profiles Flashcards
(9 cards)
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb was born in Egypt in 1906. He grew up in Musha, a small village, then went to the Dar-al-Ulum before becoming a teacher and writer. Qutb was a big supporter of the reformed education system, believing traditional religious studies must be combined with modern academic pursuits. During his career he took up a number of Education roles, and his politics initially tended towards the “liberal” nationalism of his early mentors. These ideas underwent a radical transformation in the years that followed, due to: a series of personal crises, growing dismay with the Egyptian constitutional experiment, British manipulation of domestic politics, the impoverishment of a number of his compatriots, and the opening of Palestine to Jewish immigration following World War II.
He spent two years in the USA before returning and becoming a prominent member of the Muslim Brotherhood, which some see as a rejection of the Western life he had seen. He was involved in the 1952 Revolution but became disillusioned with the nationalist government for straying from Islamic ideology. Some of the most brutal Islamists have called themselves his acolytes, but his work has also inspired nonviolent movements. He was executed in 1966 for an assassination attempt on President Nasser following years of imprisonment and torture.
MAWDUDI
Mawdudi was a Sunni Muslim who was a philosopher, Islamic revivalist, politician and journalist. He was born in Southern India in a princely state in the city of Hyberabad in 1903. He became politically active from a young age. Although Mawdudi initially fought for a united India, he later supported the split. After partition he lived in Pakistan and spent the final years of his life trying to establish an Islamic state and educating Muslims in what he saw as the true Islam. The idea of a new Muslim land no doubt propelled him to consider the way in which the state should be run.
al-Afghani
Al-Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839-1897) was a religious scholar turned political activist, and a prominent philosopher, whose concern with the subjection of the Muslim world by Western powers focused his calls for the liberation, independence and pan-Islamic unity. Vague background: ‘Sayyid’ claims to be a descendent of the Prophet. Afghani claimed to be an Afghan, whilst his enemies declared he was a Persian – the significance here being, a Persian background would make Afghani a Shi’ite Muslim, yet his travels and teachings took place in Sunni countries.
ABDUH
Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) was an Egyptian Islamic Jurist, religious scholar and liberal reformer, and is regarded as one of the key founding figures of Islamic Modernism.
He studied at the al-Azhar in Cairo from 1869-77 where he became a pupil and collaborator of al-Afghani, though he would later move away from him and develop his own ideas
He lived and worked in Egypt for the majority of his life, but also travelled widely in Europe, encountering prominent thinkers who shaped his ideas about modernisation
Abduh’s primary question was how to stay Muslim while embracing progress and modernity. He wanted to show that Islam contained the rationality, social science and moral code for modern life
“I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.” – Muhammad Abduh
He was a nationalist, and was hurt by the British invasion of Egypt
He worked as a journalist, and was appointed editor of the official gazette in 1878 where he played an important role shaping public opinion, writing about social and political order, and national education. Held this until 1882 when he was extradited after the British invasion
In 1899 he was appointed Grand Mufti of Egypt, the highest Islamic title. He wrote among other things, a commentary on the Qur’an and a ‘Treatise on the Oneness of God’. Despite that, during his life some questioned whether he really believed in the truth of Islam.
Renan in context of afghani debate
The author is Ernest Renan, he was a French was a French expert of Semitic languages and civilizations (philology), philosopher, historian, and writer, who lived between 1823 and 1892. His essay Islamism and Science published in a book by himself titled ‘The History of Celtic Races’.
Renan’s most notable work was the book Life of Jesus (Vie de Jésus, 1863). Renan claimed Jesus was able to purify himself of Jewish traits and that Jesus became an Aryan, his Life of Jesus promoted racial ideas and infused race into theology and the person of Jesus, he depicted Jesus as a Galilean who was transformed from a Jew into a Christian, and that Christianity emerged purified of any Jewish influences. It depicted Jesus as a man but not God, and rejected the miracles of the Gospel. Renan believed by humanizing Jesus he was restoring to him a greater dignity. The book’s controversial assertions that the life of Jesus should be written like the life of any historic person, and that the Bible could and should be subject to the same critical scrutiny as other historical documents caused some controversy and enraged many Christians, and many Jews were enraged because of its depiction of Judaism as foolish and absurdly illogical and for insisting that Jesus and Christianity was superior.
