Islamic modernism

History of Modernism

Origins

According to Henri Lauzière, during the second half of the 19th century numerous Muslim reformers began efforts to reconcile Islamic values with the social and intellectual ideas of the Age of Enlightenment by purging (what they believed to be) alterations from Islam and adhering to the basic tenets of Islam held during the Rashidun era. Their movement is regarded as the precursor to Islamic Modernism. According to Voll, when faced with new ideas or conflicts with their faith Muslims operated in three different ways: adaptation, conservation, and literalism. Similarly, when juxtaposed with the modern European notion of reformation, which primarily entails the alignment of conventional doctrines with Protestant and Enlightenment principles, it led to the emergence of two contrasting and symbiotic camps within the Muslim sphere: adaptionist modernists and literal fundamentalists. Modernists, in their divergence from traditionalist reformers, denied their work or objectives were in any way a “reform" of Islam. Conversely, fundamentalists, driven by their Eurocentric convictions, perceive any semblance of reform as bidah, forbidden innovation, and inherently against Islam.

Mansoor Moaddel argues that modernism tended to develop in an environment where "pluralism" prevailed and rulers stayed out of religious and ideological debates and disputes. In contrast, Islamic fundamentalism thrived in "bureaucratic authoritarian" states where rulers controlled the means of cultural production, (even though they may have opposed fundamentalism).

Ottoman Tanzimat

Islamic modernist discourse emerged as an intellectual movement in the second quarter of nineteenth century; during an era of wide-ranging reforms initiated across the Ottoman Empire known as the Tanzimat (1839–1876 C.E). The movement sought to harmonise classical Islamic theological concepts with liberal constitutional ideas and advocated the reformulation of religious values in light of drastic social, political and technological changes. Intellectuals like Namık Kemal (1840–1888 C.E.) called for popular sovereignty and "natural rights" of citizens. Major scholarly figures of this movement included the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Hassan al-Attar (d. 1835), Ottoman Vizier Mehmed Emin Âli Pasha (d. 1871), South Asian philosopher Sayyid Ahmad Khan (d. 1898), and Jamal al-Din Afghani (d. 1897). Inspired by their understanding of classical Islamic thought, these rationalist scholars regarded Islam as a religion compatible with Western philosophy and modern science.

At least one branch of Islamic Modernism began as an intellectual movement during the Tanzimat era and was part of the Ottoman constitutional movement and newly emerging patriotic trends of Ottomanism during the mid-19th century. It advocated for novel redefinitions of Ottoman imperial structure, bureaucratic reforms, implementing liberal constitution, centralisation, parliamentary system and was supportive of the Young Ottoman movement. Although modernist activists agreed with the conservative Ottoman clergy in emphasising the Muslim character of the empire, they also had fierce disputes with them. While the Ottoman clerical establishment called for Muslim unity through the preservation of the dynastic authority and unquestionable allegiance to the Ottoman Sultan; modernist intellectuals argued that imperial unity was better served through parliamentary reforms and enshrining equal treatment of all Ottoman subjects; Muslim and non-Muslim. The modernist elites frequently invoked religious slogans to gain support for cultural and educational efforts as well as their political efforts to unite the Ottoman empire under a secular constitutional order.

On the other hand, Salafiyya movement emerged as an independent revivalist trend in Syria amongst the scholarly circles of scripture-oriented Damascene ulema during the 1890s. Although Salafis shared many of the socio-political grievances of the modernist activists, they held different objectives from both the modernist and the wider constitutionalist movements. While the Salafis opposed the autocratic policies of the Sultan Abdul Hamid II and the Ottoman clergy; they also intensely denounced the secularising and centralising tendencies of Tanzimat reforms brought forth by the Constitutionalist activists, accusing them of emulating Europeans.

Spread

Eventually the modernist intellectuals formed a secret society known as Ittıfak-ı Hamiyet (Patriotic Alliance) in 1865; which advocated political liberalism and modern constitutionalist ideals of popular sovereignty through religious discourse. During this era, numerous intellectuals and social activists like Muhammad Iqbal (1877–1938 C.E.) and Egyptian Nahda figure Rifa'a al-Tahtawi (1801–1873). introduced Western ideological themes and ethical notions into local Muslim communities and religious seminaries.

India

Away from the Ottoman Empire in British India Syed Ahmad Khan (1817–1898) was "the first of the modernist thinkers to have a substantial impact upon the Muslim world at large. He founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh with the intent of producing "an educated elite of Muslims able to compete successfully with Hindus for jobs in the Indian administration". The college provided both training in the "European arts and sciences" and "traditional Islamic studies". He sought to "reconcile the contradictions between Islam as traditionally understood and the modern sciences he so much admired."

