The Authenticity and Authority of Islam
Muhammad Rashid Rida’s Response to Twentieth-Century Missionary Publications
In: Social Sciences and MissionsSearch for other papers by Deanna Ferree Womack in
Current site
Google Scholar
This paper examines the concept of Islamic authority in relation to early twentieth-century Protestant missionary writings on Islam and Muhammad Rashid Rida’s commentaries on mission publications in his Cairo-based journal, al-Manar. While Rida’s Salafi reformism has been the subject of much discussion, scholars have given little attention to the content of the missionary writings Rida engaged. Treatments of Rida’s work have also neglected to address the vision of Islamic authority that emerges from his responses to Christian polemics. This paper gives both subjects further consideration as it discusses Protestant missionary approaches to Islam, examines Rida’s writings on Christianity, and assesses his response to a widely circulated article on Islam by Temple Gairdner, a prominent British missionary with the Church Missionary Society in Egypt.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
4
In 1902, Rida serialized Abduh’s text entitled Islam and Christianity between science and Civilization (al-Islam wa-l-nasraniyya maʿa al-ʿilm wa-l-madaniyya). Simon A. Wood, Christian Criticisms, Islamic Proofs: Rashid Rida’s Modernist Defense of Islam (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2008), pp. 13–16.
-
5
Muhammad Qasim Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age: Religious Authority and Internal Criticism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), p. 4.
-
7
Ibid., p. 39. Zaman brings Rida’s work into dialogue with South Asian Islamic thought. For a classic work on Rida see Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983; London/New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 222–244.
-
9
Umar Ryad, Islamic Reformism and Christianity: A Critical Reading of the Works of Muhammad Rashid Rida and His Associates (1898–1935) (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2009).
-
10
Ibid., p. 1.
-
12
Heather Sharkey, American Evangelicals in Egypt: Missionary Encounters in an Age of Empire (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008), p. 51. Sharkey explains that the growing interest in Muslim conversion from the 1880s into the early decades of the twentieth century was “a phenomenon that was central to missionary attitudes toward Christian universality, religious liberty, and belief as a matter of individual choice.” Russian Orthodox missionaries in Syria and Palestine worked primarily among Arab Orthodox communities. The French Jesuits who partnered with Maronites in Lebanon were among the many Catholic missionary orders in the region. For an overview of the various mission societies in the Middle East see Eleanor H. Tejirian and Reeva Spector Simon, Conflict, Conquest, and Conversion: Two Thousand Years of Christian Missions in the Middle East (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), pp. 94–114, 138–166.
-
17
E.M. Wherry, ed., Methods of Mission Work among Moslems: Being those papers read at the First Missionary Conference on behalf of the Mohammedan World held at Cairo April 4th–9th, 1906 (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1906), pp. 13–16.
-
20
Thomas S. Kidd, American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), p. 61. Missionaries at the Cairo conference also focused on medical missions as a method of disarming the prejudice and suspicions of Muslims. Wherry, Methods of Mission Work, p. 31.
-
24
Sharkey, American Evangelicals, pp. 113–115. During his tenure in Egypt, Zwemer was loosely affiliated with the American Presbyterian mission, but the Presbyterians were divided in their opinion of Zwemer, and, according to Sharkey, so too were Muslims at al-Azhar, who had previously accepted Zwemer and his literature during the missionary’s other visits to the institution, p. 115.
-
25
Ibid., pp. 157–158.
-
26
Ibid., pp. 82–83.
-
28
Sharkey, American Evangelicals, p. 82. Rather than starting its own church, the EGM sent its converts to the Evangelical Church founded by the American Presbyterian mission.
-
31
Henry Harris Jessup, The Setting of the Crescent and the Rising of the Cross or Kamil Abdul Messiah: A Syrian Convert from Islam to Christianity (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1898), p. 5. The use of the Qurʾan as a proof text for the Bible is also common among the missionary publications that Rida encountered in Egypt. See Rida’s response to such tactics in Wood, Christian Criticisms, pp. 103–198.
-
33
Khalaf, “Protestant Images of Islam”, p. 222; Samuel M. Zwemer and Annie Van Sommer, ed. Our Moslem Sisters: A Cry of Need from the Lands of Darkness Interpreted by Those who Heard It (New York: Fleming H. Revell, 1907); Henry H. Jessup, The Women of the Arabs (New York: Dodd & Mead, 1873).