The text was written in order to scrutinise Islamic science in regards to Latin science, though it is made very clear that there is no intention of belittling Islam as a religion, but also points out that it must do just in that in order to effectively highlight the authors opinion that Islam essentially cast itself into oblivion by creating a notion in which science became obsolete in comparison to religion, making Islam and the fanatics that followed it outside of modernisation, though does not exclude other religions, just exemplifies how Islam is better at excluding science than other religions and civilisations.
The overall meaning of this text is that Islam, although it had many years as a leader in intellect, it has now regressed far below that, especially when compared to other civilisations whom are excelling in areas of intellect, due to the fact that Islam has repressed knowledge and advancement as there is a belief that Islam and God is all that is necessary or people to achieve and know, wholly rejecting the notion of science. This is not to say that Renan does not understand that this Arabic science is only truly Arabic by language and not necessarily by culture, and it would be ridiculous to assume so, with many of the most notable scholars not being Arabic by blood. Overall, concluding that science is the source of all reason and that the acceptance of those that follow Islam to reject in many ways notions of science, they do so to their own detriment.
This text is significant historically as it allows for a Latin/Western European view of Arabic science and the role Arabic science played in the eyes of Europe which was emerging very rapidly into the intellectual world, and taking the place of the Islamic world intellectually.
This text relates to the course as it covers the ways in which Islam has repressed much modernisation in the name of its religion and ties in closely with the modernisation of
Muslim communities, with Renan implying that this was a hindrance to the modernisation of Islam
An obvious issue with this text is that it is from a Western and non-Islamic view, with an assumption of bias toward Islamism in favour of Christianity. That being said, however, the piece took a rather impartial view throughout the essay, always acknowledging that other religions were not innocent of the shortcomings that Islam had, but there is never in depth scrutiny to compare these shortcomings that were non-Islamic, making this source relatively useful, though it could have provided more insight as to the shortcomings of Christianity and science.
al-Banna
Al-Banna was born in October 1906 in Egypt from a well-respected family, his father was a shaykh, scholar, imam and watch repairer. He had early exposure to Hanbali Puritanism due to his father’s teachings and was also influenced by Sufism and Rashid Rida’s magazine Al-Manar. At the age of 13 he was active in the strikes and demonstrations of the 1919 Egyptian rebellion against British rule. He moved to Cairo in 1924 and studied at Dar al-‘Ulum for four years. After completing his studies he became a primary school teacher in Ismailia in 1927, near the Suez Canal, but became increasingly disillusioned with the British cultural colonisation he witnessed and was continually dissatisfied by the Wafd leadership because of its insistence on secularism. In March 1928 he set up the Muslim Brotherhood after 6 unnamed workers of the Suez Canal complained to al-Banna about the injustices suffered by Arabs and Muslims at the hand of foreign control. The Muslim Brotherhood was small at first but by a decade later it had 500,000 active members in Egypt alone, attracting significant numbers of student, civil servants and urban labourers amongst others. Rooted in Islam, Al-Banna’s message was about the rejuvenation of Islam and tackled issues including colonialism, public health, educational policies, social inequalities and pan-Islamism which also appealed to societies outside of Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood was disbanded in December 1948 by the Prime Minister due to concern of the increasing assertiveness and popularity of the Brotherhood. Al-Banna was assassinated in February 1949, thereby assuring the transformation of the Brotherhood leader into ‘the martyr of the nation’.
Banna was more an activist than a theologian and largely left the task of developing an Islamist theoretical framework to thinkers who came after him. Under Banna’s leadership the Muslim Brothers disseminated an array of publications and propaganda and even established its own press. The centrepiece of these efforts was Banna’s ‘Epistles’ which ranged from letters to Egyptian officials to pamphlets detailing ideas. Along with Banna’s memoirs, these epistles predict many of the features of later radical Muslim thought.
Husayn
Taha Husayn was a blind Egyptian scholar wholly committed to democracy in the Islamic world. Born in Izbet el Kilo in Upper Egypt in 15 November 1889. He attended the University of Cairo due to his distaste for the al-Azhar conservative teachings. His university education extended to a western one when attending the University of Montpellier in France where he met his French wife, Susan. He went on to become the Minister of Education under the Wafd party between 1950-1952. He spent much of his life arguing that Islam must come in line with modernity and a democratic system will facilitate that objective.
