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Conditions for Ideological Production: The Origins of Islamic Modernism in India,

Egypt, and Iran

Mansoor Moaddel

Theory and Society, Vol. 30, No. 5. (Oct., 2001), pp. 669-731.

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Conditions for ideological production: The origins of

Islamic modernism in India Egypt and Iran

MANSOOR MOADDEL

Eastern Michigan Universit j

The second part of the nineteenth century ushered in one of the mostcreative 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 (had i th ) , the consensus of the theologians ijma), and

juristic reasoning by analogy (qiyas) . They resolved to reinterpret thefirst 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 inIslam? Who created the necessary social space and resources for the

production and growth of this ideology? What factors determined its



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 proposi-

tions: (i) Ideological production is a discontinuous process and pro-

ceeds 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 understand-

ing 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 determi-

nate relationship between, social structure and ideology. Durkheim

had a mimeti conception of religious ideas they are the symbolicrepresentations of social arrangements. For Marx, too, ideology corre-

sponds to social structure. It is interwoven with the material activity

and the material intercourse of men. ' Weber'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 concededthat there is an elective affinity between diverse social grouping (for

example, warrior class, peasants, business classes, and intellectuals)



The literature abounds with analytical models drawn from the corre-

spondence 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

pol it ical ins ti tu tions ex is ting in Europe p r io r to the ~ e f o r m a t i o n . ~

Using a M arxist app roach , W allerstein claimed that the rise of l iberal-

ism in the world economy was functionally related to its underlying

hegemonic power.4 Applying a corollary of this view t o In dia , Cha tter-

jee argued that third-world nationalism was a derivative discourse,

manifesting a general problem of the bourg eois-ratio nalist concep-

tion of knowledge, established in the post-Enlightenment period of

Eu rope an intellectual history. ' A mor e general argu m ent correspond-

ing to the hierarchy of power in the world econom y is th at of the new

discursive histories, which explain how colonial discou rse cons trained

the people of the periphery to ensure the hegemony of the core na-

t i o n ~ . ~imilarly, for Harvey, po stm od ern fiction mim ics the condi-

t ions of flexib le ac c~ m u la t i o n . ~

Even some of Foucault 's analyses that spearheaded many of the recentcultural studies may also be subsumed within the framework of the

correspondence perspective. As Wuthnow indicated, Foucault traced

the development of the mod ern concept of the individual in the

experience of orde ring 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. In Discipline and Punish Foucault held that

the development of penal law was a reflection of a single process inwhich 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

ord er of m od er n life in Eg ypt reflected t he colonia l order.' ' Likewise,

Said believed tha t Orientalism had less to d o with the O rient than with

the W estern world a nd was shap ed by the exchange with various kinds

of power.I

Each version of the correspondence perspective has its own difficul-



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 neces-

sarily 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 medi-

ating 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 dis-

continuous process, and his conceptual scaffolding that specifies the

way social environment structures ideological production and how

ideologies through their discursive fields determine the central catego-

ries that shape figural actions, are important for understanding ideo-

logical 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 per-

spective 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 princi-

ple, which he calls the law of small numbers, sets the upper and lowerbounds of philosophical expositions and debates. Within this struc-

ture, intellectual creativity takes place through personal contacts,



tual diversity by rearranging its material base. 20 Thus, when external

conditions disrupt the intellectual attention space, internal realign-

ment takes place; and this in turn unleashes creativity for formulating

new positions, new tensions among the privileged arguers at the core

of the n e t ~ o r k . ~ '

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 tradi-

tions, 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 ex-

plain how the actual content of ideas is constructed and what factors

determine its theme and sociopolitical orientation. Collins's conten-

tion 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

n episodic discourse m odel

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

extern l to ideological production. The actual production of ideasinvolves the content of what is being produced; the message being

communicated and the conceptual vehicle used. These include concep-

tual innovation, the formulation of the themes, and the shaping of the

sociopolitical orientations of ideology. Explaining this intern l 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 producersof sociopolitical ideas make reference to such problems of social life as

economic development, poverty and inequality, race and gender differ-



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 ode. ^' Meanings are thus produced

within the context of relationships among symbols.24 Understand-

ing, 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 dis-

cursive 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 ad-

versaries. Debates, back-and-forth discussions, and ideological dispu-

tations set the intern l 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 t rget of ideological pro-

duction 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 itselfcan 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 newideology. This is because the production of a new ideology not only

involves a critique of the target ideology, but also a critique of its



target is characterized by diverse ideologies, hence, a plurality of dis-

cursive 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 intellec-

tual environment, ideological producers must compete for the patron-

age of potential consumers of ~eltanschauun~en. ~'O market their

ideas effectively, ideological producers must consider the diverse views

of the adherents of competing ideologies. Given the market character

of ideology,28eclecticism 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, reinforc-

ing 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 developa 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 asthese factors remain stable, we may expect little change in the dis-

courses of the parties involved in the dialogic process of meaning



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 im-

ported.

The notion of episode implies that culture production is not a devel-

opmental process that would go through stages. It is rather a discon-

tinuous 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 so-

cial 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 Egyp t 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 histor-

ical 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 ideo-

logical targets were among the last set.

Muslim India and Egypt were predominantly Sunni, while Iran adheredto Shi ism. Yet there were considerable similarities in the Islamic in-

stitutions and the pattern of state-religion alliance across these three



towhid (divine unity) versus shirk (idol worshipping), the shari a

(Islamic law) versus jahiliyya (state of ignorance), dar ul-Islam (theabode of Islam) versus dar ul-harb (the abo de of war), wilaya (delega-

tion by God) versus m u l k (hereditary rule), khilaphate (spiritual au-

thority) versus sultanate (temporal authority), u m m a (universalistic

Islamic solidarity) versus asabiyya (particularistic tribal solidarity),

and ijtihad (independent reasoning) versus taqlid (following the e stab -

lished rule). These concepts were the building blocks of the Islamic

jurisprudence Cfiqh),which after four centuries of legal development in

Sunni Islam came to rest on the Quran, the hadith, qiyas, and i jma,

after which n o new me tho d was allowed, closing the gate of independ -

ent reasoning (i j t ihad), Shi'ism followed Sunni Islam in most of its

legal an d 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 reli-

gious leadersh ip in the p erson of the caliph to a position taken first by

al -Mawardi (991-1031) ,~~hen by al-G haza li (1058-llll), down to

Ibn Taymiyya (1263-1328) an d Ib n Kh ald un (1333-1406) tha t progres-sively amounted to the acceptance of the reality of secular politics

the differentiation between religious and political leadership. Ibn Tay-

miyya in admitting the rulers' discretionary power added a condition

that a good governm ent depended on a n alliance between am irs, polit-

ical an d mili tary leaders, an d ~ la r n a . '~ he conception of poli tical

au tho rity in early Shi'ism was different from tha t of the Sunnis, but the

rise of the Shi'i S afavids (1501-1722) in Ira n changed the a ttitude of the

ula m a toward the state. An d the Shi'i ulam a arrived at a politicalresolution remarkably similar to that of their Sunni counterparts.

Since the ulama could not perform both religious and political func-

tions of the Imam, they assumed religious authority and the shah

political leadership.34 This form ula form ed a basis for th e coop eration

between the ulama and the ruling elite under the Mughal India, the

Mam luk Egypt, and the Qajar I ran.

The rise of Islamic modernism in India and Egypt followed a break-down in the ulam a-state al liance a result of the nineteenth-century

social transform ation. This alliance in Iran, in con trast, prevailed as a



varying levels of resources were factors accounting for the cross-

national variations in culture production. We shall indicate that thestrength of Islamic m ode rnism in Ind ia an d 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 em ergent mo dern institutions, following the col-

lapse of the old orde r in India a nd Egypt, an d its absence in Ira n 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

m odernism was an ou tcom e of a dynam ic quite different from th at of

the objective process of institutional transf orm ation. It was a n out-

come of the large-scale debates and back-and-forth arguments among

the old, the new, an d the em erging cultural elite in the second pa rt of

the nineteenth century.

Th e rise of discursive pluralism an d the dyna m ic of ideological debates

and religious disputations constituted the proximate conditions of

ideological produ ction . Th e diffusion of mo de rn ideas to India , Egypt,

an d Ira n diversified their intellectual climate.35 As a result, the con -

ceptual schema of the Islamic orthodox y ca m e into head-to-head colli-

sions with altern ative sets of codes in the d iscours e of the followers of

the Enlightenment, British Westernizers, and Christian evangelicals.

These codes included binaries like human reason versus superstition

scientijic 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 im-

plications 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 superiorityof W estern civilization with out recognizing the dec aden ce of the ab od e

of Islam? How could one raise the issue of wom an's education an d her



Ideological debates and religious disputations resulted in the rise of

several important issues. Among these issues, five stand out: (i) theempirical versus the Islamic sciences, (ii) the rational basis of law

versus the shari'a, (iii) Western civilization versus th e a bo de 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 Islam ic m odern ists pointed to the m eth-

odological and conceptual inadequacy of the Islamic orthodoxy. In

India an d E gypt, the active presence of the followers of the Enlighten-

ment, 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 A hm ad K h an was preoccu-

pied mostly with theological issues, Chiragh Ali with legal reforms,

M um taz Ali with Islamic feminism, an d Shibli Nu'm ani an d Am ir Ali

with historical Islam and hagiographical studies. Likewise, in Egypt,

al-Afghani organized a circle of Muslim sch olars to add ress the socio-

political and theological issues facing Islam. A bduh focused his atten -

tion o n theology. Qasim Am in ad dressed th e issue of wo m en. Wajdi

dealt with Islam and civilization. And al-Raziq re-examined theIslamic conception of authority. In Iran, on the other h and, the Shi 'i

ulama blocked the missionaries' activities and exhausted attempts at

reforms by state officials. As a result, the cultural climate remained

relatively mo nolithic du ring the nineteenth century. These ulam a, how-

ever, 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 phe-

nom enon was m ost ap parent in the C onsti tut ional Revolution (1905-1911), 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 sta ndp oin t.

So cia l change cultural pluralism and Islamic modernism in

nineteenth-century India

Islamic modernism in India followed a social change that was rooted

in the gra du al intensification of econom ic, political, a n d cultural crises



farmers, Indian merchants, an d local gentry a nd the zamindars (land-

owners) emerged into the limelight. By the m iddle of the eighteenthcentury, the indigenous m erch ants were a powerful interest grou p in all

the ma jor states that had emerged from th e decline of the Delhi power.

The zamindars began to tax markets a nd trade an d to seize prebendal

land s that the Mughals had once tried to keep out of their hands. M any

of these elements later provided capital, knowledge, and support for

the East India ~ o m ~ a n y . ' ~olitical change and the rise of social

classes were thus associated with the development of Islamic modernism.

The decline of the Mughals, by undermining the political power of the

ulama, stimulated the rise of different Islamic trends in Ind ia, am ong

which th e reformism o f Sha h Valli-Allah (1703-1762) was prom inent.39

Shah Wali-Allah's emp hasis on the ulama 's right t o independ ent rea -

soning contributed to Islamic modernism, inspiring the neo-Mu'tazi-

lite modernism of Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Shibli 's scholasticism, and

religious reconstruction in the thought of 1 ~ b a 1 .~ 't is no t clear if these

trends would have led to an Islamic modernist movement in the ab-

sence of British reforms. What is clear, however, is that without a

serious change in the cultural order, a modernist like Sayyid Ahmad

Khan would have faced a very difficult time expressing his views

am ong ~ u s l i m s . ~ 'ritish reforms in India undermined ulama power

and institutional basis. At the same time, the influx of Westernizers

an d the missionaries transform ed the country's cultural arena , further

diversifying its discursive conte xt.42

Tripartite cultural encounters: British westernizers the Eva ngelic als

and the Ulam a

Th e early nineteenth cen tury marked a m ajor shift in the intellectual

foundation of British administration in Ind ia. Th e rom antic school of

Sir W illiam Jones an d Warren Hastings tha t sympathized with Indian

culture was replaced by the rationalism of Jame s Mill an d Lo rd M ac-

a ~ l a y . ' ~Mill's History of India (1817) pioneered westernizing policy,giving its rationa le. Th e criteria of civilization used by M ill were dr aw n

from (i) conjectural history, (ii) the Be ntham ite principles of utility,



generally deg rade d; am on g civilized peop le they ar e exalted. 44 Th e

utilitarian principles of exactness and completeness, laissez-faire eco-nom ics, New tonian con ception of na tur al law, deistic religion, the idea

of progress as the orga nizing principle of a universal history all were

used to judge Ind ian society. For h im , the orga nizing principle of

history was the scale of nations. Con jecturing the place of Indian s on

the scale being low, he con dem ned every single aspe ct of their way of

life as barbaro us, no t only their science, but th eir philosophy, their a rt

and their manners. 45

Mill's istory an d his official connec tions to the East India Co m pan y

effected a complete change in the British administration in India.

