Chapter 5

Muhammad ‘Abduh and

the Doctrine of Tawhid
From Theology to Politics
Margherita Picchi

DEFINING TAWHID

In the opening lines of his Risalat al-tawhid (1898), Muhammad ‘Abduh

notes that in its original meaning, the word tawhid refers to “the belief that
God is One and has no associates (la sharik lahu)” (‘Abduh 1994: 17). This
is the fundamental pillar of Islam, the one that every Muslim acknowledges
through the shahada, the profession of faith: la ilaha illa Allah, “there is no
god but God.” This concept’s importance was so crucial that the entire science
of theology was named after it: the main goal of the ‘ilm al-tawhid is indeed
“the demonstration of the unity of God in Himself and in the act of creation.”1
Translatable as “monotheism,” the word tawhid is—grammatically—the
verbal noun of wahhada, itself a derivative in the second form of the root
w-h-d, which contains the ideas of unity, oneness, singleness, or solitude. In
Arabic, the second form imparts an intensive, causative, or declarative mean-
ing to the verbal root. As Kenneth Cragg remarked in his English translation
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of ‘Abduh’s treatise, tawhid does not refer to divine unity as an abstract state
but rather refers to the positive, active, even “aggressive” assertion that God
is One. Furthermore, it holds that He alone deserves worship (ibada) and
excludes the other so-called gods of this world (Cragg 1966: 12).2 The viola-
tion of tawhid, either through the worship of other natural or supernatural
beings or by conceptualizing God as multiple or dualistic, is called shirk.
A derivative of the Arabic root sh-r-k, whose meaning includes the ideas of
sharing, associating, or participating, shirk is defned in the Qur’an as the
worst possible form of unbelief, the only unforgivable sin which inevitably
dooms those who commit it to Hell:

67

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 68 Margherita Picchi

God does not forgive the joining of partners with Him: anything less than that
He forgives to whoever He will, but anyone who joins partners with God has
fabricated a tremendous sin. (Q. 4:48)3

Curiously, while the Qur’an repeatedly mentions shirk and its derivatives, the
term tawhid does not appear as such, nor do other derivatives of the second
form of the root w-h-d. However, al-tawhid is one of the most renowned
among the numerous names given to the Qur’anic sura 112.

Say: He is God the One

God, the eternal
He begot no one nor was He begotten
No one is comparable to Him

Another name by which this sura is commonly known is al-ikhlas (purity

of faith): both titles are unusual, as they do not typically refer to terms men-
tioned in the body of the sura but rather to its overall meaning. Note also that
al-tawhid and al-ikhlas are part of a more substantial number of titles (twenty,
according to theologian and philosopher Fakhr al-Din al-Razi).4 This number
itself refects the great theological value accorded to this sura: indeed, “the
greater the number of titles [a thing has], the greater the merit [associated
with it], and convention bears witness to what we have [just] said.”5
The importance of this short sura cannot be overestimated. A well-known
prophetic hadith states that reciting it is equivalent to reciting a third of the
Qur’an, and these verses were “seen by the exegetes to encapsulate the spirit
of the Qur’anic guidance in its entirety, not only in guiding the believer upon
the path to the ‘purest monotheism’—adherence to which constitutes the
minimal requirement for salvation in the Hereafter—but also in protecting
him or her from the sundry potential obstacles strewn across the same path”
(Hamza and Rizvi 2008: 492).
All signifcant issues that infamed theological disputes in the formative and
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classical ages of Islam—such as the speculations over God’s attributes (sifat)

in relation to His essence (dhat), the arguments over the state of the Qur’an
of being created or eternal, or the disagreement regarding human capacity for
action and its relation with God’s omniscience—directly stemmed from the
necessity to reconcile the plurality of this world (and God’s signs) with the
uncompromising affrmation of tawhid as found in this sura.6 That being said, a
thorough analysis of the premodern theological debates over divine unity goes
beyond the scope of this chapter. It would suffce to recall the notorious dispute
that took place in the ninth century of the Christian era between the Mu’tazilites
and the Hanbalites over the nature of the Qur’an as God’s word. The Mu’tazila
set the issue of tawhid—alongside that of divine justice (‘adl)—at the very

