Mustafa

MustafaThanks to such idealistic calls, and also the pragmatic need to keep the multi-religious empire intact, the Ottoman State, the very seat of the Muslim Caliphate, realized very important reforms in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The powers of the sultan were limited by law, while citizen's rights were guaranteed. Non-Muslim peoples of the empire, who used to be "protected" but unequal according to classical Islamic law, gained the status of equal citizenship. The Ottomans accepted a liberal constitution in 1876, and then elected a parliament, which welcomed many Greek, Armenian or Jewish deputies, along with Turkish, Arab or Albanian ones. In the same era, the Arab intelligentsia was also living what Arab historian Albert Hourani called "the liberal age.


One of the prominent reformists, the Egyptian scholar Muhammad Abduh, who traveled in Europe, famously said that in Paris he saw "Islam without Muslims," and on his return to Egypt he saw "Muslims without Islam." He felt, in other words, that all the good things Muslim societies should have were in the West but not in Islamdom. He and his followers were only proud that Islam did not share Europe's virulent anti-Semitism, which then was rampant in countries such as France. Most of these late 19th or early 20th century Muslim liberals -- who are commonly known as "Islamic modernists


looked back at the formative centuries of Islam, and discovered some liberal themes buried under the weight of stagnant traditions. First of all, they found tolerant references in the Quran -- verses declaring, "there is no compulsion in religion." Besides, they noticed that some of the troubling hadiths (sayings attributed to Prophet Muhammad) might not be authentic, and could be representing only the misogyny and the bigotry of some medieval men. They, therefore, wanted to re-read the Quran in the light of the modern age.

Mustafa