Endowed with a full consciousness of racial superiority, a new gen-

eratio n of adm inistrato rs followed this ch anged ou tlook, 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 th e B ritish an ideo-

logical justification to attack various functions of Islam. Its laws of

crime were treated as barbarous, irrational, and void of a distinction

between private an d pu blic law.47 Th e lack of se para tion of religious

from civil laws, an d the tre atm ent of women were also judged

harshly.4R

Evangelical revival in Europe, the rise of the Rationalist school, and

the change in the cultural policies of the Ea st India Co m pan y aided the

m i s ~ i o n a r i e s . ~ ~lthough united in their common hostili ty to Indian

culture, the Evangelicals and the Rationalists had separate agendas.

The m issionaries had passion but generally no interest in philosophy

of history. They were however quick to attribute Western progress to

the influence of Ch ristianity, while viewing Islam a s an active and

pow erful enem y of ~ h r i s t i a n i t ~ . ~ 'heir criticisms of Islam ranged

from assaults on the Prophet of Islam to the censure of the Islamic

conception of family and gender relation^.^ Along with the Western-

izers, the m issionarie s viewed various practices such as suttee, female

infanticide, and gender segregation as yet another indication of West-e rn cu ltu ra l s up er io rity a n d t he b ack ward ness of ~ n d i a . ~ ~



and participated in enlivening disputations refuting the arguments of

the missionaries and emphasizing that Trinitarianism was a travesty ofthe 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, abroga-

tion and corruption of the Bible, the doctrine of the Trinity, the

prophecy of Muhammad, and the inspiration of the Quran were de-

bated. 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

Th e M utin y of 1857 1858 a n d a new episode for culture production

By 1820, the East India Company subdued virtually all the majorIndian 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 peri-

odic revolts of zamindars who were fighting off demands for higher

revenues and revolts in cities and town. Finally, there was the threat tosepoys' interests and status from the British cost-cutting reforms, trim-

ming their perquisites, and widening the area of recruitment. All these



Th e defeat of the M utiny ended any hope of revitalizing the old order.

For the British too, it was instructive of the political consequences of

to o zealously disreg arding the In dians cultura l sensibilities. Th e event,however, ushered in a new episode for culture prod uctio n. Th e M ughal

rule was formally ende d. Th e control of India was passed from th e Ea st

India C om pany to the Bri tish government. M ajor econom ic develop-

ments, including the construction of railroads and other infrastruc-

tures took place after 1860. Insofar as the Muslims were concerned,

the defeats no t only signified the reality of British presence in In dia but

also brough t to the fore the dynam ics of its culture an d social organ -

izations th at un derp inned 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 ab ou t Islam an d Islamic history. Th e ulam a s w orldview was

unable to account for Europe s b reathtaking progress and for the

decadence of Muslim societies. In their attempts to resolve these is-sues, the Islamic modernists found it necessary to revise the m etho do-

logical founda tions of the Islamic orthodox y, to give prim acy to reason

in the in terpre tation of religion, to eq uate revelation w ith natu ral 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 som ewh at away from d em on-

strating the validity of Islam and toward, via a rationalist exegesis,

showing its congruity with mo dern ism .

T he empirical vs Islamic sciences: Natural theology and the

rationalizatio n o f religion

Sayyid Ahmad Khan 1817-1898) was the leading figure in India s

Islamic modernism. His natural theology was a bold attempt to graft

rationa l re ason ing on to Islamic m eth od s of exegesis. Sayyid was influ-

enced by the problems of his com munity, particularly the tum ultuousdays of the ~ u t i n ~ . ~is ideas, however, were developed in rela tion to

the discourses of the miss ionarie s, British civil servants, a nd W estern-



Sayyid Ahmad Khan's natural theology is a prime example of the

influence of the dialogic of deb ate in the prod uction of discourse. Th e

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 tha t the ulam a were ill-equipped to deal with the problems

that had besieged Islam . He ab and one d all pillars of the Islamic Juris-

prudence except the Q ur an as the sole authority in all ma tters of judg-

ment. He accepted the explanation of the Quran by reference to the

Qu ran only, not to any t radit ion or the opinion of any s ~ h o l a r .~ ' e

aba ndo ned the orthodoxy in orde r to base his exegesis on reason an d

nature: reaso ning is applied to exam ine prop hetic 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

G od . The Qu ran an d nature having one C reator cannot contradict

each o ther . Revela tion and natura l law were i d e n t i ~ a l . ~ ~

Using this exegetical method, Sayyid then tried to show Islam's con-

formity with science and to rationalize religious dogma. For him, the

idea of evolution a nd the Islamic tenets of C reatio n were com patible.

The Quran affirmed that the law of evolution was observable in relat-

ing on e species of create d being to an oth er. Semen o r seed were

symbolic imagery of the nu cleus of life, referring to th e primeval mov e-

ment of life emerging out of inert matter. Sayyid offered rationalist

interpretat ions of such supernatural phenomena as Muhammad's ac-cession to heaven, angels, Sata n, jinn, the pa rting of the sea by M oses,

and Noah 's flood.62 Sayyid A hm ad K ha n also subscribed to the pre-

vailing n ineteenth-century E urop ean paradigm of society an d history.

Societies were ran ked in term s of their level of technological progress

an d the mod ernity of their social organization^.^^

Th e ra tional basis o f law vs the Sha ria : Revealed law and com mo n law

In the same manner that Sayyid Ahmad Khan's theological expose

reflected the existing discursive pluralism, the discourse of his associ-



cal Institutes, Slavery, Concu binage, M arriage, Divorce, a nd the D is-

abilities of non-Moslem fellow-subjects are to be remodelled and re-written in accordanc e with the strict interpretations of the or an. ^^

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 cosm opo litan theocracy bo und together

by a common code of essentially and eternally unchangeable civil and

religious rules.65 In his rebu ttal, C hira gh Ali m ade a distinction be-

tween the M uham ma dan Revealed Law and the Muh am mad an Co m-

mon 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 co ndu ct of the believers, n or did he enjoin them to

d o so, shows that he left to the believers in general t o fram e 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

slamic feminism

Th e situation of women in In dia was am on g the mos t visible targets of

the missionaries' and Westernizers' polemics. Sayyid Ahmad Khan

contended that while Islam treated women m ore favorably tha n other

religions, historical Islam displayed anti-women attitudes and practi-

ces, and in Ind ia there were such unworthy a nd hum iliating carryings-on th at one can only cry ou t, "May G o d have mercy o n us " O n the

m ore sensitive issue of polygamy, Sayyid a nd C hir agh Ali re-exam ined

the Qur anic injunction on polygamy a nd co ncluded that the institution

was practically illegal in Islam. The pertinent verse in the Quran

stated, "m arry such women as seem go od 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 morethan one woman equally at any given time, polygamy was therefore

prohibited.68



the missionaries. I n his treatise on Huquq un niswan (Women's rights)

and the journal Tahzib al niswan (Refo rming women), he developed a n

Islamic defense of gender equality. He rejected male supremacy and

explained away the Qu ranic injunctions that were brought to be ar o n

its supp ort. He reinterpreted the much quo ted Q uran ic verse that was

the basis for the traditionalist justification of men's authority over

wom en: Men are the manag ers of the affairs of women for tha t Go d

has preferred in bounty one of them over another, and for that they

have expended of their property. 69 Fo r him, this verse only dea lt with

such areas of activities as business where men had greater knowledge

tha n women, but it did not declare that wom en should be subordinateto men in all spheres of life. In t he case of witnesses in the Islamic c ou rt

that considered the testimonies of two women as equal to that of one

ma n, M um taz A li argued that the Q ura n referred specifically to busi-

ness m atte rs in which women mig ht be less experienced tha n me n. 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 Q ur an d id not

make a distinction between the testimony of men a nd women.70

Civilization and Islamic history

The glaring contrast between the E urop ean civilization an d the Islamic

nations naturally gave rise to a pervasive consciousness of decadence

am on g the m odernists, which necessitated an ac coun t of the Muslim

d e c ~ i n e . ~ 'here was also the need to defend and rehabilitate early

Islamic history against the assaults of its critic^. ̂ Chiragh Ali ad-dressed the issue of jihad a sore point in M uslim-C hristian history.

His book-length expose on jihad was in response to such people as

Muir, Rob ertson Sm ith, Geor ge Sale, an d Sprenger and the C hristian

missionaries like T P Hughes, Samuel Green, and others. These writ-

ers claimed that in his zeal to spread Islam, M uh am m ad , holding the

Quran in one hand and the scimitar in the other, pursued wars of

conquest against the Quriesh, other A rab tribes, the Jews, an d C hris-

tians. Chiragh Ali rejected these claims by first presenting the histor-

ical context in which Muhammad's alleged actions had taken place.

Then, by recourse to international law, religious liberty, and the legiti-

macy of defending one's freedom, he claimed that Muhammad's con-



The writings of Shib li Nu mani (1851-1914) a n d Amir Ali (1849-

1928) were also an exercise in the presen tation of historical Islam in ama nner that was acceptable to the modern mind. Shibli was am ong the

conservative m em bers of the A ligarh C ollege. Yet his writings, far from

being traditionalist, reflected th e historical m etho ds a nd the norm ative

criteria in vogue in Europe. He used this method to refute the charges

Western authors leveled against Islam on the treatment of Christians

and Jews living under its domain and on slavery. For him, Islamic

historiography should go beyond the style of the early Muslim writers

of the life of the Pro phet. These writers were preoccupied with re po rt-

ing the facts without caring how these facts affected their religion.74

Shibli considered his principle of rationalist analysis to be implicit in

Islam and no t to have originated from W estern civilization.

His analysis of Islamic movement under Omar, the third caliph, is

telling of his modernist approach. In explaining his success in con-

quests, he considered the em phasis of Western historians o n the weak-

nesses of Eastern Roman and Persian empires to be inadequate. He

refrained from referring to supernatural forces. The real cause of the

success of Muslims was rathe r the enthusiasm, resolution, steadfast-

ness, courage and daring which the Holy Founder of Islam had in-

s tilled in them and which Om ar had further sharpened and f~ r t i f i e d . ~ ~

These conquests were also successful because these empires did not

enjoy m uch popu lar sup port . Th e system of government under Om ar,

an d other Ra shidu n caliphs, was democratic, no t autocratic. Th ere was

a consultative assembly, citizens had a role in his administration, and

no special privilege was a ccorded to the caliph.76 O n the treatm ent of

non-M uslims, Shibli argued th at un der O m ar their lives and properties

w ere placed o n th e s am e level w ith th ose of ~ u s l i m s . ~ ~n slavery,

Shibli argu ed tha t while O m a r did no t abolish slavery even if he had

tried, probably he could not have succeeded he used various mea ns

to cu rtai l the custom.78

Th e historical works of Am ir Ali, a n orthodo x Shi'i from the Calcutta

school, are even more deeply embedded in the conceptual scaffoldingof the nineteenth-century Enlightenment. In discussing polygamy,

slavery, and life after death, Amir Ali made reference to other reli-



Bakr, Om ar, an d Osm an who preceded Ali. The Im am at, for the Shi'i ,

descended by Divine app oin tm ent in the apos tolic line, an d Ali was the

first rightful Caliph. Nevertheless, the two forms of leadership, apos-

tolic and pontifical, can coexist and even play positive functions for

Muslims, as evidenced by Ali being the principal adviser to A bu Bakr

and mar.^^

Amir Ali presented his views on women, slavery, religious tolerance,

and other issues raised in the evangelical polemics, from an evolu-

tionary perspective. This perspective naturally gave him the rationale

to go on the offensive against the missionaries: T he historical Judaism ,

Christianity, and other religions had displayed many instances of im-

morality, oppression, and cruelty against humans. Female infanticide,

for example, which was common among the pagan Arabs, must have

also been com mo n in the seventh century of the Christ ian era. W hether

i t was under Z oroastrians or C hristendom , the condit ions of women

during the centuries preceding the advent of Islam were deplorable.80

An d, concubinage, the union of people standing to each other in

matrim ony, existed am on g the Arabs, the Jews, the C hristians, and allthe neighbouring nations. The Prophet did not in the beginning de-

nounce the custom, but towards the end of his career he expressly

forbad e it. '81 H e further criticized Christianity for raising no p rotest

again st slavery, enforced n o rule, inculcated n o principle for th e miti-

gation of the evil. 82 In con tras t, slavery in Islam was based on racial

tolerance. Social mobility and progress of slaves were possible under

Islam ic c i ~ i l i z a t i o n . ~ ~n polygamy, A m ir Ali's position w as similar to

that of other mod ernist writers. For him, polygamy is as mu ch op-posed to the teachings of M oham m ed as it is to the general progress of

civilised society and true ~ u l t u r e . '~ m ir Ali rejected the division of

the world based on religion. He attacked the Muslim casuists who

divided the world into the dar ul-harb and the dar ul-Islam the coun-

terparts of Heathe ndom an d C hristendom . While these concepts dif-

ferentiated only the con dition of belligerency a nd t hat of peace, they by

no means implied waging wars and invading the territories of the

n ation s w hose in ha bit an ts w ere n o n - ~ u s l i m s . ~ ~



highly populated, and had a complex system of social stratification

an d a differentiated system of colonial adm inistratio n. Egypt, in c on-tras t, was religiously unified, culturally h om oge neo us, muc h less po pu -

lated, and had a sim pler system of social stratification and a uniform

system of political administration. Yet both countries displayed strik-

ing 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 Enlighten-

m ent, British W esternizers, th e proselytizing discourse of the Evangel-

icals, an d the discourse of the o rthod ox Islamic establishmen t.

