Portrait of the Intellectual as a Young Man: Rash I d Rid # 's Muh # war # t al-muslih wa-al-muqallid (1906)

Abstract

Portrait of the Intellectual as a Young Man: Rashõ Å d Rid ½ a Å 's Muh ½ ā warā t al-mus ½lih ½ wa-al-muqallid (1906) JAKOB SKOVGAARD± PETERSENABSTRACT Rashõ Å d Rid ½ a Å 's ideas and ideals of the intellectual are to be found pre-eminently in a work serialized in Al-Mana Å r, in 1901, called Muh ½ a Å wara Å t al-mus ½lih ½ wa-al-muqallid (The Debates of the Reformer and the Traditionalist). This work contains much of Rid ½ a Å ' s thinking on religious reform. A very interesting aspect of the work is that it is a work of ® ction. It is Rid ½ a Å ' s only experiment with ® ction, and its aim is to furnish the reader with a portrait of the model Muslim intellectual. The Muh ½ a Å wara Å t can be taken as an example of a representation of a decidedly modernist Muslim intellectual whom the readers of Al-Mana Å r are invited to identify with and take as a role model.

Islamism, Islamic Modernism and the Search for Modern Authenticity in an Imaginary Past

“…In the beginning of the twentieth century, Rashid Rida (1865Rida ( -1935 published in his Islamic reform journal al-Manar a series of conversations between a young man and a traditional shaikh. Jakob Skovgaard-Petersen described this young man in the story as the "prototype" of a new Muslim activist, as a new kind of Muslim intellectual who emerged in the second part of the nineteenth century (Skovgaard-Petersen 2001). This fictional conversation between the young intellectual and the old shaikh took place in late nineteenth century Egypt.…”