imamat,for the Shi'i,
descendedby Divine appointmentin the apostolicline, and Ali was the
first rightfulCaliph. Nevertheless,the two forms of leadership,apostolic and pontifical, can coexist and even play positive functions for
Muslims,as evidencedby Ali being the principaladviserto Abu Bakr
and Omar.79
Amir Ali presentedhis views on women, slavery,religious tolerance,
and other issues raised in the evangelical polemics, from an evolutionary perspective.This perspectivenaturallygave him the rationale
to go on the offensiveagainstthe missionaries:The historicalJudaism,
Christianity,and other religions had displayedmany instances of immorality,oppression,and crueltyagainst humans.Female infanticide,
for example,which was common among the pagan Arabs, must have
also been common in the seventhcenturyof the Christianera.Whether
it was under Zoroastriansor Christendom,the conditions of women
duringthe centuriesprecedingthe advent of Islam were deplorable.80
And, "concubinage,the union of people standing to each other in
matrimony,existed among the Arabs, the Jews,the Christians,and all
the neighbouringnations. The Prophet did not in the beginning denounce the custom, but towards the end of his career he expressly
forbadeit.'81He furthercriticizedChristianityfor raising "no protest
against slavery,enforcedno rule, inculcatedno principlefor the mitigation of the evil."82In contrast, slaveryin Islam was based on racial
tolerance. Social mobility and progressof slaves were possible under
Islamiccivilization.83On polygamy,Amir Ali's position was similarto
that of other modernist writers. For him, "polygamyis as much opposed to the teachingsof Mohammedas it is to the generalprogressof
civilised society and true culture."84Amir Ali rejectedthe division of
the world based on religion. He attacked the Muslim casuists who
dividedthe world into the dar ul-harband the dar ul-Islam,the counterpartsof Heathendomand Christendom.While these concepts differentiatedonly the conditionof belligerencyand that of peace, they by
no means implied waging wars and invading the territories of the
nationswhose inhabitantswere non-Muslims.85
State-initiated modernization, French enlightenment, and Islamic
modernism in Egypt
In many respects, Egypt was differentfrom India in the nineteenth
century. India was religiously non-unified, culturallyheterogeneous,
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highly populated, and had a complex system of social stratification
and a differentiated system of colonial administration. Egypt, in contrast, was religiously unified, culturally homogeneous, much less populated, and had a simpler system of social stratification and a uniform
system of political administration. Yet both countries displayed striking similarities with each other in terms of the discursive context in
which Islamic modernism was produced. This context was pluralistic,
displaying several major discourses including European Enlightenment, British Westernizers, the proselytizing discourse of the Evangelicals, and the discourse of the orthodox Islamic establishment.
Egypt entered a new cultural episode following the French invasion
(1798-1801). The invasion ended the rule of the Mamluks and provided
favorable conditions for the ascendance of Muhammad Ali to power.
His rule was the beginning of state-initiated modernization in Egypt.
He founded a new administrative apparatus, bringing under his control
the guilds, village administration, the sufi orders, and the ulama. He
created a system of state monopolies and a modern industry, dispossessed the Mamluks, changed the system of land ownership and taxation, and encouraged foreign merchants to settle in Egypt.86 Muhammad Ali's principal interest lay in building a strong military. He sent
students to Europe, set them to translate technical works when they
returned, established a press to print the translation, and a newspaper
to publish the texts of his decrees. Many of these students, however,
became familiar with and influenced by modern thought. By the 1830s,
they were beginning to translate and publish other than purely technical books, and from their ranks came Egypt's modern thinkers.87 The
process of cultural change was enhanced under Ismail, when the educational budget was increased tenfold. The School of Languages and
Administration was reopened, and became the first secular Law
School under the direction of Vidal Pasha, a French jurist, in 1886.
Founded in 1872, Dar al-Ulum teachers' college played a leading role in
the revival of Arabic literature. The British also assisted the rise of
modern culture by implementing measures of reform. Under their
tutelage, the Egyptian Press became a medium for public debates over
socioeconomic and political issues. Favorable political conditions encouraged the influx of Syrian and Lebanese emigres to Egypt, who
played a prominent role in the country's cultural change.88
Political transformation and changes in the agrarian structure promoted class formation and brought to ascendancy merchants and
landowners in the latter half of the century. The breakdown of Mu-
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hammad Ali's monopoly system and the state's fiscal crisis under
Ismail compelled the sale of state lands to private individuals. As a
result, the landowners grew to become a powerful class in Egypt.89
When the British occupied Egypt in 1882, a system known as the Veiled
Protectorate was set up, by means of which Egyptian executive authority was abrogated and replaced by that of the British Resident and the
British advisers in Egyptian service.90 The development of Islamic
modernism in Egypt, like India, was benefited by the rise of modern
social classes. But, as was also the case in India, the most crucial factor
was the state, which through its reforms and growth of the civil administration expanded the cultural space and occupational opportunities
for new culture producers.
Discursive pluralism and ideological production. The Enlightenment,
British westernizers, and evangelicals
While the state's new cultural orientation disengaged the historical
rulers-ulama alliance, the flooding of Egypt's cultural landscape by
Western ideologies was a parallel process that diversified the structure
of ideological contention in the country, creating a pluralistic context.
The Enlightenment was a most powerful force in the intellectual movement of Egypt. The universalism of its thinkers was inviting to educated Egyptians. Montesquieu's views on nation, Guizot's on civilization, Comte and Saint Simon's on the social role of science, Rousseau's
on civil liberty, education, and general will, Spencer's on society, and
Silvestre de Sacy's discoveries of the pre-Islamic Pharaonic Egypt
shaped their sociopolitical views.
Such Arabic journals as Roudat al-Madaris91 and al-Muqtataf92 disseminated modern ideas in the country. Al-Muqtataf published articles
on subjects ranging from scientific discoveries, breakthroughs in medicine, technological inventions, literature, and the causes of Western
progress and Eastern backwardness to the role of women in society.
Appearing in the journal were the biographies of prominent scientists,
eulogizing personalities like Isaac Newton,93 Galileo,94 Louis Pasteur,95 Charles Darwin,96 Ernest Renan,97 Humphry Davy,98 Maria
Mitchell,99 and Herbert Spencer.100Al-Muqtataf informed its readers
of inventions like electricity, telephone, phonograph, and photography
that had astonished people in the Islamic world.0l? Naturally, these
momentous contributions to human progress enhanced the prestige of
the rational sciences among the educated elite, stimulating the desire to
uncover the secret of Western advancement.
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691
Al-Muqtataf spread the idea that the regularities of the temporal world
were governed by causal laws, which could be discovered via human
intellectual exertion. This view collided with the traditional Muslim
and Coptic views. Discussions of Darwin's theory of evolution and
such astronomical discoveries as the roundness and movement of the
earth produced a storm of controversies.102 The religious conservatives, both Muslim and Christian, rejected Darwinism, their Westernizing counterparts defended the theory.103Al-Muqtatafalso addressed
women's issues by defending the right of women to education and
work.104
The British also contributed to the nineteenth-century debate over the
culture of Islamic Egypt. While openly pursuing a policy of religious
neutrality,105 their critical attitude toward Islam was known to the
country's intellectual leaders. Reflecting such an attitude was Cromer's
Modern Egypt. Cromer portrayed Islamic history as "a dismal failure."
He condemned Egypt for its intolerant religion, barbaric criminal law,
degradation of women, and the illogical, immoderate, and the general
muddle-headedness of its people. For him, Islam as a social system
was a complete failure. This failure emanated from keeping women in
a position of marked inferiority, the rigidity of its law, its tolerance of
slavery, and intolerance of other religions.106 He considered the entire
Islamic criminal justice system primitive and inhumane.107 He condemned the seclusion of women and the practice of polygamy,'08 stating
that "the whole fabric of European society rests upon the preservation
of family life. Monogamy fosters family life, polygamy destroys it."109
To be sure, political and economic interests were the motivating forces
behind British occupation of Egypt.10?Nevertheless, in Blunt's judgment, the British were popular everywhere in the Islamic world, "being
looked upon as free from the political designs of the other Frank
nations."1'1Even if we question Blunt's assessment, we may be justified
to argue that the British contributed to the rise of cultural pluralism in
Egypt because, as Wendell stated, "European Powers paradoxically did
the native press an unquestionable service by removing the threat of
arbitrary suppression by the will or whim of the khedive."112 At the
same time, while undermining the traditional barriers to modern discourses, they managed to stay away from directly interfering in ideological debates and religious disputations. This fact had most probably
hindered the politicization of cultural exchange between Egypt and
Europe despite inequality in the distribution of power.113This relative
freedom in all likelihood prompted the modernists to avoid opposi-
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tional politics. For Abduh and his followers, British rule, while in
principle unacceptable, left the only viable opportunity gradually to
educate their fellow Egyptians.114
The Evangelicals were the third major group contending for the intellectual control of Egypt.115They criticized British authorities for being
overly pro-Muslim.16 Like their Indian counterparts, the missionaries
raised similar issues about Islamic culture in Egypt: They questioned
the integrity of Muslim rulers, assaulted the character of Muhammad,
and were particularly vociferous in condemning Islam for its treatment
of women. A conspicuous fact in the history of Muslim domination in
Egypt, said Presbyterian Charles Watson, "is the superiority of the
Christian ... to the Moslem in mental ability.""7 The Muslim history,
he claimed, "is for the most part a story of war, revolution, and
tyranny."118 As regards Muslim's integrity, Watson said, "for the most
part the history of Moslem Egyptian actions presents a record of
treachery parried only by greater treachery.""9 Islam was also attacked for its treatment of women. Andrew Watson claimed that in
nothing did Islam appear worse when compared with Christianity than
in its treatment of women, and polygamy practiced by Muslim men
was the twin sister of barbarism.120 "In the West, woman is honored; in
Egypt, she is despised.... Indeed, it is quite the general opinion in
Egypt that a woman has a lower nature than a man."'21 Being kept in
an inferior status, Muslim women have become inferior to the U.S.
women intellectually, morally, and socially: "The intelligence, the patience, the culture, the self-denial of the western women, have their
exact contrast in the ignorance, the superstition, the irritability, the
boorishness and the selfishness of the Egyptian women."122
The missionaries established schools as a principal method of teaching
and preaching.'23 They also published such a periodical as the semireligious weekly Orient and Occident, which by the end of its second
year in 1906 managed to attract several thousand readers, of whom
over a thousand were claimed to be Muslims. Meetings were organized
to discuss social, national, historical, or moral subjects. While no
religious disputations were allowed, the meetings were used to gain
acquaintance with Muslims and draw them to other meetings for
debate on female education, the drink question, moral purity, and for
the reading of history. There were also evangelistic meetings often
followed by disputations.'24 By 1906, there were eight missionaries in
Egypt with a total of 141 foreign workers and 664 native workers. They
established 170 elementary schools with 11,312 pupils, 25 boarding
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and high schools with 4,576 pupils, 3 colleges or seminaries with 687
pupils, 4 hospitals with a 3,586 patients capacity, 10 clinics, and the
native church having 62 organized congregations.125
Pioneers of Islamic Modernism in Egypt
The Islamic modernist discourse was produced within this political
and cultural context. The educated Muslims realized the backwardness
of their society: archaic technology, primitive level of scientific knowledge, despotic political institution, and low level of economic development. Naturally, these historical exigencies influenced their minds.
Their ideological resolution, however, neither directly emanated from
nor was dictated by these exigencies. It was formed in a different
manner. Islam was being attacked from all sides by the followers of
the Enlightenment, British Westernizers, and the missionaries. The
Islamic modernists were not only to deal with the critics of Islam but
also to present an Islamic account of the remarkable discoveries of
modern sciences. In doing so, they realized the inadequacy of the
methodological framework of the Islamic orthodoxy that had dominated the Azhar and other institutions of higher learning in Egypt. To
formulate an alternative method of Quranic exegesis, these thinkers
reinterpreted their faith in terms of the normative and cognitive standards of the Enlightenment. The methods of Islamic jurisprudence were
re-examined, some of its key concepts and principles were reinterpreted in the new light, while at the same time new terminology was
added to the Islamic conceptual repertoire. Of the four sources of
Islamic jurisprudence, the Quran and hadith were reinterpreted, and
ijma and qiyas were fundamentally transformed. The door of ijtihad
was pushed open as human reason competed with prophetic revelation, maslaha turned into utility, shura into parliamentary democracy,
ijma into public opinion, the ideas of natural selection, and the survival
of the fittest crept into the Islamic views of change, polygamy became a
questionable (even unlawful) institution, and Islam itself became identical with civilization - all congruent with the norms of nineteenthcentury social thought.