Egypt entered a new cultural episode following the French invasion

(1798-1801). T he invasion end ed the rule of the M am luk s an d provided

favorable conditions for the ascendance of Muhammad Ali to power.

H is rule was the beginning of state-initiated m ode rniza tion in Egypt.

H e founded a new adm inistrative app aratu s, bringing under his control

the guilds, village administration, the su i orders , and the ulama. H e

created a system of state monopolies and a modern industry, dispos-

sessed the Mamluks, changed the system of land ownership and tax-

ation, an d encourage d foreign m erchants to settle in ~ g ~ ~ t .u h a m -

mad 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, a nd a new spaper

to publish the texts of his decrees. Many of these students, however,

becam e fam iliar with a nd influenced by m od ern thou ght. By the 1830s,

they were beginning to translate and publish other than purely techni-

cal books, a nd from their rank s came Egypt's m odern thinkers.87Theprocess of cultural change was enha nce d under Ismail, when the edu-

cational budget was increased tenfold. The School of Languages and

Administration was reopened, and became the first secular Law

School un de r the direction of Vidal Pas ha , a Frenc h jurist, in 1886.

Fou nde d in 1872, D a r al-U lum teachers'college played a leading role in

the revival of Arab ic literature. Th e B ritish also assisted the rise of

modern culture by implementing measures of reform. Under their

tutelage, the Egy ptian Press becam e a m edium for public debates oversocioeconomic and political issues. Favorable political conditions en-

couraged the influx of Syrian and Lebanese emigres to Egypt, who

~



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 ~ ~ ~When the British occupied Egypt in 1882 a system known as the Veiled

Protectorate was set up, by means of which Egyptian executive author-

ity was abrogated and replaced by that of the British Resident and the

British advisers in Egyptian ser~ice.~'he 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 admin-

istration expanded the cultural space and occupational opportunitiesfor 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 byWestern 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 move-

ment of Egypt. The universalism of its thinkers was inviting to edu-

cated Egyptians. Montesquieu's views on nation, Guizot's on civiliza-

tion, 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 Egyptshaped their sociopolitical views.

Such Arabic journals as Roudat a l - ~ a d a r i s ~ ' dis-nd a l - ~ u q t a t a f ) ~

seminated modern ideas in the country. Al-Muqtataf published articles

on subjects ranging from scientific discoveries, breakthroughs in medi-

cine, 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 ~ e w t o n , ~ ' Louis Pas-a l i l e o , ~ ~

t e ~ ~ - , ~ ~ Ernest Mariaharles en an ^^ Humphry ~ a v ~ , ~ ~



Al Muqtataf spread the ide a that th e regularities of the tem poral w orld

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 a nd movement of the

ea rt h p roduced a s to rm of c ~ n t r o v e r s i e s . ' ~ ~ conse rva-he religious

tives, both Muslim and Christian, rejected Darwinism, their Western-

izing counterparts defended the theory.lO' Al Muqtataf also addressed

women's issues by defending the right of women to education and

work.lo4

Th e British also contribu ted to the nineteenth-century debate over the

culture of Islam ic Egyp t. W hile openly pursuing a policy of religious

neutrality,lo5 their critical attitu de toward Islam was know n t o the

coun try's intellectual leaders. Reflecting such an a ttitude was C rom er's

Modern Egypt. C rom er portraye d Islamic history as a dism al failure.

H e condem ned Egy pt for its intolerant religion, bar bar ic criminal law,

degradation of women, and the illogical, immoderate, and the general

muddle-headedness of its people. For him, Islam as a social systemwas a com plete failure. This failure em anate d from keeping wom en in

a position of marked inferiority, the rigidity of its law, its tolerance of

slavery, and intolerance of othe r re l ig i~ n s . ~ e considered the ent ire

Islamic criminal justice system primitive an d inhum ane.lo7 He con -

dem ned the seclusion of wom en and the practice of polygamy,108 tating

that the whole fabric of Eu rop ea n society rests up on the preserv ation

of family life. M ono gam y fosters family life, polygamy destroys it. lo9

To be sure, political an d eco nom ic interests w ere the m otivating forces

behind British occ up ation of ~ g ~ ~ t . Oevertheless, in Blunt's judg-

m ent, the British were po pu lar everywhere in the Islamic world, being

looked upon as free from the political designs of the other Frank

nations. ' Even if we que stion Blunt's assessm ent, we may be justified

to arg ue that the British c on tribu ted to the rise of cultural pluralism in

Egypt because, as Wendell state d, Euro pean Powers paradoxically did

the native press an unquestionable service by removing the threat ofarbitrary suppression by the will or whim of the khedive. l12 At the

same time, while undermining the traditional barriers to m od ern dis-



tional politics. For Abduh and his followers, British rule, while in

principle unacceptable, left the only viable opportunity gradually toeducate their fellow ~ g ~ ~ t i a n s . ~

Th e Evangelicals were the third m ajor grou p contending for the intel-

lectual control of ~ g ~ ~ t . ~hey criticized B ritish autho rities fo r being

overly p r o - ~ u s l i m . 1 1 6ike their Indian co unte rpar ts, the missionaries

raised similar issues about Islamic culture in Egypt: They questioned

the integrity of Muslim rulers, assaulted the character of Mu ha m m ad ,

an d were particu larly vociferous in condem ning Islam for its treatm ent

of wo me n. A conspicuous fact in the history of M uslim dom inatio n in

Egyp t, said Presbyterian Charles W atson, is the sup eriority of the

Christ ian to the Moslem in mental ability. 117Th e M uslim history,

he claimed, is for the most par t a story of war, revolution, a nd

tyranny. 118As regards Muslim's integrity, W atson said, for the mo st

part the history of Moslem Egyptian actions presents a record of

treachery parried only by grea ter treachery. 119 Islam w as also at-

tacked for its treatment of women. Andrew Watson claimed that in

nothing did Islam app ear worse when com pare d with Christianity than

in its treatment of women, and polygamy practiced by Muslim men

was the twin sister of barbarism.120 In th e West, wo m an is ho no red ; in

Egy pt, she is de spis ed .. Inde ed, it is quite the general opin ion in

Egyp t that a wom an h as a lower nature tha n a man. 12' Being kept in

an inferior status, Muslim women have become inferior to the U S

wo men intellectually, morally, a n d socially: The intelligence, the pa -

tience, the culture, the self-denial of the western women, have their

exact contrast in the ignorance, the superstition, the irritability, the

boo rishne ss an d the selfishness of the Egyptian w omen. 122

Th e missionaries established schools as a princip al me thod of teaching

an d preaching.123They also published such a periodical as the semi-

religious weekly Orient and Occident which by the end of its second

year in 1906 ma naged to attrac t several thou san d readers, of whom

over a thou san d were claimed to be M uslims. M eetings were organized

to discuss social, national, historical, o r m oral subjects. W hile noreligious disputations were allowed, the meetings were used to gain

acquaintance with Muslims and draw them to other meetings for



an d high schools with 4,576 pupils, 3 colleges o r sem inaries with 687

pupils, 4 hospitals with a 3,586 patients capacity,1

clinics, and thenative church having 62 organized cong regations.125

Pioneers of Islamic Mo dern ism in Egypt

The Islamic modernist discourse was produced within this political

an d cultural context. The educated Muslims realized the backwardness

of their society: archa ic techno logy, primitive level of scientific know l-

edge, despotic political institution, an d low level of econ om ic develop-

ment. 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 themethodological framework of the Islamic orthodoxy that had domi-

nated 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 a nd cognitive stand-

ards of the E nlightenment. The m ethod s of Islamic jurisprudence were

re-examined, some of its key concepts and principles were reinter-

preted in the new light, while at the same time new terminology was

added to the Islamic conceptual repertoire. Of the four sources ofIslamic jurisprudence, the Q uran and hadith were reinterpreted, and

i jma a n d qiyas were fundamentally transform ed. Th e d oor of ijtihad

was pushed open as human reason competed with prophetic revela-

tion, maslaha turn ed into utility, shura into parliamentary democracy,

i jma into public op inion, the id eas of natu ral selection, an d the survival

of the fittest crept in to the Islam ic views of change, polygamy becam e a

question able (even unlawful) institution, a nd Islam itself becam e iden-

tical with civilization all cong ruent with the no rm s of nineteen th-century social thoug ht.



of the Azh ar, althou gh it had undeniably affected the man ne r in which

he approached modern ideas. Being involved in the state's educationalpro gram , he came into a close encounter with th e ideas of the E nlight-

enment and the European lifestyle during his sojourn in Paris (1826-

1 8 3 1 ) . ' ~ ~ow did Tahtawi develop his ideas? Tahtawi could n ot 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 th e ulama

embodied both rational and religious scholarship. Thus, when he in-

troduced 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 inform ed his rea ders th at o ne

should not assume that French scientists were also priests. Priests

were only knowledgeable on religious matters, even though some

might also be scientists.12' Thu s, it app ea rs th at th e differentiation of

knowledge in Tahtawi's m ind paralleled social differentiation a phe-

nomenon consistent with a standard argum ent in the correspondence

theory of knowledge.

Yet this differentiated co nce ption of knowledge Tahtawi was introd uc-

ing 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 hadlegitimized the foun dation of the m od ern school for fulfilling the tech-

nical needs of the country. At the sam e time, it was tant am ou nt to the

admission of a possibility of the advance in the rational sciences ren-

dering the religious claims about social life and physical universe

superfluous. Tahtawi did not see this contradiction. For him, as for

man y other m odernist thinkers, it was an article of faith that there w as

not much difference between the principles of the Islamic law and

those of natural law on which the codes of m ode rn Europe werebased. To demonstrate this claim, he often made reference to the

Q ur an a nd the had ith. He, however, realized the new challenges facing



Many of the issues that Tahtawi dealt with were elaborated and ex-

panded by latermodernist^. ̂ ^

There was, however, an element ofdiscontinuity between his experiences and those of Sayyid Jamal ad

Din al Afghani 1839-1897). Given the vast progress Egyp t was expe-

riencing under Muhammad Ali, Tahtawi had every reason to be opti-

mistic. For al-Afghani, the situation w as different. His extensive travels

and close observations of the deteriorating conditions of Muslim na-

tions 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. A l-Afghani's pan-Islamic ideas

broadly corresponded to the emerging nationalist-cum-Islamic move-

men t against foreign dom ination .

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: Europe an Powers, the d espotic rulers

of the Muslim nations, and the orthodox ulama. His worldviews dis-

played three elements: (1) the idea of Islamic unity against Western

political dom ination ; (2) a decaden ce consciousness; a nd (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 nine-

teen th century, in par ticula r G uizo t's History of Civilization. For Gu izo t,

the word civilization m ea nt progress the imp rove m ent of social life

and the development of hum an mind and its fa cu ~ t i e s . ~ l -Afghani

used this perspective to explain the decline of Islamic civilization. Inth e p ast, he said in al-U rw a a l - w ~ t h ~ a , ' ~ ~uslims were sup erio r in all

fields of hum an endeavor. Islam enjoyed all the elem ents of a flourish-

ing civilization. Bu t, today, M uslims ar e stagna ted in their edu cation

an d knowledge. Th e reform suggested by some Western educated

individuals was no t successful in treating the ma lady of the umm a. For

him, the solut ion was a return to the fundamentals of 1 s 1 a m .l ~ ~slam

declined because of the weakening of the solidarity among Muslims

an d the division of the Islam ic territories into different kingdom s, eachbeing ruled by a despot who was interested in fulfilling only his own

desires and working accord ing to his whims. Muslims should unite and



teenth-century Enlightenment. Al-Afghani (with Abduh) took issue

with European writers who had considered Islam the cause of thebackwardness of Muslim societies. They rejected the claim that the

belief in al qada wa al qadar (predestination) was responsible for M us-

lim 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 submis-

sion to the status quo. N or did it justify lagging beh ind other nations,

and accepting a retrogressive state as a fateful decree from God. l

qadawa al qadar indicated omniscience an d om nipotence of G od ,

not compulsion. It meant that God knew everything before it hap-

pened, when and how it happened. God's knowledge does not contra-

dict free w i1 1 . l ~ ~

In A l-Afghani's m ode rnist view on religion an d critique of the o rth o-

doxy, the issues of East versus West and the necessity of the Muslim

unity against European dom ination 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 per-

spective to explain the relationship between Islam and science. He

argued that prophecy was necessary because all peoples in their early

stage of developme nt were inca pab le of accepting reas on to d istinguish

goo d from evil. They were led to obey the ad vice of their p reach ers 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 on e can no t deny th at it is by this religious

education, whether it be Muslim, Ch ristian, or pag an, tha t all nations

have emerged from barbarism and m arched toward a mo re advanced

c i v i ~ i z a t i o n . ' ~ ~l-Afghani further argued that all religions are intol-

erant, each one in its way. 136He provocatively attacked Muslim reli-

gion, the orth odo x ulam a, a nd the despotic rulers of M uslim na tions.