Iran

In Iran, Islamic modernism developed as a strand of religious reformist thought in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through attempts to reconcile Islamic principles with constitutional government. In the late 19th century, Yousuf Khan Mostashar al-Dowleh drew on the Qur'an and Hadith to argue for the compatibility of Islam with equality, liberty, and important provisions of the French constitution. During the Constitutional Revolution of 1905–1911, Islamic modernist and reformist figures observed the compatibility of Islam with constitutionalism, with Muhammad Hussain Naini and Muhammad Kazim Khurasani supporting political innovations including representative government, elections, and parliament. In the 20th century, Iranian Islamic reformism was further developed by figures such as Mehdi Bazargan, Ali Shariati, Morteza Motahhari, and Mahmoud Taleghani, who pursued new interpretations of Islam in response to modern political and social conditions.

Egypt

The theological views of the Azharite scholar Muhammad 'Abduh (d. 1905) were greatly shaped by the 19th century Ottoman intellectual discourse. Similar to the early Ottoman modernists, Abduh tried to bridge the gap between Enlightenment ideals and traditional religious values. He believed that classical Islamic theology was intellectually vigorous and portrayed Kalam (speculative theology) as a logical methodology that demonstrated the rational spirit and vitality of Islam. Key themes of modernists would eventually be adopted by the Ottoman clerical elite who underpinned liberty as a basic Islamic principle. Portraying Islam as a religion that exemplified national development, human societal progress and evolution; Ottoman Shaykh al-Islam Musa Kazim Efendi (d. 1920) wrote in his article "Islam and Progress" published in 1904 that "the religion of Islam is not an obstacle to progress. On the contrary, it is that which commands and encourages progress; it is the very reason for progress itself."

Commencing in the late nineteenth century and impacting the twentieth-century, Muhammed Abduh and his followers undertook an educational and social project to defend, modernize and revitalize Islam to match Western institutions and social processes. Its most prominent intellectual founder, Muhammad Abduh (d. 1323 AH/1905 CE), was Sheikh of Al-Azhar University for a brief period before his death. This project superimposed the world of the nineteenth century on the extensive body of Islamic knowledge that had accumulated in a different milieu.

These efforts had little impact at first. After Abduh's death, his movement was catalysed by the demise of the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 and promotion of secular liberalism – particularly with a new breed of writers being pushed to the fore including Egyptian Ali Abd al-Raziq's publication attacking Islamic politics for the first time in Muslim history. Subsequent secular writers of this trend including Farag Foda, al-Ashmawi, Muhamed Khalafallah, Taha Husayn, Husayn Amin, et al., have argued in similar tones.

Abduh was skeptical towards many Ahadith (or "Traditions"). Particularly towards those Traditions that are reported through few chains of transmission, even if they are deemed rigorously authenticated in any of the six canonical books of Hadith (known as the Kutub al-Sittah). Furthermore, he advocated a reassessment of traditional assumptions even in Hadith studies, though he did not devise a systematic methodology before his death.

Ibn Ashur's Maqasid al-Sharia

Tunisian Maliki scholar Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur (1879–1973 C.E) who rose to the position of chief judge at Zaytuna University was a major student of Muhammad 'Abduh. He met 'Abduh in 1903 during his visit to Tunisia and thereafter became a passionate advocate of 'Abduh's modernist vision. He called for a revamping of the educational curriculum and became noteworthy for his role in revitalising the discourse of Maqasid al-Sharia (Higher Objectives of Islamic Law) in scholarly and intellectual ciricles. Ibn Ashur authored the book Maqasid al-Shari'ah al-Islamiyyah in 1946 which was widely accepted by modernist intellectuals and writers. In his treatise, Ibn Ashur called for a legal theory that is flexible towards 'urf (local customs) and adopted contextualised approach towards re-interpretation of hadiths based on applying the principle of Maqasid (objectives).

Decline

After its peak during the early 20th century, the modernist movement would gradually decline after the Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the 1920s and eventually lost ground to conservative reform movements such as Salafism. Following the First World War, Western colonialism of Muslim lands and the advancement of secularist trends; Islamic reformers felt betrayed by the Arab nationalists and underwent a crisis.

