Islamic Reformism and Conservatism

Muhammad [Abduh, the Egyptian modernist intellectual and Muslim religious scholar, is often credited with being at the forefront of the reformation of Sunni Islam. He and his fellow modernist-reformists are described as progressive and revolutionary whereas their opponents, the conservatives represented by the scholars of al-Azhar seminary, are painted as old-fashioned and intellectually stagnant. In her book Islamic Reformism and Conservatism: Al-Azhar and the Evolution of Modern Sunni Islam, Indira Falk Gesink presents a compelling revisionist historical study of the debates between the modernists and the conservatives in nineteenth century Egypt. She argues that historians of al- Azhar and modern Islamic history and thought have too readily accepted the modernists’ self-description and their polemical labelling of conservatives as ‘recalcitrant reactionaries and obstacles to progress’ (p. 2). She writes that while she does not necessarily endorse the views held by the conservatives, she wanted to ‘restore [their] voices’ to the account, particularly since ‘both Western and Muslim scholars [have] reproduced only the modernists’ side of the debate’ (p. 2).