He was an influential Egyptian author becoming part of the Egyptian renaissance and modernist movement. He suggested that the Quran should not be seen as an objective source of history.
Qaradawi
- Yusuf al-Qaradawi is an Egyptian Islamic theologian based in Qatar, he is one of the most prominent scholars and preachers in Sunni Islam in the 21st century. He has formed several organizations during his lifetime, using media and technology creating a wide audience. For example, he is the founder of Islam Online, a major website that provides guidance to all Muslims on all matters of faith and practice. He also founded the European council of Fatwa and Research in 197, an organization concerned with addressing the problems faced by Muslims living in Western Europe, as well as the founding chairman of the international union of Muslim Scholars, established in 2004 to foster ties among Muslim intellectuals.
- Born in 1926 in Egypt, he was an orphan and memorized the Quran by the age of nine, showing his dedication to Islamic texts and explains his wide knowledge of the Quran in the passage. Hassan al-Banna gave a lecture at his school and had a lasting influence on him. He even had long had a prominent role within the intellectual leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, although he has repeatedly stated he is no longer a member. He went on to study Islamic theology in al-Azhar, and did his masters after the reforms had taken place within the Al Azhar. These reforms attempted to bridge the gap between secular disciplines and an Islamic education, which may have influenced his promotion of democracy.
- His outlook is what he characterizes as moderation, or ‘centrism’, in education this refers to the willingness of Muslims to be schooled in modern forms of knowledge even as they remain firmly anchored in in the teachings of Islamic foundational texts. This is precisely what the passage here does, as it uses traditional Islamic texts from Hadith reports or the Quran to promote a modern idea.
- Main argument is demonstrating that democracy is in line with Islam, this is a massive contrast to those such as Qutb, who was also involved in the Muslim Brotherhood at the same time, witnessing the same events within Egypt but formed a very different opinion, Qutb did not envisage much role for legislative assembly, which is an interesting contrast.
- Agree with Princeton Readings, there are several ambiguous texts used, relies heavily on Quranic information which sometimes doesn’t quite fit his argument
Soroush
Abdolkarim Soroush (1945 -) is a prominent, influential figure in the religious intellectual movement of Iran, proposing ideas of distinction between Islam and our understanding of Islam. Soroush has been described as one of the most well-known intellectual figures in Iran. His role in the evolution of the ongoing discourse of religious reformism in Iran, specifically advocating the need to reform our understandings of Islam. Having attended the University of Tehran and studying pharmacy, Soroush left Iran for London in order to continue his studies. This valuable movement into Western education, where he studied analytical chemistry at the University of London and then history and philosophy of science at Chelsea College, provided him an insight to the ‘modern world’. It was during these years that tension in Iran between the Shah’s regime and its people gradually escalated, resulting in a new political awareness of Iranians. Soroush returned, soon becoming an active member in post-revolutionary politics in Iran. In the immediate aftermath of the 1978-79 Islamic Revolution, Iranian universities were shut down, replaced by a new body, the Cultural Revolution Committee, established by Ayatollah Khomeini. This group comprised seven members, including Soroush, whose purpose was to bring about the re-opening of universities after reviewing the syllabuses. In 1983, however, Soroush resigned from the Cultural Revolution Committee, thus ending his brief time in an official position within the ruling system of Iran. Soroush transferred to the Institute for Cultural Research and Studies. He later taught the philosophy of science and Islamic mysticism at the University of Tehran and, in 1990, became a member of Iran’s Academy of Sciences. It was during the 1990s, that Soroush began to hold speeches to university students throughout Iran – with considerable backlash, as Soroush and his audience were attacked. To communicate his ideas further, Soroush wrote journal articles, books, essays, including most famously, Qabz va Bast-e Te’orik-e Shari’at (The Theoretical Contraction and Expansion of the Sharia). A prolific writer and a gifted speaker, actively calling for the democratization of contemporary Islamic philosophy resulted in his dismissal from Tehran University in 1996, and further evicted from Iran. Soroush was later to return to Iran, after holding Visiting Professorships at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton Universities.
