Muhammad Abduh

by Mark Sedgwick

  The ulema of the Azhar had grown used to attack ever since Mehmet Ali had first acted to reduce their power shortly after he became ruler of Egypt. Over the nineteenth century, they had seen the government, acting under the excuse of reform, seize their personal investments, then the endowments that supported their jobs, and generally remove as much as possible of their independence, while promoting rival institutions. They had seen the government of Egypt change from an Ottoman-style regime that, if not especially pious, was at least respectful of the forms of Islam, to a government evidently dedicated to transforming Egypt into a copy of Christian Europe under the khedive Ismail, and then finally to a government that acted under direct British control. And now the attack against them was being led by one of their own, an Azhari like themselves, Muhammad Abduh. First Muhammad Abduh appeared as the representative of the government on an Administrative Council that they had never asked for, more interested in the promotion of secular European learning than in the promotion of the study of Islam. Then they saw him appointed Mufti of the Egyptian Realm, despite his lack of any appropriate scholarly record, a position that he then used to attack Islam – or, at least, what they understood as Islam. Instead he promoted a version of Islam that seemed to owe more to Europe than to the Quran or the hadith.

  Opposition to Muhammad Abduh at the Azhar was intense from the beginning. The other shaykhs, according to a student of the time, “used to constantly criticize the Shaykh [Muhammad Abduh] in our presence and represent him as being dangerous for religion.” As a result, the former student went on, “I used to flee from encountering the professor, for the sake of my religion, and to flee from listening to his lessons, even though he was a friend of my father.”

  Risalat al-tawhid had been directed toward the type of modern Muslim who might be tempted to reject Islam as an old thobe, and his message as Mufti was much the same as his message when teaching at the Sultaniyya. It was not really directed at the sort of Muslim who still wore a thobe, and was in no way embarrassed by Islam – the sort of Muslim to be found in villages such as that in which Muhammad Abduh had grown up. One student who was not afraid to listen to Muhammad Abduh at the Azhar was Taha Husayn, later one of Egypt’s leading intellectuals and writers. After one year at the Azhar, he returned home for a visit, and with the naivety of youth explained “true” Islam to anyone who would listen – which ended up being quite a lot of people. The general conclusion, in Taha Husyan’s own, later words, was:

  He has been up to Cairo to sit at the feet of Shaykh Muhammad Abduh and imbibe his dangerous and abominable opinions; and now he has come back to lead his townsfolk into error and perdition.

  This was to be expected, and Muhammad Abduh could probably have handled opposition in such quarters with the support of the khedive and of educated public opinion. Both of these he lost, however, until his single remaining supporter of significance was Lord Cromer, a type of support that ultimately rendered his position impossible.

  OPPOSITION IN THE PRESS

  Most of the “quality” Egyptian press supported Muhammad Abduh. Al-Mu’ayyad was edited by a friend, and Al-Ahram was as progressive as Muhammad Abduh himself was – as well as being owned by Christians, who were not especially concerned about what was and was not “true” Islam. Al-Muqattam and Al-Watan were also broadly in favor.

  Two newspapers, however, became early critics. One was Al-Zahir (“Illumination”), edited by Muhammad al-Sharbatli, an established opponent of Muhammad Abduh. The other was Himarat Munyati (“Donkey of my desire”). As the title suggests, this was an unusual newspaper – especially in Arabic, a language in which the word “donkey” is somewhat rude. Himarat Munyati was a relatively short-lived weekly, started in 1899 and lasting only until 1904, which published entertaining stories and political news in colloquial rather than formal Arabic, and which stood outside both the political and journalistic establishments. Its editor, the son of an army officer, was pointedly not admitted to the Egyptian Press Association. It was in some ways a forerunner of the later “yellow”or “tabloid”press, and in some ways the successor the Abu Naddara. While Abu Naddara and Muhammad Abduh had been on the same side in 1877, Himarat Munyati and Muhammad Abduh were on different sides in 1901.

