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Title Recovering the History of Modernist Islam
Full text http://hdl.handle.net/1887/16866
Date 2003
Author(s) Kurzman, C.
Abstract In 1903, Duncan Black Macdonald (1863-1943), a prominent early scholar of Islam in the United States, wrote that Islam does not allow constitutionalism because the caliph 'cannot set up beside himself a constitutional assembly and give it rights against himself. He is the successor of Muhammad and must rule, within [divine] limitations, as an absolute monarch.' Yet within a few years of that statement, some of the leading scholars of the Islamic world were arguing exactly the contrary. Muhammad ' Abduh (Egypt, 1849-1905) - the highest-ranking religious official in Egypt - wrote privately in 1904 that he supported a parliamentary democracy. In 1908, Mehmed Cemaleddin Efendi (Turkey, 1848-1917) - the chief religious authority of the Ottoman Empire, appointed directly by the caliph - said that he too supported constitutionalism. Also in 1908, two senior scholars of Shi'i Islam telegraphed their support at a crucial moment in Iran's Constitutional Revolution: 'We would like to know if it would be possible to execute Islamic provisions without a constitutional regime!'
Subject(s) History
Language en_US
Publisher ISIM, Leiden
Type of publication Article / Letter to editor
Format 101843 bytes; application/pdf
Source 12; 1; 32; 33; 2; ISIM Newsletter
Repository Leiden - University of Leiden
Added to C-A: 2012-02-14;15:06:58