Bahai-salafiyya

The thesis places `Abdul-Baha `Abbas (1844-1921) and Muhammad `Abduh (1849-1905) in the context of the 19th century Middle East. It comprises a comparative intellectual biography of these two figures and follows their intellectual and religious developments from their formative years until their deaths. It investigates how they responded to political events in the Middle East and participated in debates on the reform of Islam and the modernisation of Muslim societies. `Abdul-Baha was the son of Mirza Husayn `Ali Nuri Baha'ullah (1817-1892), the founder of the Baha'i Faith. `Abdul-Baha followed his father into exile from Iran to the Ottoman Empire and later became head of the nascent Baha'i movement, supervising its spread to Europe and North America. Muhammad `Abduh was one of the most prominent Muslim reformers in the 19`h century. He received a traditional religious education at al-Azhar in Cairo and under the tutelage of his mentor Jamalud- Din al-Afghani (1838-1897) turned into a political activist. At the end of his life, he undertook a modernist reinterpretation of the Islamic tradition and became one of the initiators of the Salafiyya movement. The thesis argues against the assumption that these two figures represent two extremely opposite expressions of Islamic religiosity. While one would classify `Abdul- Baha, leader of a messianic movement which claims to depart from Islam, as an exponent of religious heresy in Islam, `Abduh is perceived as an orthodox Sunni reformer. However, a comparative study reveals that they share a common intellectual and religious background in traditions of religious dissidence in Islam. This shared background allowed them to oppose the religious and political establishment of their time and to undertake a reinterpretation of Islam. But once they reached the zenith of their respective careers, they had to reconsider their origins in heretical and dissident traditions of Islam. Whereas `Abduh dissociated himself from this background and modelled himself as a Sunni reformer, `Abdul-Baha radicalised the heretical nature of his father's movement and initiated the complete departure of the Baha'i movement from Islam.