Ali Abdel Raziq (Arabic:ﻋﻠﻲ ﻋﺒﺪ ﺍﻟﺮﺍﺯﻕ) (1888–1966) was an Egyptian scholar of Islam, judge and government minister.[1] His writings, some controversial, debated the role of religion and Islamic history in 20th-century politics and government.[1]
While the implication of his arguments still remain a point of debate, his 1925 bookIslam and the Foundations of Governance argued against a role for religion in politics or the political prescriptive value of religious texts.[1][2][3]
He argued that Islamic texts were and should remain neutral in political debate and civil institution building.[3] He attendedOxford University,[3] and he was a scholar and jurist atAl-Azhar,Cairo.[3]
Ali Abdel Raziq was born inMinya Governorate in 1888[4] to a well-off family. His father, Hassan Abdel Raziq, was of Arab origin.[4] He was a large farm-owner and was, in 1907, among the founders of theUmma Party.[2] Ali Abdel Raziq's mother was of North African origin.[4] His brother,Mustafa Abd al-Raziq, a well known philosopher, studied atAl-Azhar University under the famous reformerMuhammad Abduh.[2]
He later received his'alim degree from Al-Azhar in 1911. In 1912, he traveled to Oxford University to study economics and political science, but he returned to Cairo at the outbreak of theFirst World War.[2]
Back at Al-Azhar in 1915, he became aqadi (religious judge) inMansoura. Ali became famous for his bookIslam and the Foundations of Governance (Al-Islam Wa Usul Al-Hukm), published in 1925, andConsensus and Islamic Law (Al-Ijma´ Fi Ash-Shari´ah Al-Islamiyyah), published in 1947.[1]
Following popular debate about his 1925 book, Al-Azhar stripped him of his office, but he got it back in the 1940s. Ali, his father and his brother remained close to theLiberal Constitutional Party.[5] He eventually became a government minister and lost his position as scholar and jurist at Al-Azhar.[6]
He twice served as Minister of Endowments, one of the three highest positions in religious administration, beside the Rector of Al-Azhar and the Grand Mufti. He died in 1966.[2]
The argument of his 1925 book has been summarized as "Islam does not advocate a specific form of government".[7] He focused his criticism both at those who use religious law as contemporary political proscription and at the history of rulers claiming legitimacy by thecaliphate.[6]
The focus of this debate was Turkish leaderMustafa Kemal's abolition of thecaliphate in 1924, and the response of some Arab Muslim scholars that it was incumbent upon Arabs, in particular, to reinstate the caliphate in Arab lands.[2]
He wrote that past rulers spread the notion of religious justification for the caliphate "so that they could use religion as a shield protecting their thrones against the attacks of rebels".[8]
The journalistic and academic debate that his book set off projected him into fame.
The thesisIslam and the Foundations of Governance (Al-Islam Wa Usul Al-Hukm) was published recently by Hamed, the grandson of Abdel Raziq, with a familial introduction.
He remains controversial, and his specific arguments are part of a longer tradition ofjurisprudence andscripture.[2][9] His work has since been both praised[10] and condemned, as a precursor of secularist philosophy in Muslim societies.[2][11]
It has been criticized as having drawn on the works ofOrientalist western writers.[12]
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He was regarded as the intellectual father of Islamic secularism (theseparation of state and religion, not thesecularization of society).
Its controversial standpoints regarding the necessity of thecaliphate and religious government made the book trigger an intellectual and political battle inEgypt. In essence, it claims that the Muslims may agree on any kind of government, religious or worldly, as long as it serves the interest and common welfare of their society.
As he recounts the horrors of the caliphate, among other things, one can conclude that he advocated a humanist kind of governance, probably a democratic state.
The word 'secular' entered the Arab lexicon at the turn of the20th century, bringing with it a host of meanings and interpretations. It was first introduced into Arab discourse, as a reference to the separation between religion and state. That later evolved to become "la dini", irreligious.
In current circles, secularism is often both understood as "almaniya" and associated with immorality or the lack of ethics.
Syrian Islamic theologianMuhammad Rashid Rida (d. 1935) was one of the most fierce critics of 'Ali Abd al-Raziq and his ideas. Rida described the reaction to his controversial workal-Islam wa 'usul al-hukm [Islam and the Foundations of Political Power] to the "sudden arrival of theDay of Judgment". ThroughAl-Manar, Rashid Rida charged 'Abd al-Raziq withblasphemy andKufr (disbelief) that nobatini,Mu'tazili, orJahmi have ever uttered before.Excommunicating 'Ali Abd al-Raziq as an apostate (murtad), Rida praised theAzhari court verdict stripping Abd al-Raziq of his scholarly titles as a "great manifest victory for the believers over the atheists".[13] Rida condemned the work as
“.. a destruction and uprooting of theIslamic regime and its legislation; a tearing apart of itscommunity, and a complete endorsement of disobedience of Allah and His messenger and all religious rules pertaining to the secular order, whether personal, political, civil or criminal... it considers ignorant all generations of Muslims: TheCompanions,Successors,Imams,Mujtahids,Hadith scholars, and theologians. All in all, it calls for taking a path other than that of the believers, one at a conflict with Islam as it is understood by Muslims from the first generations to the present.”[14]
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