Muhammad Abduh and His Epistemology of Reform: Its Essential Impact on Rashid Rida

<p>This paper analyze the influence of Muhammad ‘Abduh on his chief disciple, Muhammad Rashid Rida. Rida was the leading advocate of Abduh’s rational principle and modern ideas through his writing in <em>Tafsir al-Manar</em> (<em>The Manar Commentary</em>) and <em>Tarikh al-Ustadh al-Imam Muhammad Abduh</em> (<em>Biography of Muhammad Abduh</em>). <em>Tafsir al-Manar</em> is a Qur’anic exegesis based on rational approach outlined by Muhammad ‘Abduh and the <em>Tarikh</em> is a comprehensive biography of the life and works of Muhammad Abduh printed in three volumes that significantly documented Abduh’s lasting influence and legacy in modern Egypt. Rida continued to resolutely champion the ideas of reform through <em>Majallat al-Manar</em> (<em>al-Manar Journal</em>) that highly reverberated Abduh’s principles and remarkably claimed extensive influence in contemporary Islamic world.</p>

[Muhammad Basiuni Imran: His Role in Propagating The Superiority of Islam in Sambas, West Kalimantan] Muhammad Basiuni Imran: Peranannya dalam Menegakkan Syiar Islam di Sambas, Kalimantan Barat

Religious scholars in the Malay World play a crucial role in propagating the greatness of Islam and socially transforming the Malay community in the region. Their contributions in the religious, educational, political, and social fields have brought immense impacts towards civilizational excellence. One such scholar who contributed enormously to the Malay world, especially in West Kalimantan, is Muhammad Basiuni Imran. He became known to the people of the Archipelago when he often asked questions to the al-Manar magazine published by his teacher, Muhammad Rashid Rida. Thus, this paper aims to explain his life background, education, and relationship with Muhammad Rashid Rida. His role in resolving issues concerning Friday prayers and talkin and his dakwah activities in Sambas are also discussed. This qualitative study used the biographical study design. Research data were obtained from written documents including books, journals, manuscripts, conference articles, and theses. Data were also obtained through interviews and observations conducted in Sambas, West Kalimantan. Results show that Muhammad Basiuni Imran used a realistic approach in accordance with the customs and situation of the West Kalimantan community, especially in Sambas, in resolving religious issues. His role in strengthening the Islamic dakwah is evidenced by the Islamisation of the Dayaks in Sambas. This study is expected to elevate the position of scholars and Muhammad Basiuni Imran’s contribution to the ummah’s development. In addition, this paper will enrich the written materials on Islamic prominent figures and reform movements in the Malay realm. Keywords: Muhammad Basiuni Imran, West Kalimantan, Islamic Growth Abstrak Para ulama di Alam Melayu memainkan peranan penting dalam perkembangan syiar agama Islam dan transformasi sosial masyarakat Melayu di rantau ini. Sumbangan mereka yang meliputi bidang agama, pendidikan, politik, sosial dan lain-lain memberikan kesan yang besar ke arah kecemerlangan ketamadunan. Salah seorang ulama yang memberikan sumbangan besar kepada Alam Melayu khususnya di Kalimantan Barat ialah Muhammad Basiuni Imran. Nama beliau mula dikenali oleh masyarakat Nusantara apabila sering mengemukakan persoalan kepada majalah al-Manar yang diterbitkan oleh guru beliau, Muhammad Rashid Rida. Justeru, makalah ini bertujuan menjelaskan latar belakang kehidupan, pendidikan serta hubungan beliau dengan Muhammad Rashid Rida. Turut dibincangkan ialah peranan beliau dalam menyelesaikan isu berkaitan solat Jumaat dan talkin serta kegiatan dakwah yang dijalankan di Sambas. Kajian ini bersifat kualitatif dengan menggunakan reka bentuk kajian biografi. Data kajian diperoleh melalui dokumen bertulis seperti buku, jurnal, manuskrip, artikel persidangan, tesis dan sebagainya. Data juga diperoleh melalui temu bual dan pemerhatian yang dijalankan di Sambas, Kalimantan Barat. Hasil kajian mendapati Muhammad Basiuni Imran telah menggunakan pendekatan yang realistik dan sesuai dengan adat dan situasi masyarakat di Kalimantan Barat khususnya di Sambas dalam menyelesaikan isu-isu agama. Peranan Muhammad Basiuni Imran dalam memperkasakan dakwah Islamiah pula dapat dilihat melalui pengislaman kaum Dayak di Sambas. Kajian ini diharapkan dapat memartabatkan ulama dan sumbangan Muhammad Basiuni Imran terhadap pembangunan ummah. Selain itu, penulisan ini akan memperkayakan lagi bahan-bahan penulisan berkaitan tokoh dan gerakan pembaharuan Islam di Alam Melayu. Kata kunci: Muhammad Basiuni Imran, Kalimantan Barat, Perkembangan Islam