Differentiation of knowledge. The rational versus Islamic sciences
Rifa'a Badawi Rafi' al-Tahtawi (1801-1873) was among Egypt's first
modern thinkers. The modernism that Tahtawi espoused was not an
intellectual outgrowth of his background as a graduate and then teacher
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of the Azhar, although it had undeniably affected the manner in which
he approached modern ideas. Being involved in the state's educational
program, he came into a close encounter with the ideas of the Enlightenment and the European lifestyle during his sojourn in Paris (18261831).126 How did Tahtawi develop his ideas? Tahtawi could not have
remained strictly loyal to his orthodox upbringing, while performing
the task of modernizing Egypt's educational system. His employment
position was indeed congruent with a differentiated conception of
knowledge that constituted a core element in his thought. In the
Islamic orthodoxy, knowledge had a uniform structure, and the ulama
embodied both rational and religious scholarship. Thus, when he introduced the rational sciences to the learned Egyptians, he clarified a
distinction not quite known in Muslim academia between scientists
who knew the rational sciences and the ulama who were scholars of
religious sciences (theology). Tahtawi informed his readers that one
should not assume that French scientists were also priests. Priests
were only knowledgeable on religious matters, even though some
might also be scientists.127Thus, it appears that the differentiation of
knowledge in Tahtawi's mind paralleled social differentiation - a phenomenon consistent with a standard argument in the correspondence
theory of knowledge.
Yet this differentiated conception of knowledge Tahtawi was introducing to Egypt had a dynamic of its own separate from that of social
differentiation. Knowledge differentiation provided a discursive space
for the rise of modernism. For, the acceptance of the utility of the
separation of the rational sciences from the religious sciences had
legitimized the foundation of the modern school for fulfilling the technical needs of the country. At the same time, it was tantamount to the
admission of a possibility of the advance in the rational sciences rendering the religious claims about social life and physical universe
superfluous. Tahtawi did not see this contradiction. For him, as for
many other modernist thinkers, it was an article of faith that there was
not much difference between the principles of the Islamic law and
those of "natural law" on which the codes of modern Europe were
based. To demonstrate this claim, he often made reference to the
Quran and the hadith. He, however, realized the new challenges facing
Islam. He demanded a more intellectual activism from the ulama,
arguing that they were not simply the guardians of a fixed tradition
and should adapt the Shari'a to new circumstances.128
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Many of the issues that Tahtawi dealt with were elaborated and expanded by later modernists.'29 There was, however, an element of
discontinuity between his experiences and those of Sayyid Jamal adDin al-Afghani (1839-1897). Given the vast progress Egypt was experiencing under Muhammad Ali, Tahtawi had every reason to be optimistic. For al-Afghani, the situation was different. His extensive travels
and close observations of the deteriorating conditions of Muslim nations as well as the European domination of the Islamic world
prompted him to reflect upon the causes of Muslim decline and how
to bring back Muslim glory of the past. Al-Afghani's pan-Islamic ideas
broadly corresponded to the emerging nationalist-cum-Islamic movement against foreign domination.
Nevertheless, it would be hard to argue that al-Afghani's general ideas
about religion, science, and society were a reflection of the exigencies
of the anti-imperialist struggle. In his ideological reflections, he fixed
his gaze on three distinct targets: European Powers, the despotic rulers
of the Muslim nations, and the orthodox ulama. His worldviews displayed three elements: (1) the idea of Islamic unity against Western
political domination; (2) a decadence consciousness; and (3) a positive
philosophical expose of the rational sciences and the role of religion.
Al-Afghani's quarrel with the West was political in nature. His views,
on the other hand, were influenced by the seminal ideas of the nineteenth century, in particular Guizot's History of Civilization. For Guizot,
the word civilization meant progress - the improvement of social life
and the development of human mind and its faculties.130 Al-Afghani
used this perspective to explain the decline of Islamic civilization. In
the past, he said in al-Urwa al-wuthqa,131 Muslims were superior in all
fields of human endeavor. Islam enjoyed all the elements of a flourishing civilization. But, "today, Muslims are stagnated in their education
and knowledge." The reform suggested by some Western educated
individuals was not successful in treating the malady of the umma. For
him, the solution was a return to the fundamentals of Islam.132Islam
declined because of the weakening of the solidarity among Muslims
and the division of the Islamic territories into different kingdoms, each
being ruled by a despot who was interested in fulfilling only his own
desires and working according to his whims. Muslims should unite and
learn from the experience of other nations.'33
In his more abstract philosophical expose, there were barely traces of
the influence of the pan-Islamic movement. Al-Afghani encountered
the critics of Islam in terms of the discursive framework of the nine-
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teenth-century Enlightenment. Al-Afghani (with Abduh) took issue
with European writers who had considered Islam the cause of the
backwardness of Muslim societies. They rejected the claim that the
belief in al-qada wa al-qadar (predestination) was responsible for Muslim decadence. These Europeans, they said, were mistaken because
they had confused this term with al-jabr (compulsion). All sects in
Islam agreed that belief in al-qada wa al-qadar did not mean submission to the status quo. Nor did it justify lagging behind other nations,
and accepting a retrogressive state as a fateful decree from God. Alqadawa al-qadar indicated "omniscience" and "omnipotence" of God,
not compulsion. It meant that God knew everything before it happened, when and how it happened. God's knowledge does not contradict free will.134
In Al-Afghani's modernist view on religion and critique of the orthodoxy, the issues of East versus West and the necessity of the Muslim
unity against European domination all but disappeared. In a response
to Renan, who had attacked early Islamic Arabs for their hostility to
rational philosophic inquiries, al-Afghani used an evolutionary perspective to explain the relationship between Islam and science. He
argued that prophecy was necessary because all peoples in their early
stage of development were incapable of accepting reason to distinguish
good from evil. They were led to obey the advice of their preachers in
the name of the Supreme Being to whom were attributed all events.
"This is no doubt for men one of the heaviest and most humiliating
yokes, as I recognized; but one cannot deny that it is by this religious
education, whether it be Muslim, Christian, or pagan, that all nations
have emerged from barbarism and marched toward a more advanced
civilization."135Al-Afghani further argued that "all religions are intolerant, each one in its way."136He provocatively attacked Muslim religion, the orthodox ulama, and the despotic rulers of Muslim nations.
"Whenever it became established," said he,
this religion tried to stifle the sciences and it was marvelously served in its
designs by despotism.... Religions, by whatever names they are called, all
resemble each other. No agreement and no reconciliation are possible between
these religions and philosophy.137
Yet al-Afghani's anti-imperialist and pan-Islamic politics often tended
to override his modernist discourse. He glorified the early Islamic
civilization arguing that the people of early Islam had no science,
"but, thanks to the Islamic religion, a philosophic spirit arose among
them, and owing to that philosophic spirit they began to discuss the
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general affairs of the world and human necessities."138In "the Refutation of the Materialists" delivered in 1880-1881, al-Afghani argued that
religion was the mainstay of nations and the source of their welfare
and happiness, while naturalism was the root of corruption and source
of foulness.139He criticized such views as Darwin's theory of evolution,
socialism, communism, and nihilism. His criticism was also extended
to Sayyid Ahmad Khan and the Aligarh movement in India.
Keddie explained away these contradictory elements by arguing that
"Afghani was profoundly influenced by a tradition ... that it was correct and proper to use different levels of discourse according to the
level of one's audience. Like the philosophers, he believed that the
masses, "amma, were not open to rational philosophical argument."140
Alternatively, we may explain this contradiction in terms of the influence of two diverse discursive frameworks. One is political and the
other philosophical. As an anti-British activist, his discourse was oriented toward pan-Islamist oppositional politics. He viewed panIslamism as the most effective way of combating imperialism. But as a
modernist thinker, he was critical of the orthodox ulama. In fact, his
modernism was as much radical and provocative as that of the Indian
modernists at the Aligarh, and there was not much in his philosophical
view that could not be reconciled with that of Sayyid Ahmad Khan
and associates. If, for him, their naturalism was wanting and their
commitment to Islam suspect, it was because of their "complicity"
with the British.
The rational basis of law versus the Shari ah
Al-Afghani's bold expressions caused controversy leading to his expulsion from many countries he visited. His position within the established religious hierarchy was also too tenuous to constrain his daring
philosophical utterances. This form of oppositional politics was not
congruent with the political realism of his closest associate, Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905).141 For Abduh, political and philosophical
expositions had to be "tamed" by the reality of British presence in the
country, on the one hand, and by the Islamic establishment that he
headed as the Mufti of Egypt, on the other. In his view, moderation
was the only alternative. The Urabi rebellion (1879-1882) was defeated.
Urabi's brinkmanship indeed reinforced Abduh's misgiving about the
wisdom of bringing constitutionalism to Egypt via a violent method.
He believed that priority must be given to education so that the people
could perform the duties of a representative government with intelli-
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gence and firmness. Both the Government and the people must become
accustomed to the giving and receiving of advice, and if the nation was
ready for participation in the Government, there would be no point in
using force to establish this participation.142
Nevertheless, the sources of Abduh's influence were beyond the particulars of his social situation. Abduh's views were formed in relation
to several discourses, whose diversity created somewhat opposing tendencies in his thoughts. First, he was inspired by the Enlightenment.143
He abandoned the orthodox formula of Islamic exegesis in favor of the
rationalist methods - an individual independent ruling was essential.
Although a collective judgment of the community might occur in time,
such a consensus was never infallible and could not close the gate of
ijtihad. Abduh argued that the real rejection of Islam was the refusal to
accept the proof of rational argument; the hallmark of the perfect
Muslim community being both law and reason.144 These premises
were the bases of Abduh's efforts to demonstrate the affinity of Islam
with modern thought. In his exegesis of the Quranic parable of Prophet
David and his war with the Philistines, for example, Abduh formulated
fourteen propositions concerning social change, progress, and war,
calling them "sociological laws of the Qur'an." He argued that Allah's
will is executed according to a general law. War among nations is one
of these general laws. War was natural among humans because it was
an instance of the struggle for existence. Part of this general law was
the Quranic verse that stated "Were it not for the restraint of one by
means of the other, imposed on men by God, verily the earth had been
utterly corrupted."145Abduh claimed that the idea of natural selection
did not contradict Islam and that the Quran admitted that life could
not be right without natural selection. People fight each other for truth
and benefit. This struggle saved the earth in the way that it would save
the truth and righteousness.146
Abduh's views also formed in his attempt to overcome the duality that
modernization had caused in Egypt's cultural landscape. Egypt had
two diverse systems of education, each creating its own category of
educated elite. One was the orthodox and conservatives who had resisted all change. The other was the cultural tendency of the younger
generation that had embraced all ideas of modern Europe. Abduh
doubted the possibility of successfully transplanting European laws
and institutions to Egypt. Bridging the gap between these two intellectual orders was one of Abduh's central projects. His intellectual solution to this distinctly Muslim problem was formulated in terms of the
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framework of the French Enlightenment. He viewed Egypt's cultural
predicament from the Comtean perspective. Like Comte's efforts to
construct a universally acceptable system of ideas that were to transcend both the rationalist zeal of the French Revolution and those who
wanted to return to the old order, Abduh tried to show that Islam
contained the universalistic creed that could link the two cultures and
form a moral basis of modern Egypt.147
The use of reason, in Abduh's thought, however, was not tantamount
to the admission of the Mu'tazilite's conception of the universe as "a
rationally integrated system governed by laws of cause and effect,
which God had created and set in motion once and for all."148Admitting this view might have impaired his relationship with al-Azhar's
Ash'arite theologians, undermining his position as the Mufti of Egypt.
Rather, he used reason in a parallel competence with revelation, both
belonging to the same sphere, neither accepting separation nor conflict
among them.149 Yet Abduh had to modify his theological compromise
with fellow Azharites in order to meet challenges to his faith from such
intellectuals as French historian Gabriel Hanotaux and LebaneseEgyptian journalist Farah Antun. In these debates, Abduh took a
position close to rationalism and the notion of natural law. To emphasize the difference between Islam and Christianity, Hanotaux argued
that Christian belief in the Trinity or God's immanence in human life
formed the theological foundation for appreciating man's worth and
his nearness to God. Muslim belief in God's unity and transcendence,
in contrast, underlies the thought of man's insignificance and helplessness. Further, active use of means and self-dependence among
Christians had emanated from the idea of free will, while the stagnation of the Muslims was rooted in the doctrine of predestination and
blind submission to law.
Abduh responded by indicating that discussions of predestination were
not peculiar to any one religion. Christians were not in agreement on
the question of free will. Finally, in his defense of the doctrine of the
unity of God, Abduh resorted to reason by arguing that compared to
the idea of God existing among other groups, the Islamic doctrine was
based on the highest form of belief that was attainable by the intellect,
whereas the idea of the Trinity was not based on reason, as Christians
themselves would confess.150 In the second controversy, Antun
criticized Islam for being less tolerant toward learning and philosophy
than Christianity. And the emergence of modern civilization in Europe
became possible because learning had triumphed over persecution in
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Christian Europe. Abduh responded that Christianity also persecuted
its own scholars as well as the adherents of other faiths, and that Islam
contributed to civilization and learning. Abduh, however, acknowledged that there were historical reasons for the current rigidity of
Islam.'51 In these two debates, we may detect a clear shift in the
Abduh's expose, away from the Ash'ari and toward a more explicit
Mu'tazili, a rationalist approach that Abduh had consciously attempted
to eschew.l52
Islam and civilization
A major component of the dominant view of the world order in the
nineteenth century was the civilization versus savagery dichotomy. The
use of this dichotomy in Islamic modernism implied the admission of
the irrelevancy of the dar ul-Islam-dar ul-harb duality. It was also
symptomatic of a more serious problem for the Islamic belief system.