  Himarat Munyati first started attacking Muhammad Abduh in January 1901, with an article criticizing him for allowing the funds under the control of the Council for Endowments to be invested in the National Bank and so to earn interest. So-called reform, it added, was really just serving the interests of foreigners, at the expense of the Egyptian people. In July it attacked Muhammad Abduh for his views on predestination – the views which he had advanced in 1900 in his refutation of Hanotaux, and which had also been expressed on other occasions. The classic understanding of predestination was not incorrect or the cause of Islamic decay, as Muhammad Abduh suggested. It was the correct teaching of Islam. If Muhammad Abduh believed otherwise, as he evidently did, the explanation was that he was a heretic, influenced by European philosophies of free will. In October, Himarat Munyati asked why Muhammad Abduh was more interested in visiting European spas and going to Geneva than in going to Mecca on the hajj pilgrimage. “Someone who attached so little importance to his religion” was not fit to be Mufti of the Egyptian Realm, especially when he was helping the British to increase school fees in order to keep Muslims out of Quran schools, while giving extra money to Azhar students for doing well in geography and arithmetic, but not for doing well in Islamic subjects.

  On March 1, 1902 Himarat Munyati’s front page carried a photograph that was, to European eyes, unremarkable. It was a group photograph taken, probably, at a garden party. In the front row sits a mustachioed European gentleman between two elegantly dressed ladies, one of whom is reading a book. In the back row stands another gentleman, also between two elegantly dressed ladies, with one of whom he is conversing happily. What rendered the photograph unusual was that the gentleman in the back row was dressed in the robes of an Azhar shaykh. A shaykh, said Himarat Munyati, had evidently become a khawaga – the colloquial and somewhat pejorative term for a Christian foreigner.

  Himarat Munyati did not name the shaykh, but the shaykh was very visibly Muhammad Abduh. And although the fashion in which his female companions were dressed was entirely respectable in European terms of 1902, as was the manner in which Muhammad Abduh was conversing with one of the ladies, neither the dress nor the physical proximity between him and the lady were in the least respectable in Egyptian terms. The scene was later described by a supporter of Muhammad Abduh (who may or may not have seen the actual photograph, which he described as “fraudulent”) as “an obscene picture” of the Mufti “in an obscene position” with a dancer – dancers being, in Egypt at that time, much the same thing as prostitutes.

  Himarat Munyati was not a mass-circulation newspaper. However, the rector of the Azhar, with whom Muhammad Abduh shared the pinnacle of official Islam in Egypt, demanded the prosecution of the editor of Himarat Munyati in order to preserve the reputation of the Mufti. A prosecution was started, putting Muhammad Abduh in an impossible position – he could either confirm that the photograph was genuine, in which case he would have to resign from his official positions in disgrace, or he could stay silent, in which case he would be party to the punishment of an innocent man, even if the innocent man was an opponent of his.

  Muhammad Abduh chose to stay silent. The editor of Himarat Munyati was sentenced to three months’ imprisonment. The publicity attending the trial ensured that anyone who had not already seen the photograph at least heard about it. Muhammad Abduh became the object of ridicule, as is suggested by a cartoon of the time which shows a shaykh embracing a scantily dressed European lady. A small dog paws at the shaykh’s robes – dogs are considered impure by classic Islam, and so any Arab caricature stereotyping Westerners as both alien and somewhat disgusting will probably include a dog. The caption of the cartoon reads, simply, “His Excellency Muhammad Abduh, Mufti of the Egyptian Realm.”

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nbsp; That Muhammad Abduh thus became the object of ridicule was not simply the fault of the editor of Himarat Munyati. The publication of the photograph was said to have been approved in advance by the rector of the Azhar, the very man who then made the photograph famous by calling for a prosecution to defend Muhammad Abduh’s honor. And the ultimate source of the photograph was said to have been Prince Muhammad Ali, the brother of the khedive.

  DETERIORATING RELATIONS WITH THE KHEDIVE

  Muhammad Abduh and the khedive seem to have remained on good terms until 1902, even though Muhammad Abduh had angered the khedive in 1901 by lunching with Ahmad Urabi. In 1902, two disputes occurred, one over the fate of a British spy and the other over a Greek island.