W henever it beca me 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 allresemble each other. No agreement and no reconciliation are possible between

these religions and philosophy.137



general affairs of the world an d human n e ce ~ s i t ie s . '~ ~n the Refuta-

tion of the M ateria lists delivered in 1880-1881, al-Afgh ani arg ued tha treligion was the mainstay of nations and the source of their welfare

an d happiness, while naturalism was the root of corru ption an d source

of foulness.'39 He criticized such views as D arw in's theory of evolution,

socialism, communism, and nihilism. His criticism was also extended

to Sayyid Ahm ad K ha n and the Aligarh movement in Ind ia.

Keddie explained away these contradictory elements by arguing that

Afghani was profoundly influenced by a trad ition tha t it was cor-

rect and proper to use different levels of discourse according to the

level of one's audience. Like the philosophers, he believed that the

masses, u m m a , were not open to rat ional philosophical a r g ~ r n e n t . ' ~ ~

Alternatively, we may explain this contrad iction in terms of the influ-

ence of two diverse discursive frameworks. One is political and the

other philosophical. As an anti-British activist, his discourse was ori-

ented toward pan-Islamist oppositional politics. He viewed pan-

Islamism as the mo st effective way of com bating imp erialism. But as a

m ode rnist thinker, he was critical of the orth odo x ulam a. In fact, his

mo dernism w as as much radical an d provocative as that of the Indian

mo dernists a t the Aligarh, an d there was not m uch 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

com mitm ent to Islam suspe ct, it was because of their complicity

with the British.

Th e rational basis of law versus the Sh ar ih h

Al-Afghani's bold expressions caused controversy leading to his expu l-

sion from many countries he visited. His position within the estab-

lished 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, Muham

mad Abduh (1849-1905).14' For Ab du h, political an d philoso phical

expositions had to be tame d by the reality of British presence in thecountry, on the one hand, and by the Islamic establishment that he

headed as the Mufti of Egypt, on the other. In his view, moderation



gence and firmness. Both the G overnm ent and the people must become

accusto me d to the giving a n d receiving of advice, an d if the natio n was

ready for participation in the G ove rnm ent, there would be no po int in

using force to establish this p articipation.14 2

Nevertheless, the sources of Abduh's influence were beyond the par-

ticulars of his social situation. Abduh's views were form ed in re lation

to several discourses, whose diversity created som ewh at opposing ten-

dencies in his thoughts . Firs t, he was inspired by the ~ n 1 ig h t e n m e n t . l ~ ~

He ab and one d the o rthod ox form ula of Islamic exegesis in favor of the

rationalist m eth od s an individual indep ende nt ruling was essential.

Altho ugh a collective judgm ent of the co mm unity might occu r in time,

such a consensus was never infallible and could not close the gate of

ijtihad Ab duh a rgued tha t 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.144These premises

were the bases of Abduh's efforts to d em on stra te the affinity of Islam

with m odern thou ght. In his exegesis of the Q uranic parable of Prop het

Dav id an d his war with the Philistines, for example, Abdu h fo rmu lated

fourteen propositions concerning social change, progress, and war,

calling them sociological laws of the Qur'an. He argue d th at Allah's

will is executed according t o a general law. War a m on g n ations is one

of these general laws. W ar was natu ral a m on g hu m ans because it was

an instance of the struggle for existence. Part of this general law was

the Q uran ic verse that stated Were it not for the restraint of one by

means of the other, imposed on m en by G od , verily the earth h ad been

utterly corrupted. 145Abduh claimed that the idea of natural selectiondid not contradict Islam and that the Quran admitted that life could

no t be right w ithout natura l selection. People fight each other for tr uth

an d benefit. This struggle saved the ear th in the way tha t it would save

the t ruth and r i g h t e o u ~ n e s s . ' ~ ~

Abduh's views also formed in his attem pt to overcome the duality tha t

modernization had caused in Egypt's cultural landscape. Egypt had

two diverse systems of education, each creating its own category ofeducated elite. One was the orthodox and conservatives who had re-

sisted all change. Th e oth er was the cultural tendency of the younger



framework of the French Enlightenment. He viewed Egypt's cultural

predicament from the Comtean perspective. Like Comte's efforts tocon struc t a universally acceptable system of ideas tha t were to trans-

cend both the rationalist zeal of the French R evolution an d those who

wanted to return to the old order, Abduh tr ied to show that Islam

con taine d the universalistic creed th at could link the two cultures and

form a m oral basis of m od ern ~ ~ ~ ~ t .

The use of reason, in Abduh's thought, however, was not tantamount

to the admission of the M u'tazilite's conception of the universe as a

rationally integrated system governed by laws of cause and effect,

which G o d had created an d set in mo tion once and for Admit-

ting this view might have impaired his relationship with al-Azhar's

Ash'arite theologians, underm ining his position a s the M ufti of Egypt.

Ra ther, he used reason in a parallel com petence with revelation, both

belonging t o the same sphere, neither accepting sep aration n or conflict

among them.149Yet Abdu h h ad to m odify his theological com prom ise

with fellow Azharites in o rder t o meet challenges to his faith from such

intellectuals as French historian Gabriel Hanotaux and Lebanese-Egyptian journalist Farah A ntu n. In these debates, Ab duh took a

position close to rationalism an d the notio n of natura l law. To emp ha-

size 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 help-

lessness. Further, active use of means and self-dependence amongChristians had emanated from the idea of free will, while the stagna-

tion of the Muslims was rooted in the doctrine of predestination and

blind sub mission to law.

A bd uh resp onded by indicating that discussions of predestination w ere

not peculiar to any o ne religion. Christians were n ot in agreement on

the question of free will. Finally, in his defense of the doctrine of the

unity of G od , Ab duh resorted to reason by arguing that com pared tothe idea of G o d existing amo ng othe r groups, the Islamic doctrine was

based on the highest fo rm of belief tha t was attain able by the intellect,



Christian Europe. Abduh responded that Christianity also persecuted

its own scholars as well as the adherents of other faiths, and that Islamcontributed to civilization and learning. Abduh, however, acknowl-

edged that there were historical reasons for the current rigidity of

1slam.I5l 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. 52

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 Mus-

lims to certain historical causes, while at the same time remaining

loyal to the scholarly tradition of their religion. Another way of tack-

ling 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 M uqtataf as some

writers tried to uncover in the Islamic history an intellectual pedigree

for Darwin and ~ a 1 i l e o . l ~ ~uham mad arid 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



In Hou rani s assessment, Wajdi s work w as polemical an d lacked the

vivid sense of responsibility Abduh and other thinkers had displayedt o w a r d 1 s 1 a m . l ~ ~his may be the case; but how are we to explain

Wajdi s expose? Abdu h s scholarly responsibility was certain ly a n

aspect of his intellectual sophistication. He was also constrained by

the discursive context within which he advanced his reformist ideas.

His academic posi t ion as the head of the Azhar and background in

Islamic sc holar ship 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 Con-s tant, Ernes t R enan, a nd Joseph ~ e ~ s e r . ~is boo k was published in

French a nd was intended for a French audience, without being too con-

cerned w ith o ther Muslim views such as that of the Islamic orthodoxy.

Anxious to defend Islam vis-a-vis the Europeans, Wajdi dissolved

Islam in m o d e r n i ~ m . ~ ~

Islamic fem inism

As it was in India, the sta tus of women in Egyp t was am ong the mo st

hotly debated issues in the intellectual encounters between the fol-

lowers of traditional Islam and its opponents. In the late nineteenth

century, there was also a growing gender awareness in the country,

reinforced by th e extension of edu cation to w om en 59 an d by such

women s publications as al-Fatah (the young w om an, 1892), al-Firdaus

(Paradise, 1896), and Mirat al-Hasna (Mirror of the beautiful,

1896).160 In this co nte xt, Qasim min 1865-1908) formulated a

systematic defense of women s rights from an Islamic stan dpo int.

Am in s interests in the q uestion of women was provoked when D u c

d7Harcour t ,a F renc h writer, criticized Egy pt for its backw ardness, 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. Then ceforth, he studied Europ ean views on wom en an d concluded

tha t the adv anc em ent of Egy pt lay in the uplift of its women.161

In A min s view, women s problems were rooted in the country s tradi-tion for preserving despotism, in the despotic political institutions for

promoting male domination, and in the inst i tut ion of the ulama for



Shari'a, on the other hand, stipulated the equality of women and men

before any other legal system. '65The low status of women in contem-porary 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 1s1am.l~~n the

issue of marriage, Amin again assailed the Muslim doctors for consid-

ering 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.16' 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 hus-

band 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.'70Finally, divorce

was permissible in Islam, but it should not be a man's prerogative

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.

onstitutionalism an d political authority



works. Moreover, the religious justifications for the traditional ruler-

ulama alliance had little support among the country's intellectual

leaders. Th e Otto ma ns were still the nom inal rulers with the con -

servatives tending to sup port them, while mo de rn intellectual leaders

deman ded independence an d constitutionalism. In the national libera-

tion m ovem ent, even pan-Islamist-nationalists like Abd Allah Na dim

(1845-1896) an d Mu staf a Kamil(1874-1896) did no t wish to establish

an Islamic governm ent in their country.

The discursive context in which Ali Abd al Raziq 1888-1966) pub-

lished his treatise on al Islam was usul al huk m (Islam and the Fu nda-

me ntals of Authority, 1925) was different. Th e new libe ral-nationa list

state was under the conservative attack. This conservatism was origi-

nated from the ideology of Arab caliphate movement. The idea of an

Ara b caliph was part of the Arab nationalist discourse tha t originated

in Syria in response to Turkish secularism and national chauvinism of

th e late n in ete en th cen tu ry a n d early t ~ e n t i e t h . ' ~ ~his discourse in its

modernist formulation first appeared in the works of Abdul Rahman

al-Kawakibi, who, along with C hristian Naqib Azoury, form ulated the

idea of the Arab right to secede from the Ottomans and establish an

independent Arab caliphate. Kawakibi's thesis, however, was to dem-

on stra te the debilitating effect of despotism on b oth the society and the

individual ~ h a r a c t e r . ' ~ ~ut the caliphate movement in Egyp t became

the rallying point of the conservative forces, an d Khedive A bbas Hilm i

was more interested in becoming the caliph than establishing a con-

stitutional system.175No r did his son, King F uad, have much supp ort

for the Egyptian Constitution. He had also his own ambition of be-coming the caliph, particularly following the Turks' abolition of the

calip hate in 1 9 2 6 . ' ~ ~

Thus, for the first time in mo dern Egypt, the caliphate became an ideo-

logical target in opposition to which al-Raziq boldly formulated an

Islamic justification for the national democratic state. Al-Ra ziq claimed

that the caliphate had no basis either in the Quran, the tradition, or

consensus am ong the ulam a. Theoretically, the caliphate em bodied bo threligious and secu lar autho rities, and held by those who had succeeded

the Prophet. B ut, the examination of the proofs presented in supp ort of



pose of M uh am m ad was religious, not political. H is intention was not

to establish an empire, nor did his mission require him to exercisepower 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

poli tical system on the basis of the newest concepts and e ~ ~ e r i e n c e s . ~

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 a nd historical experience. Th e Iranian case further suppo rts

our explanatory mod el. In this case, the weakness of Islamic m ode rn-

ism is associated with the absence of social change. The contrast

between Iran an d E gypt is particularly il luminating given the similar-

ities between the two countries in social structure in the early nine-

teenth century. B oth co untries w ere religiously unified, displayed sim -

ilar economic structures and class profile, exhibited analogous tradi-

tional social institution s, dem ograp hically alike, an d were governed by

a unified system of political administration. Yet throughout the cen-

tury, Iran remained conservative. Attempts at reforms fell victims to

political intrigues an d the ulama's re actions .

Iran has also the utility of providing a natural contro l case to assess the

degree to w hich ideological change was possible w ithin th e very insti-

tution of the ula ma in the absence of the direct foreign influence. Th is

is especially significant given tha t the British prom oted m od ern culture

in India and Egypt. To be sure, people like Tahtawi, Abduh, and al-

Afghani formulated their modernist expost. before the British occupa-

tion of Egypt. Nevertheless, because there was an affinity betweenBritish colonial staff and the modernists in both countries, one may

argue that the former aided the rise of Islamic modernism, and that



m ode rnists. Were they also uniformly the prop one nts of traditional-

ism? Although considerably weaker th an either E gypt o r Ind ia, Shi im ode rnism d uring the Con stitutiona l Revo lution is an example of how

discursive pluralism by itself may shap e the orie nta tion a nd co ntent of

culture production in the absence of a direct influence of a foreign

power. Moreover, the rise of Shi i m ode rnism w ithout a m ajor 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

m ode rn state, the Iranian case demonstrates tha t m odernist ideas may

gain popularity among Muslim thinkers if a pluralistic context

emerges.

