Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) and the Intellectual Ambiguity of Modern Islamic Reform

Muhammad ‘Abduh (1849-1905) is often portrayed a modernist Salafi reformer who sought to rationalise Sunni “orthodox” theology. This paper argues that such a characterisation is misleading: it operates with problematic notions of what constitutes “orthodoxy” and “heterodoxy” in Islam and fails to capture the intellectual complexity of ‘Abduh’s reformist oeuvre. This paper shifts the focus to his earliest mystical, philosophical and theological writings. While they are often dismissed as early intellectual formations without any further relevance for his reformist work later in his life, this paper argues that they are crucial to understanding ‘Abduh’s approach to Islamic reform. The paper reveals important continuities of certain concepts from his earlier to his later writings. His most prominent theological works and his Qur’an commentary, produced towards the end of his life, re-articulate ideas from his earliest mystical and philosophical writings in an idiom that appears more aligned with Sunni notions of orthodoxy.