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Springer is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Theory and Society. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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), This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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? This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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, This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 683 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 684 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 685 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 686 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 687 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 688 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, This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 689 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 690 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 692 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 693 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 694 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 695 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 696 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 697 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 698 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 699 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 700 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 701 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 702 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 703 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 704 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 705 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 706 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 707 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 708 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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; This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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% This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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- This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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, This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 728 133. 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 729 150. 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). This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 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. This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Sat, 24 Jan 2015 14:27:22 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 731 201. 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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