Th e Qajar state the merchants and the ulama

Nineteenth-century Iran was eventful and conflict-ridden. Foran sug-

gested th at m any of Ira n s conflicts were ca used by th e c oun try s

insertion in the international system of inter-state competitions and

integration into the world economy. The reorganization of the struc-

ture of domestic production according to the external dictate of the

world economy resulted in a dependent development, which in turn

provoked th e resistance of the indig eno us forces to foreign interest^. ̂ ^

True, both Egypt and India were even more deeply integrated in the

world economy than Iran, but the key differences were that (i) inter-

state competition considerably weakened the Q ajar state, particularly

following two h um iliating defeats from Russia in 1813 an d 1828, which

m ade the sta te vulnerable to challenges from below in the rise of the

Babi movement arou nd the m iddle of the century; (ii) the Q ajar rulers

showed no serious interests in m odernizing the state an d society; an d

(iii) the infiltration of the dom estic ma rke t by the Europe an an d Rus-

sian com m ercial interests prod uce d class alliances quite different from

those of India a nd E gypt. While in India the merchants and the land-

owners were allied with the East India Company, and in Egypt, they

benefited from th e breakdown of M uh am m ad Ali s m onopoly systeman d the general process of econom ic development, in Iran , in contrast,

the me rchants a nd the guilds were undermined by the increasing infil-



situation. As a result, these merchants were antagonized and began

supp orting protest m ovem ents again st 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 re-

forms, the ulama's effective con trol of culture remain ed int act . Th e

ulama successfully blocked the missionaries' activities in the country.

At the sam e time, the movem ents of the m erchants an d guilds against

foreign economic encroachments granted the ulama the op portunity to

lead protes t mov ements in defense of nation al interests again st for-

eign interests. All these factors contributed to the solidification of the

mon olithic religious env ironm ent in the nine teenth century. Ironi-

cally, though, the very sociopolitical bases of the ulama ties to the

stat e an d different social classes also became a sou rce of their

disunity and political division. This disunity was best reflected in the

emergence of opposin g faction s in the Tobacco Mo vemen t (1890-1892)

an d the Con stitution al R evo lution (1905-1911), when a g rou p of the

ulam a su pported th e constitution, while others decided to o ppose it.

bstacles to the missionaries

Given the ulama's enormous resources and the general conservative

nature of the social environment, the missionaries faced serious bar-

riers to their activities. Foreign visitors received their first chilling

warning when Griboyedov, the Russian am bassador, a nd a bou t eightyof his staff were massacred in Tehran by religious mobs in 1829, for

what was perceived as their disreg ard fo r the religious sensibility of the

Although an incident such as this was not repeated, resist-

ance to the missionaries remained extensive throu gho ut the century.

The missionaries started their activities in Iran among non-Muslims,

the Nestorians and Assyrians in a northwestern city. In 1836, the

Am erican missions opened a seminary for boys an d, in 1838, a semi-nary for girls. In 1870, there were 700 people atten ding the P rotes tant

celebra t ion of the communion and 960 chi ldren in the scho01. l~~n



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 themto ban Muslims from attending their religious services.1s6Heightened

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 ceremo-

nies: "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 massacre^. '^^

Richter also reported that a missionary was killed by a religious

fanatic in Salmas in the north of ~ r u m i a h . ' ~ ~

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-la~.""~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."'90 Considering anecdotal

evidence,Ig1 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 contem-plated whether it was "a waste of money, time and effort to do anything

for the Persians or other Orientals in a missionary way."192



State of ic ials and culture production

Despite the Qajars' lack of interests in modernization, modern ideas

were introduced to the country by state 0fficia1s.l~~mir 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 f a i 1 ~ r e . l ~ ~oreign diplomats also contributed to

Iran's cultural change. Morier's devastating critique and ridicule of

Iran's traditional order in A dv en ture s o f H a j ~ i aba 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 tran~1ated.l~~s 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 d2tr e Departing

from religion as the source of knowledge, these new intellectuals em-

phasized human reason and adopted Descartes's famous dictum I

think therefore I am. 196 n 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 meas-

ures were taken to improve the economy, finance, and the system of

communication.197

The French Enlightenment and reformist ideas coming from the Otto-

man 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.19' These ideas reverberated in the works of the en-

lightened Iranians. One author suggested the use of scientific knowl-

edge to run the affairs. Another complained about the people's suffer-

ings, the governors' arbitrary rules, a lack of security for people and

property, the people's lack of awareness of their rights, and the preva-



ranking state official, Majd ul-Molk, in 1870 wrote an influential essay

on Iran's economic, political, and social decline, and the need forreform 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 reformswere again resisted by the ulama and those in the ruling elite whose

influence were undermined by these reforms.203The conservative pres-

sures 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.

he Consti tutional Revolution and Shi i modernism

Among the causes of the Constitutional Revolution (e.g., the radical-

ization of the merchants and the guilds, the movement of the intellec-

tuals 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 condi-

tions205), 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. Never-

theless, joining a movement for the formation of a National Consulta-

tive 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 accord-

ance 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



At the outset, Nuri and associates faced a serious dilemma. On the one

hand, the revolution was supported by a wide cross-section of thepopulation, 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 opposi-

tion 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 11. It

was not, however, in the form that Nuri originally intended.208He 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 govern-

mental affairs, and it was the responsibility of each, with the assis-

tance 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 ~ m a m . ~ ~ ~iven 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 forbid-

den. 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 ~ s l a m i c . ~ ' ~e 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



ulama. In the third stage, the Constitutionalists began to practice

whatever oppression they

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 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 constitu-

tionalism, but according to what have heard, and been told by those

who had visited constitutional countries, constitutionalism will bring

security and prosperity to the country. Therefore, also became an

enthusiast of constitutionalism and interested in setting up a constitu-

tional system for ran. ^^^

Na'ini, in his monograph on Tanbih al Um ma h ula Tanzilh al M illah

(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. Agovernment 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



potism with constitutionalism. Here, his argument is a point by point

refutation of Nuri s defense of absolutism. despotic regime, for

Na ini, carried three negative aspects: (i) It usurped the authority of

God, hence injustice to Him, (ii) it had oppressed the Imam for usurp-

ing his authority, and (iii) it was based on the oppression of the people.

constitutional government, on the other hand, was free of the first

and third oppression. It had only usurped the authority of the Imam.

Thus, there was no doubt that a constitutional government was far

superior to a despotic one.216

onclusions

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 explain its origins, we considered two 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 transforma-

tion. 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 develop-

ment 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 amongthe most influential social classes across the three countries in this

period, but the connection between their sociopolitical influence and



officials, on the other hand, played a consistently conspicuous role in

the process of cultural change in all the three co untries. W here theysucceeded was contingent u pon the form ation of a new set of political

institutions. In Ind ia an d 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 m ajor oc cupational basis for culture producers. Th e weak-

ness of Islamic m ode rnism in Iran was associated with the absence of a

mo dern s tate format ion.

To assess more directly the contribution of social classes and the state

to the rise of Islamic modernism, we analyzed the occupational back-

grounds of the Islamic m odernists an d of their fathers. We did no t have

a com plete data set on the oc cupations of the fathers, but for those that

inform ation were available, we foun d tha t only five (18.5 perc ent of the

total) were merchan ts or landow ners, while twelve (44 percent of the

total) had state employm ent or were connected to the state. Consider-

ing the o ccupational bac kground s of the mod ernists, there was even a

stronger indication of the role of the state in the rise of Islamic mod-

ernism. O f the sixteen Islamic m odernists in Egypt, 62.5 percent had

state em ploym ent. Th is figure for Ind ia (n 12) was 75 perc ent, a n d for

Ira n (n 7) 0 percent (see Table 1). (Only two percent of Egyptian

labor force and one percent of Indians employees worked in public

adm inistration. For Ira n, n o such da ta were available.) These findings

corr obo rate Wuthnow's thesis on the centrality of the state in provid-

ing the necessary social space for culture p rodu ction.21 8

The process of change certainly promoted the rise of Islamic mod ern -

ism. 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 an d religious disputations am ong such contenders

as the orthodox ulama, the missionaries, the (British) Westernizers,

an d the followers of the E nlightenmen t:

1. the contenders formed ideological targets for one another, as the

utterances of each side structure d the utterances of the oth er;



ableI C h a r a c te r i s t ic s o f t h e I s l a m i c m o d e r n i s t s i n E g y p t , I n d i a , a n d I r a n (n 35)

C o u n t r y

Egypt n = 16)

) State Employee

N a m e

Abduh, Muhammad

Abdul Raziq, MustafaAbdul Raziq. Shaikh All

Afghani, Sayyid Jamal ud-Din

Amin, Ahmad

Amin, Qasim

Ibrahlm, Hafiz Shair al-Nil

Kurd Ali, Muhamm ad

Malak, Hifni N asif

Maraghi, Shaik M uhammad

Mubarak, Ali

Manfaluti, Mustaf Lutfi

Reda, Muhammad Ras h~ d

Tahtawi, Rifaa Badawi

Wajdi, Muhammad Farid

Yaziji, Irbrahim

O c c u p a t i o n

Mufti, Prof., Ju dge, Civil Serv.

Prof., Journalist, Civil ServantRel. Scholar, Ju dge, Writer

Religious leader and think er

Judge, Prof.

Judge, Lawyer

Military Officer, Poet-Journalist

Journali st, Writer, Civil Servant

Teacher, Journalist

Azhar Rector . Judge

Teacher, Ministerial positions

Teacher, Writer

Journali st. Writer

Teacher, Civil Serv ant

Journali st, Writer

Journalist, Religious scholar

62.5 1

F a t h e r ' s o c c u p a t i o n

Small landowner

Civil ServantCivil Servant

Religious scholar

Religious scholar

Turkish Officer

Civil Servant

Businessman-landowner

Civil Servant

Religious scholar

Judge. Civil Servant

Religious scholar

Merchant

Civil Servant

Scholar, Poet, Publisher

s t a t e e m p l o y e e

Two percent of the labor

force in Egypt worked inpublic administration

and social services in

1907 (Beinin and

Lockman 1987, p. 38,

Table 1



C o u n t r y N a m e

India 11 = 12) Abdul Latif Khan

Amir Ali

Chiragh Ali

Hali, Altaf Husein

Iqbal, Muhamm ad

Kandhlah, Muhammad

Karamat All JawnpouriMuhsin al-Mulk, Mahdi Ali

Nazir Ahmad, Deputy

Sayyid Ahmad Kha n

Sayyid Mumtaz Ali

Shibli, Muhammad Nu'mani

State Employee

Iran n = 7 ) Dowlatabadi, Yahya

Malikulmotakallimin, M. N.

Na'ini, Muh ammad Husein

Najmabadi, Shaikh Hadi

Shaikh ul-Ra'is, Abul Hasan

Tabataba'i, Sayyid M.

Va'iz, Sayyid Jama l ud-Din

Y State employee

So ur ~e everdl books dnd artrcles

O c c u p a t i o n

Civil S ervant, Teacher

Lawyer, Chief Magistrate

Civil Servant

Poet, Civil Servant

Lawyer, Poet

Professor

Religious scholarProt, Admin., Civil Servant

Civil Servant

Civil Servant, Judge, Prof.

Journalist, Civil Servant

Prof., Religious scholar

Lay educator, Religious leader

Religious leader, Orator

Religious scholar, Ayatollah


Religious scholar


Religious scholar, Orator

0

F a t h e r' s o c c u p a t i o n I/u s t a t e e m p l o y e e

Physician, Civil Servant

lmpoverished family

Small Merchant

Wealthy, Religious, Civil Servant

One percent of all

occupied males worked

in public administration

in 1931 (Davis 1951,

p. 201, Table 201)

Civil Servan t, Religious

Civil Servant

Babi spir~tualeader

Religious scholar

Religious scholar

Qajar prince

Religious scholar

Religious scholar

Not available



3. these issues posed serious anomalies for the Islamic belief system;

and4. 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 struc-

ture 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 distinc-

tively 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 intellec-

tual creativity. Nevertheless, Collins's dynamic model, while pointing

to the right direction, does not overcome Wuthnow's problem of in-

determinacy. In our model, the key factors in the actual production ofdiscourse are the nature, the number, and the level of diversity of the

targets the ideological producers face, which determine the theme and



Because ideological production is relatively autonomous from the level

of economic and political development, from changes in class rela-tions, and even from the general cultural heritage of the society, we

employed the concept of episode to emphasize not only discontinuity

in ideological production, but also to make the case that historically

different social environments may provide social support for similar

ideologies (India and Egypt) and similar social groups and classes may

display different ideological orientations (Egyptian merchantslland-

owners versus Iranian merchantilandowners). The Indian Mutiny of

1857-58, Napoleon s invasion of Egypt, and the Iranian Constitutional

Revolution marked the beginning of a new episode in the history of

these countries. These events not only set the stage for significant

sociopolitical changes, but also had an impact on the the minds of the

ideological producers. European interventions in the affairs of these

countries, integration into the world economy and the development of

capitalism, the rise of landowners and merchants, and, most signifi-

cantly, the formation of the modern bureaucratic structure of the state

were the distinctive features of the episode that structured culture

production in India, Egypt, and Iran. More directly, the discourse of

Islamic modernism was produced in relation to a set of specific targets

in the pluralistic discursive context in the decades before and after the

turning of the twentieth century.