The Sunni Islamic Revival

Over the past century, waves of Sunni reformers from the Middle East to South Asia to central Asia have called for a return to Islam’s foundations by invoking well-established concepts in Islamic thought such as tajdid (renewal) and islah (reform). Yet, far from constituting a straightforward return to a well-established playbook, the revivalist movements of the 20th century have emerged at the intersection of longer Islamic theological and legal traditions, the ideological challenges of secular nationalism, and radical shifts in the nature of religious authority enabled by the linked spread of print and literacy. This chapter provides an overview of these movements, beginning in the late 19th century with the efforts of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad ‘Abduh, and Muhammad Rashid Rida and then moving forward to varied revivalist trends, national and transnational, in the modern Middle East.

The Influence of Abduh’s Principle On Rashid Rida

This paper analyze the influence of Muhammad ‘Abduh on his chief disciple, Muhammad Rashid Rida. Rida was the leading advocate of Abduh’s rational principle and modern ideas through his writing in Tafsir al-Manar (The Manar Commentary) and Tarikh al-Ustadh al-Imam Muhammad Abduh (Biography of Muhammad Abduh). Tafsir al-Manar is a Qur’anic exegesis based on rational approach outlined by Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Tarikh is a comprehensive biography of the life and works of Muhammad Abduh printed in three volumes that significantly documented Abduh’s lasting influence and legacy in modern Egypt. Rida continued to resolutely champion the ideas of reform through Majallat al-Manar (al-Manar Journal) that highly reverberated Abduh’s principles and remarkably claimed extensive influence in contemporary Islamic world.

Reformist Muslims in Contemporary America

In the last two centuries, Muslims have made efforts to reform Islamic tradition and thought. Reform attempts have often focused on the advancement of the Islamic tradition and reconfiguration of Muslim thought and practices in light of changing sociopolitical circumstances and human knowledge. Reforming Islam has been a particularly central focus since Muslims’ direct encounters with modernity in the early 20th century. Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (b. 1838–d. 1897), Muhammad Abduh (b. 1849–d. 1905), Muhammad Rashid Rida (b. 1865–d. 1935), and Fazlur Rahman (b. 1919–d. 1988) are the prominent figures of the reformist trend in recent history. Since the 1990s, an increasing number of Muslims have migrated to the United States, and rising Muslim populations have led to the emergence of reformist Muslim intellectuals there. Many of these reformists are professors or public intellectuals working at American institutions, and they come from different ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds. Reformist American Muslim intellectuals should not be considered as an entirely and internally homogenous group; instead, it should be seen as an umbrella term covering various critical reconstructivist approaches to the Islamic tradition and modernity in the context of the United States and globalization in the last three decades. These thinkers call themselves “reformists,” “progressives,” or “critical Muslims” in their works. Referring to them as “reformist American Muslim intellectuals” was preferred for this article because they live and work in the United States and want change, but they are not advocating for revolution or radical social upheaval. Instead, reformist Muslims mainly focus on building democratic, pluralist, and ethical theories or practices from a Muslim perspective while prioritizing the development of indigenous Islamic arguments for their agendas and ideas. Thus, their intellectual projects often simultaneously challenge (a) apologetic, exclusivist, premodern socio-legalistic thoughts, and epistemologies promoted by Muslim fundamentalists, Islamists, and traditionalists; and (b) Western-centric, secularized, reductionist views found in some popular Western discourses. Ultimately, reformists attempt to deconstruct the hegemonic assumptions of (neo)orientalist perspectives and dogmatic discourses about Muslims in order to reconstruct democratic, pluralists, and just interpretations of the Islamic tradition for the sake of contemporary Muslims. The themes of reformists’ writings reveal a correspondence to the sociopolitical issues of contemporary Muslims in the West and the global scene. For example, reformist Muslims’ writings have focused on themes such as the critique of traditional Islam in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 and the resurgence of radical groups, extremist ideas, and authoritarianism in Muslim communities. Thus, reformist Muslims often focus on debates about Islam’s compatibility with modernity and democracy, the role of religion in public life, human rights, religious freedom, pluralism, and gender justice. As a result, reformist Muslims in the United States can be seen as a continuation of Islamic modernism that started in the 19th century in the Islamic world but has been significantly shaped by the conditions of the modern American society and circumstances of Muslims. In other words, it is reasonable to say that reformist Muslim discourses do not emerge or exist in a vacuum. Thus, their writings can be seen as the production of a dialectical engagement between Islamic tradition and modernity at large.

THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSAL SALVATION IN THE TEACHING OF RASHID RIDA

The problem of salvation of non-Muslims is a crucial element in the discourse of Islamic modernism. It was no less important for such Islamic thinkers of the classical period as Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya and Abu Ḥamid al-Ġazali. The attention of the author of the present paper focuses on understanding the problem of salvation in the teaching of Muhammad Rashid Rida, who was one of the key participants in the modernist movement in Islam. Being a representative of “intellectual salafism”, Rashid Rida proposes a solution for the issue of salvation that comes as an alternative for traditionalist views predominating in Sunni Islam. The present paper serves to prove that Rida’s quite peculiar solution is deeply rooted in Islamic tradition. In particular, it relates to viewpoints of al-Jawziyya and al-Ġazali, which deflect from mainstream. Similar to many other Islamic modernists (we can consider as part of them proponents of Jadidism, such as M. Bigiev, Z. Kamali, R. Fahreddin and others), the main although not the only argument of Rida is based on the Quranic idea of all-embracing Divine grace. In his analysis of Rida’s position, the author notes that the former does not lean towards the liberal variant of Islamic reformism that supposes religious pluralism as one of its basic ideas. Advocating the superiority of Muhammad’s message, the Egyptian thinker adhered to a specific form of soteriological inclusivism that differs from religious pluralism. According to Rida, the main criterion for one’s salvation is whether one was touched upon by undistorted Islamic message or not. Rida was convinced that Gehenna only awaits those non-Muslims who received undistorted Islamic message, clearly understood its Divine source and thenintentionally rejected it. But even they may be redeemed, as God is not obligated to act on his declared threat.

«Имперский синдром»: концепция османского халифата на Ближнем Востоке и в Южной Азии (первая четверть XX в.)

Аннотация В статье изучены общие и специфические черты идейных воззрений, пропагандистской риторики и политических действий представителей халифатистского движения на Ближнем Востоке и в Южной Азии. В ретроспективном ключе прослеживается эволюция представлений о сущности и необходимости возрождения института халифата в трудах исламских идеологов, реформаторов и политиков Джамал ад-Дина ал-Афгани, Абд ар-Рахмана ал-Кавакиби, Мухаммада Рашида Риды, Абул Калама Азада. Внимание авторов сосредоточено на общественно-политических дискуссиях 2030-х годов XX столетия, а также на повестке дня халифатистских конгрессов и конференций этого периода. На них вырабатывались первые представления современников о пост-османском формате мусульманского единства и идейно-политической роли будущего халифата. Авторы демонстрируют различие между моделями реакции мусульман Ближнего Востока и Южной Азии на упразднение османского халифата республиканским руководством Турции. Установлена многоаспектная взаимосвязь между халифатистскими ценностями, проосманскими настроениями и формами самоотождествления, которые сложились в арабских и южноазиатских обществах. Отдельно намечено соотношение между подъемом халифатистских настроений и радикализацией антиколониальных действий мусульман Индостана.Abstract The article deals with analysis of common and specific features of ideas, propaganda, rhetoric and political actions taken by representatives of the movement for defense of the Caliphate in the Middle East and South Asia. The retrospection showing the transformation of conception of the Caliphate and the necessity of its revival in the works of eminent ideologists and politicians of the Muslim world Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad, is also given in the article. The authors also focus on the social and political discussions of the 1920s 1930s, as well as on the agenda of Caliphatist congresses and conferences of this period. They helped to elaborate the early representations of post-Ottoman pattern of the Muslim unity and the ideological and political role of the future Caliphate. The authors demonstrate the difference between the forms of reaction of Muslims in the Middle East and South Asia to the repudiation of the Caliphate by the Republican leaders of Turkey. The article establishes a multi-aspect interaction between the Caliphatist values and forms of self-identification, emerged in Arab and South Asian societies. The correlation between the rise of Caliphatist attitudes and radicalization of anti-colonial actions of South Asian Muslims is also outlined.

