By Mursi Saad El-Din The process of enlightenment, once it started, could not stop. It was like a relay race, one runner hands the torch to another. While it was Afghani who did the first sprint, the torch was taken over by his student and disciple Sheikh Mohamed Abdu. Mohamed Abdu was born in 1849 and died in 1905, hence the centenary celebrations of his departure. He is claimed by two groups of intellectuals, the secular on one side and the religious on the other. The first group claim that inspite of his Azhar background, he was secular in every sense of the word. The second group, headed by leading Islamic figures, believe that his role was to seek the right interpretation of Islam based on an intelligent reading of the Qur'an and the Prophet's Hadith. In fact Mohamed Abdu was both. Almost all his publications dealt with controversial religious issues. Titles of a few of his books demonstrate thus: "Islam the religion of science and civilisation", "Risalat Al-Tawhid," translated in English as The Theology of Unity. A great deal has been written about Mohamed Abdu, but in spite of the diversity of opinions about him, there is agreement that he was a great religious and cultural reformer. "He may not be regarded as a philosopher, writes his biographer Dr Atef El-Iraqi "but he left for us many ideas that would make of him a first rate innovator and a thinker whose writings reflect the spirit of philosophy." El-Iraqi gives examples of Abdu's writings about philosophical issues such as the concept of freedom, the meaning of good and his ideas about ethical and moral reform. According to El-Iraqi, Mohamed Abdu was a great thinker who always examined the future, unlike traditionalists who evoked the past and "Cried over its ruins." But his forward looking stand did not ignore heritage completely. In fact he called for an examination of this heritage to give it a certain dynamism, in keeping with the modern age. It was some kind of "reconstruction," El-Iraqi argues. All through his writings Mohamed Abdu was a defender of "reason", as a God-given gift to man. Hence his logical reinterpretations of some suras of the Qur'an. This belief in the mind is also reflected in his fatwas, while being Egypt's Grand Mufti. They include the sanctioning of life and property insurance, the sanctioning of bank interests, and accepting equality of women with men, and many other courageous fatwas which antagonised many religious diehards at the time -- as it would probably now. Mohamed Abdu went through many battles against those diehards, with their rigid interpretations and their embracing of superstitions. They stuck to old, often illogical interpretations of the religion. According to El-Iraqi, Mohamed Abdu ventured into uncharted waters, dealing with such issues as reform of education, environment, freedom of man, fatalism and compulsion, arguing that the reasons for the backwardness of Muslims was not Islam but its misinterpretation by charlatans. One important issue the Grand Mufti dealt with was the non- existence of a religious authority. Islam was opposed to ecclesiastics, Abdu argued, adding that every Muslim had the right to understand the Qur'an according to his ability -- an opinion which should be remembered these days to encourage tolerance and forgiveness. In Islam, there is no such thing as war for war's sake; Islam spread in new regions by the strength of persuasion and not force, since the inhabitants of those new regions were not forced to embrace Islam. They had the choice of keeping their own religion and the payment of a gezia, that is a certain amount of money in return of guaranteeing their peace and security. Islam, according to Mohamed Abdu, called upon each Muslim to live his life and enjoy it and to take a moderate course in all his actions. One important point stressed by Mohamed Abdu was the value of science and philosophy. He was a propagator of the teaching of science and philosophy and strongly criticised those who attacked the introduction of such subjects in Al-Azhar. In the words of El-Iraqi "Most of the ideas left to us by Mohamed Abdu clearly show that he was ahead of his time, endowed with such a critical mind which was rare to find in his times. In spite of the passage of a century since the death of Mohamed Abdu, we still find in his writings many lessons to learn."