The civilized order in Europe, resting on the organizing principles
different from the revealed laws of Islam, was an anomaly for the
modernists. For if a non-Islamic order surpassed Muslims in science
and technology, understanding its sociological laws would not only
uncover the secrets of its progress but also reveal the existence of new
principles of social organization that produced a society better than
Muslim societies. How could one reconcile the tension between the
organizing principles of European civilization and the principles of
Islam that, in the Muslim view, were far superior?153
Al-Afghani and Abduh tried to resolve this dilemma by advancing a
modernist interpretation of Islam and attributing the decline of Muslims to certain historical causes, while at the same time remaining
loyal to the scholarly tradition of their religion. Another way of tackling this anomaly was an apologetic trend that sought an easy way out
by trying to uncover an Islamic precedent for modern ideas of Europe.
Traces of this trend were visible in the articles of al-Muqtatafas some
writers tried to uncover in the Islamic history an intellectual pedigree
for Darwin and Galileo.'54 Muhammad Farid Wajdi (1875-1954) took
this argument to its logical extreme by making a simple assumption
that Islam was a perfect model of civilization. His central premise was
that everything the modern world had discovered and approved was
foreseen in the Quran and hidden in its verses.155While for Abduh a
true society was based on the teaching of Islam, in Wajdi there was a
subtle change in the relationship between the two, and a true Islam
conforms to civilization.
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In Hourani's assessment, Wajdi's work was polemical and lacked the
vivid sense of responsibility Abduh and other thinkers had displayed
toward Islam.156 This may be the case; but how are we to explain
Wajdi's expose? Abduh's scholarly responsibility was certainly an
aspect of his intellectual sophistication. He was also constrained by
the discursive context within which he advanced his reformist ideas.
His academic position as the head of the Azhar and background in
Islamic scholarship placed an effective limit on his expression. Wajdi,
on the other hand, fixed his gaze on debates in Europe, France in
particular. He was taking issues with such writers as Benjamin Constant, Ernest Renan, and Joseph Geyser.157His book was published in
French and was intended for a French audience, without being too concerned with other Muslim views such as that of the Islamic orthodoxy.
Anxious to defend Islam vis-a-vis the Europeans, Wajdi dissolved
Islam in modernism.158
Islamic feminism
As it was in India, the status of women in Egypt was among the most
hotly debated issues in the intellectual encounters between the followers of traditional Islam and its opponents. In the late nineteenth
century, there was also a growing gender awareness in the country,
reinforced by the extension of education to women159 and by such
women's publications as al-Fatah (the young woman, 1892), al-Firdaus
(Paradise, 1896), and Mir'at al-Hasna' (Mirror of the beautiful,
1896).160 In this context, Qasim Amin (1865-1908) formulated a
systematic defense of women's rights from an Islamic standpoint.
Amin's interests in the question of women was provoked when Duc
d'Harcourt, a French writer, criticized Egypt for its backwardness, the
low status of women, and the use of the veil. Amin responded by
defending the veil and criticizing the promiscuity of European social
life. Thenceforth, he studied European views on women and concluded
that the advancement of Egypt lay in the uplift of its women.161
In Amin's view, women's problems were rooted in the country's tradition for preserving despotism, in the despotic political institutions for
promoting male domination, and in the institution of the ulama for
their views on women's education, seclusion, veil, polygamy, and divorce. With few exceptions, Muslim theologians had manipulated
Islam any way they wanted and have made it an object of ridicule.162
While recognizing Western achievements in gender equality,163Amin
denied the role of Christianity in the advancement of women.164 The
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Shari'a, on the other hand, "stipulated the equality of women and men
before any other legal system."165The low status of women in contemporary Egypt is therefore no fault of Islam.
On veiling, Amin argued that the Shari'a allowed a woman to uncover
her face and her palms, but covering the face and the use of the veil
had been part of the ancient traditions that preceded Islam.166On the
issue of marriage, Amin again assailed the Muslim doctors for considering it as "a contract by which a man has the right to sleep with a
woman."167A true marriage must be based on both physical attraction
and a harmony of spirit, which was possible only when it was based on
a mutual consent.'68 Using a modernist exegesis of the Quran, Amin
took a position against polygamy. Polygamy, he argued, implied an
intense contempt for women. No woman would like to share her husband with another woman, just as no man would accept the love of
another man for his wife. This monopoly over love was natural for both
men and women.169 In explaining away the Quranic injunction on
polygamy, Amin followed the same logic as that of Indian modernists
- justice in a polygamous relationship was impossible.170Finally, divorce
was permissible in Islam, but it should not be a man's prerogative
only.'71
By referring to the shari'a, Amin claimed his feminist expose to be
Islamic. His response to his critics, however, took a secular orientation
- the appeal was no longer to the shari'a but to science and to Western
achievements: "Look at the eastern countries; you will find woman
enslaved to man and man to the ruler.... Then look at the European
countries; the governments are based on freedom and respect for
personal rights, and the status of women has been raised to a high
degree of respect and freedom of thought and action."172 Thus, it
appears that Amin's view on women, the formulation of an Islamic
feminist conception of gender relations, and the shift in his view
toward a secular reasoning - all were shaped within the context of
debates and clashes of meanings.
Constitutionalism and political authority
The question of political authority in Islam did not feature prominently in the works of Egyptian modernists of the late nineteenth
century. The heterogeneity of the ruling elite under British occupation,
discursive pluralism, and the British policy of religious neutrality appeared to have made the issue of caliphate not significant in their
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works. Moreover, the religious justifications for the traditional rulerulama alliance had little support among the country's intellectual
leaders. The Ottomans were still the nominal rulers - with the conservatives tending to support them, while modern intellectual leaders
demanded independence and constitutionalism. In the national liberation movement, even pan-Islamist-nationalists like Abd Allah Nadim
(1845-1896) and Mustafa Kamil (1874-1896) did not wish to establish
an Islamic government in their country.
The discursive context in which Ali Abd al-Raziq (1888-1966) published his treatise on al-Islam was usul al-hukm (Islam and the Fundamentals of Authority, 1925) was different. The new liberal-nationalist
state was under the conservative attack. This conservatism was originated from the ideology of Arab caliphate movement. The idea of an
Arab caliph was part of the Arab nationalist discourse that originated
in Syria in response to Turkish secularism and national chauvinism of
the late nineteenth century and early twentieth.173This discourse in its
modernist formulation first appeared in the works of Abdul Rahman
al-Kawakibi, who, along with Christian Naqib Azoury, formulated the
idea of the Arab right to secede from the Ottomans and establish an
independent Arab caliphate. Kawakibi's thesis, however, was to demonstrate the debilitating effect of despotism on both the society and the
individual character.174But the caliphate movement in Egypt became
the rallying point of the conservative forces, and Khedive Abbas Hilmi
was more interested in becoming the caliph than establishing a constitutional system.175Nor did his son, King Fuad, have much support
for the Egyptian Constitution. He had also his own ambition of becoming the caliph, particularly following the Turks' abolition of the
caliphate in 1926.176
Thus, for the first time in modern Egypt, the caliphate became an ideological target in opposition to which al-Raziq boldly formulated an
Islamic justification for the national democratic state. Al-Raziq claimed
that the caliphate had no basis either in the Quran, the tradition, or
consensus among the ulama. Theoretically, the caliphate embodied both
religious and secular authorities, and held by those who had succeeded
the Prophet. But, the examination of the proofs presented in support of
this institution provided an insufficient basis to sustain the claim of
this form of government. "If we were to collect all his [the Prophet's]
direct teachings on the question of government, we would get little
more than a fraction of the principle of law and organizations needed
for maintaining a state."177Al-Raziq then argued that the chief pur-
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pose of Muhammad was religious, not political. His intention was not
to establish an empire, nor did his mission require him to exercise
power over his followers. His prophetic mission was purely spiritual.
The political changes Muhammad brought about were the incidental
consequences of his moral revolution. From this al-Raziq went on to
attack the historical experience of the caliphate by declaring that the
institution had hindered the progress of the Muslims. Islam had thus
nothing to do with this or that form of government, and it never
prohibited Muslims from destroying the old and establishing a new
political system on the basis of the newest concepts and experiences.'78
Iran: The bastion of traditionalism and conservative reaction
The similarities between India and Egypt on the determinants of
Islamic modernism were striking despite their differences in social
structure and historical experience. The Iranian case further supports
our explanatory model. In this case, the weakness of Islamic modernism is associated with the absence of social change. The contrast
between Iran and Egypt is particularly illuminating given the similarities between the two countries in social structure in the early nineteenth century. Both countries were religiously unified, displayed similar economic structures and class profile, exhibited analogous traditional social institutions, demographically alike, and were governed by
a unified system of political administration. Yet throughout the century, Iran remained conservative. Attempts at reforms fell victims to
political intrigues and the ulama's reactions.
Iran has also the utility of providing a natural control case to assess the
degree to which ideological change was possible within the very institution of the ulama in the absence of the direct foreign influence. This
is especially significant given that the British promoted modern culture
in India and Egypt. To be sure, people like Tahtawi, Abduh, and alAfghani formulated their modernist expose before the British occupation of Egypt. Nevertheless, because there was an affinity between
British colonial staff and the modernists in both countries, one may
argue that the former aided the rise of Islamic modernism, and that
Iran's conservatism was due to the relatively weak cultural influence of
a European power. A corollary of this argument would be that the
conservative ulama were the uncompromising opponents of modernism in all the three countries. Our analysis of the Indian and Egyptian
cases indicated that the ulama were in fact highly critical of the Islamic
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modernists. Were they also uniformly the proponents of traditionalism? Although considerably weaker than either Egypt or India, Shi'i
modernism during the Constitutional Revolution is an example of how
discursive pluralism by itself may shape the orientation and content of
culture production in the absence of a direct influence of a foreign
power. Moreover, the rise of Shi'i modernism without a major social
transformation removes a possible Europe-centered bias that our
analysis may carry - Westernization as a precondition for cultural
change. Failing social transformation and the development of the
modern state, the Iranian case demonstrates that modernist ideas may
gain popularity among Muslim thinkers if a pluralistic context
emerges.
The Qajar state, the merchants, and the ulama
Nineteenth-century Iran was eventful and conflict-ridden. Foran suggested that many of Iran's conflicts were caused by the country's
insertion in the international system of inter-state competitions and
integration into the world economy. The reorganization of the structure of domestic production according to the external dictate of the
world economy resulted in a dependent development, which in turn
provoked the resistance of the indigenous forces to foreign interests.179
True, both Egypt and India were even more deeply integrated in the
world economy than Iran, but the key differences were that (i) interstate competition considerably weakened the Qajar state, particularly
following two humiliating defeats from Russia in 1813 and 1828, which
made the state vulnerable to challenges from below in the rise of the
Babi movement around the middle of the century; (ii) the Qajar rulers
showed no serious interests in modernizing the state and society; and
(iii) the infiltration of the domestic market by the European and Russian commercial interests produced class alliances quite different from
those of India and Egypt. While in India the merchants and the landowners were allied with the East India Company, and in Egypt, they
benefited from the breakdown of Muhammad Ali's monopoly system
and the general process of economic development, in Iran, in contrast,
the merchants and the guilds were undermined by the increasing infiltration of the domestic market by foreign concerns and by the state's
indifference to their needs. As early as 1830s, the merchants were
alarmed by foreign competition, but they lacked the administrative
capabilities as well as the capital necessary to meet these challenges.
The Qajars' granting of concession to foreign concerns worsened their
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situation. As a result, these merchants were antagonized and began
supporting protest movements against the state.180
The state's weakness, however, paralleled the rise in ulama power in
the course of the century. Because the ulama and their conservative
allies within and outside the court easily exhausted attempts at reforms, the ulama's effective control of culture remained intact. The
ulama successfully blocked the missionaries' activities in the country.
At the same time, the movements of the merchants and guilds against
foreign economic encroachments granted the ulama the opportunity to
lead protest movements in defense of "national interests" against foreign interests. All these factors contributed to the solidification of the
"monolithic" religious environment in the nineteenth century. Ironically, though, the very sociopolitical bases of the ulama - ties to the
state and different social classes - also became a source of their
disunity and political division. This disunity was best reflected in the
emergence of opposing factions in the Tobacco Movement (1890-1892)
and the Constitutional Revolution (1905-1911), when a group of the
ulama supported the constitution, while others decided to oppose it.
Obstacles to the missionaries
Given the ulama's enormous resources and the general conservative
nature of the social environment, the missionaries faced serious barriers to their activities. Foreign visitors received their first chilling
warning when Griboyedov, the Russian ambassador, and about eighty
of his staff were massacred in Tehran by religious mobs in 1829, for
what was perceived as their disregard for the religious sensibility of the
public.181Although an incident such as this was not repeated, resistance to the missionaries remained extensive throughout the century.