Analisa Potensi Geografis Timur Tengah Menjadi Kekuatan Teritori Melalui Komik Digital Berlandaskan Paradigma Pedagogi Reflektif

Analisa Potensi Geografis Timur Tengah Menjadi Kekuatan Teritori Melalui Komik Digital Berlandaskan Paradigma Pedagogi Reflektif telah menjawab tantangan era Revolusi Industri 4.0 menjadi peluang. Tujuan penelitian ini ialah 1)menganalisis potensi geografis Timur Tengah menjadi kekuatan teritori ; 2)menguraikan komik digital berlandaskan paradigma pedagogi reflektif. Metode yang digunakan adalah penelitian kualitatif yang menggambarkan tentang kegiatan atau informasi tentang kondisi kelas yang sedang berlangsung. Data penelitian dikumpulkan melalui observasi dengan teknik cuplikan yang dikenal dengan purposive sampling. Sampel yang digunakan adalah salah satu informan untuk mendapatkan informasi mengenai media yang tepat. Hasil penelitian menunjukan bahwa 1) Banyak pelopor nasionalisme Arab yang memiliki misi menyelamatkan bangsanya terbebas dari tradisi yang terlalu konservatif untuk tetap memajukan bangsa serta terbebas dari penetrasi asing diantaranya Sultan Abdul Hamid II(Turki), Al-Tahtawi (Mesir), Muhammad Rashid Rida (Syria), Mustafa Kemal Ataturkh (Turki), Gammal Abdul Nasser (Mesir). Selain gagasan para nasionalis wilayah lain yang merasakan pengaruh asing yang kuat langsung bereaksi dengan membuat ketetapan netralitas dengan tidak memihak blok manapun yang memiliki kepentingan. Namun, ada pengecualian untuk Arab Saudi dimana AS tetap bekerjasama dalam bidang ekonomi dan terbukti dengan adanya perusahaan asing ARAMCO (Arabia American Company Oil) dan ini dirasa lebih menguntukan dari pada menempatkan pangkalan militer asing.; 2) Frekuensi mahasiswa yang menguraikan analisa potensi geografis Timur Tengah menjadi kekuatan teritori melalui komik digital berlandaskan paradigma pedagogi reflektif ialah sebesar 30% atau sekitar 15 dari jumlah keseleuruhan mahasiswa 50, sedangkan topik lain (tokoh, konflik ideologi, konflik kepentingan barat, konflik perbatasan) mendapatkan porsi rata-rata seitar 10-20%.

Caliphatism in the period of decline and collapse of the Ottoman Empire

The article analyses the historical role of the movement for defenсe of the Caliphate, which emerged in various regions of the Muslim world as a response to weakening and fall of the Ottoman Empire. The authors also focus on the social and political discussions of the 1920s - 1930s about the destiny of Muslim unity and the role of the future Caliphate. The article also deals with the transformation of conceptions of the Caliphate in the works of eminent ideologists and politicians of the Muslim world - Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Muhammad Rashid Rida and Abul Kalam Azad. The authors give an overview of the history of Caliphatist congresses and conferences of 1920s - 1930s. The aims and tasks of the Caliphatist movement among the Muslims of South Asia are also under study. The article examines the reaction of the South Asian princely elites to the weakening of the Ottoman state and explores the interrelation between pro-Ottoman sentiments of Caliphatists and the radicalization of anti-colonial struggle of Indian Muslims. A special attention is given to the role of leaders of Indian Caliphatists in preparation of the antiBritish uprisings in North-Western Hindustan. The authors also examine common and specifi c features of views and political actions of advocates and supporters of the Caliphate in the Middle East and in the Islamic communities of South Asia. The analysis of the source data reveales several patterns of reaction of Muslims in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia to the repudiation of the Caliphate by the Republican Turkey.