Roots of the battle of the turbans

This article was published on al-Bawaba News site on Thursday, December 25, 2014.

In December 1881, Imam Mohamed Abdo, the grand mufti of Egypt then, defined the Egyptian National Party in its manifesto as a "political party, not a religious one, that is composed of men of different faiths and sects. All Christians and Jews, and everyone who plows the land of Egypt and speaks its language can join to it. The party does not look at the difference of beliefs, and knows that everyone is a brother and that everyone enjoys equal political and legal rights".

However, something else happened less than a quarter of a century later.

The imam, who was breathing his last in 1905, sang the following two poetry lines: 

I do not care if it is said Muhammad,

But it is a religion that I wanted to reform, Beware that the turbans destroy it.

The difference between the two scenes is the expression of the conflict that did not stop between two trends that walked side by side in the intellectual life in Egypt, especially with regard to religious thought and al-Azhar. The conflict continued in intensity after Abdo's departure.

The problem, in my opinion, is complex. At a time when the call for religious reform needs a society capable of accommodating it, reaching this society requires a modern, tolerant religious vision.

Imam Mohamed Abdo wrote in the course of his bitter struggle with conservatives and traditionalists that the Islamic method depends only on rational evidence, and does not know the paranormal or miracles.

His words were a fatal blow from the enlightened imam to those with sick and authoritarian minds.

The pioneering imam declared that belief in God precedes belief in the messengers and belief in what was revealed to them of the Book and wisdom. 

With this, Abdo elevated the rank of reason, and made it a guide because faith can only come from reason, as God is known only by reason, as simple Egyptians say.

Faith does not stem from oppression and coercion, as it is the product of suffering, contemplation and consideration, and a logical outcome of mental fatigue within a framework of freedom and reliance on a conscious will. (Mohamed Abdo: 'Islam between Science and Civilization', Page 74).

The discourse presented by Imam Mohamed Abdo at that time seemed to be different from what was prevalent in many decades, rather in the long centuries prior to it. 

It accumulated through the eras of decadence and puritanism, where safety and mental laziness are preferred by choosing the inherited faith, without relying on rational evidence and free contemplation.

Abdo belongs to that group of enlightened imams who believe that rational consideration is the basis in Islam, and that reason takes precedence over the apparent meaning of the law in the case of conflict. 

There are two ways of transmission: the way of accepting the authenticity of the transmitted while acknowledging the inability to understand it, and delegating the matter in its knowledge to God. There is also the way of interpreting the transmission while preserving the laws of language until its meaning agrees with what the mind has proven (previous reference … Page 76).

Reconciliation with reason is the second principle of the Islamic approach, after freedom of choice, in the Islamic call and life, and every conflict with it becomes an obstacle that must be removed.

Starting from these two complementary and intertwined principles, the freedom of choice and reconciliation with reason, we can reach the third principle, and in the language of Imam Abdo: the distance from blasphemy and faith. It is not permissible to force it on unbelief (previous reference … Page 77).

Difference between human beings, then, is the dominant rule. None of those who differ in opinion or vision can claim a monopoly on certainty or possession of the absolute truth. Islam does not close the door of free thinking in the face of man, but rather opens it to him. If man makes a mistake, he has one reward, for the right person receives two rewards for his ijtihad and his correctness, and the erring one receives only one reward for his ijtihad. He is not rewarded for his mistake, but he is excused only for it. 

Sheikh Mahmud Shaltout holds that whoever does not believe in God, His Messenger, or something similar, he is not an unbeliever with God and will perpetuate in hellfire. 

(Mahmud Shaltout: 'Islam is a Doctrine and a Sharia', Page 112).

As for the judgment of his disbelief with God, it depends on his denial of those beliefs or any of them after the call had reached him in the correct manner, and he was convinced of it, but he refused to embrace it and bear witness to it by stubbornness and arrogance, or greed for fleeting money or prestige.