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 Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid 69

center of their theological refection, to the point of defning themselves as ahl

al-‘adl wa al-tawhid, “the people of justice and unity.” To defend the abso-
lute transcendence and unity of God against any suspicion of multiplicity, the
Mu’tazilites concluded the Qur’an had been created. Instead, the Hanbalites
claimed that because the eternal reality of God’s names and attributes was
mentioned directly in the Qur’an, belief in that reality was obligatory. Any
speculation on the “how” of this apparent paradox should be avoided.
Debates over the nature and meaning of tawhid were not a theological
prerogative: classical philosophers also discussed at length the subject of
divine unity and the relation between the One creator and the multiplicity
of the creation. This debate reveals Platonic, Aristotelian, and Neoplatonic
infuences (Janos 2017). Moreover, contemplation over the divine unity and
the realization of the ultimate unity of existence (wahdat al-wujud) represent
the ultimate goal of the Suf path, and a central focus of Suf thought, as
elaborated in particular by the followers of the Andalusian mystic Ibn Arabi
(Chittick 1994).7
These debates fourished throughout the Muslim world at least until the
eighteenth century. By the time of ‘Abduh, however, theological refection
had entered what he described as a process of decline and fossilization. He
viewed this decline as caused by the general abandonment of “reasoned
refection” (ijtihad) in favor of the blind imitation of past scholars (taqlid).
As it were, ‘Abduh saw the revival of theological refection and the Muslim
capacity for rational reasoning in general as his lifelong goal.

RISALAT AL-TAWHID: THE CONTEXT

AND THE CONTENT

In ‘Abduh’s treatise, tawhid is referred to both as the founding concept of

Islam and as the discipline of theology. The latter represents the declared
focus of the book, which originated in a series of lectures on theology that
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‘Abduh held in a secondary school in Beirut in 1886. The purpose of this

treatise was mainly educational: according to ‘Abduh’s own words, he was
convinced that “compendia on this discipline fell short on their objective of
beneftting the students; major works were beyond their comprehension, and
intermediate text books were written for a different time than their own”
(‘Abduh 1994: 13).8 Consequently, clarity and ease of comprehension are
the book’s mainstays, refecting ‘Abduh’s professed intention to provide
his students—and the general public—with a simplifed outline of classical
Islamic theology.
The Risalat al-tawhid enjoyed almost immediate success, and to this day
it is considered the summa of Muhammad ‘Abduh’s thought, as well as “one

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 70 Margherita Picchi

of the most prominent programmatic texts of late-nineteenth-century Islamic

reformism” (Bussow 2017: 141). Nevertheless, from a strictly theological
point of view, the ideas put forth by ‘Abduh did not substantially depart from
classic Asharite orthodoxy, although tempered with a marked rationalist
approach that is more akin to the most moderate currents of Mu’tazilism.9
Indeed, the originality (and modernity) of ‘Abduh’s theoretical work did
not consist in positing radical or innovative theological concepts, but rather
in his ability to combine elements from different theological and juridical
schools in order to fnd a point of compromise among what he believed to
be “extremist” interpretations of Islamic tenets. He was deliberate in making
“only remote allusions to controversial matters, of a kind that only mature
men could understand” (‘Abduh 1994: 14), and repeatedly stressed how intel-
lectual dissent could be harmful to the well-being of the umma, the Islamic
community. ‘Abduh was particularly harsh in condemning those “silly
discourses that led people astray, dividing the paths of brothers who were
marching toward the same destination and ended up meeting again in the
darkest night” (‘Abduh 1994: 55). He considered these quarrels, along with
the “mentality of taqlid,” to be signifcant factors leading to the stagnation
(jumud) of Islamic thought and the consequent social, moral, and political
decay of his contemporary Muslims.
To quote Albert Hourani’s words,

He does indeed give the impression of picking and choosing out of the mass of
Islamic ideas those which best serve two purposes: frst, to preserve the unity
and social peace of the umma, concern for which led him to blur intellectual
distinctions and refuse to reopen old controversies; and secondly, to reply to
certain questions posed by the religious debates of the Europe of his time [. . .]
in particular the great debate about science and religion. (Hourani 1970: 143)

Indeed, the selective reappropriation of diverse elements from the Islamic

tradition and their creative re-elaboration in order to respond to the chal-
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lenges of modernity represent the core of the sociocultural project of the

Salafyya—the reform movement of which ‘Abduh is considered the most
important ideologue, alongside his mentor Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (d.
1897) and his pupil Rashid Rida (d. 1935). The Egyptian Salafya was
part of a larger intellectual current that argued for the necessity for reform
(islah) and renewal (tajdid) of Islamic thought as the only way to counter
the cultural and political subjugation to Western colonialism that most of
the Islamic world was facing at the turn of the twentieth century. In this
context, the purpose of the Salafyya was to assert the validity of Islam
as the moral basis for a modern and progressive society. However, to do
so Muslims needed to “liberate thought from the shackles of taqlid and

