1849–1905 CE · Grand Mufti of Egypt; Islamic modernist reformer

Muhammad Abduh

Muhammad Abduh, Egypt's Grand Mufti from 1899 until his death in 1905, built his reform program on a call to reject taqlid, the blind imitation of the medieval legal schools, and return to reasoned engagement with the Qur'an and early practice. His student and successor Rashid Rida carried the argument forward, but the movement Abduh began ultimately split rather than converging on the renewal it promised.

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Research Paper
Islam or Muslim Culture? Measuring the Distance Between Revelation and Practice
A historical-critical essay testing whether practices commonly defended as Islamic -- from denying women their Qur'anic inheritance shares to state corruption and the political shaping of orthodoxy -- rest on the Qur'an itself, or on later interpretation, historical tradition, absorbed local custom, and political authority defended in revelation's name.

Muhammad Abduh

Content referencing this person

Islam or Muslim Culture? Measuring the Distance Between Revelation and Practice