-
35
W.H.T. Gairdner, The Reproach of Islam (London: Young People’s Missionary Movement, 1909), p. 131. A later edition of the book was published in 1920 under the title, The Rebuke of Islam. This was intended to better convey the original point that Islam emerged because of the failure of Christendom to “truly represent her Lord.” Thus, in Gairdner’s view, the existence of Islam is a rebuke to Christianity. Geoman K. George, “Early 20th century British missionaries and fulfillment theology: Comparison of the approaches of William Temple Gairdner to Islam in Egypt, and John Nicol Farquhar to Hinduism in India.” In Christian Witness Between Continuity and New Beginnings: Modern historical missions in the Middle East, ed. Martin Tamcke and Michael Marten (Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2006), p. 15. Gairdner’s work stands in contrast to the writings of the American Syria Mission’s Henry Jessup, who condemned Islam for “Ishamaelitic intolerance” and claimed that Muslims have no conception of a holy God because the “moral standard of Mohammed himself was so low.” Henry Harris Jessup, The Mohammedan Missionary Problem (Philadelphia: Presbyterian Board of Publication, 1879), pp. 30, 61.
-
37
William Temple Gairdner, “Edinburgh 1910”: An Account and Interpretation of the World Missionary Conference (Edinburgh: Oliphant, Anderson, & Ferrier, 1910), p. 137.
-
42
Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 139. Rida explains in his Shubuhat, “Hence we responded in a civil tone, promising that we would go no further than replying to the criticisms of the critics, defending without attacking.” Wood, Christian Criticisms, p. 70.
-
49
Ahmad Dallal, “Appropriating the Past: Twentieth-Century Reconstruction of Pre-Modern Islamic Thought”, Islamic Law and Society, Vol. 7, 2000, p. 335. In the case of Egypt, where Britain already held control, Rida took a pragmatic approach. He did not push for revolt but believed Arab-British cooperation to be beneficial for eventual independence. Mahmoud Haddad, “Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era: Rereading Rashid Rida’s Ideas on the Caliphate”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 117 (2) 1997, pp. 260, 267.
-
52
Shahin, Through Muslim Eyes, p. 48. Rida believed that Muslims who wholeheartedly accepted Western education and other foreign institutions “humiliated themselves by remaining subordinates rather than becoming models for others to follow,” p. 49.
-
54
Ibid., pp. 83–84; Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 288. Rida wrote that “the beginning of modern European civilization had been a consequence of what the Europeans acquired from Islam in Spain at the hands of Averroes and his disciples, and during their wars against Muslims.” Al-Manar, Vol. 1, 1898, p. 733. Quoted in Shahin, Through Muslim Eyes, p. 43.
-
57
Shahin, Through Muslim Eyes, p. 53. Rida believed that while Arabs lagged behind in modern knowledge, wealth, and military strength, they were spiritually superior to the West and to non-Arab Muslims “by virtue of the linkage between their destiny and the destiny of Islam.” Haddad, “Arab Religious Nationalism”, p. 260.
-
59
Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 174. In one Shubuhat article Rida wrote directly to “Christian opponents who call themselves evangelists,” saying, “we believe that you attack the religion of Islam – if not for which no religion would be proven in this enlightened age – for payment, not out of belief in the truth of that which you say and write.” Wood, Christian Criticisms, p. 144.
-
61
Ibid., pp. 127, 143. With this in mind, in 1912 Rida founded his own missionary training seminary in Cairo, Jamʿiyyat al-Daʿwa wa-l-ʾIrshad, which was short-lived due to World War I, pp. 162–166.
-
66
Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 133. See also Rida’s Shubuhat in Wood, Christian Criticisms, pp. 68–69. Rida writes, “Through weakening Islam, the Muslims themselves became weak. Hence the Europeans dominated them everywhere, and the missionaries of Christianity dispersed in the Islamic countries. They slandered the Qurʾan and impugned the Prophet, prayer and peace be upon him. I do not fear from the missionaries that the Muslim will be come a Christian. Rather, I fear that he will [be led to] doubt the fundamental essence of religion and become a libertine.”
-
67
Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 314; Rida’s Shubuhat in Wood, Christian Criticisms, p. 71. Rida indicates that his readers asked him for fatwas and responses to missionary publications because “other than al-Manar, no Islamic periodical in the region was published to serve the religion with sound knowledge.”