The missionaries started their activities in Iran among non-Muslims,
the Nestorians and Assyrians in a northwestern city. In 1836, the
American missions opened a seminary for boys and, in 1838, a seminary for girls. In 1870, there were 700 people attending the Protestant
celebration of the communion and 960 children in the school.182 In
1872, the Presbyterian missionaries were supporting a number of Biblewomen in Urumiah and one in Hamadan.183 In 1880, the Women's
Missionary Society had seven missionaries in Iran.'84 And in 1907,
there were in the "reformed Church" 2,658 communicants, belonging
to 961 families, thirty-eight percent being men and sixty-two percent
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women.185The missionaries also attempted to expand their activities to
other major cities such as Tehran, Hamadan, and Tabriz.
Proselytizing among Muslims, however, was extremely difficult. In
1881, after a decade of missionary works, there was hardly a change in
the situation. The missionaries failed to gain permission to engage in
religious activities. And after conservative groups complained to the
Shah that some Muslims attended religious meetings on the mission
premises in Tehran, the Shah issued an order that not only forbade the
missionaries to proselytize among Muslims, but also instructed them
to ban Muslims from attending their religious services.186Heightened
anti-foreign sentiments among Iranians also made the missionaries an
easy target of attack. One source indicated that it was too dangerous
for Christians, especially the missionaries, to attend religious ceremonies: "The population of Tabriz is exceedingly fanatical. Last year,
foreigners were in some danger of being massacred during the holy
frenzy of the religious festivals. In 1885, the missionaries had to close
down temporarily in the town because of the fear of massacres."187
Richter also reported that a missionary was killed by a religious
fanatic in Salmas in the north of Urumiah.188
Nevertheless, the missionaries managed to circulate their criticisms of
the social orders in certain parts of the country. A certain Mrs. Coan
presented her impressions of Iran's social conditions and the situation
of women. "A woman! What is she but a slave from childhood? Think
of her when married, a slave to her husband and her bigoted, ignorant,
superstitious mother-in-law."189 Another report indicated that "the
interest I feel in our girls as they are leaving our school is much deeper
than when they enter. My heart aches for them as they go forth to their
monotonous, sometimes slave-like lives."190 Considering anecdotal
evidence,191 one may postulate that their proselytizing activities had
some impact on their immediate surroundings. Overall, however, the
entourage of the Iranian culture remained closed to the missionaries
throughout the nineteenth century. Frustrated at their failure to disturb
Iran's monolithic religious order, some missionaries even contemplated whether it was "a waste of money, time and effort to do anything
for the Persians or other Orientals in a missionary way."192
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State officials and cultureproduction
Despite the Qajars' lack of interests in modernization, modern ideas
were introduced to the country by state officials.193Amir Kabir, the
grand vizier, initiated the first serious attempts at reforms, including
the founding of the modern school Dar al-Fonun in 1851, but the
ulama's opposition, the court's intrigues, and the conniving of his
rivals resulted in his failure.194Foreign diplomats also contributed to
Iran's cultural change. Morier's devastating critique and ridicule of
Iran's traditional order in Adventures of Hajji Baba was known to the
educated elite. Arthur de Gobineau, a French diplomat and scholar,
collaborated with Iranians in translating Descartes's Discours sur la
Methode. The works of Newton and segments of Charles Darwin's
Origins of Species were also translated.195As a result, the educated
Iranians began to show interests in such ideas as the separation of
religion and politics, social evolution, the ruler's accountability to the
public, and the people being the government's raison d'etre. Departing
from religion as the source of knowledge, these new intellectuals emphasized human reason and adopted Descartes's famous dictum "I
think therefore I am."196In 1858, several treatises on political criticism
were published, students were sent to France to study, the first draft of
the constitutional law was presented to the Shah, the state council was
formed, the first political grouping (the house of oblivion), modeled on
freemasonry societies of Europe, came into existence, and other measures were taken to improve the economy, finance, and the system of
communication.'97
The French Enlightenment and reformist ideas coming from the Ottoman Empire offered a new concept of the state, elaborated different
types of government, presented the idea that the "national will" was
the source of state power, emphasized the significance of laicized
politics and the idea of freedom as a right, and introduced the principle
of natural right.198These ideas reverberated in the works of the enlightened Iranians. One author suggested the use of scientific knowledge to run the affairs. Another complained about the people's sufferings, the governors' arbitrary rules, a lack of security for people and
property, the people's lack of awareness of their rights, and the prevalence of bribery and foreign influence. Still another author demanded
orderliness in the government, constitution, and the rule of the people.199 A fourth author addressed Iranians in 1863: "If you could
realize the advantage of liberty and human rights, you would have
never tolerated slavery."200Finally, a leading reform-minded high-
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709
ranking state official, Majd ul-Molk, in 1870 wrote an influential essay
on Iran's economic, political, and social decline, and the need for
reform at all levels.201
In 1871, the Shah appointed a new liberal vizier, the Sipahsalar. The
new premier tried to establish the rule of law and a modern legal order
in the country. He set up a new Ministry of Justice to effectuate his
judicial reforms. New laws were formulated, the judiciary gained some
autonomy, and a constitutional law was written. He also implemented
measures to curb the governors' arbitrary power.202 These reforms
were again resisted by the ulama and those in the ruling elite whose
influence were undermined by these reforms.203The conservative pressures resulted in the premier's dismissal in 1872. In the years preceding
the Constitutional Revolution, Iranian reformers were publishing
several papers,204 which stressed the need for the establishment of
rational law, the introduction of a national consultative assembly, and
curbing foreign influences.
The Constitutional Revolution and Shi'i modernism
Among the causes of the Constitutional Revolution (e.g., the radicalization of the merchants and the guilds, the movement of the intellectuals for a constitutional system, and the broader difficulties that were
partly a result of a poor harvest and partly the effect of economic
fluctuations in the world market on the domestic economic conditions205), the participation of the ulama appeared anachronistic and
counterintuitive. To be sure, the idea of resisting injustice and tyranny
was not new in Islam. Historical Shi'ism carries a rich repertoire of
anecdotes on how religious leaders rose against unjust rulers. Nevertheless, joining a movement for the formation of a National Consultative Assembly to debate issues and to legislate was a different order.
The Fundamental Law ratified in 1905 by the ailing monarch was a
secular document. It considered the National Consultative Assembly
as the representative of "the whole people of Persia" elected in accordance with the Electoral Law, and having "the right in all questions to
propose any measure which it regards as conducive to the well-being of
the Government and the People."206The Fundamental Law not only
did away with the Shah's arbitrary power, but usurp from the ulama
many of their prerogatives as well. This fact did not remain concealed
from the keen eyes of Shaikh Fazlullah Nuri, "the celebrated reactionary mujtahid," to use Browne's phrase.207
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710
At the outset, Nuri and associates faced a serious dilemma. On the one
hand, the revolution was supported by a wide cross-section of the
population, the ideology of monarchical absolutism was bankrupt,
and the establishment of the rule of law was far superior to the rule of
an erratic despot. On the other hand, rule-making by the people's
representatives was contrary to the laws of the shari'a. How could they
oppose the Constitution without opposing the revolution, which would
carry the risk of being isolated? From November 1905, when two
leading ulama, Bihbahani and Tabataba'ie, started the revolution by
opposing the government, to January 1907, when the Shah died and his
son Muhammad Ali succeeded him, the enthusiasm for the Revolution
was strong and Nuri had no choice but to join, reluctantly, the opposition movement.
When Muhammad Ali Shah started to rebel against the Constitutional
government, Nuri found an opportunity to express his conservative
views. Claiming that the Fundamental Law was un-Islamic, he drafted
a Constitutional amendment, which gave a council of the ulama the
right to supervise all legislation put before the parliament to ensure
that it was in accordance with the shari'a. Following considerable
debates, an amendment was made to the Constitution as Article II. It
was not, however, in the form that Nuri originally intended.208 He was
dissatisfied with the Supplementary Fundamental Laws, considering it
too weak to curb constitutionalism. Nuri's political analysis was based
on the traditional formula of the division of leadership between the
ulama, in charge of religious affairs, and the shah, in charge of governmental affairs, and it was "the responsibility of each, with the assistance of the other, to guard and preserve the religion and the world of
worshippers so that the roots of Islam may be protected in the absence
of the Imam."209Given this division of labor, Nuri set out to expose
the contradictory and un-Islamic nature of the Constitution: if the
function of the Assembly was to formulate new laws, this was forbidden. If it was to formulate Islamic laws, this was the function of the
ulama. If it was to govern the behavior of the state officials, then there
was no need to call it Islamic.210He referred to the Constitution as a
great sedition, which from its emergence, rise, and decline went
through three stages: (1) discourse and presentation, (2) writing and
declaration, and (3) practice and test. The first stage was presented in
such a pleasant way that it attracted the learned and the common
people. In the second stage, the Constitutionalists first confined themselves to obscure statements, then began writing laws and regulations
so that they can write freely against religion, religious leaders, and the
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711
ulama. In the third stage, the Constitutionalists began to practice
whatever oppression they could.21
While Nuri was spreading his criticisms of the Constitution, another
prominent member of the clergy - Mirza Muhammad Hussein Gharavi
Na'ini (1860-1936) - rose in its defense. Na'ini's commentary on the
legitimacy of the Constitution was a new development in Shi'ism. It
was formulated, as it were, within the context of ideological warfare
among diverse groups over the nature of the state. The social forces
favoring change were mobilized, the royalist forces were crushed, and
the ulama were deeply divided - hence a favorable condition for
ideological innovation by a most prominent Shi'i theologian.
To be sure, the influence of the modernist thought on Iranian Islamic
movement can be traced to the works of such thinkers as al-Afghani,
Shaikh Hadi, and Tabataba'i. Shaikh Hadi (1834-1902) argued that
reason was the most important prophet for leading humans to the right
path, while he viewed superstition, fear of criticism, and bad habits
and customs as human diseases.212 Sayyid Muhammad Tabataba'i,
one of the prominent leaders of the Constitutional Revolution, was
also influenced by liberal ideas.213He said, "I have not seen constitutionalism, but according to what I have heard, and been told by those
who had visited constitutional countries, constitutionalism will bring
security and prosperity to the country. Therefore, I also became an
enthusiast of constitutionalism and interested in setting up a constitutional system for Iran."214
Na'ini, in his monograph on Tanbih al-Ummah wa Tanzilh al-Millah
(The Admonition of the Umma and the Enlightenment of the Nation)
went beyond a simple affirmation of the goodness of a constitutional
regime. He attempted to show the superiority of a constitutional regime
over sultanate or any form of government that was based on the
arbitrary decision of the ruler.215For him, the stability of the social
order depended upon the existence of the state - whether it is based on
a single person or a group of individuals, legitimate or illegitimate. A
government was stable when it relied on the wishes and beliefs of its
people. The state protected the social order in two ways. One was by
protecting the internal security, educating its citizens, administering
justice, and preventing the people's aggression against one another.
The other was by safeguarding the national interests from foreign
intervention, awareness of foreign intrigues, and the provision and
organization of defensive forces. Na'ini then went on to compare des-
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712
potism with constitutionalism.Here, his argumentis a point by point
refutation of Nuri's defense of absolutism. A despotic regime, for
Na'ini, carried three negative aspects: (i) It usurped the authorityof
God, hence injusticeto Him, (ii) it had oppressedthe Imam for usurping his authority,and (iii) it was based on the oppressionof the people.
A constitutionalgovernment,on the other hand, was free of the first
and third oppression.It had only usurpedthe authorityof the Imam.
Thus, there was no doubt that a constitutional governmentwas far
superiorto a despoticone.216
Conclusions
The rise of Islamic modernism in India, Egypt, and Iran represented
an important development in the contemporary Islamic movement and
certainly a notable example of a historically significant ideological
change.To explainits origins,we consideredtwo sets of conditions:(i)
those that furnished the necessary social space and resources that
made this new movement possible; and (ii) those that contributed to
the actual formulation of the Islamic modernist discourse. The first set
of conditions was created by the nineteenth-century social transformation. In India and Egypt, the decline of the traditional order, the
formation of the modern bureaucratic administrative and military
organization of the state, the rise of new social classes, the development of capitalism, and integration of the indigenous economy into the
world capitalist structure - all preceded the rise of a fairly strong
Islamic modernism. In Iran, on the other hand, the absence of a social
change comparable in extent and breath to that of India and Egypt
explains the relative weakness of its Islamic modernist movement.
The producers, consumers, and supporters of modern culture were
primarily state officials and members of the economically privileged
social classes - merchants and landowners. Between the two groups,
state officials were a much stronger force in promoting modern culture
than these social classes. The merchants and landowners were among
the most influential social classes across the three countries in this
period, but the connection between their sociopolitical influence and
the strength of Islamic modernism remained inconclusive. In India
and Egypt, political and economic transformation favored merchants
and landowners, a process that paralleled the rise of Islamic modernism.217In Iran, Islamic modernism remained weak, despite the high
level of political and social influence of the merchants. Modern state
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713
officials, on the other hand, played a consistently conspicuous role in
the process of cultural change in all the three countries. Where they
succeeded was contingent upon the formation of a new set of political
institutions. In India and Egypt, the state undermined the power of the
ulama, reduced restrictions on religious minorities, and promoted
religious pluralism. More directly, the state's bureaucratic expansion
provided a major occupational basis for culture producers. The weakness of Islamic modernism in Iran was associated with the absence of a
modern state formation.