  The British spy was Leon Fahmi who, having worked for the British in Istanbul, retired to Egypt. The Ottoman authorities knew of his presence there, and requested his extradition. The khedive wished to oblige the Ottoman government, but the British wished to protect their former employee. The khedive therefore summoned Fahmi to his palace, where Fahmi was arrested. Cromer, alerted that Fahmi had failed to return from his appointment at the palace, went himself to see the khedive, who swore on his honor that Fahmi was not in the palace – which was quite true, as Fahmi was in fact being held in a nearby house. Cromer, who was not convinced, extracted Fahmi from the khedive’s custody, and had him sent under protection to safety in France. This episode left Cromer feeling satisfied, and presumably left the khedive feeling humiliated. That Muhammad Abduh had opposed sending Fahmi to Istanbul meant that he had effectively sided with the British against his sovereign in a matter of some importance.

  The second dispute concerned the Aegean island of Thasos, which was of importance because of its strategic location and its gold mines. This island had originally been given to Mehmet Ali by the then Ottoman sultan, and was a significant possession of the khedive. After a rising by the Greek inhabitants of Thasos against the khedive’s attempts to increase taxes, Ottoman troops occupied the island. The British proposed to replace the Ottoman troops with their own, which the khedive did not wish to happen. Muhammad Abduh proposed to allow a British occupation.

  After these two incidents, which affected the khedive personally, it is understandable that the khedive might come to the conclusion that Muhammad Abduh was more loyal to the British than to himself. The khedive later described Muhammad Abduh as “of remarkable intelligence, but pusillanimous character. He was devoted to England. I tried in vain to tear him away from the lure of Qasr al-Dubara [Cromer’s residence].”

  What is less clear is why Muhammad Abduh took positions, on issues that were not central to his activities, that would inevitably make an enemy of the khedive. There are two possible explanations. One is that Muhammad Abduh was indeed siding with Cromer, with whom he was on excellent terms. Cromer, who remembered Muhammad Abduh as “a somewhat dreamy and unpractical but, nevertheless, genuine Egyptian patriot,” seems to have liked and even respected him, and described Muhammad Abduh in his memoirs as “my friend.” The khedive thought that Cromer paid more attention to the views of Muhammad Abduh than to those of any other Egyptian. The other possible explanation is that Muhammad Abduh was simply continuing the stance he had taken earlier in his life, when he had stood against an earlier khedive, Ismail. Perhaps his views on the need to limit khedival power had not changed as much as might have been thought on the basis of his quiet participation in the machinery of the Egyptian government since his return to Egypt from Beirut. This explanation is perhaps more likely since – whatever the khedive may have thought – Muhammad Abduh was not an uncritical supporter of the British. Although he sided with Cromer on some issues, he disagreed on others.

  A further clash between Muhammad Abduh and the khedive in 1902 did concern an issue that was central to his activities as Mufti: the annual hajj pilgrimage to Mecca. For Muslims, to perform the hajj once in a lifetime is not only a religious duty for those in a position to do it, but is also often the high point in an individual’s life. To die on the pilgrimage ensures admission to heaven. For the British, in contrast, the annual hajj was of concern largely because, as the occasion for the close meeting of pilgrims from several parts of the world, it served as a central node for the spread of infectious diseases. To prevent the spread of disease to Egypt, and then perhaps via the Suez canal to Europe, an obligatory quarantine station for returning pilgrims had been established in the Sinai desert in 1877. In early 1902, however, a cholera epidemic broke out in the Philippines that ultimately killed some 200,000 people there. As a precaution, the British wanted the khedival government to ban Egyptian participation in that year’s hajj. Muhammad Abduh supported the British proposal. The khedive, the rector of the Azhar, and the prime minister all opposed the proposal. One result was that Egyptians participated in the hajj as usual, and brought cholera back to Egypt: 34,600 people died. Another result was that Muhammad Abduh had publicly stood with the British and with medical precautions against Islam and a united front of Egypt’s other religious and political leaders.