-
68
Ibid., pp. 42, 86, 102.
-
69
Ibid., p. 102.
-
70
Ibid., p. 125.
-
71
Ibid., p. 129.
-
72
Ibid., p. 77.
-
73
Ibid., p. 81.
-
74
Ibid., p. 82.
-
75
Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 290. Ryad quotes from one of the fatwas Rida issued at the request of the Dutch missionary Alfred Nielsen in the 1920s.
-
77
Ryad, Islamic Reformism, pp. 215–216, 312. In the issue of al-Manar announcing the publication of the Arabic edition in 1908, Rida wrote, “This Gospel is the narrative of Barnabas … whose privilege over the other circulated Gospels is that it confirms monotheism, denies Crucifixion, and gives elaborate prediction of our Prophet Muhammad.” Quoted in Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 218.
-
80
Ibid., p. 179.
-
81
Ibid., pp. 115, 117.
-
85
W.H.T. Gairdner, “Mohammedan Tradition and Gospel Record: The Hadith and the Injil”, The Moslem World, Vol. 5 (4) 1915, pp. 349–378.
-
86
Rashid Rida, “al-Sunna wa Sihatuha wa-l-Shariʿa wa Matanatuha: Radd ʿala Duʿat al-Nasraniyya bi-Misr”, al-Manar, Vol. 19, June–July 1916, pp. 24–50, 97–109. All translations from “al-Sunna wa Sihhatuha” are my own.
-
88
Ibid., pp. 349–350. Gairdner refers to the date of Bukhari’s collection of hadith. Gairdner maintains that while nothing in Christianity is comparable to the Qurʾan, the gospels and the hadith are “commensurate” because both are based on “reports of sayings.” Ibid., p. 349.
-
89
Ibid., pp. 350–351.
-
90
Ibid., pp. 352–352.
-
93
Ibid., p. 363.
-
94
Ibid., p. 379. Gairdner’s argument is framed in language he believes would be convincing to Muslims. He contends, “The substance of the Gospels – if we fix our attention on their records as a whole and not on individual verses – has come to us by tawatur, the unbroken usage of all the ages from the very first, and represents to us both the ijma is Sahba and the ijma al ʾumma, that is to say, both Apostolic and Catholic consensus. In point of contemporaneousness with source, they go altogether beyond the best attested Hadith.”
-
97
Ibid., p. 27; Ryad, Islamic Reformism, p. 279. In this reference to ahadi traditions that have been mistakenly treated as reliable, Rida reveals how the critique of certain hadith was a useful practice for Islamic reformists.
-
99
Ibid., p. 29.
-
100
Ibid., p. 28.
-
102
Ibid., p. 29.
-
103
Ibid., p. 30.
-
105
Ibid., pp. 103.
-
106
Ibid., p. 96.
-
107
Ibid., p. 100.
-
108
Ibid., p. 102.
-
109
Ibid., pp. 103–105.
-
110
Ibid., p. 105. On Rida’s advocacy of independent reasoning (ijtihad) as an obligation for all Muslims and his critique of taqlid as blind reliance on tradition, see Zaman, Modern Islamic Thought in a Radical Age, pp. 76–77, 83.
-
112
Ibid., pp. 194, 196.
-
113
Ibid., p. 197.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 630 | 59 | 2 |
| Full Text Views | 149 | 4 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 69 | 6 | 0 |
The Authenticity and Authority of Islam
Muhammad Rashid Rida’s Response to Twentieth-Century Missionary Publications
In: Social Sciences and MissionsSearch for other papers by Deanna Ferree Womack in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
This paper examines the concept of Islamic authority in relation to early twentieth-century Protestant missionary writings on Islam and Muhammad Rashid Rida’s commentaries on mission publications in his Cairo-based journal, al-Manar. While Rida’s Salafi reformism has been the subject of much discussion, scholars have given little attention to the content of the missionary writings Rida engaged. Treatments of Rida’s work have also neglected to address the vision of Islamic authority that emerges from his responses to Christian polemics. This paper gives both subjects further consideration as it discusses Protestant missionary approaches to Islam, examines Rida’s writings on Christianity, and assesses his response to a widely circulated article on Islam by Temple Gairdner, a prominent British missionary with the Church Missionary Society in Egypt.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 630 | 59 | 2 |
| Full Text Views | 149 | 4 | 2 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 69 | 6 | 0 |