To assess more directly the contribution of social classes and the state
to the rise of Islamic modernism, we analyzed the occupational backgrounds of the Islamic modernists and of their fathers. We did not have
a complete data set on the occupations of the fathers, but for those that
information were available, we found that only five (18.5 percent of the
total) were merchants or landowners, while twelve (44 percent of the
total) had state employment or were connected to the state. Considering the occupational backgrounds of the modernists, there was even a
stronger indication of the role of the state in the rise of Islamic modernism. Of the sixteen Islamic modernists in Egypt, 62.5 percent had
state employment. This figure for India (n = 12) was 75 percent, and for
Iran (n = 7) 0 percent (see Table 1). (Only two percent of Egyptian
labor force and one percent of Indians employees worked in public
administration. For Iran, no such data were available.) These findings
corroborate Wuthnow's thesis on the centrality of the state in providing the necessary social space for culture production.218
The process of change certainly promoted the rise of Islamic modernism. Yet the manner in which the Muslim scholars formulated their
expressions followed a logic different from that of changes in class
relations and the formation of the modern state. It was the logic of
ideological debates and religious disputations among such contenders
as the orthodox ulama, the missionaries, the (British) Westernizers,
and the followers of the Enlightenment:
1. the contenders formed ideological targets for one another, as the
utterances of each side structured the utterances of the other;
2. the back-and-forth debates among these contenders were nonanonymous, systematic, and generated several historically significant issues on the role of the modern sciences, rational law, social
functions of religion, form of government, status of women, and
relationship with the outside world;
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Table1. Characteristics of the Islamic modernists in Egypt, India, and Iran (n = 35)
Country
Name
Occupation
Father's
Egypt(n = 16)
Abduh,Muhammad
AbdulRaziq,Mustafa
AbdulRaziq,ShaikhAli
Afghani,SayyidJamalud-Din
Amin,Ahmad
Amin,Qasim
Ibrahim,HafizShairal-Nil
KurdAli, Muhammad
Malak,HifniNasif
Maraghi,ShaikMuhammad
Mubarak,Ali
Manfaluti,MustafLutfi
Reda,MuhammadRashid
Tahtawi,Rifaa Badawi
Wajdi,MuhammadFarid
Yaziji,Irbrahim
Mufti,Prof.,Judge,Civil Serv.
Prof.,Journalist,Civil Servant
Rel. Scholar,Judge,Writer
Religiousleaderand thinker
Judge,Prof.
Judge,Lawyer
MilitaryOfficer,Poet-Journalist
Journalist,Writer,Civil Servant
Teacher,Journalist
AzharRector,Judge
Teacher,Ministerialpositions
Teacher,Writer
Journalist,Writer
Teacher,Civil Servant
Journalist,Writer
Journalist,Religiousscholar
Smalllan
Civil Ser
Civil Ser
Religiou
Religiou
TurkishO
Civil Ser
Business
CivilSer
%StateEmployee
62.5%
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Religiou
Judge,C
Religiou
Merchan
Civil Ser
Scholar,P
Table1. Continued
Country
Name
Occupation
India(n = 12)
AbdulLatifKhan
AmirAli
ChiraghAli
Hali, Altaf Husein
Iqbal,Muhammad
Kandhlah,Muhammad
KaramatAli Jawnpouri
Muhsinal-Mulk,MahdiAli
NazirAhmad,Deputy
SayyidAhmadKhan
SayyidMumtazAli
Shibli,MuhammadNu'mani
Civil Servant,Teacher
Lawyer,ChiefMagistrate
Civil Servant
Poet, Civil Servant
Lawyer,Poet
Professor
Religiousscholar
Prof.,Admin.,Civil Servant
Civil Servant
Civil Servant,Judge,Prof.
Journalist,CivilServant
Prof.,Religiousscholar
%StateEmployee
Iran(n = 7)
Father's
Physicia
Impover
SmallM
Wealthy
Civil Ser
Civil Ser
75%
Dowlatabadi,Yahya
M. N.
Malikulmotakallimin,
Na'ini,MuhammadHusein
Najmabadi,ShaikhHadi
Shaikhul-Ra'is,Abul Hasan
Tabataba'i,SayyidM.
Va'iz,SayyidJamalud-Din
%Stateemployee
Layeducator,Religiousleader
Religiousleader,Orator
Religiousscholar,Ayatollah
Religiousscholar,Ayatollah
Religiousscholar
Religiousscholar,Ayatollah
Religiousscholar,Orator
0%
Source:severalbooksand articles.
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Babispi
Religiou
Religiou
Qajarpr
Religiou
Religiou
716
3. these issues posed serious anomalies for the Islamic belief system;
and
4. Muslim scholars advanced modernist resolutions of these issues.
Far from reflecting the objective facts of social change, Islamic
modernism was a discourse consisting of a method of Quranic
exegesis and a set of interconnected positions on issues that was
gradually took shape as Muslim intellectuals debated the issues,
tested the limits to their expressions set by the existing political and
religious arrangements, negotiated various positions, and reached
an understanding of the acceptable Islamic resolutions that firmly
connected their faith to modern culture.
Power also played a crucial role in affecting the orientation of Islamic
modernism. The breakdown of state-ulama alliance, the decline of the
absolutist state, and the formation of the modern state were among the
conditions of Islamic modernism. Nevertheless, it was not the structure of power per se that directly affected the expressions of the Islamic
modernists. It was rather the nature of the interconnections between
the power structure and the structure of ideological market that
shaped the social or political orientations of Islamic modernism. We
found that insofar as the ruling elite remained neutral in the process of
ideological debate, and the issues debated remained social, Islamic
modernism maintained a social and non-political orientation. The
Islamic modernists formulated political ideas when they faced distinctively political targets. Both al-Raziq's and Na'ini's political modernisms
were in response to the conservative backlash against the formation of
the modern democratic state.
To the extent that ideological production is conceived as an outcome of
debates, contrasting positions, and conflicts and disagreements over
relatively small positions (the law of small numbers), our analysis of
the origins of Islamic modernism supports Collins's model of intellectual creativity. Nevertheless, Collins's dynamic model, while pointing
to the right direction, does not overcome Wuthnow's problem of indeterminacy. In our model, the key factors in the actual production of
discourse are the nature, the number, and the level of diversity of the
targets the ideological producers face, which determine the theme and
the content of their utterances. We contend that if we obtain an adequate picture of the role of the state in culture, the nature of the
discursive field, and the kind of ideological targets that are present in
this field, we may be able to overcome indeterminacy and predict the
process of ideological production.
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717
Becauseideologicalproductionis relativelyautonomousfrom the level
of economic and political development, from changes in class relations, and even from the general cultural heritage of the society, we
employedthe concept of episode to emphasizenot only discontinuity
in ideological production,but also to make the case that historically
differentsocial environmentsmay provide social support for similar
ideologies(India and Egypt)and similarsocial groupsand classes may
display differentideological orientations (Egyptian merchants/landowners versus Iranian merchant/landowners).The Indian Mutiny of
1857-58,Napoleon'sinvasion of Egypt, and the IranianConstitutional
Revolution markedthe beginning of a new episode in the history of
these countries. These events not only set the stage for significant
sociopoliticalchanges,but also had an impact on the the minds of the
ideological producers.Europeaninterventionsin the affairs of these
countries,integrationinto the world economy and the developmentof
capitalism, the rise of landownersand merchants,and, most significantly,the formationof the modernbureaucraticstructureof the state
were the distinctive features of the episode that structuredculture
productionin India, Egypt, and Iran. More directly,the discourse of
Islamicmodernismwas producedin relationto a set of specifictargets
in the pluralisticdiscursivecontext in the decades before and after the
turningof the twentiethcentury.
The nature of the existing discursivefields and the kind of discourse
that is dominantin a particularepisode may provideusefulclues as to
why a certainprotestmovement,rebellion,or revolutiontook the form
it did. The Enlightenmentmovement, as the dominant discourse during the period under investigation,and such seminal ideas as civilization, progress, and the test of civilization provided by the status of
women furnished the general intellectual framework in relation to
which Islamic thinkersdeveloped their theological and sociopolitical
views. To underscorethe cultural distinctivenessof this episode, we
may considerthe radical/leftistdiscoursesthat characterizedthe dominant culturaltrends in many Middle Eastern countriesfollowing the
decline of secularism and liberalism. In the former case, the basic
parametersof the discursivefields were set, among other things, by
the idea of social evolution, with the West residing at the pinnacle of
the worldcivilization.In the lattercase, on the other hand, the imperialism versuspeople dichotomyand the Westbeing the site of the world
imperialismstructuredideological production.The image of the West
projectedby the imperialismparadigmis that of an exploitativeeconomic institution, decadent social order, and aggressivepolitical sys-
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718
tem - all diametrically opposed to the features for which the Islamic
modernists applauded the West. It may be postulated that these diverse
portrayals of the West constituted one of the key differences in the
discursive fields in relation to which Islamic modernism and fundamentalism were produced.
By arguing that ideas are produced within the context of the existing
discursive fields, we do not argue that discursive fields and ideological
debates are all that matter in culture production. Ideological producers
are not simply limited by the existing discourses and their utterances
are not confined within the parameters of ideological disputations.
Certainly, they are constrained by other factors as well. One such
constraint is internal to their own belief system and is therefore transepisodic. In formulating their modernist exegesis of the Quran, Islamic
thinkers, for example, had to work very hard to show the consistency
of their views with the basic Islamic tenets. Such fundamental dogma
as the belief in the unity of divine principle and in the Quran as the
word of God were intellectual boundaries they were not allowed to
cross. These boundaries may be termed deductive constraints because
they effectively limit the range of possible interpretations that the
Islamic thinkers were able to advance. In the Islamic orthodoxy, the
gate of ijtihad was considered closed, and the four schools of jurisprudence set the deductive constraints. By questioning some of the principles of jurisprudence governing these schools and only accepting the
Quran and the hadith, the Islamic modernists broke the boundaries set
by the orthodoxy, thus expanding the freedom of interpretations. Other
kinds of constraints on ideological producers are related to the social
forces and events outside the realm of ideas. These are inductive constraints. Not all ideas would find interested audiences and gain institutional support. A certain set of beliefs may be more attractive to some
people than to others, and a given constellation of ideas may be
popular only among certain groups and classes. A particular ideology
may become a dominant discourse under specific historical conditions.
In short, ideas do correlate with social processes. To be taken seriously,
ideological producers have to consider the attitudes and value orientations of state officials and the members of powerful social classes.
For future research, an analysis of ideological production must proceed with an understanding of its episodic context - the nature of the
sequence of historical events that affected the economic and political
conditions of the country, class, and state formation, and the relations
between groups and classes. This context sets the limits - inductive
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719
constraints- on the range of possible expressionsand determinesthe
likelihood of the rise of different ideological movements. Then it
should consider the nature of the belief system of the ideological
producers,its fundamentalassertions,basic methods, and worldviews,
that are transepisodic- deductiveconstraints.Finally, the actual expressions and formulations of ideas should be analyzed within the
context of ideological debate, religious disputations, and back-andforth discussions among diverse ideological producers. Considering
the interplay of induction, deduction, and the dialogic process of
meaning formation, we may be able to explain the process of the
productionof ideas more fully.
Acknowledgments
I welcomecorrespondenceat Departmentof Sociology,Anthropology,
and Criminology,Eastern Michigan University,Ypsilanti, MI 48197,
U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] study is a part of
a larger project supportedby two grants from the National Science
Foundation, a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, and
fellowshipsfrom the National Endowmentfor the Humanities,United
States Information Agency, and Eastern Michigan University.The
research assistance of Abdulhani Guend and Osama Kadi and the
comments of the Theoryand Society Editors and reviewersare also
gratefullyacknowledged.
Notes
1. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "The German Ideology," Collected Works 5
(N.Y.: International Publishers, 19-116.
2. Ahmad Sadri, Max Weber'sSociology of Intellectuals (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1992), 41. See also Peter L. Berger, "Charisma and Religious Innovation:
The Social Location of Israelite Prophecy," American Sociological Review 28
(1963): 950.
3. Guy E. Swanson, Religion and Regime: A Sociological Account of the Reformation
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1967).
4. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy. The States, the Movements, and the Civilizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 5.
5. Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 11.
6. For a discussion of the debates on colonial history, see articles in AHR Forum by
Gyan Prakash, "Sualtern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism," American Historical
Review, 99 (December 1994): 1475-1490; Florencia E. Mallon, "The Promise and
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All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
720
Dilemmaof SubalternStudies:PerspectivesfromLatinAmericanHistory,"American HistoricalReview,99 (December 1994): 1491-1515;and FrederickCooper,
"Conflictand Connection:RethinkingColonial African History,"AmericanHistoricalReview,99 (December1994),1516-1545.For an interestinghistoricalcase
study that uses the spread of Christianityin highland Madagascarto critique
studiesof imperialculturalhistory,see Pier M. Larson,"'Capacitiesand Modes
of Thinking':IntellectualEngagementsand SubalternHegemony in the Early
History of Malagasy Christianity,'AmericanHistoricalReview(October 1997):
969-1002.
