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Modernist Salafi and activist
1866 and 1868 tried to mobilize a jihad against the British. During a period the period of reform known as the tanzimat, he was accused of heresy after delivering a controversial speech. Gathered young disciples in Cairo. Expelled from Egypt for his fiery political speeches and moved on to India where he opposed the modernism of Sayyed Ahmad Khan. Of shi’a origin but passed as Sunni by claiming Afghan birth. Influenced by the Rationalist Tradition of Islamic philosophy and was a defender of traditional Islam. He sought the restoration of Muslim Power, yet he promoted Hindu-Muslim cooperation against the British in India. He was anti-imperialism and was more concerned with finding effective means of arousing resistance than with maintaining intellectual consistency. |
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Modernist Salafi of Egypt
Al Afghani’s Egyptian disciple. He came to the task of updating Islamic Theolgoy with impeccable credentials. In regards to divination and freewill, he says, “ It is useless to busy our minds with what they can scarcely attain.” According to Abduh, what our minds can attain is an assurance that Islam is a religion fully in accord with reason. Islam may contain that which transcends understanding, but it is nothing that reason finds impossible. Reason, he argues, is capable of discerning good and evil, and reason will demand the acceptance of Muhammad’s Prophet-hood. |
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Modernist, established Mohammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, India
Muslim weakness was not to resist imperialism, but to embrace the ways of the conqueror. “ The well being of the people of India, especially the Musulmans,” he wrote, “ lies in leading a quiet life under the benign rule of the British Government”. He expresses a devotion to the Sunna of the prophet and an aversion for taqlid, and he believes that hadith should be the major focus of religious authority for Muslims, and the existing law and practice should be reformed to accord with a literal reading. After the failure of the 1857 revolt against East India company rule, Sayyed Ahmad’s search for “authentic” Islam took a more radical turn. Under the influence of the Qur’an alone could be fully trusted to communicate the prophet’s legacy. |
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| Shaykh ‘Ali Jum’a (Mufti of Egypt) |
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| Shaykh Nasir al-Din al-Albani |
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| Traditionalist Salafi Hadith scholar |
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radical ideologue of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood
Argued that in the absence of a legitimate Islamic state Jihad becomes the duty of Muslims as individuals. |
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| Al-Hasan al-Banna (d. 1949 assassination) |
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| founder of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood political ideology rests on the simple demand for the establishment of an Islamic State. To Al-banna, Jihad was a God given tool, which seemed perfectly suited to the modern Muslim for a return to the militant jihad. Along with this return to jihad he revived and restated the Islamic doctrine of martyrdom. Muslims, he said, should learn “ the art of death.” By this he meant that they should deliberately and purposefully plan how to make their deaths count for the cause of Islam. |
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