Islam and Modernity - Islam's First Encounters With European Modernity

Islam's First Encounters With European Modernity

In the 18th century Europe was undergoing major transformations as the new ideas of the Enlightenment, which stressed the importance of science, rationality, and human reason, and the new technologies of the Industrial Revolution were sweeping through much of Europe. This proved to be a turning point in world history as Europe began to gain power and influence. In the last quarter of the 18th century “the gap between the technical skills of some western and northern European countries and those of the rest of the world grew wider.”

The rise of modern Europe coincided with what many scholars refer to as the decline of the Ottoman Empire, which by the 18th century was facing political, military, and economic breakdown. While prior to the 18th century the Ottomans had regarded themselves to be either of superior or, by the mid-18th century, of equal strength to Europe, by the end of the 18th century the power relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Europe began to shift in Europe’s favor.

In 1798 the army of Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Ottoman province of Egypt. Although the occupation lasted only three years, it exposed the people of Egypt to the ideas of the Enlightenment and the new technology of Europe. The values of the European Enlightenment, which challenged the authority of religion, were alien to the local Muslim population. Al-Jabarti, a Muslim intellectual and theologian who witnessed the occupation, wrote critically of the French calling them “materialists, who deny all God’s attributes.”

Nevertheless, the exposure to European power and ideas would later inspire the new governor of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, to draw on European ideas and technology in order to modernize Egypt setting an example for the rest of the Ottoman Empire. From the end of the 18th century the Ottoman Empire began to open embassies and send officials to study in Europe. This created conditions for the “gradual formation of a group of reformers with a certain knowledge of the modern world and a conviction that the empire must belong to it or perish.”

One of the scholars sent by Muhammad Ali to Europe in 1826 was Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi. The five years he spent in Paris left a permanent mark on him. After his return to Egypt he wrote about his impressions of France and translated numerous European works into Arabic. Tahtawi was impressed with Europe’s technological and scientific advancement and political philosophy. Having studied Islamic law, he argued that “it was necessary to adapt the Sharia to new circumstances” and that there was not much difference between “the principles of Islamic law and those principles of ‘natural law’ on which the codes of modern Europe were based.”

Like Tahtawi, Khayr al- Din was also sent to Paris where he spent four years. After his return from Europe he wrote a book, in which he argued that the only way to strengthen the Muslim States was by borrowing ideas and institutions from Europe and that this did not contradict the spirit of the Sharia.