Islamism

This schism was epitomised by the ideological transformation of Sayyid Rashid Rida, a pupil of 'Abduh, who began to resuscitate the treatises of Hanbali theologian Ibn Taymiyyah and became the "forerunner of Islamist thought" by popularising his ideals. His impulse reached its peak in the aftermath of World War I, when he published al-Khilafa aw al-Imama al-'Uzma (The Caliphate or the Supreme Imamate) in 1923, proposing comprehensive pan-Islamism, calling upon Muslims to gather under their shared faith and shun emerging nationalist movements. Rida also stressed the importance of Arab leadership in unifying Muslim ranks.

Unlike 'Abduh and Afghani, Rida and his disciples susbcribed to the Hanbali theology. They would openly campaign against adherents of other schools, like the Shi'ites, who they considered deviant. Rida transformed the Reformation into a puritanical movement that advanced Muslim identitarianism, pan-Islamism and preached the superiority of Islamic culture while attacking Westernisation. One of the major hallmarks of Rida's movement was his advocacy of a theological doctrine that obligated the establishment of an Islamic state led by the Ulema (Islamic scholars).

Rida's fundamentalist/Islamist doctrines would later be adopted by Islamic scholars and Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood. According to the German scholar Bassam Tibi, "Rida's Islamic fundamentalism has been taken up by the Muslim Brethren, a right wing radical movement founded in 1928, which has ever since been in inexorable opposition to secular nationalism."

Contemporary Era

Contemporary Muslim modernism is characterised by its emphasis on the doctrine of Maqasid al-sharia to navigate the currents of modernity and address issues related to international human rights. Another aspect is its promotion of Fiqh al-Aqalliyat (minority jurisprudence) during the late 20th century to answer the challenges facing the growing Muslim minority populations in the West. Islamic scholar Abdullah Bin Bayyah, professor of Islamic studies at King Abdul Aziz University in Jiddah, is one of the major proponents of Fiqh al-Aqalliyat and advocates remodelling the legal system based on the principles of Maqasid al-Sharia to suit the sensitivities of the modern era.

Influence on Revivalist movements

Salafiyya movement

Origins

The modernist movement led by Jamal Al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad 'Abduh, Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur, Syed Ahmad Khan, and to a lesser extent Mohammed al-Ghazali; shared some of the ideals of the conservative revivalist Wahhabi movement, such as endeavoring to "return" to the Islamic understanding of the first Muslim generations (Salaf) by reopening the doors of juristic deduction (ijtihad) that they saw as closed.

The connection between modernists and Salafists is disputed, with various academics asserting there never really was one. There are those scholars maintain that they used to share the "salafi" designation, but nothing else (Oxford Bibliographies, Quintan Wiktorowicz); or that modernists "al-Afghani and Abduh were hardly Salafis to begin with" (Henri Lauziere); or contrary to that, call Al-Afghani, Abduh, and Rida founders of Salafiyya and go on to describe their creation without ever mentioning modernism (Olivier Roy). Those that believe they did have the same ancestors (a view propagated in early 20th century by French Orientalist Louis Massignon), do not always agree on what happened: Salafists starting out on the side of "enlightenment and modernity" and "inexplicably" turned against these virtues and to puritanism (World News Research); or the term "Salafist" was coined by Rashid Rida, a student of Abduh, who later distanced himself from Abduh's teachings in favor of puritanism but was appropriated by one Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani, so that the world now associates it with al-Albani and his disciples but not with Rida his movement (Ammaar Yasir Qadhi); or that it was Muhammad ʿAbduh and Rida who established "enlightened Salafiyya" (modernism) and it was Rashid Rida (no mention of al-Albani) who incrementally transformed it into the Wahhabi-friendly Salafiyya we know today (Raihan Ismail). In any case, it is generally agreed that in the early 21st century, conservative Salafi Muslims see their movement as understanding "the injunctions of the sacred texts in their most literal traditional sense", looking up to Ibn Taymiyya rather than 19th century Reformers.

Olivier Roy describes the characteristics of the 19th-century movement of the likes of Al-Afghani and Abduh as rejection of cultural themes (adat, urf), rejection of maraboutism (belief in the powers of intervention of those blessed with divine charisma, or barakah), and opposition to rapprochement with other religions. These were standard fundamentalist reformist doctrines. Where Salafists were different was in their rejection of the tradition of the ulama (Islamic clergy), the ulama's "body of additions and extensions" to the Sunnah and Quran: the tafsir commentary on the Quran, the four legal schools of madhahib, philosophy, culture, etc. Salafiyya were traditional in their politics or lack thereof, and unlike later Islamists "made no wholesale condemnations of existing Muslim governments". Issues of governance they were interested in were application of sharia and the reconstitution of the ummah (Muslim community), and particularly with the restoration of the caliphate. Yasir Qadhi argues that modernism only influenced Salafism. According to Quintan Wiktorowicz:

There has been some confusion in recent years because both the Islamic modernists and the contemporary Salafis refer (referred) to themselves as al-salafiyya, leading some observers to erroneously conclude a common ideological lineage. The earlier salafiyya (modernists), however, were predominantly rationalist Asharis.