The nature of the existing discursive fields and the kind of discourse

that is dominant in a particular episode may provide useful clues as to

why a certain protest movement, rebellion, or revolution took the form

it did. The Enlightenment movement, as the dominant discourse dur-

ing the period under investigation, and such seminal ideas as civiliza-

tion, progress, and the test of civilization provided by the status of

women furnished the general intellectual framework in relation to

which Islamic thinkers developed their theological and sociopolitical

views. To underscore the cultural distinctiveness of this episode, we

may consider the radicallleftist discourses that characterized the dom-

inant cultural trends in many Middle Eastern countries following the

decline of secularism and liberalism. In the former case, the basic

parameters of the discursive fields were set, among other things, by

the idea of social evolution, with the West residing at the pinnacle of



tem all diametrically opposed to the features for which the Islamic

modernists applauded the West. It may be postulated that these diverseportrayals of the West constituted one of the key differences in the

discursive fields in relation to which Islamic modernism and funda-

mentalism 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 trans

episodic. 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 jurispru-

dence set the deductive constraints. By questioning some of the princi-

ples 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 socialforces and events outside the realm of ideas. These are inductive con-

straints. Not all ideas would find interested audiences and gain institu-

tional support. 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 orienta-tions of state officials and the members of powerful social classes.



constraints on the range of possible expressions and determines the

likelihood of the rise of different ideological movements. Then it

should consider the nature of the belief system of the ideological

producers, its fundamental assertions, basic methods, and worldviews,

that are transepisodic deductive constraints. Finally, the actual ex-

pressions and formulations of ideas should be analyzed within the

context of ideological debate, religious disputations, and back-and-

forth 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

production of ideas more fully.

cknowledgments

welcome correspondence at Department of Sociology, Anthropology,

and Criminology, Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti, M I 48197,

U.S.A. E-mail: [email protected] This study is a part of

a larger project supported by two grants from the National ScienceFoundation, a grant from the United States Institute of Peace, and

fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, United

States Information Agency, and Eastern Michigan University. The

research assistance of Abdulhani Guend and Osama Kadi and the

comments of the Theory and Society Editors and reviewers are also

gratefully acknowledged.

Notes

1. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, "The German Ideology," Collected Works 5

N.Y.: Inte rnat ion al Pu blishers, 19-1 16.

2. Ahmad Sadr i , M a x Weber s Sociology o f Intellectuals (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1992), 41. See also Peter L . Berger, "C hari sm a a nd R eligious In no vati on :

The Social Location of Israelite Prophecy," American Sociological Review 28

(1963): 950.

3. Guy E. Swanson, Religion and Regime: A Sociological Account of th e Reformation(Ann A rbo r: University of M ichigan, 1967).

4. Imm anuel Wallerstein, Th e Poli tics o ft h e World-Economy: The States, the Move-

ments, and the Civilizations (C am brid ge: Cam bridge University Press, 1984), 5.

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]



Dilem ma of Subaltern Studies: Perspectives from Latin Am erican History," Amer-

ican Historical Review 99 (December 1994): 1491-1515; and Frederick Cooper,

"Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History," American His-

torical Review 99 (D ecem ber 1994), 1516-1545. Fo r a n in teresting historical case

study that uses the spread of Christianity in highland Madagascar to critique

studies of imperial cultural history, see Pier M . Lar son , "'Capa cities and M odes

of Thinking': Intellectual Engagements and Subaltern Hegemony in the Early

History of Malagasy Christianity,' American Historical Review (October 1997):

969-1002.

7. David Harvey, The C ondition ofPostmod ernifj (Oxford : B lackwell, 1990), 302.

8. Robert Wuthnow "State Structures and Ideological Outcomes," American Socio-

logical Review 50 (De cem ber 1985), 800.9. Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish (New York: Vintage B ooks, 1979), 23.

10. Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt (Cam bridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1988).

11. Edward W. Said, Orientalism (L on do n: Penguin Books, 1977), 12. This is not a

judgment on Fouc ault in general. On the contrary, Foucault in The Order of

Things Madn ess and Civilization and Th e Archeology of Knowledge stressed the

autonomy of culture and the way fundamental cultural codes impose order upon

experience. See also J. G. Me rquior, Foucault (Lo s Angeles: University of Califor-

nia Press, 1985). Likewise, stating that Said's argument is consistent with the

corresponding perspective does not mean to overlook his impressive critique of

Orien tal studies.12. Terry, F. Godlove, Jr. "Interpretation, Reductionism, and Belief in God," The

Journal ofReligion 6912 (1989): 185; D. Z Phillips, Religion Without Explanation

(Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976); Ga sto n R ichard. "D ogm atic Atheism in the Soci-

ology of Religion," trans. Jacqueline Red ding a nd W. S.F Pickering, in Durkheim

on Religion: Selection of Readings with Bibliographies and Introductory Re-

marks ed . W. S. F. Pickering (Lo nd on : Rou tledge Keg an Paul, 1975).

13. Robert Wuthnow, Com munities ofDisc our se: Ideology and Social Structure in the

Reform ation the Enlightenment and European Socialism (Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, 1989), 3.

14. Ibid., 535.

15. Ibid., 1-22,481, 530-531.

16. W uthnow claimed that no thing was inevitable. even the development of capitalism

was not inevitable (ibid., 581).

17. Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual

Change (Cambridge: Ha rvard University Press, 1998), 38,42 ,791.

18. Ibid ., 380.

19. Ibid ., 388, 379,38 0.

20. Ib id ., 791.

21. Ib id ., 791-792.

22. Collins abandoned the ethnocentrism of Western scholarship which considered

Asia as exotic and "non-Western cultures as unique sensibilities running on dis-

tinctive inner logics" (379). He showed that the long-run intellectual tendency in



traditions to m ove in the direction of increasing a bstraction and reflexivity, Col-

lins's approach parallels Chomsky's theory of universal grammar. Nevertheless,

overcoming Eurocentrism is one thing, glossing over serious differences amongthe world's cultural traditions is quite another. To examine an example of such

differences, we may consider the difference in the con cep tion of man in Islam

and Christianity, which might have con tributed to the form ation of different forms

of political institution. Christia n political thinkers began from the premises that

man was a disobedient sinner and that the Almighty detested the stench of

anarchy (see Lewis Perry, Intellectual Life in America: A Hlstory, Chicago: The

University of Chicag o Pre ss, 1989, 8). Given m an's essentially evil character, the

Western political thinkers were hard at work trying to devise a formula to tame

and control the ruling elite. Such a pessimistic view of hum an nature in fact might

have led to a more positive development of modern democratic political institu-

tions, as thinkers like James Madison devised a system of check and balances to

keep rulers from misrule. In the Islamic tradition, on the other hand, there is an

(overly) optim istic view of m an th at he is essentially noble in cha ract er. This

positive view, it may be postulated, ensures the continued presence of a system of

patriarchy in the modern Islamic world. For, there was no need to question the

power of the patria rch, w ho is in essence a do -goode r. For allegedly other im por-

tant differences between Islam and Judeo-C hristian tradition, see Berna rd Lewis,

Islam and Liberal Democracy, Th e Atlantic Monthly (February 1993). Explain-

ing such differences in the world's cultural traditions requires positing intellectual

creativity within the specific cultural and sociopolitical context of debates over

historically significant issues. The variations in such contexts may explain the

subtle differences in intellectual creativity acro ss diverse traditions.

23. Jeffrey C. Alexander and Philip Smith, The Discourse of Am erican Civil Society:

A New Proposal for Cultural Studies, Theory and Society, 2212 (1993) 156-157;

Terence Hawkes, Structuralism and Semiotics (Berkeley: University of California

Pre ss, 1977), 19-27.

24. This view is consistent with Her bert B lumer's symbo lic inte ract ioni st perspective

that hum ans ac t toward things on the basis of the meanings they attac h to 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. Mic hael Holquist, Dialogism: Bakhtin and his World (New York: Routledge, 1990),

49.

26. Ho lqu ist, 21.

27. Peter L. Berger and Tho m as Luck ma nn, Sociology of religion and sociology of

knowledge, in Rola nd Rob ertson, editor, Sociology of Religion (New York: Pen-

guin Bo oks, 1969), 70.

28. William Sim Bainbridg e, Social Influence an d Religious Pluralism , Advanced in

Group Processes, 12 (1995): 1-18, JA I Press; R. Finke an d R . Sta rk , Evaluatingthe Evidence: Religious Economies and Sacred Canopies, Ame rican Sociological

Review, 54 (1989): 1054-1056.



31. Ro sent hal , 38, 42, 239, n. 34; S. A. R izvi, "Islam In M edieval Indi a," In A L.

Basham, A Cultural History of India (Oxford: C alre ndo m, 1975), 283.

32. A lbert Hou rani, Arabic Tho ught in the Liberal Age: I798-1939 (Cambridge: Cam -

bridg e University Pres s, 19 83), 21.

33. Said A. Arjomand, The Shadow of God and the Hidden Imam (Chicago: The

University of Chicago Press, 1984), 109.

34. Fereydoun Adami'yat, 197612535, Idiblozhi-ye Nahzat-i Mashrutiyat-i Iran [The

Ideology of the Con stitutional M ovement in Iran] (Tehran, Iran : Payam Publica-

tions, 1976), 197; Said A Arjomand, The Shadow o fGod , 255.

35. Inventions in the means of transportation and communication accelerated this

process. Travel became easier and faster, durable commodities and material cul-

ture were produced and transported on a larger scale, and written texts were

reproduced more rapidly and, through translations, made available to larger

audiences and consumers in the world. Established in the Islamic world in the

nineteenth century, the invention of the printing press significantly enhanced the

transfer of meaning. Oral transmission of knowledge gave way to written, and

ideas were exchanged in a more systematic, less personal, less immediate, more

abstract, and more intellectual manner, and on much larger scales and volumes.

See Francis Rob inson, "Islam and th e Im pact of Print," Modern Asia Studies, 27

(Fe bru ary 1993): 231-232; Ma rshall M cLu ban , The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Ma k-

ingo f Typographic Man (Lond on: Routledge Kegan Paul, 1962); Geo rge Steiner,

Langu age and Silence (Lon don: Faber and Faber, 1967); and G . Bauman n, editor,Th e W ritten Word: Literacy in Transition (Oxford: Claren don P ress, 1986).

36. See C. A Baylay, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1988); Irfan Habib, Th e Agrarian Syste m of Mughal

India (1556-1707). (New York: Asia Pu blishing H ouse, 1963); Satish C ha nd ra ,

Medieval India: Soc iety, The Jagirdari Crisis, and the Village (Delhi: MacM illian,

1982), 46-75; an d Jo hn F. Rich ards, "The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in South

Asia," Modern Asian Studies, 2414 (1990) , 625- 638.

37. C. A. Baylay, Indian Society, 5.

38. Ibid., 4- 10. See also Far hat H asa n, "Indigenous C oopera tion and the Birth of a

Colonial City: Calcutta, c. 1698-1750," Modern Asian Studies 2611 (1992), and"The Mughal Fiscal System in Surat and the English East India Company,"

Modern Asian Studies, 2714 (1993); Sur end ra Go pal, "Nobility and th e M ercantile

Comm unity in India, XV I-XV IIth Centuries," Journal of Indian History, vol. L

(1972): 795-798: Joh n F Richards, "The Seventeenth-Century Crisis in South

Asia, Modern Asian Studies, 2414 (1990); Irfan Habib, The Agrarian System of

Mughal India (1556-1707) (New York: A sia P ublis hing Ho use, 1963), 335; S. M .

Ikram, Mu slim Civilization in India (New York: Colum bia University P ress, 1964);

223-227.

39. In the early nineteenth c entury, these trends includ ed three principal ce nte rs of

theological educa tion: the reformism and eclectic traditiona lism of the school of

Shah Wali-Allah in Delhi, the apolitical school of Farangi M aha l at Lucknow, and

the Khayrabad seminary that stressed medieval philosophy and logic. In the



Ideas of Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan (Lahore, Pakistan: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf,

1970), 2.

41. Sayyid Ahmad Khan faced enormous oppositions from the conservatives. The

ma in opp onents of the establishment of Aligarh College and its educa tional pro-

gram 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," amo ng othe r things, "the khalifa (representative) of the Devil

himself who is intent upon leading Muslims astray," whose "perfidy is worse than

tha t of the Jews and Christians" (See Christia n W. Troll, Sayyid Ahmad Khan: a

Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (New D elh i: 1978), 20-21; Altaf Hu sain Ha li,

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 AhmadGangohi, while conceding that Sayyid Ahmad Khan might be a well-wisher of

Muslims, regarded his religious ideas as a "deadly poison" for Islam. See Ah m ad,

Islamic Modernism, 106.