  After 1902, hostility between Muhammad Abduh and the khedive grew worse. During 1903, as we have seen, the khedive interfered in Muhammad Abduh’s activities as Mufti by establishing a commission of ulema to investigate the question of interest paid on post office savings accounts. According to the khedive, this was to thwart Muhammad Abduh’s own planned fatwa on the subject, a fatwa of which Cromer had seen the draft before the khedive. Muhammad Abduh, in turn, interfered with the khedive’s affairs by using his position on the Council for Endowments to prevent a sale to the khedive, at a price considerably below its market value, of some land in Giza that belonged to the Council. In Muhammad Abduh’s eyes, this would have been an attempt by the khedive to steal from the Council. In the khedive’s eyes, Muhammad Abduh would have been preventing him from drawing funds for his “national project” from one of the few remaining sources that were not under British control.

  At this point, Muhammad Abduh issued his Transvaal fatwa.

  REACTIONS TO THE TRANSVAAL FATWA

  Himarat Munyati, of course, seized upon the Transvaal fatwa as a further stick with which to beat the Mufti. On this occasion, so did many others, including even Al-Liwa, the newspaper of Mustafa Kamil, with whom Muhammad Abduh had until then been on good terms.

  The response which caused the problem was, of course, that which allowed Muslims to eat meat killed by Christians. The attack in the more serious press was launched by Al-Zahir in December 1903, with the headline “How can that be declared lawful which God has declared unlawful?” Al-Zahir followed up in January 1904 with an appeal to the ulema of the world to reject the fatwa, and a demand for the dismissal of Muhammad Abduh from his post as Mufti, on the technical grounds that in relying on a Maliki scholar (Abu Bakr Muhammad Ibn al-Arabi) he was not following the Hanafi madhhab, which as Mufti he was legally obliged to do.

  Muhammad Abduh was defended by the progressive press – Al-Muqattam, Al-Ahram and Al-Watan – as well (of course) as by Al-Manar, which had published the fatwa in the first place. Muhammad Abduh responded to Al-Zahir in Al-Manar sarcastically, remarking that while Christians do not consecrate their meat to Jesus, some Muslims do consecrate theirs to Ahmad al-Badawi, the great Sufi saint.

  Placed in the context of his deteriorating relations with the Azhar, the khedive, and sections of the Egyptian public, Muhammad Abduh’s decision to publish the Transvaal fatwa at this point requires explanation. He can hardly have supposed that his permission to eat meat killed by Christians would pass without reaction. A prudent person might have thought that he needed to consolidate his position rather than endanger it further, and he had been behaving in a generally prudent fashion since he broke with Afghani, except – perhaps – by antagonizing the khedive over questions of fugitive spies and Aegean islands, when he might have compromised without imperiling his main projects. Perhaps he thought he could consolidate the support of progressives; or perhaps he thought that the opposition of his enemies wa
s so great that nothing would make any difference. Or perhaps he no longer really cared.

  RESIGNATION

  In January 1904, the breach between Muhammad Abduh and the khedive became more public. The khedive asked that a vacant professorship at the Azhar be given to a scholar who was serving as Mufti to the khedival cabinet. The Azhar Administrative Council gave the professorship to someone else. When asked by the khedive why this had happened, Muhammad Abduh replied – in public – that the Council was bound by the law, not by the orally expressed wishes of the khedive. Unsurprisingly, the khedive was – according to his private secretary – furious. Not only had Muhammad Abduh defied him in public, but he also seemed to be attempting to end the khedive’s influence in one of the few areas that the British had so far not interfered with.

  Muhammad Abduh carried on for another year. During 1904 he chaired a commission looking into the reform of the education of Sharia Court judges, continuing the task of reforming the Sharia Courts that had been the occasion of his appointment as Mufti in the first place. He also drafted a bill on the organization of mosques, which was passed into law during the same year, setting out minimum qualifications for various posts, from the imam to the muezzin who gave the call to prayer. Towards the end of 1904, however, the khedive delivered a public speech in which he denounced Muhammad Abduh personally. At this point, even the small following Muhammad Abduh had among students at the Azhar deserted him. Hostile comment in the press became ever more frequent.