Muhammad Rashid Rida ( 1865-1935 )

The Syro-Egyptian Islamic thinker Muhammad Rashid Rida ( 1865-1935 ) was influential in the revival movement of the nineteenth and early century that influenced and continue to influence Muslim youth . Rida was born in a village near Tripoli in Ottoman Syria . He studied at the National Islamic School in Tripoli , founded by Shaykh Husayn al-Jisr ( 1845-1909 ) . The curriculum offered both traditional subjects normally studied by the 'ulama' and some modern subjects like European languages and mathematics . In the urban setting of Tripoli , Rida rejected what he considered to be the un-Islamic practices of the Mawlawi sufi order , which had a center there . He insisted on the dignified simplicity of the religion of the village notables , and condemned both the elaborate rituals of the aristocrats and the ecstatic excesses of peasants and urban laborers . Rida's desire to reform religious practices of his time found expression when he joined the Naqshbandiyyah sufi order and decided to study with the pan- Islamist thinker Jamal ud-Din al-Afghani .

Upon al-Afghani's death , Rida went to Cairo to study with the al-Afghani's most eminent student , Muhammad `Abduh . `Abduh's father was the headman of a village in the Egyptian delta , and had sent his son to study at al-Azhar in 1896 .

Selected Bibliography

Nikki Keddie , Sayyid Jamal al-Din `Al-Afghani: A Political Biography , ( Berkeley: University of California Press , 1972 )

Nikki R . Keddie , An Islamic Response to Imperialism , Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al-Din `Al-Afghani , trans . Nikki R . Keddie and Hamid Algar ( Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press , 1968 )

Elie Kedourie , Afghani and`Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam ( London: Frank Cass and Co . , Ltd . , 1966 ) .

For Rida's life and thought see Malcolm H . Kerr , Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad `Abduh and Rashid Rida ( Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press , 1966 )

Albert Hourani , Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age . 1798-1939 ( London: Oxford University Press , 1970 , Chapter IX )

Ahmad ash-Sharabasi , Rashid Rida sahib al-Manar ( Cairo: Matabi` al-Ahram at- Tijariyyah , 1970 ) .