7. David Harvey,TheConditionof Postmodernity(Oxford:Blackwell,1990),302.
8. RobertWuthnow"StateStructuresand IdeologicalOutcomes,"AmericanSociologicalReview,50 (December1985),800.
9. MichelFoucault,DisciplineandPunish(New York:VintageBooks, 1979),23.
10. TimothyMitchell,ColonisingEgypt(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1988).
11. EdwardW. Said, Orientalism(London: Penguin Books, 1977), 12. This is not a
judgment on Foucault in general. On the contrary,Foucault in The Orderof
Things, Madness and Civilization, and The Archeology of Knowledge stressed the
autonomyof cultureand the way fundamentalculturalcodes impose orderupon
experience.See also J. G. Merquior,Foucault(Los Angeles:Universityof California Press, 1985). Likewise, stating that Said's argumentis consistent with the
correspondingperspectivedoes not mean to overlookhis impressivecritiqueof
Orientalstudies.
12. Terry,F. Godlove, Jr. "Interpretation,Reductionism,and Belief in God," The
Journal of Religion, 69/2 (1989): 185; D. Z. Phillips, Religion Without Explanation
(Oxford:Basil Blackwell,1976);Gaston Richard,"DogmaticAtheismin the Sociology of Religion,"trans.JacquelineReddingand W.S. F. Pickering,in Durkheim
on Religion: A Selection of Readings with Bibliographies and Introductory Re-
marks,ed.W.S. F. Pickering(London:Routledge& KeganPaul, 1975).
13. Robert Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social Structure in the
Reformation, the Enlightenment, and European Socialism (Cambridge: Harvard
UniversityPress,1989),3.
14. Ibid., 535.
15. Ibid., 1-22, 481, 530-531.
16. Wuthnowclaimedthat nothingwas inevitable,eventhe developmentof capitalism
was not inevitable(ibid., 581).
17. Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
Change(Cambridge:HarvardUniversityPress,1998),38, 42, 791.
Ibid., 380.
Ibid., 388, 379,380.
Ibid.,791.
Ibid.,791-792.
Collins abandonedthe ethnocentrismof Westernscholarshipwhich considered
Asia as exotic and "non-Westernculturesas unique sensibilitiesrunningon distinctiveinnerlogics" (379). He showedthat the long-runintellectualtendencyin
all philosophicaltraditionswas towardraisingthe level of abstractionand reflexivity, even though each traditionwas emanatingfrom a differentstartingpoint:
"issues of ritual proprietyin ancient China, cosmological myth in India and
Greece, theologicaldisputesin early Islam"(788). Collins rejectedthe unilinear
evolutionismof the modernizationperspectivein favorof a multi-linearevolution
of differentculturaltraditions.By stressingthe equalpotentialof all philosophical
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721
traditionsto move in the directionof increasingabstractionand reflexivity,Collins's approachparallelsChomsky'stheory of universalgrammar.Nevertheless,
overcomingEurocentrismis one thing, glossing over serious differencesamong
the world'sculturaltraditionsis quite another.To examine an example of such
differences,we may considerthe differencein the conception of "man"in Islam
and Christianity,whichmighthavecontributedto the formationof differentforms
of politicalinstitution."Christianpolitical thinkersbegan from the premisesthat
man was a disobedient sinner and that the Almighty detested the stench of
anarchy" (see Lewis Perry, Intellectual Life in America: A History, Chicago: The
Universityof Chicago Press, 1989,8). Given man's essentiallyevil character,the
Westernpolitical thinkerswere hard at work trying to devise a formulato tame
and controlthe rulingelite. Sucha pessimisticview of humannaturein fact might
have led to a more positive developmentof modern democraticpolitical institutions, as thinkerslike James Madison deviseda systemof check and balancesto
keep rulersfrom misrule.In the Islamic tradition,on the other hand, thereis an
(overly)optimisticview of man - that he is essentiallynoble in character.This
positiveview, it may be postulated,ensuresthe continuedpresenceof a systemof
patriarchyin the modern Islamic world. For, there was no need to questionthe
powerof the patriarch,who is in essence a do-gooder.For allegedlyother important differencesbetweenIslam and Judeo-Christiantradition,see BernardLewis,
"Islamand LiberalDemocracy,"The AtlanticMonthly(February1993).Explaining such differencesin the world'sculturaltraditionsrequirespositingintellectual
creativitywithin the specific culturaland sociopoliticalcontext of debates over
historicallysignificantissues. The variations in such contexts may explain the
subtledifferencesin intellectualcreativityacrossdiversetraditions.
23. JeffreyC. Alexanderand PhilipSmith,"TheDiscourseof AmericanCivil Society:
A New Proposalfor CulturalStudies,"Theoryand Society,22/2 (1993) 156-157;
TerenceHawkes,Structuralismand Semiotics(Berkeley:Universityof California
Press,1977),19-27.
24. This view is consistentwith HerbertBlumer'ssymbolicinteractionistperspective
- that humansact towardthingson the basis of the meaningsthey attachto them,
and that these meanings arise out of social interactions.See Herbert Blumer,
Symbolic Interactionism. Perspective and Method (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Pren-
tice-Hall, 1969).
25. Michael Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and his World(New York: Routledge, 1990),
49.
26. Holquist,21.
27. Peter L. Bergerand Thomas Luckmann,"Sociologyof religionand sociology of
knowledge,"in Roland Robertson,editor,Sociologyof Religion(New York:Penguin Books, 1969),70.
28. WilliamSim Bainbridge,"SocialInfluenceand ReligiousPluralism,"Advancedin
GroupProcesses,12 (1995):1-18, JAI Press;R. Finke and R. Stark,"Evaluating
the Evidence:ReligiousEconomiesand SacredCanopies,"AmericanSociological
Review,54 (1989):1054-1056.
29. Reuben Levy, An Introduction to the Sociology of Islam (London: Williams and
Norgate Limited, 1933); Moojan Momen, An Introduction to Shi'i Islam (New
Haven:YaleUniversityPress,1985).
30. Hamilton A. R. Gibb, "Al-Mawardi'sTheory of the Khilafah,"Islamic Culture
(1937) vol. xi, 291-302; Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought in Medieval Islam:
An IntroductoryOutline(Cambridge:CamridgeUniversityPress, 1958),28.
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722
31. Rosenthal, 38, 42, 239, n. 34; S.A. Rizvi, "Islam in Medieval India," in A. L.
Basham, A Cultural History of India (Oxford: Calrendom, 1975), 283.
32. Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798-1939 (Cambridge: Cam-
bridgeUniversityPress,1983),21.
33. Said A. Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago: The
Universityof ChicagoPress,1984),109.
34. Fereydoun Adami'yat, 1976/2535, Idi'olozhi-ye Nahzat-i Mashrutiyat-i Iran [The
Ideologyof the ConstitutionalMovementin Iran](Tehran,Iran:PayamPublications, 1976),197;SaidA. Arjomand,TheShadowof God,255.
35. Inventionsin the means of transportationand communicationacceleratedthis
process.Travelbecame easier and faster,durablecommoditiesand materialculture were produced and transportedon a larger scale, and written texts were
reproducedmore rapidly and, through translations,made available to larger
audiencesand consumersin the world. Establishedin the Islamic world in the
nineteenthcentury,the inventionof the printingpress significantlyenhancedthe
transferof meaning. Oral transmissionof knowledgegave way to written, and
ideas were exchangedin a more systematic,less personal, less immediate,more
abstract,and more intellectualmanner,and on much largerscales and volumes.
See FrancisRobinson,"Islamand the Impactof Print,"ModernAsia Studies,27
(February 1993): 231-232; Marshall McLuban, The Gutenberg Galaxy. The Mak-
Man(London:Routledge& KeganPaul, 1962);GeorgeSteiner,
ingof Typographic
Languageand Silence(London:Faberand Faber,1967);and G. Baumann,editor,
The Written Word:Literacy in Transition (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).
36. See C. A. Baylay, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress, 1988);Irfan Habib,The AgrarianSystemof Mughal
India (1556-1707).(New York: Asia PublishingHouse, 1963); Satish Chandra,
Medieval India: Society, The Jagirdari Crisis, and the Village (Delhi: MacMillian,
Crisis in South
1982),46-75; and John F. Richards,"The Seventeenth-Century
Asia," Modern Asian Studies, 24/4 (1990), 625-638.
37. C. A. Baylay, Indian Society, 5.
38. Ibid., 4-10. See also FarhatHasan, "IndigenousCooperationand the Birth of a
Colonial City: Calcutta, c. 1698-1750,"ModernAsian Studies 26/1 (1992), and
"The Mughal Fiscal System in Surat and the English East India Company,"
ModernAsian Studies,27/4 (1993);SurendraGopal,"Nobilityand the Mercantile
Communityin India, XVI-XVIIth Centuries,"Journalof IndianHistory,vol. L
(1972): 795-798; John F. Richards,"The Seventeenth-CenturyCrisis in South
Asia,"Modern Asian Studies, 24/4 (1990); Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of
MughalIndia (1556-1707)(New York:Asia PublishingHouse, 1963),335; S. M.
Ikram,MuslimCivilizationin India(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress,1964);
223-227.
39. In the early nineteenthcentury,these trends includedthree principalcenters of
theologicaleducation:the reformismand eclectic traditionalismof the school of
ShahWali-Allahin Delhi, the apoliticalschool of FarangiMahalat Lucknow,and
the Khayrabadseminary that stressed medieval philosophy and logic. In the
second half of the century,the Deoband conservativeschool that synthesizedthe
threetraditionsrose to prominence.See Aziz Ahmad, IslamicModernismin India
and Pakistan:1857-1964 (London:OxfordUniversityPress, 1967);and Barbara
D. Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deaband 1860-1900 (Princeton:
PrincetonUniversityPress,1982).
40. Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 205; D. D. Baljon, Jr., The Reforms and Religious
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723
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
Ideas of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf,
1970), 2.
Sayyid Ahmad Khan faced enormous oppositions from the conservatives. The
main opponents of the establishment of Aligarh College and its educational program were Imad Ali, Muhammad Ali, and Ali Bakhsh who procured fatwas from
the ulama of various Indian cities and also from Mecca and Medina, declaring
Sayyid, "officially,"among other things, "the khalifa (representative) of the Devil
himself who is intent upon leading Muslims astray," whose "perfidy is worse than
that of the Jews and Christians" (See Christian W. Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan: a
Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (New Delhi: 1978), 20-21; Altaf Husain Hali,
Hayat-i-Javed, trans. K. H. Qadiri and Dvaid J. Matthews (Delhi, India: Idarah-i
Adabiyat-i Delli, 1979), 541. Another of Sayyid's principal critics, Rashid Ahmad
Gangohi, while conceding that Sayyid Ahmad Khan might be a well-wisher of
Muslims, regarded his religious ideas as a "deadly poison" for Islam. See Ahmad,
Islamic Modernism, 106.
This is not to argue that pre-modern India had a monolithic culture. In fact, the
country's population was divided in terms of language, religious sects, and ethnicity. See Barbara Metcalf, Presidential Address: Too Little and Too Much: Reflections on Musims in the History of India," The Journal of Asian Studies 54/4
(November 1995): 951-967; and P. Hardy, The Muslim of British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972).
Duncan Forbes, "James Mill and India," The Cambridge Journal, vol. v, no. 1
(October, 1951): 19-33; G.T. Garratt, editor, "Indo-British Civilization," in The
Legacy of India (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1937), 398; J. Majeed, "James Mill's
'The History of British India' and Utilitarianism as a Rhetoric of Reform,"
Modern Asian Studies, 24/2 ( 1990): 209; Sir William Jones, The Letters of Sir
William Jones, ed. Garland Cannon (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1970), vol. 2,
794.
James Mill, The History of British India, vol. 1 (London: James Madden, 1848), 309.
Forbes, 29.
Ibid. See also WW. Hunter, The Indian Musalmans (London: 1871), 136.
M. P. Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal History (Delhi, India: Dhanwantra Medical
and Law, 1952), 394-396.
Julius D. D. Richter, A History of Missions in India, trans. Sydney H. Moore
(London: Oliphant Anderson & Ferrier, 1908), 128; Calcutta Review (1844): 379.
Forbes persuasively demonstrated that Mill's real target was the Church of England.
Calcutta Review (1845): 418.
Calcutta Review (1845, 1851, 1852, 1855), and A. Sprenger, The Life of Muhammad
(Allahabad, India: 1851).
Richter, 329; Woman's Workfor Woman (1871, 1873, 1880).
Hardy, 169.
Calcutta Review (1845), 447, 468; (1852), 412; A. A. Powell, "Maulana Rahmat
Allah Kairanawi and Muslim-Christian Controversy in India in the Mid-19th
Century," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, no. 1 (1976): 47.
