Asia

Reformist Rashid Rida

Rashid Rida was one of the great Islamic scholars of the early twentieth century. He had a great influence on Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Youth

Rida was born in 1865, in Qalamun, near Tripoli in present-day Lebanon. Then the place was part of the Ottoman Empire. He came from a locally prominent family. First he went to Koranic school and then he went to an Ottoman state school in Tripoli and an Islamic school. Although he learned foreign languages, he found anything other than Arabic unnecessary for an Islamic scholar like himself. For a short time he was a member of a Sufi order, but when he met the dancing dervishes of Mevlana, he was so shocked that he renounced Sufism.

Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Mohammed Abduh

The magazine that Al-Afghani (Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani) and his follower Abduh (The modernist Mohammed Abduh) published from exile in Paris was the catalyst for Rida to commit himself to a reformed Islam. Rida wanted to join Al-Afghani, but he died and Rida then left for Cairo, where Mohammed Abduh had settled. Rida became Abduh’s inseparable follower and founded the magazine Al-Manar to spread Abduh’s message. A message of reformism or Salafiyyah.

Al-Manar

Until his death, Rida edited his magazine, writing most of the articles himself. He also published numerous other religious works. As with Al-Afghani and Abduh, his central target was the ‘umma’ (community of Muslims) and he marveled at the relative decline of the Islamic world compared to the Western world. He saw the causes of this in medieval additions such as the veneration of Sufi saints. He encouraged reformist ulema to focus on a pure Islam, a return to the Quran and the Sunna and reinterpreting them for the current modern era.

Initially, Rida turned against the conservative ulema, but as he grew older , he began to see the danger mainly in liberal nationalism and secularism. The king of Saudi Arabia Ibn Saud began to support him financially.

Politics

Rida also entered the political arena. He lived in Istanbul for a year to set up a school for Islamic propaganda and leadership there, with the help of the Young Turks. When the authorities changed their mind, he returned to Cairo and set up his school there. World War 1, however, ensured that it only had a short life.

Caliphate

When Ataturk abolished the sultanate and caliphate, articles appeared in Al-Manar about the caliphate and the possibility of establishing a new Arab caliphate. Rida interfered in the caliphal congresses in Mecca and Cairo, which nominated King Abu Saoud and King Fuad respectively for the caliphate. Both without success.

Influence

Unlike his predecessors Al-Afghani and Abduh and his successor Al-Banna, Rashid Rida was not a charismatic figure. Al-Banna, however, was a great admirer of Rida, he had great respect for his activism and straightforward interpretation of Sharia. Rida’s works are only sporadically read today. However, Rida is an essential link in the chain of Islamic activism.