Similarly, Oxford Bibliographies distinguishes between the early Islamic modernists, such as Muhammad Abdu who used the term "Salafiyya", for example to refer to their attempt at renovation of Islamic thought, and the very different, more purist, and traditional Salafiyya of movements, such as Ahl-i Hadith and Wahhabism, among others. Both groups wanted to strip away taqlid (imitation) of post-Salaf doctrine they thought not truly Islamic, but for different reasons. Modernists thought taqlid prevented the Muslims from flourishing because it got in the way of compatibility with the modern world, traditional revivalists simply because (they believed) it was impure. What was needed was not reinterpretation but a religious revival of pure Islam. Muhammad 'Abduh and his movement have sometimes been referred to as "Neo-Mu'tazilites" because his ideas are congruent to the Mu'tazila school of theology. Abduh himself denied being either Ash'ari or a Mu'tazilite, although only because he rejected strict taqlid (conformity) to any one group. After World War I, some Western scholars, such as Louis Massignon categorising many scripture-oriented rationalist scholars and modernists as part of the paradigm of "Salafiyya"; other scholars dispute this description.

Revivalism

The rise of pan-Islamism across the Muslim World after the First World War and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, would herald the emergence of Salafi religious purism that fervently opposed modernist trends. The anti-colonial struggle to restore the Khilafah would become the top priority; manifesting in the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood, a revolutionary movement established in 1928 by the Egyptian school teacher Hassan al-Banna. Backed by the Wahhabi clerical elites of Saudi Arabia, Salafis who advocated pan-Islamist religious conservatism emerged across the Muslim World, gradually replacing modernists during the decolonisation period, and then dominating funding for Islam via petroleum export money starting in the 1970s. According to Abu Ammaar Yasir Qadhi:

Rashid Rida popularized the term 'Salafī' to describe a particular movement that he spearheaded. That movement sought to reject the ossification of the madhhabs, and rethink through the standard issues of fiqh and modernity, at times in very liberal ways. A young scholar by the name of Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani read an article by Rida, and then took this term and used it to describe another, completely different movement. Ironically, the movement that Rida spearheaded eventually became Modernist Islam and dropped the 'Salafī' label, and the legal methodology that al-Albānī championed – with a very minimal overlap with Rida's vision of Islam – retained the appellation 'Salafī'. Eventually, al-Albānī's label was adopted by the Najdī daʿwah as well, until it spread in all trends of the movement. Otherwise, before this century, the term 'Salafī' was not used as a common label and proper noun. Therefore, the term 'Salafī' has attached itself to an age-old school of theology, the Atharī school.

Islamic revivalists, such as Mahmud Shukri Al-Alusi (1856–1924 C.E), Muhammad Rashid Rida (1865–1935 C.E), and Jamal al-Din al-Qasimi (1866–1914 C.E), used Salafiyya as a term primarily to denote the traditionalist Sunni theology, Atharism. Rida also regarded the Wahhabi movement as part of the Salafiyya trend. Apart from the Wahhabis of Najd, Athari theology could also be traced back to the Alusi family in Iraq, Ahl-i Hadith in India, and scholars such as Rashid Rida in Egypt. After 1905, Rida steered his reformist programme towards the path of fundamentalist counter-reformation. This tendency led by Rida emphasized following the salaf al-salih and became known as the Salafiyya movement, which advocated a re-generation of pristine religious teachings of the early Muslim community. According to Dallal's interpretation, for Rida, revival and reform were not a function of the quality of the thought of the reformer, nor the extent of reception of the reformer's ideas; rather, a reformer's sphere of influence might be any "large or small locality," and the criterion for judging his views is solely the extent to which these ideas are needed at a particular point in time. He links it to Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab being offered stands on the same footing (and in the same paragraph) with that of Shawkani in Rida's list of revivers. This outlook diminishes the significance of a reformer's ideas having universal value beyond their local origins. Furthermore, the intellectual merit of these ideas becomes of secondary importance in Rida's framework.

