European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

IMAGES OF EUROPE: THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE ISLAMIC PEOPLE. FROM ... 259All these modernizing methods formed part of the project to build aNation-State, and therefore an autonomous one in the Ottoman Empire 8 ,which was accompanied by an initial Egyptian national movement.On the other hand, the Salafi reformist movement attempted todemonstrate that although Islam, in essence, is not opposed toprogress, it was necessary to recover once again its true spirit whichhad been blurred and contaminated through centuries of reinterpretation.Their proposal was to liberalise the personal efforts of interpretationof the Islamic texts (iytihad), even rejecting some principlesconsidered outdated for modernity, in order to build, in the name ofsocial utility 9 , a modern society without denying the cultural andreligious legacy of Islam.This would mean renewing the political-religious institution thathad prevailed up till then, the Caliphate, but reactivating some politicalconcepts like the “shura”, or consultation, which were linked to thecreation of new representative institutions, Majlis, or Parliaments, usingEurope as a model 10 .Muhammad ‘Abdu was the great theoretician of the first Salafigeneration. His master, Yamal al-Din al-Afgani (1839-1897), advocateda Muslim reformist political movement from which the Salafiya arose.Al-Afgani saw profound changes in the relations between Europe andthe Muslim world: the crisis in the Orient from 1875-1878, whichdemonstrated that the European powers could penetrate to the core ofthe Ottoman Empire while progressively occupying North Africa(Algiers in 1830, Tunis in 1881 and Egypt in 1882). The Europeanthreat placed the “Umma” in danger given that without unitarypolitical power it ran the risk of disappearing altogether.In light of this, al-Afgani proposed the need for a show of Muslimsolidarity in the “umma”, a solidarity to be based on the desire to livetogether in a community and work towards its well being, which wouldallow them to resist European intervention. For him, the cause of theMuslim downfall was their lack of cohesion, and he accused theauthorities that be of being incapable of achieving unity and affirmed thatdespotism was the true enemy of an Islam which preached consultation 11 .8Mantran, R (ed) (1989) Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman. Paris, Fayard.9Abd-al Malik, A. (1969) Idéologie et renaissance national. L’Egypte Moderne. Paris,A. Colin.10Mamad ‘Ali’s pioneering government in 1829 and the “Supreme Assembly ofTunis” between 1861 and 1864, were representative of these political reforms.11Kedourie, E. (1966) Afghani and ‘Abduh. An essay on religious unbelief politicalactivism in Modern Islam. London, p. 78 and following pages.