Powell, 56-58, Ahmad Islamic Modernism, 26-27; Calcutta Review (1845): 435467.
C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University, 1988); Erik Stokes, The Peasant Armed: The Indian Rebellion of 1857, ed. C. A. Bayly (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986); Gautam Bhadra,
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724
SelectedSubalternStudies,ed. RanajitGuha
"FourRebelsof Eighteen-Fifty-Seven,"
and GayatriChakravorty
Spivak(Oxford:OxfordUniversityPress,1988),129-175.
57. According to Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the missionaries provoked Muslims and
Hindus by denouncingtheir religionsin terms of the medievaltraditionof virulence and abuse. See Sayyid Ahmad Khan, The Causes of the Indian Revolt, trans.
G. Grahamand A. Colvin(Lahore:The Book House, 1873),25.
58. Altaf Husain Hali, Hayat-i-Javed(Delhi, India: Idarah-iAdabiyat-iDelli, 1979),
trans.K. H. Qadiriand Dvaid J. Matthews,49. In Malik'sassessment,had not the
warsof 1857brokenout, he probablywouldhaveendedhis life as a minorjudicial
officialwith a dozenmediocrebooks to his name.HafeezMalik,Sir SayyidAhmad
Khan and Muslim Modernization in India and Pakistan (New York, 1980), 76.
59. Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 40-41; Hali, 75; and Troll.
60. Bashir Ahmad Dar, Religious Thought of Sayyid Ahmad Khan (Lahore, India:
Instituteof IslamicCulture1957),140.
61. Ahmad, IslamicModernism,42-43; Troll, 171-193;Asaf Hussain, Islamicmovements in Egypt, Pakistan and Iran (London: Mansell Publishing, 1970), 171-184.
62. Hussain, 185-196; Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 45-49.
63. Malik,87.
64. Moulvi Cheragh Ali, The Proposed Political, Legal, and Social Reforms in the
Ottoman Empire and Other Mohammadan States (Bombay: Education Society
Press,1883),xxvii.
65. Malcolm MacColl,"AreReformsPossibleUnder MussulmanRule," ContemporaryReview,(August1881):257-281.
66. ChiraghAli, Proposed,3-8, 11.
67. Ibid., 11.
68. Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 52-53.
69. Citedin Gail Minault,"SayyidMumtazAli and'Huququn-Niswan':An Advocate
of Women'sRights in Islam in the Late Nineteenth Century,"ModernAsian
Studies24/1 (1990):152.
70. Minault,153-154,Ahmad,IslamicModernism,72.
71. For sure, this questionwas not the exclusiveconcern of the modernists.For the
traditionalists(Ahl-iHadis),Islamichistorywas that of a consistentretrogression
fromits goldenage of the Prophet.
72. In colonial history,"Muslimsserved as a foil against which the Britishdefined
themselves:by sayingthat Muslimswere oppressive,incompetent,lascivious,and
given to self-indulgence,the colonial British could define precisely what they
imaginedthemselvesto be, namely,enlightened,competent,disciplined,andjudicious. At the same time, they imputedto Muslimscertainqualitiesthey admired,
like qualities of masculinityand vigor, in contrast to the allegedly effeminate
Hindus.Suchstereotypesshapedpolicy and legitimatedBritishpresenceto themselves,and, for a considerableperiodof time, to manyof those they ruledas well."
Metcalf "PresidentialAddress,"953-954; Thomas R. Metcalf, Ideologiesof the
Raj (Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1994),138-144.
73. Cheragh Ali, A Critical Exposition of the Popular "Jihad" (Karachi, Pakistan:
Karimsons,1977),I-II.
74. Numani Shilbi, Sirat al-Nabi,translatedby FazulurRahman(Karachi:Pakistan
HistoricalSociety,1970),59-60.
75. Numani Shibli, OmarThe Great,trans. MuhammadSaleem (Lahore,Pakistan:
Sh. MuhammadAshraf,1962),5.
76. Ibid., 13-20.
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725
77. Ibid., 167-173.
78. Ibid., 187-195.
79. MaulaviSayedAmeerAli, TheSpiritof Islam(London:Christophers,1922),122128.
80. Ibid., xxxiii, lii.
81. Ibid., 247.
82. Ibid., 250-260
83. Ibid., 264.
84. Ibid., 230.
85. Ibid., 211-215.
86. Afaf Lutfi Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammed Ali (Cambridge: Cambridge
UniversityPress, 1984), 1-7, 181; Gabriel Baer, A History of Landownershipin
ModernEgypt 1800-1950 (London: OxfordUniversityPress, 1962),3-4; Robert
F. Hunter, Egypt under the Khedives, 1805-1879: From Household Government to
ModernBureaucracy,(Pittsburgh:Universityof PittsburghPress,1984),17.
87. Hourani, 54; and J. Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to The History of Education
in ModernEgypt(London:FrankCass & Co., 1968),145.
88. Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis, The History of Egypt (Baltimore:The Johns Hopkins
UniversityPress,1980).
89. Abdel Rahim Mustafa,"TheBreakdownof the MonopolySystemin Egypt After
the 1840s," in Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt, ed. Peter M. Holt
90.
91.
92.
93.
(London: Oxford UniversityPress, 1968), 291-307; Hamied Ansari, Egypt:The
StalledSociety(Albany:StateUniversityof New YorkPress,1986),63, 74.
Afaf LutfiMarsot,"The Ulama of Cairo in the Eighteenthand NineteenthCenturies,"in Nikki R. Keddie,Scholars,Saints,and Sufis(Los Angeles:Universityof
CaliforniaPress),43.
For an overviewof the missions and intellectualorientationsof Roudatal-Madaris, see MuhammadAbd al-Ghany Hasan and Abd al-Aziz al-Dosouqi, Roudat
al-Madaris(Cairo:al-Hayatal-Misriyyaal-Aamaal-Kitab,1975).
Two Syrian Christians,Yaqub Sarruf and Faris Nimr, founded al-Muqtatafin
Beirutin 1876,but wearyof the everlastingvexationof the Ottomanofficials,the
editors immigratedto Egypt and continuedthe publicationof the journal there.
See MartinHartmann,The ArabicPress of Egypt(London: Luzac& Co., 1899),
11, 69-70. Farag, on the other hand, argued that the immediatereason for the
departureof Sarruf,Nimr, and Makariusfrom Syria was the Lewis affair.See
Nadia Farag,"TheLewisAffairand the Fortunesof al-Muqtataf,"MiddleEastern
Studies,8/1 (January1972):73-83.
al-Muqtataf,vol. 1 (1876):133.
94. al-Muqtataf, vol. 5 (1880): 10.
95. al-Muqtataf, vol. 6 (1881): 313.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.
102.
al-Muqtataf,vol. 7 (1882):2-6.
al-Muqtataf,vol. 17(1893):101.
al-Muqtataf,vol. 20 (1896):161-165.
al-Muqtataf,vol. 23 (1898):801-805.
al-Muqtataf,vol. 29 (1904),1-8.
For example,see al-Muqtataf,vol. 2 (1877),107,208; and vol. 7 (1882),134.
al-Muqtataf,vol. 1 (1876):141,174,231,276, 279,268.
103. See Abdel A. Ziadat, WesternScience in the Arab World:The Impact of Darwinism,
1860-1930 (London:The MacmillanCompany,1986),26-27. See also al-Muqtataf, 30 (1905): 565.
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726
104. al-Muqtataf, vol. 1 (1876): 160; vol. 4 (1879): 256; vol. 8 (1883): 573; and vol. 11
(1886): 486. Articles that criticized women's situation appeared, arguing that
women, like men, are intelligent. Emphasizing the significance of the role of
mother in society, of educating women, and of teaching them their rights, these
articles pushed forward the idea of equality between men and women (al-Muqtataf, vol. 7 [1882], 279; vol. 8 [1883], 7, 52, 53, 358, 469, 641, 548, 585). Writers and
contributors also debated woman's role outside her home, and her rights. Abu
Khatir and Salim Shakra exchanged ideas on women's right to education (alMuqtataf, vol. 10 [1885]: 634, 676, 739). Another commentator, Wadeh al-Khouri,
praised women's situation in England, France, and the U.S., indicating that they
had the mental capability to perform important social functions if they were given
opportunities similar to men. A Najeeb Antonios criticizes him for going too far in
imputing rights to women (al-Muqtataf, vol. 11 [1886]: 170, 232). Shibli Shummayal, in his essay on "Are men and women equal?" enumerated the physiological
differences between men and women (al-Muqtataf, vol. 11 [1886]: 355-360, 401).
Yaqub Sarruf used the word "feminist" in his eulogy of Miriam Nimir Macarios
(1860-1887), an activist for women's rights [vol. 12 (1887): 435]. Other articles on
women covered topics like "high esteem of women under the Pharaohs" [vol. 12
(1887): 677],'women and elections," [vol. 13 (1888): 624], a discussion of a book on
women's rights in Islam by the first inspector of Arabic science from the Ministry
of Education [vol. 15 (1890), 268], the claim that women's mental capability was
weaker than men [vol. 15 (1890): 376-383], and that women had smaller brains
than men [vol. 16 (1891): 643].
105. The Englishman, said Cromer, "will scrupulously abstain from interference in
religious matters. He will be eager to explain that proselytism forms no part of his
political programme." Evelyn Baring Cromer, Modern Egypt (New York: The
Macmillan Company, 1908), vol. 2, 141.
106. Cromer, 135.
107. Ibid., 163.
108. Ibid., 139,155.
109. Ibid., 157.
110. While France was espousing the cause of their bondholders in Egypt and the
protection of the Suez Canal, England was more anxious to protect its interests in
Egypt because eighty-nine percent of all shipping through the Canal was British
and the Canal had strategic importance as the artery to India and the other
colonies of the Far East. See Afaf Lutfi Al-Sayyid, Egypt and Cromer: A Study in
Anglo-Egyptian Relations (New York: Praeger, 1968), 1-2. It is noteworthy that
"before the occupation was decided upon Gladstone mentioned the rights 'of the
foreign bondholders' as on a par with those of the Sultan, the Khedive, and the
people of Egypt." See H. C. G. Matthew, The Gladstone Diaries (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1990), vol. 10, lxxii.
111. Wilfrid S. Blunt, Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt (N.Y.: Howard
Fertig, 1967 [1895]), 9. Al-Muqtataf (1880, vol. 5: 154) viewed British occupation as
beneficial for Egypt. Most of the Syrianemigr&s were dedicated to the Westernization process and had a strong influence on the climate of opinion in Egypt. See Jack
A. Crabbs, The Writing of History in Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cairo: The American University Press, 1984), 185-186; Jamal Mohammad Ahmed, The Intellectual
Origins of Egyptian Nationalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), 30-31.
112. Charles Wendell, The Evolution of the Egyptian National Image.:From its Origins to
Ahmad Lutfi al-Sayyid (Berkeley: University of California Press,1972), 202.
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727
113. This is in a sharpcontrastto the culturalpolicies pursuedby the states in Egypt,
Iran, and Syriain the post 1950speriod.The state'ssuppressionof the pluralistic
environmentnot only channeledoppositionalpolitics throughreligion but also
politicizedcultureproduction.The state provideda favorablecontext for the rise
of Islamicfundamentalism.See MansoorMoaddel,Class,Politics,andIdeologyin
the IranianRevolution(New York:ColumbiaUniversityPress, 1993);"TheSocial
Bases and the Discursive Context of the Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism:The
Cases of Iranand Syria,"SociologicalInquiry(1996),330-355.
114. Ahmed, Intellectual Origins, 51-52.
115. The spread of mission Christianityin the Islamic world was made possible by
EuropeanPowersand by the protectivemeasuresthey obtainedfor the Christians
and Jewsliving in Ottomanterritories.See EdwardWilliamLane, An Accountof
the Manners and Customs of Modern Egyptians (London: John Murray, 1871), vol.
1, 136-137; and Stanley Lane-Poole, The Life of the Right Honourable Stratford
Canning(London:Longmans,Green& Co., 1888).
116. Hourani,39-40, 53. MuhammadAli's toleranceof religiousdiversityalso aided
the missionaries.WhenEuropeansintercededwith him for a womanwho had been
condemned for apostasy,"he exhorted her to recant; but finding her resolute,
reprovedher for her folly,and sent her home, commandingthat no injuryshould
be done to her."See Lane, 137.Sultan Abd al-Majid'sdecree on religiousliberty
also favoredreligiouspluralism.
117. Charles R. Watson, In the Valleyof the Nile: A Survey of the Missionary Movement in
Egypt(New York:FlemingH. RevellCompany,1908),208; and AndrewWatson,
The American Mission in Egypt: 1854-1896 (Pittsburgh: United Presbyterian Board
of Publication,1898),361.See also SusanSachs,"AmericanHeadstonesTuggingat
November8, 2000),A4.
