The Qur‘an: an Encyclopedia
MUHAMMAD
Muhammad 
was born in 1849 in lower Egypt and received a traditional religious education at home, in Tanta and finally at al-Azhar in Cairo, very much the headquarters of Sunni legal expertise. In his early years of higher education he was attracted to mysticism, but contact with al-Afghani changed his direction radically, and he took on a much more public and political role, regarding Sufism as too individual and too private an activity for modern times. His nationalism led to his expulsion from Egypt in 1882, after which he worked in Beirut for some years until his return in 1889. The year of his expulsion he joined al-Afghani in Paris from where they published the influential journal 
al-wuthqa (Strong Grasp), which advocated resistance to imperialism and the defence of Islamic unity. He became a judge and then returned to education, where he could continue his reforming mission. Like al-Tahtawi, another modernizer, he often served in administrative roles in order to try to reform Egyptian institutions, and in particular the Arabic language, the education of girls and the whole legal and educational structure of the state, thus combining a theoretical interest in reform with a practical commitment to change.
As with so many of the modernizers, 
chief problem was finding a path between taqlid (blind obedience) to tradition and abandoning Islam for a Western form of modernity. This conflict runs throughout his writings. He argued that there are plenty of indications in the 
itself of the means of adapting Islam to modern circumstances—indeed, the Book itself insists on it—and so a reliance on the past way of doing things is not acceptable. The 
was sent to the world in order to assist its inhabitants, and it is full of invitations that it be rationally interrogated and interpreted.
This suggests that it should enable us to adapt to changing circumstances. This does not apply to every aspect of the Book—some things may not be challenged or even doubted—but to rely on a traditional interpretation of every aspect of Islam is a failure to accept the plausibility of the Book’s relevance to changing needs and circumstances.
Further reading
Muhammad (1966) The Theology of Unity (Risalat al-tawhid), trans. I. 
and K.Cragg, London: George Allen & Unwin.
——(1972) 
al-kamila (Complete works), ed. 
Beirut: 
li al-dirasat 
nashr.
Hourani, A. (1982) Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Keddie, N. (ed.) (1972) Scholars, Saints and Sufis, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
——(1983) An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and religious writings of Sayyid Jamal al-Din 
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kedourie, E. (1966) Afghani and Abduh: An essay on religious unbelief and political activism in modern Islam, London: Frank Cass.
Kurzman, C. (2002) Modernist Islam: A source book, New York: Oxford University Press.
See also: Nahda; taqlid
OLIVER LEAMAN
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