Exposing some heretical thoughts of freemason reformer Muhammad Abduh (Abdoh)

47 - Before explaining the way taken by Sayyid Qutb, it will be useful to give some information about his adviser, Muhammad 'Abduh (1265/1849-1323/1905, Egypt). His articles in Al-waqayi' al-Misriyya, an Egyptian paper of his time, in the magazine Al-Manar and in the paper Al-Ahram reveal his heretical thoughts. He had some activities in Beirut for a while, too, but the Ahl as-Sunnat scholars perceived his evil purposes and he had to go to Paris. There, he cooperated with Jamal ad-din al-Afghani, who had been preparing the application of freemason plans against Islam, and they published the magazine Al-'urwat al-wuthqa. Then he returned to Beirut and Egypt, and began to apply the decisions made in Paris and to deceive the youth. The government of Khidiw Tawfiq Pasha, seeing that his lectures and articles were harmful, employed him in one of the offices of the law-court. But he continued trying to demolish Islam and to apply the masonic plans in all his writings. With the help of freemasons he became the Mufti of Cairo. He began to attack the Ahl as-Sunnat. As the first activity, he attempted to change the curriculum of the madrasa of Jami' al-Azhar, thus preventing the youth from valuable courses. He abrogated the university level courses. High and junior high school books were taught in the universities. Freemasons had already done the same thing in the Ottoman Empire; after the Tanzimat (a turning point in the Ottoman history marked by the political reforms in 1839), scientific courses had been abrogated from the madrasas and the religious education had been deprived of high-level courses. All these were done because Islam was established upon knowledge, without which and without any real religious man left Islam would get defiled. When there is no cloud, it will be to wish for miracles to expect rain. Allahu ta'ala is able to make this, but His Divine Custom is not so. Education of an Islamic scholar requires the reappearing and spreading of Islamic knowledge and the elapse of a hundred years. The enemies tried to extinguish the Islamic sun.

Hanna Abi Rashid, chief of the masonic lodge in Beirut, wrote: "Jamal ad-din al-Afghani was the chief of the masonic lodge in Egypt, which had about three hundred members, most of whom were scholars and state officials. After him, the leading master Muhammad 'Abduh became the chief. 'Abduh was a leading freemason. No one can deny that he has spread the masonic spirit in Arab countries." [Da'irat al-maarif al-masoniyya, p. 197, Beirut, 1381/1961.]

Seeing the reforms made by Muhammad 'Abduh, many people suppose that he was an Islamic scholar. The Ahl as-Sunnat scholars have written answers to his articles and torn up his mask. For example, Elmalili Hamdi Beg, in his interpretation of the surat al-Fil, displays some of his heresies, which can be outlined as follows:

1. Thinking that the wisdom and the religion were different from each other, he claimed to be the first man to unite them.

2. He said that the Islamic scholars before him had not studied logic, mathematics, history and geography, that it had been deemed as a sin to learn sciences, and that he would introduce these sciences into Islam. He denied that, for many centuries, these had been taught in every madrasa and that thousands of books had been written in these fields, thus he tried to put an end to the teaching of the Ahl as-Sunnat books and to spread the irreligious propagandas written by the enemies of Islam under the name of philosophy in Muslim countries. The opposition of the professors of Jami' al-Azhar to these propagandas was called "retrogression and enmity against knowledge, science and logic" by him.

3. He attacked against marrying four women in the official paper in 1297/1880.

4. He said that, before him, thousands of Islamic scholars had introduced into Islam things which had nothing to do with Islam, that they had gone wrong in understanding the Qur'an and Hadith, and that he had been correcting them.

5. In his book Islam and Christianity, he wrote that all religions were the same except being different only outwardly and recommended that Jews, Christians and Muslims support one another. He wrote to a priest in London, "I expect that the two great religions, Islam and Christianity, will shake hands and embrace each other. Then, by supporting one another the Torah, the Bible and the Qur'an will be read everywhere and will be revered by every nation." He believed that Christianity was a right religion and awaited the time when Muslims would read the Bible.

6. He said that the believers had abandoned the right path and fell into a bad situation, that the religion will shake hands with knowledge and then Allahu ta'ala would complete His Light. To him, Allahu ta'ala did not complete His religion in the time of our master Rasulullah (sall-Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) and Islamic scholars had not shaken hands with knowledge.

