Chapter I - Introduction

The eighteenth century, which is generally viewed as a lean period of Islamic history with reference to the political disintegration and socio-moral decline, happened to be the seed bed of the Islamic revivalism. During this century, various movements started in different parts of the Muslim world to regenerate the society. This continued during the nineteenth century. To arrest the decadence and infuse new vitality in a society in which they were convinced that religion must remain the focal point, the  reformers advocated a return to the movements and masters of Islamic theology and philosophy. The essential diagnosis arrived at by the leaders of these reform movements was that Muslims reached this stage because they ceased to be "pure" Muslims since the purity of pristine Islam has been compromised with un-Islamic accretions both in doctrine and practice.

The eighteenth century revivalism attempted to rehabilitate the theory and practice of Islam by insuring its authenticity and workability in changing situations.  The revivalists slashed much of law and theology and rejected Sufism in its popular and speculative form. It was an attempt to ensure that the new orientation of the Muslim world view in the limits set by Hadith studies and Neo-sufism would not only maintain the continuity and Islamic authenticity but would be a meaningful answer in the changing situation in terms of socio-moral reconstruction. The resivivalist efforts have gone a long way to liberate Islam from the numbing Medieval influences. Their influence has been certainly salutary in activating creative forces and in this connection the term "Ijtihad" (independent judgment) has once again assumed great importance, at least in theory.

The spirit of socio-moral reconstruction reached its zenith in the movement of Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahab (1703-1792), in the Arabian peninsula,  who stressed that Islam was not static but a dynamic religion which in itself contained forces that would enable the Muslims to seek scientific and technical knowledge to put them on a level with the advancing nations of the world. He condemned Sufiism and saint-worship. He denied all acts implying polytheism  and advocated a return to the original teachings of Islam as incorporated in the Quran and Hadith, with condemnation of all innovations  (bid'ah). His rejection of medieval authorities left enough room for right of independent analysis of the fundamentals of faith.  Mohammad ibn Abdul Wahab's theology and jurisproducence is based on the reachings of Ibn Taymiyah and on the legal school of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal.

In India, Shah Walihullah, [1703-1762] a contemporary of  Abdul Wahab, was of the view that Islamic code of life was meant for all ages and for all peoples could prove true only if it had enough elasticity to provide an answer to the growing needs of a progressive civilization and the new problems which humanity would have to face from time to time. The Muslim jursits in every age would therefore necessarily be called upon to exercise their judgement in re-interpreting and making new provisions in law, of course within the framework of the fundamentals of Shariah. He believed that it was the duty of Muslim scholars and Ulema of every age to exercise ijtihad and laments that the simple-minded people of his time were too ignorant to attach due importance to it.

Since the nineteenth century, the Muslim world has felt the impact of the West—first political and then cultural. Therefore, the main intellectual concern regarding the direction of the Muslim world, during the past two centuries,  has been with the demands of modernity placed upon traditional societies. The main thrust of modernism was the search for an acceptable formula to reconcile Islam with the secularized West. In this effort, modernists begin with internal criticism of the existing state of Muslims in history. They sought a return to the first principles of Islam to unburden it of all the unnecessary dogmas accumulated over the centuries, and face the challenge of the new world by being favourably disposed toward it.

The modernist perspective was shaped in the milieu of colonial imperial expansion of European powers into the Muslim world, and at the peak of Europe's confidence of itself as the most highly evolved civilization. The reality of the 19th century Europe favorably influenced a great many Muslim intellectuals of the period. The situation of Muslims in general was now the reverse of the one they occupied in the pre‑Renaissance period, when Europe borrowed from the Islamic‑Arab‑Persian civilization. The most distressing reality for modernists was the state of decay of the Musilm world when compared to the dynamism of the European. The primary concern for the first generation of modernist thinkers was the need to reorient the direction of Muslim history, to reinterpret Islam in the context of modern science and learning, to put a brake on further decay of the Mulism world.

The intellectual challenge for modernists was to convince Muslims that the demands of both Islam and the West "were not incompatible with each other.'' The five most prominent modernists during the latter half of the 19th century were: Sayed Ahmad Khan and Sayed Amir Ali in India, Jamal al‑Din al‑Afghani in Iran, Namik Kemal in Turkey and Muhammad Abduh in Egypt. They insisted on returning to the undiluted first principles of Islam through a new reading of the Quran which would show that the new science based on the principles of observation and experimentation was Quranic in its impulse. They recommended the revitalization of ijtihad (independent reasoning) in Muslim thinking and practice, and called for the rejection of taqlid (imitation), the submission to the authority of classical jurists in interpreting the Quran and the Sunnah.

Technological modernity intrinsic to western civilization, it is said, allows ultimately no alternative to Muslims or anyone clinging to pre‑technical values. According to Daniel Pipes, "worldly success requires modernization; modernization requires Westernization; westernization requires secularism; secularism must be preceded by a willingness to emulate the West." The development gap made continuously wider by technological modernity places Muslims on the lower side of the gap, and presents them with the most difficult of all historical questions: can a traditional society achieve industrial development by importing technology which undermines its cultural heritage, opens a breach in its tradition and undermines its world view?   However, very few Muslims believe that the appropriation of modern technology would necessitate a change in ideological commitment
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