The progressive views of the early modernists Afghani and Abduh were soon replaced by the puritan Athari tradition espoused by their students; which zealously denounced the ideas of non-Muslims and secular ideologies like liberalism. This theological transformation was led by Syed Rashid Rida who adopted the strict Athari creedal doctrines of Ibn Taymiyyah during the early twentieth century. The Salafiyya movement popularised by Rida would advocate for an Athari-Wahhabi theology. Their promotion of Ijtihad was based on referring back to a strictly textual methodology. Its traditionalist vision was adopted by the Wahhabi clerical establishment and championed by influential figures such as the Syrian-Albanian Hadith scholar Muhammad Nasiruddin al-Albani (d. 1999 C.E/ 1420 A.H).

As a scholarly movement, "Enlightened Salafism" had begun declining some time after the death of Muhammad ʿAbduh in 1905. The puritanical stances of Rashid Rida, accelerated by his support to the Wahhabi movement; transformed Salafiyya movement incrementally and became commonly regarded as "traditional Salafism". The divisions between "Enlightened Salafis" inspired by ʿAbduh, and traditional Salafis represented by Rashid Rida and his disciples would eventually exacerbate. Gradually, the modernist Salafis became totally disassociated from the "Salafi" label in popular discourse and would identify as tanwiris (enlightened) or Islamic modernists. This is how Rida including his lineage of teachers, Abduh and Afghani, pioneered a Protestant styled reform in the late 19th and early 20th century Muslim world as Afghani always aspired for. They recognized the challenges posed by imperialism but sought integration into the modern European era. They redefined Islamic values and institutions to adapt to the changing times while emphasizing historical precedents to legitimize European institutions with an Islamic touch.

Muslim Brotherhood

Islamist movements like Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwān al-Muslimūn) were highly influenced by both Islamic Modernism and Salafism. Its founder Hassan Al-Banna was influenced by Muhammad Abduh and particularly his Salafi student Rashid Rida. Al-Banna attacked the taqlid of the official ulama and insisted only the Qur'an and the best-attested ahadith should be sources of the Sharia. He was a dedicated reader of the writings of Rashid Rida and the magazine that Rida published, Al-Manar. Sharing Rida's central concern with the decline of Islamic civilization, Al-Banna too believed that this trend could be reversed only by returning to a pure, unadulterated form of Islam. Like Rida, (and unlike the Islamic modernists) Al-Banna viewed Western secular ideas as the main danger to Islam in the modern age. The Brotherhood moved gradually in a traditionalist and conservative direction as Islamic Modernist beliefs were co-opted by secularist rulers and official `ulama, and as the group became "the only available outlet" for pious Muslims "whose religious and cultural sensibilities" were outraged by "the impact of Westernisation". The Brotherhood argued for a Salafist solution to the contemporary challenges faced by the Muslims, advocating the establishment of an Islamic state through implementation of the Shari'ah, based on Salafi revivalism.

Although the Muslim Brotherhood officially describes itself as a Salafi movement, the Quietist Salafis often contest its Salafist credentials. The Brotherhood differs from more purist salafis in their strategy for combating the challenge of modernity, and is focused on gaining control of the government. Despite this, both the Brotherhood and more thorough-going Salafists advocate the implementation of sharia and emphasizes strict doctrinal adherence to the Quran and Sunnah and the Salaf al-Salih. The Salafi-Activists who have a long tradition of political involvement; are highly active in Islamist movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and its various branches and affiliates. Some Brotherhood's slogans and principles expressed by former Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi includes "the Koran is our constitution, the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings upon him, is our leader, jihad is our path, and death for the sake of Allah is our most lofty aspiration ... sharia, sharia, and then finally sharia. This nation will enjoy blessing and revival only through the Islamic sharia."

Islamic modernists

Although not all of the figures named below are from the above-mentioned movement, they all share a more or less modernist thought or/and approach.

