Overview

How to approach the complex intellectual legacy of a modern Muslim thinker like Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905)? This book offers an answer to this question by providing a new complete intellectual biography of him. It delineates ‘Abduh’s formation as a reformer and activist and embeds his varied intellectual contributions in a culture of ambiguity which has marked the intellectual life of Muslim societies throughout their history. By using new sources – in particular his early mystical, philosophical and political writings – and including recent academic contributions on him, the book explores ‘Abduh’s complex intellectual formation, the various religious, philosophical and cultural influences that shaped him, and his changing attitudes towards “Western modernity” and its colonial manifestation in the 19th century. Oliver Scharbrodt challenges the perception in academic scholarship - and among Muslim reformers of the 20th century - that searched for intellectual coherence and biographical consistency in ‘Abduh’s life. Instead, this book offers a new more comprehensive reading of his intellectual legacy and highlights the variety of approaches and ideas manifest in his contributions.

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9780755648146

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I did not believe that more could be said about Muhammad 'Abduh, the influential nineteenth-century Egyptian religious scholar, but Oliver Scharbrodt does just that in Muhammad 'Abduh ... This book is a needed corrective in our understanding of colonial and postcolonial thought in the Muslim-majority world. -- Nareman Amin, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Scharbrodt’s biography is a painstaking and very readable account of one of the most important Islamic thinkers of the modern age. It makes innovative use of the paradigm of a culture of ambiguity. -- Mark Sedgwick, Journal of Islamic Studies

Author Information

Oliver Scharbrodt is Professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Birmingham, UK. He is the author of Islam and the Baha'i Faith: A Comparative Study of Muhammad 'Abduh and 'Abdul-Baha 'Abbas (2008) and editor of the Yearbook of Muslims in Europe.

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