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 Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid 71

understand religion as it was understood by the elders of the community

(Salaf) before dissension appeared; to return, in the acquisition of religious
knowledge, to its frst sources, and to weigh them in the scales of the human
reason.”10
The term Salaf, from which the noun Salafyya and the adjective Salaf
are taken, is used to defne the frst three generations of Muslims: the
Companions of Muhammad (sahaba, those who met the Prophet in person),
their Followers (tabi‘un), and the Followers of the Followers (tabi‘ al-
tabi‘un). Due to their closeness to the Prophet and their allegedly faultless
conduct, the Salaf represent the role models to be followed by Muslims at
any time or place. Although Muhammad’s Companions are historical fgures
whose existence is universally accepted, it goes without saying that the ideal
model of the Salaf must be considered an idealized transfguration, a rhe-
torical construction, or an “invented tradition,” to borrow Eric Hobsbawm’s
now-classic concept (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).
The religious dimension of the Salafyya experience is not easily separated
from its social, cultural, and political elements, as clearly appears in ‘Abduh’s
works. The Risalat al-tawhid does not examine theological inquiries into the
nature of God and the Prophecy of Muhammad as abstract concepts detached
from reality but rather does so as a tool for social reform and cultural transfor-
mation. In other words, ‘Abduh’s approach to the concept of tawhid is more
functional than epistemological; his intellectual effort aims at transforming
what had become a mere theological concept into an agent of social change,
as it once was in the “golden age” of the Islamic civilization, during the
historical-mythical age of the Salaf.
This sociopolitical dimension of theology appears more clearly in the
second part of the Risala al-tawhid, dedicated to the fundamental role that
the advent of Islam has had in the history of humanity. While the frst six
chapters of ‘Abduh’s treatise explore classical debates over God’s nature and
attributes, with the explicit purpose of demonstrating the essential harmony
of reason, revelation, and individual temperament (ftra), the discussion of
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Muhammad’s mission and its historical function is implicitly aimed at high-

lighting the liberating potential of Islam.
In reading ‘Abduh’s reference to mankind’s “urgent need for a trumpet
call that shakes the thrones of the kings, shatters the foundations of their
tyranny and makes them lower their gaze from high heaven to ponder the
conditions of their wretched subjects” (‘Abduh 1994: 119), or his comments
on how “religious leaders affrmed in its name that religion was the enemy
of reason and of all theoretical works, unless tied exclusively to commentary
on the Holy Scripture” (‘Abduh 1994: 120), one wonders if he was writing
about the seventh-century Arabian Peninsula or instead alluding to the politi-
cal and cultural situation of his own time. Either way, the subtext is clear:

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 72 Margherita Picchi

what happened before could happen again, on the condition of reviving the
true spirit of the religion that God revealed to the human race through the
Qur’an.

[The Prophet Muhammad] called upon the leaders of men to humble themselves
to the common rank and submit to the One sovereign power, the architect of
heaven and earth, who holds their life spirit in the temples of the body. He
confronted those who laid claim to an intermediary position between the high
God and His worshippers, and proved to them, in the light of Revelation, that
before God the greatest of them was no more than the least of those who gave
them credit. He demanded that they come down from their pretentious “lordly”
stations to the lowest rung of service, to participate with every soul of man in
adoring the One Lord, before whom every creature is equal, save in their dif-
ferent endowments of knowledge (‘ilm) and virtue (fadila). (‘Abduh 1994: 126)

In ‘Abduh’s thought, the sociopolitical value of tawhid operates in two main

dimensions: frst, it instills a sense of unity in the umma, reinforcing “group
solidarity” (‘asabiyya); secondly, it functions as the starting point for the
liberation of the oppressed against abuses of tyrannical powers. In fact, since
God’s Oneness and Self-Suffciency do not allow for intermediation between
the Divine and the human, tawhid becomes the basis for invoking an egalitar-
ian political ethos: everyone is equal before God, and subject only to His will
as expressed in His revealed law—any social hierarchy based on class, race,
or nationality is illegitimate.
Revolutionary tone notwithstanding, it would be a signifcant exaggeration
to view ‘Abduh as a supporter of radical egalitarianism. These passages from
the Risala were dictated to his students while he was in exile on the charge
of having participated in the ‘Urabi nationalist revolt (1882) and reveal the
contentious attitude he held at that time toward Egypt’s ruling classes.11 This
view was strongly infuenced by that of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani. Indeed,
Afghani has rightfully been labeled a “professional agitator and propagan-
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dist” (Lockman 2004: 82), as he spent his life traveling across the Islamic
world urging Muslims to join against colonial domination and intellectual
stagnation. However, ‘Abduh was certainly more accommodating than his
mentor in confronting power, and he became increasingly so with the pass-
ing of time. When he was allowed to return to Egypt (1888), ‘Abduh took up
a position of compromise toward both British occupiers and the class of the
religious scholars. He carefully avoided overt confrontations out of principle;
this caution certainly helped him in climbing the rungs, ultimately bringing
him to become Grand Mufti of Egypt in 1899, a position he held until his
death in 1905. He became increasingly critical toward al-Afghani’s positions
on politics and revolution, effectively putting an end to their collaboration