7. He wrote in his book Islam and Christianity, "If a person is heard to say a statement which shows his unbelief in a hundred respects and his belief in one respect, that person will be accepted as a believer. It is idiocy to think that any philosopher or man of idea would say a statement which does not show belief even in one respect though it shows unbelief in a hundred respects. Then, they all should be acknowledged as believers. The word 'zindiq' does not exist in Islam. It has been produced afterwards." Misrepresenting the rule, "One [sign of] belief in a statement of a Muslim who has not been seen openly to have a sign of unbelief will rescue him from unbelief," he accepted all unbelievers and philosophers to be believers. Because he himself was a zindiq, he did not like this word to be used. He denied the hadith, "Zindiqs among my umma will increase," which is written in Kunuz ad-daqaiq and ad-Dailami's Musnad.

8. In the interpretation of the ayat, "He who does goodness as heavy as a mote will get its reward certainly," of the surat az-Zilzal, he wrote: "Either be a Muslim or an unbeliever, everybody who does good deeds will enter Paradise." This wrong, unjust claim, which would be laughed at by the most ignorant and most block-headed people, has been admitted neither by his admirers nor even by the simpletons who have been following him. Sayyid Qutb, one of his strict followers, in his interpretation of the 124th ayat of the surat an-Nisa', had to say, "Master Muhammad 'Abduh does not ever remember the clearness of the ayats contradicting his thought. These ayats contradict 'Abduh's ideas." In fact, the dosage of the masonic opium which Abduh was made to swallow in Paris was so much that his mind and conscience were too upset to see the relations between the ayats.

9. In the interpretation of the surat al-'Asr, he said, "Iman does not mean an imitative belief in the things which mind and conscience cannot grasp. It is not of iman to memorize and say some words which one has heard from his parents. Islam is against imitation. It is of no value to have come before, so everything must be solved by one's investigation through reason." In his Risalat at-tawhid, [A compilation of his propagandas directed to the students of Al-madrasat as-Sultaniyya in Beirut in 1885, published a year after his death.] however, he wrote: "If reason cannot grasp something in the religion, it has to believe it," thus his words disagreed with each other.

10. Georgy Zaidan, the proprietor of the Hilal Publications in Egypt and author of The History of Islamic Civilization, wrote about 'Abduh, "Muhammad 'Abduh did not remain dependent upon the words of old scholars, nor did he esteem the rules put by them."

11. In the interpretation of the Fatiha, he wrote: "The Qur'an addressed the people living in that time [of its revelation] and it addressed them not because they were superior, but because they were human beings," thus he refused the hadiths about the superiority attained by as-Sahaba.

12. In an attempt to interpret the ayat, "The deed-books of fajirs are in Sijjin," he wrote: "I have seen in some people's books that 'senjun' means 'mud' in the Ethiopian language. This word has probably come to Yaman from Ethiopia. The ayat, then, means, 'The deeds of the fajirs are like mud.' " Disliking the interpretations of Rasulullah ('alaihi 's-salam), as-Sahabat al-kiram and of the profound Islamic scholars, he interpreted ayats depending on coincidence and probability.

13. When interpreting the surat al-Fil, he wrote, "The birds of Ababil may be mosquitos, so the soldiers possibly died of small-pox or measles." I wonder how he would interpret it if he came a hundred years later. Whereas, Rasulullah ('alaihi 's-salam) explained their meanings, and tafsir scholars found these meanings and wrote them in their books.

14. In the interpretation of the surat an-Nas, he wrote: "There is a devil in every person. But this means a power which bears the evil desires in man. It is an effect which is likened to genies." This poor man, who knew nothing about the books and knowledge of Islamic scholars, came forward with the claim that it was necessary to follow only the reason, knowledge and science, refused to follow a madhhab and attempted to adapt all the religious knowledge to the scientific discoveries and to philosophies of his time. Because he did not want to read the books of Islamic scholars and because he had not studied science, he wrote books on religion according to his short sight and to what he had heard. This shows that he knew nothing of kalam, fiqh and tasawwuf and that he had not tasted Islamic flavor. If he had understood the greatness of Islamic scholars and escaped the paws of his nafs, and if he had comprehended the inner nature of the matter and the spirit, he would not have said such incongruous things.

15. He wrote a commentary on the book Nahj al-balagha by Radi, who was the brother of 'Ali Murtada', a convert from the Jewish religion. This book, which caused faction among Muslims, had been commented on first by Ibn Abi 'l-Hadid 'Abd al-Hamid al-Mada'ini ash-Shii and then by another Shiite, Maisum al-Bahrani, Abduh's commentary was printed in Beirut in 1301 (1885).