Egypt'sMemory,"TheNewYorkTimes(Wednesday,
118. Charles Watson, In the Valleyof the Nile, 78.
119. Ibid., 87.
120. Ibid., 92.
121. Watson, The American Mission, 52-53.
122. Ibid.,436.
123. Ibid.
124. Watson, In the Valley of the Nile, 122-223.
125. Ibid., 193-195.
126. CharlesR. Watson,Egyptand the ChristianCrusade(New York:United PresbyterianChurchof North America, 1907),appendix4, 274-275.Accordingto Samir
Raafat, an Egyptian historian, "back then ... a lot of people found ... American
evangelicalsystem as a way out of the dogma of their own churches.American
educationwas more liberal.It was co-educational.It was new and modern"(cited
in New YorkTimes,November8, 2000, A4.)
127. Crabbs,69.
128. Enayat,Hamid, Sayri Dar Andisheh-yeArab [An Overviewof ArabicThought]
(Tehran,Iran, 1977),29-30; and Hourani,74-75.
129. Hourani,75.
130. Tahtawiand studentsin the School of Languagestranslatedover 1,000books into
Turkishand Arabic. Personally,he listed twenty-eightworks of various kinds,
whichhe wrote,translated,or edited.See Crabbs,72-74.
131. F. Guizot, TheHistoryof Civilization,vol. 1-3, trans.WilliamHazlitt (New York:
D. Appletonand Co., 1890),firstlecture,24.
132. This was an Arabic periodical publishedin Paris between March and October
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133.
134.
135.
136.
1884,underthe political directorshipof al-Afghaniand the editorialof Muhammad Abduh.The Journalwas predominantlyanti-British,containingabout forty
articles on Britishhegemony,government,deception, and the manner in which
Great Britain dealt with other nations.There were also over twenty articles on
Islamand Islamiccivilization.
"Madial-Ummawa Hadirouhawa Ilaaju ilaliha,"(The Past and Presentof the
Umma and theTreatmentof its Malady),al-Urwaal-wuthqa,45-60.
"al-Wahdatal-Islami-yah"(IslamicUnity),al-Urwaal-wuthqa,130-140.
"al-Qadawa al-Qadar"(Predestination),al-Urwaal-wuthqa,102-117.
"Answerof Jamal ad-Din to Renan,"cited in Keddie, An Islamic Responseto
Imperialism. Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din "al-Afghani"
(Berkeley:Universityof CaliforniaPress,1968),183.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid., 187.
139. Cited in Keddie, An Islamic Response to Imperialism. Political and Religious
Writings of Sayyid Jamal ad-Din "al-Afghani"(Berkeley: University of California
Press,1968),105.
140. Ibid.,73.
141. Ibid., 37-38.
142. Abduh tried to convince Jamalud-Din to stop attemptingto obtain rights from
the colonial powers.He proposedto him that they should go to a place whereit
would be possible to educatepeople. See Hourani,258. Abduh believedthat the
eliminationof external constraintswas not enough for building a just Islamic
government.Al-Afghani did not accept his suggestion, consideringhis friend
discouragingand not helpful(mouthabbit).See Al-Manar,vol. 8 (1906),453-475.
143. Charles C. Adams, Islam and Modernism in Egypt. A Study of the Modern Reform
Movement Inaugurated by Muhammad Abduh (New York: Russell and Russell,
1933),55,64; Cromer,179-181;al-Manar,vol. 8 (1906):413,462; Hourani,158-159;
Enayat,Sayri, 120-123. In a self-descriptionof the objects of his career,Abduh
indicatedthat "I later abandonedthis question of political authorityfor fate to
determineand for the hand of God to settle, for I realizedthat in such matters
nationsreapthe fruitsof what has been plantedand cultivatedover a long period
of years, and that it is this plantingwith which we must now concern ourselves,
with God's help." Cited in Malcolm Kerr, Islamic Reform. The Political and Legal
Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Rida (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press,1966),109.
144. Abduh admiredHerbertSpencer,whom he visited in Britain,and translatedhis
Educationfroma Frenchversioninto Arabic.He readRousseau'sEmile,Tolstoy's
novels and his didacticwritings,Strauss'sLife of Jesus,and the works of Renan.
He had some contactwith Europeanthinkers,wroteto Tolstoyon the occasion of
the latter'sexcommunicationfrom the Russian Church,and traveledto Europe,
wheneverhe could, to renewhis soul, as he said, and becauseit revivedhis hopes
about the futureof the Muslimworld.See Adams,67; al-Manar,vol. 8 (1906):66;
Hourani,135.
145. Hourani,148; BryanTuner,Weberand Islam (Boston: Routledge& Kegan Paul,
1974),147;Adams.
146. The Quran, Surah II, verse 252.
147. Al-Manar,vol. 8 (February10, 1906),921-930;see also Adams, 141-142.
148. Hourani,139-140;Adams,97-99; Cromer,180-181.
149. Kerr,59, 111.
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150. Ibid., 107.
151. See Adams,86-88; and Hourani,144.
152. Cited in Adams, 89-90. See also Donald M. Reid, The Odyssey of Farah Antun: A
Syrian Christian's Questfor Secularism (Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1975), 80-90.
153. In Hourani's apt assertion, "it is significant that both his controversieswere
concerned,not with the truth or falsity of Islam, but with its being compatible
with the supposedrequirementsof the modernmind;and in the process,it maybe
that Abduh'sview of Islamwas itselfaffectedby his view of whatthe modernmind
needs."See Hourani,144;and Reid, 85-86.
154. Hourani,162.Al-Muqtatafmentionedthe controversyabout the relationshipbetweenChristianityand religion.See al-Muqtataf,vol. 15(1891):353-365,425-432,
497-503.
155. For example,a commentatorstated that the idea of the roundnessof the earth
could be foundin al-Ghazali'sworks(see al-Muqtataf,vol. 1:217).Riaz Pasha,the
education minister,joined in the debate, arguing that the notion of the earth's
stabilitywas contraryto both religionand science.And, a certainAmin Shameal
establishedan affinitybetween Darwin'sevolutionarytheory and Ibn Khaldun's
theoryof social evolutionand dynasticchanges(al-Muqtataf,vol. 10 [1885]:145146).Rashid Rida also advocatedthe idea that Darwinismdid not contradictthe
Quran(al-Manar,vol. 8 [1906]:920).
156. Citedin Adams,244.
157. Hourani,162.
158. See for exampleFaridWajdi,"Islamand Civilization,"in MansoorMoaddeland
Kamran Talattof, editors, Contemporary Debates in Islam. An Anthology of Islamic Modernism and Fundamentalism (New York: Saint Martin's Press, 2000).
159. In a reversedirection,thereis a parallelargumentin the worksof the forerunners
of Islamicfundamentalism.They,too, tendedto disregardthe diversityof views in
the Muslimscholarlytradition.Theirdiscoursewas formulatedprimarilyin reaction to modernWesternideologies.While people likeWajdiattemptedto establish
the identityof Islamwith civilization,for the fundamentaliststhereis a disjunction
betweenIslamand Westerncivilization.
160. Leila Ahmed, Womenand Genderin Islam (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress,
1992),127-143.
161. Beth Baron, The Women's Awakening in Egypt. Culture, Society, and the Press
(New Haven:YaleUniversityPress,1992),14-16.
162. Adams,22.
163. Qasim Amin, The Liberationof Women,trans. Samiha SidhomPeterson(Cairo:
The AmericanUniversityin CairoPress,1992),8-9.
164. Ibid., 50.
165. Ibid., 7.
166.
167.
168.
169.
170.
171.
172.
173.
Ibid.
Ibid., 42, 45.
Ibid.,76.
Ibid.,78-79.
Ibid., 83.
Ibid., 85.
Ibid., 101.
Citedin Hourani,168.
174. See Zeine Zaine, The Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Delmar, N.Y.: Carvan
books, 1973).
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730
175. George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1961), 95.
176. See Sylvia G. Haim, editor, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1962), 42. For a more detailed analysis of political influence in
the writings of Kawakibi and others, see Elie Kedourie, "The Politics of Political
Literature: Kawakabi, Azouri and Jung," Middle Eastern Studies, 8/2 (May 1972):
227-240.
177. Richard P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslim Brothers (London: Oxford University Press), 39.
178. Cited in Ahmed, Intellectual Origins, 118.
179. Adams, 259-268; Ahmed, Intellectual Origins, 117-119; Hourani, 185-188; Hamid
Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Thought, 62-68.
180. John Foran, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the
Revolution (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993).
181. William M. Floor, "The Merchants in Qajar Iran," Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 126 (1976): 124-125.
182. Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Modern Iran (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), 94-99; Ervand Abrahamian, Iran: Between Two Revolutions
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 71-72; D. P. Costello, "The Murder
of Griboedov," Oxford Slavonic Papers, vol. 8 (1958): 55-89, "A Note on 'The
Diplomatic Activity of A. S. Griboyedov' by S.V. Shostakovich,"' Slavic and East
European Review, no. 40 (1962): 235-244, "Griboedov in Persia in 1820: Two
Diplomatic Notes," Oxford Slavonic Papers, vol. 5 (1954): 81-92.
183. Julius D. Richter, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East (New York:
Fleming H. Revell Company. 1910), 294-303.
184. "Second Annual Report," Woman's Workfor Woman (January 1873): 9.
185. Woman'sWorkfor Woman, 10/12 (December 1880): 22.
186. Richter, A History of Protestant, 304.
187. Ibid., 317.
188. Cited in Abrahamian, Iran, 72; Samuel Greene Wheeler Benjamin, Persia and the
Persians (Boston: Ticknor and Company, 1887), 113, 342, 379.
189. Richter, A History of Protestant, 304.
190. "Persia: Extracts From Mrs. Coan's Letter," Woman's Workfor Woman, II (Sept.
1872): 175.
191. Woman's Workfor Woman, IV (March 1874): 93.
192. Fereydoun Adamiyat, Amir Kabir va Iran (Tehran, Iran: Amir Kabir Publications,
1334/1955), 192-193.
193. Helen Easton Hoffman, "Are Persians Worth While," Woman's Work: A Foreign
Missions Magazine, 38/12 (December 1923), 271.
194. Abdul-Hadi Hairi, Shi'ism and Constitutionalsmin Iran (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1977), 12.
195. Adami'yat, Amir Kabir, 146-158; Mongol Bayat, Iran's First Revolution: Shi'ism
and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1991), 36; and Fereydoun Adami'yat, Andisheh-yey Taraqi va Hukoumat-i Qanun. The Sipahsalar Era (Tehran, Iran: Kharasmi Publications, 1351/
1972), 15.
196. Adamiyat, Andisheh, 18-20; Bayat, Iran's First Revolution, 36-37.
197. Adami'yat, Andisheh, 21-22.
198. Ibid., 17, 53-75.
199. Ibid., 82-90.
200. Ibid., 92-118.
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201. Cited in Hadi Hairi, Shi'ism and Constitutionalism in Iran (Leiden, Netherlands:
E. J. Brill, 1977), 26.
202. Bayat, 37; Mirza Muhammad Khan Majd ul-Mulk, Risala-ye Majdi-yya (Tehran:
National Bank of Iran, 1321/1942 [1870]).
203. Adami'yat, Andisheh, 172-189.
204. Cited in Algar, 173.
205. The number of these papers reached its peak in 1907 when a total of ninety papers
were published. Edward G. Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (New
York: Barnes and Noble, 1910), 127; Hairi, 152-154.
206. For more information on the causes of the Constitutional Revolution, see Janet
Afary, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911: Grassroots Democracy,
Social Democracy, and the Origin of Feminism (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1996); Bayat; and Foran.
207. Browne, "The Fundamental Laws of December 30, 1906," 362-371.
208. Browne, 148.
209. See Browne, "The Supplementary Fundamental Laws of October 7, 1907," in The
Persian Revolution, 372-384.
210. V. A. Martin, "The Anti-Constitutionalist Arguments of Shaikh Fazlallah Nuri,"
Middle Eastern Studies, 22 (1986), 191-192.
211. Shaikh Fazlullah Nuri, Tazkirah al-Ghafil wa Irshad al-Jahil (A reminder for the
negligent and a guidance for the ignorant, no publisher, 1908), 7-9.
212. Mihdi Malikzadeh, Tarikh-i Inqilab-i Mashrutiyat-i Iran (The History of The
Constitutional Revolution in Iran, Tehran, Iran: Ilmi Publications, 1358/1979),
vol. 4, 872-873; Hairi, Shi'ism, 199.
213. Hairi, Shi'ism, 73-76.
214. Hairi, Shi'ism, 81; See also Nazim ul-Islam Kirmani, Tarikhi Bidari-ye Iranian
(The History of the Awakening of Iranian) (Tehran: Ibn Sina Publications, 1324/
1945).
215. Adami'yat, Ideolozhi-ye, 193.
216. Mirza Muhammad Hussein Na'ini, Tanbih al-umma wa Tanzih al-millah (The
Admonition of the Ulame and the Enlightenment of the Nation) (Bagdad, 1909),
1-6.
217. Na'ini, 47; for a more detailed analysis of Na'ini's views, see Hairi, chapters 3-6.
218. Ahmad argued that those in India who tended to support Islamic modernism were
mostly the westernized elite. See Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 264.
219. Wuthnow, Communities of Discourse, 1-22, 481, 530-531.
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