• Muhammad Abduh (Egypt)
• Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (Afghanistan or Persia/Iran)
• Muhammad al-Tahir ibn Ashur (Tunisia)
• Chiragh Ali (British India)
• Syed Ameer Ali (British India)
• Qasim Amin (Egypt)
• Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Turkey)
• Malek Bennabi (Algeria)
• Musa Jarullah Bigeev (Russia)
• Ahmad Dahlan (Indonesia)
• Farag Fawda (neomodernist) (Egypt)
• Abdulrauf Fitrat (Uzbekistan, then Russia)
• Muhammad Iqbal (British India)
• Wang Jingzhai (China)
• Muhammad Ahmad Khalafallah (Egypt)
• Syed Ahmad Khan (British India)
• Shibli Nomani (British India)
• Ğäbdennasír İbrahim ulı Qursawí (Russia)
• Mahmoud Shaltout (Egypt)
• Ali Shariati (Iran)
• Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (neomodernist) (Sudan)
• Rifa'a al-Tahtawi (Egypt)
• Mahmud Tarzi (Afghanistan)

Contemporary Modernists

• Mohammed Arkoun (Algeria)
• Khaled Abou El Fadl (United States)
• Gamal al-Banna (Egypt)
• Soheib Bencheikh (France)
• Abdennour Bidar (France)
• Taha Hussein (Egypt)
• Wahiduddin Khan (India)
• Irshad Manji (Canada)
• Abdelwahab Meddeb (France)
• Mahmoud Mohammed Taha (Sudan)
• Ebrahim Moosa (South Africa)
• Tariq Ramadan (Switzerland)
• Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri (Pakistan)
• Amina Wadud (United States)
• Mehdi Bazargan (Iran)

Contemporary use

Turkey

In 2008, the state directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) for the Republic of Turkey launched the review of all the Ahadith. The school of theology at Ankara University undertook this forensic examination with the aim of removing the centuries-old conservative cultural burden and rediscovering the spirit of reason in the original message of Islam. Fadi Hakura of Chatham House in London compared these revisions to the 16th century Protestant Reformation of Christianity. Turkey has also trained women as theologians, and sent them as senior Imams known as 'vaizes' all over the country, to explain these re-interpretations.

Pakistan

According to Charles Kennedy, in Pakistan as of 1992 the range of views on the "appropriate role of Islam" runs from "Islamic Modernists" at one end of the spectrum to "Islamic activists" at the other. "Islamic activists" support the expansion of "Islamic law and Islamic practices", "Islamic Modernists" are unenthusiastic to this expansion and "some may even advocate development along the secularist lines of the West".

Muhammadiyah

The Indonesian Islamic organization Muhammadiyah was founded in 1912. Often described as Salafist, and sometimes as Islamic modernist, it emphasized the authority of the Qur'an and the Hadiths, opposing syncretism and taqlid (blind-conformity) to the ulema. As of 2006, it is said to have "veered sharply toward a more conservative brand of Islam" under the leadership of Din Syamsuddin, the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council.

Criticism

Because of its association with Westernization and Western education, as modernism arose in the late 19th century (in areas such as India and under leaders such as Syed Ahmad Khan), it was opposed vigorously as bid'ah and "the most dangerous heresy of the day" by Muslim scholars (ulama), (although some orthodox/traditionalist Muslims, particularly Sunni Salafis, also sought to return to the purity of the Qur'an and the Sunnah and to give the Ijma/consensus of the salaf, precedence over allegedly "later religious interpretations").

One of the leading Islamist thinkers and Islamic revivalists, Abul A'la Maududi agreed with Islamic modernists that Islam contained nothing contrary to reason, and was superior in rational terms to all other religious systems. However, he disagreed with them in their examination of the Quran and the Sunna using reason as the standard. Maududi, instead started from the proposition that "true reason is Islamic", and accepted the Book and the Sunna, not reason, as the final authority. Modernists erred in examining rather than simply obeying the Quran and the Sunna.

Scholar Malise Ruthven argues that the belief "integral" to at least one prominent modernist, Muhammad Abduh—namely that the basic revealed truths of Islam and the observable, rational truths of science must "in the final analysis be identical"—is problematic. She claims this notion is "based on the essentially medieval premise that science, like scripture itself is a finite body of knowledge awaiting revelation", when in fact science is "a dynamic process of discovery subject to continual revision". The establishment of non-religious institutions of learning in India, Egypt and elsewhere, which Abduh encouraged, "opened the floodgates to secular forces which threatened Islam's intellectual foundations".

Advocates of political Islam argue that, insofar as Modernism seeks to separate Islam and politics, it is adopting the Christian and secular principle of "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" despite politics being inherent to Islam, which encompasses every aspect of life. Some, (Hizb ut-Tahrir for example), claim that in Muslim political jurisprudence, philosophy and practice, the Caliphate is the correct Islamic form of government, and that it has "a clear structure comprising a Caliph, assistants (mu'awinoon), governors (wulaat), judges (qudaat) and administrators (mudeeroon)."