Muhammad Abduh. (Makers of the Muslim World)

• Published in: Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 2010, Vol.73 (2), p.320-321
• Main Author: Scharbrodt, Oliver
• Format: Review
• Language: English
• Subjects: 19th century; Abduh, Muhammad; al-Afghani, Jamal al-Din; Biographies; Ibn Sina (980-1037); Intellectual development; Islam; Modernism; Muslims; Political activism; Politics; Pragmatics; Religion; Religious change; Religious leaders; Review articles; Teaching methods; THE NEAR AND MIDDLE EAST
• ISSN: 0041-977X; 1474-0699
• DOI: 10.1017/S0041977X10000170

Starting from his early years as a student of traditional religious sciences initially at Tanta and later at al-Azhar in Cairo, and his growing dissatisfaction with traditional methods of instruction, the first chapter introduces Jamal al-Din al-Afghani as the pivotal figure in steering [MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING]Abduh's intellectual development and future political career. [...]the book provides a very succinct discussion of [MODIFIER LETTER LEFT HALF RING]Abduh's views and approaches to Islam and their formation and development. Rather than being interested in the technical modalities and methodologies of traditional Muslim scholarship, he intended to find pragmatic solutions to legal problems in order to facilitate the adoption of European practices within Islamic law and to provide a rationalistic and modernist account of Islam that would appeal to a new generation of young Muslims attracted to the nineteenth-century ideas of progress, rationalism and science.