Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā's Reformist Project to Establish a True Caliphate

Chapter 3 Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā’s Reformist Project to Establish a True Caliphate: Prospects and Challenges Ahmed Ibrahim Abushouk 1 Introduction Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (1865–1935) was the most prominent and active sup- porter of the Ottoman caliphate in its last three decades of existence. The primary objective of his reformist project was to support the caliphate in its struggle against European colonialism and the nationalist movements that had emerged in several Muslim countries. The present contribution endeavours to examine Riḍā’s reformist project with reference to his role as a conservative Sunnī jurist (al-faqīh al-sunnī al-muḥāfiẓ), who was much concerned with the unity of the Muslim umma (community) and its independence vis-à-vis the growing threat of European imperialism and Arab nationalism, and how these concerns affected his theological priorities. The contribution starts with a survey of the available literature on Riḍā’s reformist project dealing with the caliphate. The second part focusses on the socio-political and intellectual world into which Riḍā was born, received his education, and began his career as a journalist—in Beirut, before leaving for Cairo in 1897. The third part highlights the features of Riḍā’s reformist project and the phases of its development and modification in light of the political crisis that occurred before and continued after the separation of the Ottoman sultanate and the caliphate in 1922. Finally, the analysis examines the political challenges that faced Riḍā’s reformist project and his political stance towards the ruling authority in Istanbul and his political rivals in the Arab region. 2 State of Research Riḍā’s reformist project has received special attention from several scholars tackling it from different perspectives, covering Riḍā’s role as a journalist (Hamzah 2003 and 2013), political activist (Haddad 1997), and Muslim reformer (Skovgaard-Petersen 2001), and as a figure whose ideas influenced twentieth- © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ��9 | doi:�0.��63/978900438689�_004 <UN> 56 Abushouk century Muslim thinkers and politicians in developing a political philosophy of an Islamic state. The caliphate as an institution of governance remained at the core of his reformist project, which attempted to develop the caliphate of conquest (that is, the Ottoman caliphate) into a true caliphate. A few studies have addressed his reformist project with special emphasis on the concept of the caliphate, such as Mahmoud Haddad’s article “Arab Religious Nationalism in the Colonial Era: Reading Rashīd Riḍā’s Ideas on the Caliphate” (1997). Had- dad strikes a balance between Riḍā’s reformist text and the socio-political and intellectual setting in which the text was shaped. The merit of Haddad’s work is that he moves beyond the classical textual analysis by Malcom Kerr, which dealt with Riḍā’s reformist project from a legal and political standpoint in or- der to examine its success in reconciling medieval Islamic political thought with the requirements of modernity (Kerr 1966). Haddad scrutinises Riḍā’s thinking on the issue of the caliphate in the context of the four interrelated phases of his life, ranging from the period of Abdülhamid II’s rule (1876–1909) to the period after the abolition of the Ottoman caliphate in 1924 (Haddad 1997, 254). This approach enables Haddad to analyse Riḍā’s reformist project on the caliphate and the result of the separation of the two authorities (tempo- ral and spiritual). Apart from his thorough discussion, Haddad criticises Riḍā, arguing that he sacrificed his theological considerations, bowing to the political pressures of his time. However, this critique seems to pay little attention to the role of Riḍā as a conservative Sunnī jurist worried about the unity of the Muslim umma and the protection of the caliphate as a symbol of maintaining this unity. Another work relevant to the theme of this chapter is that of Hamid Enayat, titled Modern Islamic Political Thought (2001). One of its chapters is devoted to “The Concept of an Islamic State: Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā,” and in it the author builds his argument on the political crisis that emerged in the Muslim world after the separation of the sultanate and the caliphate in 1922. Enayat examines Riḍā’s treatise on the caliphate and emphasises that its author was torn between his support for the Ottoman caliphate “in the name of the Islamic universalism” and the demands of Arab nationalism, which dominated the Arab political landscape during the post-First World War period (Enayat 2001, 106). This hypothesis seems to have misled the author into seeing Riḍā’s preference for Arab nationalism, at a certain political juncture, as a departure from his commitment to an Islamic universalism that would establish an Arab-Islamic state under the leadership of an Arab caliph, to be headquartered in the Ḥijāz. A close reading of Riḍā’s reformist project does not support Enayat’s conclu- sion, in that Riḍā had remained “a pan-Islamist all his life, and even though he placed special emphasis on the Arabs’ role in Islam, he never was a regionalist <UN>.

Load more