Egyptian reformer and muftī who criticised the rote teaching of al-Azhar, drafted its reform law of 1314/1896, and edited al-Sāwī’s logic book al-Baṣāʾir al-Naṣīriyya with notes.
Life
According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, Muḥammad ʿAbduh was born in 1265/1849 in the village of Maḥallat Naṣr in the province of al-Buḥayra, to a farming family of Turkmen descent. Sent in 1862 to study at Ṭanṭā, he found that he understood nothing of the lessons because of the fixed, rote method of teaching and went home (TDV); the page ‘Al-Azhar and Egypt’ quotes Heyworth-Dunne’s version of the same story, which blames ‘the accepted system’ of the Aḥmadī mosque and al-Azhar. Encouraged by a relative, the Sufi Shaykh Darwīsh Khaḍir, he went to al-Azhar and, the TDV says, looked for teachers of subjects such as and mathematics that were not taught there; finding none to his liking, he read the books on his own, and from 1871 studied mathematics, philosophy and theology with Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī. He graduated in 1877 and taught at al-Azhar, at Dār al-ʿUlūm and at the Khedivial School of Languages.
Exiled in 1882 for supporting the ʿUrābī movement, he taught in Beirut, published the journal al-ʿUrwa al-wuthqā with al-Afghānī in Paris, and returned to Beirut, where he taught theology and reformed the Sulṭāniyya school. Back in Egypt from 1889, he served as a judge, became a member of the new administrative council of al-Azhar in 1895, and was muftī of Egypt from 1899 until his death. He died in Alexandria on 8 Jumādā I 1323/11 July 1905.
His importance for the history of teaching lies in the reform of al-Azhar. As a member of its council he drafted the law issued on 20 Muḥarram 1314/1 July 1896, which, according to the TDV, set out the powers of the council and of the Shaykh al-Azhar and regulated admission, length of study, holidays, syllabuses and examinations; a standing administrative committee was formed under his chairmanship, new subjects were introduced, teachers’ salaries raised and the budget increased. The final examination prescribed by the earlier law of 1287/1871 already included logic among its subjects (TDV, ‘Ezher’), and the reforms added subjects rather than removing it. In 1905, after opposition from Khedive ʿAbbās Ḥilmī, he and Shaykh al-Azhar Ḥassūna al-Nawāwī had to resign. In logic itself he is known for an annotated edition of ʿUmar b. Sahlān al-Sāwī’s al-Baṣāʾir al-Naṣīriyya, printed at Būlāq in 1316/1898.
Uncertain or disputed
- The TDV says that logic was ‘not taught’ at al-Azhar when ʿAbduh studied there; this conflicts with the evidence for the Azhar logic course in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries set out in ‘Al-Azhar and Egypt’ and may mean that he could not find a teacher of the kind he wanted. A teacher should check ʿAbduh’s own account.
- The TDV dates the first reform law to 17 Rajab 1312/14 January 1895, the background page ‘Al-Azhar and Egypt’ to 1312/1895; the law ʿAbduh drafted is that of 1314/1896.
Works
- Taʿlīqāt ʿalā al-Baṣāʾir al-Naṣīriyya تَعْلِيقَاتٌ عَلَى البَصَائِرِ النَّصِيرِيَّةِNotes on the logic book of ʿUmar b. Sahlān al-Sāwī (Būlāq 1316/1898) (TDV).notes
- Risālat al-tawḥīd رِسَالَةُ التَّوْحِيدِHis best-known work, on theology, from his lessons in Beirut (TDV).work
- Ḥāshiya (Taʿlīqāt) ʿalā Sharḥ al-ʿAqāʾid al-ʿAḍudiyyaOn al-Dawānī’s commentary on al-Ījī’s creed; printed under his name, but its attribution to him or to al-Afghānī is disputed (TDV).notes
Reception
The reform laws he drafted shaped al-Azhar’s modern examinations and syllabuses, within which the course of the Sullam, the and their continued (see ‘Al-Azhar and Egypt’).
His students and admirers included later Azhar shaykhs such as Muḥammad Muṣṭafā al-Marāghī and Maḥmūd Shaltūt (TDV).
Sources (2)