42. This is not to argue tha t pre-m odern India had a m onolithic culture. In fact, the

country's population was divided in terms of language, religious sects, and ethnic-

ity. See Barbara Metcalf, Presidential Address: Too Little and Too Much: Reflec-

tions on Musims in the History of India," Th e Journal of Asian Studies 5414

(Novem ber 1995): 951-967; and P. Hardy, The Muslim of British India (Cam-

brid ge: Cam brid ge University P ress, 1972).

43. Duncan Forbes, "James Mill and India," The Cambridge Journal, vol. v, no. 1(October, 1951): 19-33; G .T . G ar rat t, edi tor, "Ind o-B ritis h Civilization," in Th e

Legacy of lndia (Oxford: Th e Cla rend on P ress, 1937), 398; J. Majeed, "James Mill's

'The History of British India' and Utilitarianism as a Rhetoric of Reform,"

Modern Asian Studies, 2412 ( 1990): 209; Sir William Jones, The Letters of Sir

William Jones, ed. G arl and C ann on (Oxford: The C larendo n Press, 1970), vol. 2,

794.

44. James Mill, The History ofB ritish India, vol. 1 (Lon don : James Madd en, 1848), 309.

45. Forbes, 29.

46. Ibid. See also W.W. Hunte r, The Indian Musalmans (Lo ndo n: 1871), 136.

47. M . P. Jain, Outlines of Indian Legal History (Delhi, India: Dhanw antra Medicalan d L aw, 1952), 394-396.

48. Julius D . D. R ichter, A History of Missions in India, trans. Sydney H. M oore

(Lo ndo n: Oliph ant And erson Ferrier, 1908), 128; Calcutta Review (1844 ): 379.

49. Forbes persuasively demo nstra ted tha t Mill's real target was the Churc h of Eng-

land.

50. Calcutta Review (1845): 418.

51. Calcutta Review (1845, 1851, 1852, 1855), and A. Sprenger, T h e L i fe o f M u h a m m a d

(Allahabad, India: 1851).

52. Richter, 329; Woman s Work or Wom an (1871,1873,1880).

53. Hardy, 169.

54. Calcutta Review (1845), 447, 468; (1852), 412; A. A . Pow ell, "M aula na R ah m at

Allah Kairanawi and Muslim-Christian Controversy in India in the Mid-19th



"Four Rebels of Eighteen-Fifty-Seven,"Selected Subaltern Studies, ed. Ranajit Guh a

and Gayatri Chakrav orty Spivak (O xford: Oxford U niversity Press, 1988), 129-175.

57. According to Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the missionaries provoked Muslims andHindus by denouncing their religions in terms of the medieval tradition of viru-

lence and abuse. See Sayyid Ah ma d K han , Th e Causes of th e Indian Revolt , trans.

G. G raham and A. C olvin (Laho re: The Book House, 1873), 25.

58. Altaf Husain Hali, Hayat-i-Javed (Delhi, India: Idarah-i Adabiyat-i Delli, 1979),

trans. K . H . Qadiri an d Dvaid J Matthews, 49. In M alik's assessment, had not the

wars of 1857 broken out , he probably would have end ed his life as a m ino r judicial

officialwith a dozen mediocre books to his name. Hafeez Malik, Sir SayyidAhma d

Khan and M uslim M odernization in India and Pakistan (Ne w York, 1980), 76.

59. Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 40-41; Ha li, 75; an d Troll.

60. Bashir Ahmad Dar, Religious Thoug ht of Sayy id Ahmad Khan (Lahore, India:

Insti tute of Islamic Cultu re 1957), 140.

61. Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 42-43; Troll, 171-193; Asaf Hussain, Islamic move-

me nts in Egypt, Pakistan and Iran (London: Mansell Publishing, 1970), 171-184.

62. Hussain, 185-196; Ahmad, Islamic Modernism, 45-49.

63. Ma lik, 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), xxv ii.

65. Malcolm M acC oll, "Are Reforms Possible Unde r Mu ssulma n Rule," Contempo-

rary Review, (August 1881): 257-281.

66. Chi ragh Ali, Proposed, 3-8, 11.

67. Ibid ., 11.

68. Ahmad, Islamic M odernism , 52-53.

69. Cited in Gai l Minault, "Sayyid M um taz Ali and 'Huquq un-Niswan': An Advocate

of Women's Rights in Islam in the Late Nineteenth Century," Modern Asian

Studies 2411 (1990): 152.

70. M ina ult, 153-154, Ah m ad, Islamic M odernism , 72.

71. For sure, this question was not the exclusive con cer n of the modernists. F or the

traditionalists (Ahl-i H adis), Islamic history was tha t of a consistent retrogressionfrom its golden age of the Prop het .

72. In colonial history, "Muslims served as a foil against which the British defined

themselves: by saying that M uslims were oppressive, incompe tent, lascivious, and

given to self-indulgence, the colonial British could define precisely what they

imagined them selves to be, namely, enlighten ed, com petent, disciplined, a nd judi-

cious. At the same time, they imputed to Muslims certain qualities they admired,

like qualities of masculinity and vigor, in contrast to the allegedly effeminate

Hind us. Such stereotypes shaped policy and legitimated British presence to them -

selves, an d, for a considerable period of time, to many of those they ruled as well."

Metcalf "Presidential Address," 953-954; Th om as R. Metcalf. Ideologies of theRaj (Cam bridge: Cam bridge University Press, 1994), 138-144.

73. Cheragh Ali, A Critical Exposition of the Popular 'Ilihad (Karachi, Pakistan:

Karim sons , 1977), 1-11,



77. Ib id ., 167-173.

78. Ibid., 187-195.

79. Maulavi Sayed Am eer Ali, The Spirit of Islam (Lo ndo n: C hristophers, 1922), 122-

128.

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

University Press , 19841, 1-7, 181; Gabrie l Baer, A History of Landownership in

Modern Egypt 1800-1950 (Lo ndo n: Ox ford University Press, 1962), 3-4; Rob ert

F. Hunter, Egypt under the Khedives 1805-1879: From Household Government to

Modern Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984), 17.

87. Hourani, 54; an d J Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to The History of Education

in Modern Egypt (Lo ndo n: Frank Ca ss Co., 1968), 145.

88. Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis, The History of Egypt (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins

University Press, 1980).

89. Abdel Ra him M ustafa, "The B reakdown of the Mon opoly System in Egypt After

the 1840s," in Political and Social Change in Modern Egypt ed. Peter M. Holt

(Lo ndo n: Oxford University Press, 1968), 291-307; Ha m ied An sari, Egypt: TheStalled Society (Alban y: State University of N ew York Press, 1986), 63,74.

90. Afaf Lutfi Marso t, "The U lam a of Cairo in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth C en-

turies." in N ikki R . Keddie, Scholars Sain ts an d SuJis (Lo s Angeles: University of

California Press), 43.

91. For an overview of the missions and intellectual or ien tati ons of Roudat al-Mada-

ris see Muhammad Abd al-Ghany Hasan and Abd al-Aziz al-Dosouqi, Roudat

al-Madaris (Cai ro: al-Hayat al-M isriyya al-Aam a al-Kitab, 1975).

92. Two Syrian Christians, Yaqub Sarruf and Faris Nimr, founded al-Muqtataf in

Beirut in 1876, but weary of the everlasting vexation of the Ottoman officials, the

editors imm igrated to Egypt an d continued the publication of the journa l there.See Martin H artman n, The Arabic Press of Egypt (Lon don: Luzac Co., 1899),

11, 69-70. Farag, o n the other han d, argued t hat the imm ediate reason for the

departure of Sarruf, Nimr, and Makarius from Syria was the Lewis affair. See

Nadia Farag, "The Lewis Affair an d the F ortunes of al-Muqtataf," Middle Eastern

Studies 811 (J anuary 1972): 73-83.

93. al-Muqtatax vol. (1876): 133.

94. al-Muqtataf vol. 5 (1880): 10.

95. al-Muqtataf vol. 6 (1881): 313.

96. al-Muqtataf vol. 7 (1882): 2-6.

97. al-Muqtataf vol. 17 (1893): 101.98. al-Muqtataf vol. 20 (1896): 161-165.

99. al-Muqtataf vol. 23 (1898): 801-805.

100. al-Muqtataf vol. 29 (1904), 1-8.



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 ofmother in society, of educating women, and of teaching them their rights, these

articles pushed forward the idea of equality between men and women al-Muqta-

t a f , vol. 7 [1882], 279; vol. 8 [1883], 7, 52, 53, 358, 469, 641, 548, 585). W riters and

contributors also debated woman's role outside her home, and her rights. Abu

Kha tir and Salim Shak ra exchanged ideas on women's right to education al-

Muqtataf; vol. 10 [18851: 634, 676, 739). An oth er com m enta tor, Wadeh al-K ho uri,

praised women's situation in England, France, and the U.S., indicating that they

had the men tal capability to perform im po rtan t social functions if they were given

opportunities sim ilar to men. A Najeeb A ntonio s criticizes him for going to o far in

imputing rights to women 01-Muqtataf , vol. 11 [1886]: 170, 232). Shibli Shum-

mayal, in his essay on "Are men an d women equal?" en um erated 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 M iriam Nimir M acarios

(1860-1887), an activist for women's rights [vol. 12 (1887): 4351. Other articles on

wom en covered topics like "high esteem of women u nder the Ph arao hs" [vol. 12

(1887): 6771, 'women and elections," [vol. 13 (1888): 6241, a discussion of a b oo k on

women's rights in Islam by the first inspector of Arabic science from the Ministry

of Education [vol. 15 (1890), 2681, the claim that women's mental capability was

weaker th an men [vol. 15 (1890): 376-3831, and th at w om en ha d sm aller brains

than men [vol. 16 (1891): 6431.

105. Th e Englishman, said Cro me r, "will scrupulously abstain from interference in

religious ma tters . He will be eager to explain tha t proselytism forms n o par t of his

political programme." Evelyn Baring Cromer, Modern Egypt (New York: The

M acmillan Com pany, 1908), vol. 2, 141.

106. Cromer, 135.

107. Ibid., 163.

108 . Ib id ., 139, 155.

109. Ib id ., 157.

110. While France was espousing the cause of their bondholders in Egypt and theprotection of the Suez Ca na l, England was more anxious to protect its interests in

Egypt because eighty-nine percent of all shipping thro ugh the C ana l 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-Egjptian Relations (N ew York: Praeger, 1968), 1-2. It is notew orthy th at

"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. M atthew, Th e Gladstone Diaries (Oxford: Clarendon

Pres s, 1990), vol. 10, Ixxii.

11 1. Wilfrid S. Blunt, Secret History o fth e English Occupation ofE gy pt (N.Y.: How ardFe rtig , 1967 [1895]), 9. Al-Muqtataf (1880, vol. 5: 154) viewed British o ccupation as

beneficial for Egy pt. M ost of the S yrian emigres were dedicated t o the We sterniza-

tion process and had a strong influence on the clim ate of opinion in Egyp t. See Jack



113. This is in a s har p contras t to the cultu ral policies pursu ed by the states in Egypt,

Iran , and Syria in the pos t 1950s period. Th e state's suppression of the pluralistic

environment not only channeled oppositional politics through religion but alsopoliticized culture produ ction. Th e state provided a favorable context for the rise

of Islamic fundamentalism. See Manso or Moad del, Class Politics. and Ide olog j~ n

the Iranian Revolution (New York: C olum bia University Press, 1993); "The Social

Bases and the Discursive Context of the Rise of Islamic Fundamentalism: The

Cases of Iran and Syria," Sociological Inq uiry (1996), 330-355.

114. Ahmed, Intellectual Origins 51-52.

115. The spread of mission Christianity in the Islamic world was made possible by

Euro pean P owers and by the protective measures they obtain ed for the Christians

and Jews living in Otto m an territories. See Edward W illiam Lane, An Account of

the Manners and Customs ofM od ern Egypt ians (Lo nd on : John Murray, 1871), vol.

1, 136-137; and Stanley Lane-Poole, The Life o ft h e Right Honourable Stratford

Canning (Lon don : Longm ans, Green Co., 1888).

116. Hourani, 39-40, 53. Muhammad Ali's tolerance of religious diversity also aided

the missionaries. When Euro peans interceded with him for a woman w ho had been

condemned for apostasy, "he exhorted her to recant; but finding her resolute,

reproved her for her folly, and sent her home, commanding that no injury should

be d on e to her." S ee Lane, 137. Sultan Abd al-Majid's decree o n religious liberty

also favored religious pluralism .

117. Charles R . Watson, In the Valley of the Nile: A Survey of th e Missionary Mo vement in

Egypt (New York: Fleming H . Revel1 Company, 1908), 208; and Andrew W atson,

The American Mission in Egypt: 1854-1896 (Pittsburgh: United Presbyterian Board

of P ublication, 1898), 361. See also Susan Sachs, "American Head stones Tugging at

Egypt's Memory," The New York Times (Wednesday, November 8,2 000 ), A4.

