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This chapter studies the impact of al Azhar University on the Moroccan nationalist movement and specifically its independence leader Allal al Fasi, whose ten-year exile in Egypt exposed him to the ideas of Muhammad Abduh and influenced the ideological position of the Moroccan independence party, Istiqlal. The chapter emphasises the impact that Abduh's ideas had on the educational policies of the independence party and their continued importance in Moroccan educational politics throughout the twentieth century. Graduates of the university, including Abdullah ibn Idris al Sanusi and Abu Shu'ayb al Dukkali, brought ideas of Islamic modernism back to Morocco. These ideas were shared with Moroccan religious students through lectures at the Qarawiyyin University in Fez and flourished into a movement for religious reform.

The international relations of the hajj are a fascinating interplay of power, law, and religion. Debates over hajj policy frame the struggle for power in Islamic international organizations, promoting greater bargaining and cooperation between blocks of Arab, Asian, and African states. The hajj is an evolving international regime based on customary international law but, more important, it is the clearest embodiment of a worldwide religion subordinating the interests of nation-states to the universal duty to comply with God’s commands. Advocates of Islamic modernism rely on the ideals of the hajj to support calls for greater world community and morality that are strikingly similar to the arguments of Western writers who are leading the current theoretical revolutions in international relations and international law.

This chapter examines Islamic arguments for three basic principles of civic loyalty: that non-Muslim states may enjoy permanent recognition; that a Muslim citizen may forswear any violent activities against their non-Muslim state; and that it is permissible to contribute to the self-defense efforts of a non-Muslim state. Central is the idea of contract, particularly the aman, a contract of mutual security between Muslims and non-Muslims, often used to assert a general social contract in non-Muslim states, and thus obligation to them. Arguments for actively defending a non-Muslim state tend to be that no explicit prohibition exists or that doing so may be beneficial to Muslims. However, it is also clear that political liberalism’s notion of public neutrality on controversial truth claims is attractive to Islamic scholars. On the question of permanent recognition, it is argued that Muslim citizens must adopt a form of the Modernist jihad doctrine.

This chapter examines the career of one of the best-known Muslim intellectuals of colonial Egypt, Muhammad ‘Abduh. It looks in particular at his efforts at the curricular reform of al-Azhar. Following his discussion of the need to revitalize the Muslim sciences, it explores his understanding of “new subjects” of study or the “new sciences” (al-‘ulum al-haditha). For much of his life, ‘Abduh was at odds with the Azhari rank and file: his reformism was one reason why he was often denounced as a “Wahhabi.” His lectures on scriptural hermeneutics, or tafsir also gathered much criticism at the time; yet in other circles, these helped him acquire the label of one of the founding “Islamic modernists.” It was in these lectures that ‘Abduh would make passing references to evolution and to Darwin. An avid fan of Herbert Spencer, ‘Abduh’s engagement with contemporary evolutionary thought was nowhere as extensive as al-Jisr’s. Nevertheless, it provided further fodder for his critics who were as wary of ‘Abduh’s reform efforts as they were of his close relations with British advocates in Egypt. This chapter thus explores the politics of evolution alongside educational and religious reform through the experience of Egypt’s Grand Mufti.

As a part of a broader Islamic modernist program, Chinese Muslim students went to Egypt—to al-Azhar University in Cairo—in the 1930s to bring home not only true Islamic teachings but also means of empowerment for Muslims in China. Influenced by their personal backgrounds, their interactions with local Muslims, and their aspirations within the Chinese Republican state apparatus, these cultural intermediaries between Chinese Muslims and the Islamic heartlands chose to highlight modernist thought in the Islamic world and to emphasize Chinese nationalism and a cooperative relationship with the Chinese state.

Within the context of Indonesia’s encounters with liberalism in late colonial and postcolonial times, this chapter examines Muslim discourses that are critical of both Western liberal ideology and its Islamist detractors. After problematizing the existing categories of Islamic neo-modernism, Liberal Islam, and Islamic liberalism, the chapter focuses on alternative discourses formulated by Muslim intellectuals from both traditionalist and modernist-reformist Islamic backgrounds during the Reformasi era when Indonesia transitioned from a military autocracy to a democratic system of governance. Islamic Post-Traditionalists draws on poststructuralism and postcolonial theory to offer an emancipatory trajectory for Indonesian Muslims in the twenty-first century, while modernist-reformist intellectuals have drawn on the social sciences to develop a new paradigm referred to as Transformative Islam. Instead of presenting sweeping ideas, this younger generation is more concerned with translating new regimes of knowledge into applied thinking about concrete issues, such as democratization, development, justice and battling corruption.

This chapter challenges the ways in which Islamic modernism has been constructed and theorized, and elaborates upon the conception of Islamic tradition and historical change that is central to the book's argument. In addition, it introduces al-Mahdī al-Wazzānī and his New Miʻyār within the wider historical context of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Morocco.

Chapter 7 looks at so-called Islamic reform, particularly the activities and influence of Muslim reformists, their discourses, and efforts to change the way Islam has been practiced in West Africa and in Mali in particular. It also considers some of the ways reformists and those within the Sufi tradition they criticize have certain shared objectives and values. At the same time, it points to the influence of reformist discourses on the Sufi tradition in spite of their limited success.

This chapter addresses the question of modernity, arguing that the changes to Volga-Ural Muslims’ relationship with the Russian state remade their society, dismantling the Islamic social order, based on sharia, that had historically predominated in the region. The result was the disembedding of Muslim society, the removal of overarching social structures with a religious basis; this broke the link between the individual and communal institutions, with the latter weakened by tsarist control. In effect, any adherence to Islamic legal norms was functionally rendered a personal choice. Addressing the social and religious impact of disembedding, this chapter connects it with secularity, itself a massive shift in the religious construction of society, and argues that such a transformation represents the beginning of modernity. Therefore, the elements of Qūrṣāwī’s thought that respond to these changes can be considered examples of Islamic modernism.

The religious and intellectual landscape of the Volga-Ural region changed significantly over the course of the 19th century. This chapter addresses those changes, focusing on three main historical phenomena: the adoption of European approaches and subjects in Islamic education and pedagogy, the introduction of Arabic-script printing and periodical publishing, and the fragmentation of Islamic religious authority. These phenomena all contributed to a new religious and intellectual landscape that arises following the 1905 Revolution, which is marked by debates over the ulama’s stature as foremost religious interpreters and non-ulama elites speaking for Islam and for Muslims alongside scholars. Characterized by conflicts over the continued validity of the Islamic scholarly tradition and the role of ulama, the discourse of this period included new debates and movements, including Jadidism, which emerges out of the broad changes taking place.

Chapter Two documents waves of novelty in preaching styles, plotting successive embraces by West Javanese Muslims of new preaching forms that remain valid for contemporary audiences. The sketch is constructed around clusters of terms that correspond to historically-specific understandings of Muslim subjectivity.