11 8. Charles Watso n, In the I/alley of th e 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 th e Nile 122-223.

125. Ibid., 193-195.

126. Charles R. Watson, Egypt and the Christian Crusade (New York: United Presby-

terian Church of North Am erica, 1907), appendix 4, 27L275. According to Sam ir

Raafa t, an Egyptian historian , "back then a lot of people found Am erican

evangelical system as a way out of the dogma of their own churches. American

education was mo re liberal. It was co-educatio nal. It was new and mo dern" (cited

in New York Tim es Novem ber 8, 2000, A4.)

127. Cr abb s, 69.

128. Enayat, Hamid, Sayri Dar Andisheh-ye Arab [An Overview of Arabic Thought](Tehran, Iran , 1977), 29-30; and H ouran i, 7L 75 .

129. Ho uran i, 75.

130. Tahtawi and s tuden ts in the School of Languages translated over 1,000 boo ks into



1884, unde r the political directorship of al-Afghani and the editorial of Mu ham -

mad Abduh. The Journal was predominantly anti-British, containing about forty

articles on British hegemony, government, deception, and the manner in which

Great Britain dealt with other nations. There were also over twenty articles on

Islam an d Islamic civilization.

133. "Madi al-U m m a wa Hadirou ha wa Ilaaju ilaliha," (The Past and Present of the

Um m a and theTreatment of its Malady), al-Urwa al-1.r~uthqa,5-60.

134. "al-Wahdat al-Islam i-yah" (Islamic Unity), a/-Urw a al-wuthqa, 130-140.

135. "al-Qada wa al-Qadar" (Predestination), a/-Urw a al-wuthqa, 102-1 17.

136. "Answer of Jamal ad-Din to Renan," cited in Keddie, An Islamic Response to

Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of S a u i d Jamal ad-Din 'hl-Afghani

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 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 'hl-Afghani (Berkeley: University of California

Pres s, 1968), 105.

140. Ibi d., 73.

141. Ibi d., 37-38.

142. A bduh tr ied to convince Jamal ud-Din to sto p attempting to obtain rights from

the colonial powers. He proposed to him that they should go to a place where it

would be possible to educate people. See Hourani, 258. Abduh believed that theelimination of external con straints was not enough for building a just Islamic

government. AI-Afghani did not accept his suggestion, considering his friend

discouraging and not helpful (mouthabbit) . See Al-Manar, vol. 8 (1906), 453-475.

143. Charles C. Adam s, Islam and Modernism in Egypt: A S tud y of the Modern Reform

Movement Inaugurated by Muhammad Xbduh (New York: Russell and Russell,

1933), 5 5 6 4 ; C rome r. 179-181; al-Manar, vol. 8 (1906 ): 413,462; H ou ran i, 158-159;

Enayat, Sayri , 120-123. I n self-description of the objects of his career, Ab du h

indicated that "I later abandoned this question of political authority for fate to

determine and for the hand of God to settle, for I realized that in such matters

nation s reap the fruits of what h as been planted and cultivated over a long periodof years, and that it is this planting with which we must now concern ourselves,

with God 's help." Cited in M alcolm K err, Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal

Theories of Mu ham mad Xbduh and Rashid Rida (Berkeley : University of C alifor-

nia Press, 1966), 109.

144. Abduh admired Herbert Spencer, whom he visited in Britain, and translated his

Education from a French version into A rabic. He read Rousseau's Emile, Tolstoy's

novels and his didactic writings, Strauss's Life of Jesus, and the works of Renan.

H e had some contact with Eu ropean thinkers, wrote toTolstoy on the occasion of

the latter's excommunication from the Russian Church, and traveled to Europe,

whenever he could, to renew his soul, as he said, and because it revived his hopes

abou t the future of the M uslim world. See Adams, 67; a / - Manar ,vol. 8 (1906): 66;

Hourani, 135.



150. Ibid., 107.

151. See Ad am s, 86-88; a nd Hou rani , 144.

152. Cited in Adam s, 89-90. See also Donald M . Reid, The Odyssey of Farah Antun: A

Syrian Christian s Q uest for Secularism (Chicago: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1975), 80-90.

153. In Hourani's apt assertion, "it is significant that both his controversies were

concerned, not with the truth or falsity of Islam, but with its being compatible

with the supposed requirements of the mod ern min d; and in the process, it may be

that Abduh 's view of Islam was itself affected by his view of what the m ode rn mind

needs." See Hour ani , 144; and Reid, 85-86.

154. Hourani, 162. A/-Muqtaraf mentioned the controversy about the relationship be-

tween Christianity and religion. See a l -Muqta fa f ,vol. 15 (1891): 353-365,425-432,

497-503.155. For example, a commentator stated that the idea of the roundness of the earth

could be found in al-G hazali's works (see al-Muqtataf , vol. 1: 217). Riaz Pa sha, the

education minister, joined in the debate, arguing that the notion of the earth's

stability was contrary to both religion an d science. And , a certain A min Shameal

established an affinity between Darwin's evolutionary theory and Ibn Khaldun's

theory of social evolution and dynastic changes (a l-Muqtataf , vol. 10 118851: 145-

146). Rashid Rida also advocated the idea that Darwinism did not contradict the

Quran (al-Manar, vol. 8 [1906]: 920).

156. Cited in Adam s, 244.

157. Hourani, 162.158. See for example Farid Wajdi, "Islam an d Civilization," in Manso or M oaddel and

Kamran Talattof, editors, Contemporary Debares in Islam: An Anthology of Zs-

lamic Modernism and Fundam entalism (New York: S aint M artin's Press, 2000).

159. In a reverse direction, there is a parallel argum ent in the works of the foreru nners

of Islamic funda men talism. T hey, too , tended to disrega rd the diversity of views in

the M uslim scholarly tradition. Their discourse was formulate d primarily in reac-

tion t o mod ern Western ideologies. While people like Wajdi attem pted to establish

the identity of Islam with civilization, for the fund ame ntalists there is a disjunction

between Islam an d W estern civilization.

160. Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven: Yale University Press,1992), 127-143.

161. Beth Baron, Th e W ome n s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press

(N ew H aven: Yale U niversity P ress, 1992), 14-16.

162. Ada ms, 22.

163. Qasim Amin, The Liberation of W om en, trans. Samiha Sidhom Peterson (Cairo:

T he Am erican University in C airo Press, 1992), 8-9.

164. Ibid ., 50.

165. Ibid., 7.

166. Ibid.

167. Ibid., 42,45.

168. Ib id ., 76.

169. Ib id ., 78-79.



175. George Antonius, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National M ovem ent

(Lon don: Hamish Ham ilton, 1961), 95.

176. See Sylvia G . H aim , editor, Arab Nationalism: An Antholog y (Berkeley: U niversity

of Ca liforn ia Press, 1962), 42. For a m or e detai led analysis of political influence in

the writings of Kaw akibi an d oth ers, see Elie Kedou rie, "The Politics of Political

Literature: Kawakabi, Azouri a nd Jung," Middle Eastern Studies, 812 (M ay 1972):

227-240.

177. Richard P. Mitchell, The Society oft h e Muslim Brothers (Lon don : Oxford Univer-

sity Press ), 39.

178. Cited in Ahm ed, Intellectual Origins, 118.

179. Ada ms , 259-268; Ah me d, Intellectual Origins, 117-119; Hourani, 185-188; Hamid

Enayat, Modern Islamic Political Tho ugh t, 62-68.

180. John Foran, Fragile Resistance: Social Transformation in Iran from 1500 to the

Revolution (Bo ulde r: Westview Press, 1993).

181. William M . Floo r, "The Merchants in Qa jar Iran," Zeitschrift der Deutschen

Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft I26 (1976): 124-125.

182. Hamid Algar, Religion and State in Modern Iran (Berkeley: University of Califor-

nia Press, 1969), 94-99; Ervan d A bra ham ian , Iran: Between Two Revolutions

(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 71-72; D P. Costello, "The Mu rder

of Griboedov," Oxford Slavonic Papers, vol. 8 (1958): 55-89, "A N ot e o n 'T he

Diplom atic Activity of A . S. Griboyedo v' by S.V. Sho stakovich ,'" Slavic and East

European Review, no. 40 (1962): 235-244, "Gr ibo edo v in Persia in 1820: TwoDiplomatic Notes," Oxford Slavonic Papers, vol. 5 (1954): 81-92.

183. Julius D Richter, A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East (New York:

Flem ing H . Revell C om pany. 1910), 294-303.

184. "Second Annual Report," Woman s W orkfor Woman (Ja nu ary 1873): 9.

185. Woman s Work for Wo ma n, 10112 (De cem ber 1880): 22.

186. Richter, A H istory of Protestant, 304.

187. Ibid., 317.

188. Cited in Abrahamian, Iran, 72; Samuel G reen e Wheeler Benjamin, Persia and the

Persians (Bo sto n: Tickn or and Com pany, 1887), 113, 342, 379.

189. Richter, A History ofProtesta nt, 304.190. "Persia: Extracts From Mrs. Coan's Letter," Woman s Wo rkfor Wom an, I1 (Sept.

1872) : 175.

19 1. Woman s Work or Wom an, IV (M arc h 1874): 93.

192. Fereydoun Adamiyat, Amir Kabir va Iran (Tehran, Iran: Am ir Kabir Publications,

133411955), 192-193.

193. Helen Easton Hoffman, "Are Persians Worth While," Woman s W ork: A Foreign

Missions Magazine, 38/ 12 (Dec em ber 1923), 271.

194. Abdul-Hadi Hairi, Shi ism and C onstitutionalsn~n Iran (Leiden: E . J Brill, 1977), 12.

195. Adami'yat, Amir Kabir, 146-158; Mongol Bayat, Iran s First Revolution: Sh i ism

and the Constitutional Revolution of 1905-1909 (Oxford: Oxford University

Press, 1991), 36; and Fereydoun Adam i'yat, Andisheh-yey Taraqi va Hukou-

mat-i Qanun: The Sipahsalar Era (Tehran, Iran: Kharasmi Publications, 13511



Cited in Hadi Hairi, Shi'ism and Constirutionalism in Iran (Leiden, N etherlands:

E. J. Bril l, 1977), 26.Bayat , 37; Mirza M uha mm ad K han Majd ul-Mulk, Risala-ye Majdi-yya (Tehran:

Na tion al B ank of Iran , I32111942 [1870]).

Adami'yat, Andisheh, 172-189.

Cite d in Algar, 173.

T he num ber of these pap ers reached its pea k in 1907 when a total of ninety papers

were published. Edward G Browne, The Persian Revolution of 1905-1909 (New

York: Ba rnes an d N oble, 1910), 127; H air i, 152-154.

For m ore information on the causes of the Constitutional Revolution, see Janet

Afary, The Iranian Constirutional Rev olution, 1906-1911: Grassroots Democrac)~,

Social Democracy, and the Origin of Feminism (New York: Colum bia UniversityPress, 1996); Bayat; an d Foran .

Browne, "The Fu nd am enta l Laws of Decem ber 30 ,1906," 362-371.

Brow ne, 148.

See Browne, "The Sup plem entary Fu nd am ent al Laws of Octob er 7, 1907," in The

Persian Revolution, 372-384.

A. M artin, "The Anti-Constitutionalist A rguments of Shaikh Fazlallah Nuri,"

Middle Eastern Studies, 22 (1986 ), 191-192.

Shaikh Fazlullah Nu ri, Taz kirah al-Ghajil wa Irshad al-Jah il (A reminder for the

negligent and a gu idance for the ign ora nt, n o publisher, 1908), 7-9.

Mihdi Malikzadeh, Tarikh-i Inqilab-i Mashrutiyat-i Iran (The History of TheCon stitutional Revolution in I ran , Tehran, Ira n: Ilmi Pub lications, 135811979),

vol. 4, 872-873; H air i, Sh i ' i sm, 199.

Hair i , Sh i ' i sm, 73-76.

Hair i , Shi'ism. 81; See also Nazim ul-Islam Kirmani, Tarikhi Bidari-ye Iranian

(The History of the Awakening of Iranian) (Tehran: Ibn Sina Publications, 13241

1945).

Adami'yat, Ideolozhi-ye, 193.

Mirza Muhammad Hussein Na'ini, Tanbih al-umma wa Tanzih a/-millah (The

Adm onition of the Ulam e and the En lightenment of the Nation) (Bagdad, 1909),

1-6.

Na'ini, 47; for a m ore detailed analysis of Na'ini's views, see Hair i, chapters 3-6.

Ah m ad argued that those in India who tended to su pport Islamic modernism were

mostly the westernized elite. See A hm ad , Islamic Modernism, 264.

Wuthnow, Com munities of Discourse, 1-22, 481, 530-531.



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Conditions for Ideological Production: The Origins of Islamic Modernism in India, Egypt,and Iran

Mansoor Moaddel

Theory and Society, Vol. 30, No. 5. (Oct., 2001), pp. 669-731.

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