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 Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid 73

and friendship: “when al-Afghani died, he wrote no word of eulogy or affec-

tionate commemoration” (Hourani 1970: 158).
It should also be noted that ‘Abduh never developed his ideas on poli-
tics in a systematic political theory or program. On the contrary, “when the
more specifc issues of constitutional organization and the source of political
authority were at stake, ‘Abduh’s views were fragmentary and changing”
(Kerr 1966: 147). They shifted from early opposition to authoritative power
and appreciation for representative government to later declarations such
as “only a just dictator can cause the East to progress” (Kerr 1966: 135);
an ambiguity that is refected by his own life choices. Moreover, it is worth
remarking that a poorly concealed intellectual chauvinism always tempered
the egalitarian outbursts found in the Risala al-tawhid and other earlier works
of his. Evidence of this can be glimpsed in statements such as that “humans
are not equals in their ability to know God or the life to come” (‘Abduh
1994: 76) since “some intellects are superior to others, and the lowest can
only superfcially grasp what the wisest know” (‘Abduh 1994: 103). ‘Abduh
invests the “wise men” (al-‘urafa)—whom he considers superior to ordinary
people in terms both of education and natural temperament—with the fun-
damental historical function of assisting the Prophets in guiding humanity.
This role appears in contradiction with the proclaimed refusal for any and all
hierarchy among men.
Finally, it should be stressed that the egalitarian spirit promoted by ‘Abduh
was assumed to be among male Muslims: non-Muslim believers and women
could not fully participate in the “social contract” of Islam. Christianism and
Judaism were depicted as “intermediary” stations in the teleological process
of divine education that God provided to humanity: when the Torah was
revealed, humankind was in its infancy and needed a law centered on its
bodily needs and desires, while Jesus was the response to the needs of human-
ity when it reached a status of “higher sensitivity,” comparable “to what
women feel in their heart, as well as to young boys’ tendencies” (‘Abduh
1994: 148). ‘Abduh tried in several occasions to demonstrate that Christianity
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was inferior to Islam due to its fundamental irrationality, and used roughly the
same argument to justify the legitimacy of gender inequalities: “he was the
frst exegete to adapt a relevant biblical reference when he stated that ‘a man
is like the head, and the woman is the body,’ and it is ‘no shame for a human
being to have his head better than his hand’ ” (Abou Bakr 2015: 54). That
being said, ‘Abduh’s re-elaboration of tawhid as an agent of social change
and the basis for egalitarian ethics represented a marked epistemological
break in Islamic exegetical history, one that had an enduring effect on subse-
quent Islamic political thought.
Referring to the concept of break does not imply that premodern theology
was disconnected from the social and political contexts that produced it, nor

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 74 Margherita Picchi

that making use of theological concepts such as tawhid for social or political
purposes was an absolute novelty introduced by Salafyya in the nineteenth
century. On the contrary, tawhid has always been instrumental in setting the
boundaries of the Islamic umma by defning who was “in” and who was not,
in a process of identity construction that has always implied a parallel process
of Othering (Tanner Lamptey 2015). In this sense, the doctrine of tawhid has
played a leading role not only in Muslim polemical refutations of Christianity
and Judaism, but also in shaping the discourse of orthodoxy; scholars referred
to the concept of tawhid in order to establish internal boundaries between
those who actually follow “the right way” (al-sirat al-mustaqim) and those
who are “led astray” (al-dallin). Creating boundaries implies promoting the
Self by devaluating the Other, a process that brings the inherent risk of pro-
moting various forms of intolerance toward the latter, ranging from ridicule
and disapproval to militant opposition. When this process of Othering is
directed toward a declared Muslim, the opposition may even involve takfr,
accusing one’s opponent of being an unbeliever deserving of persecution as
an enemy of Islam.12
The practice of defending doctrinal positions by reclaiming one’s adher-
ence to tawhid and condemning the tenets of others as shirk or kufr has been
widespread throughout Muslim history; in some cases, these theological striv-
ings had important political consequences. The most notorious of these cases
in premodern history is, without doubt, the previously mentioned controversy
between the Hanbalis and the Mu’tazilites. The latter referred to themselves
as the ahl al-tawhid, and although they generally refrained from accusing
individuals of unbelief, it was often implied in their writings that the theories
of Others were in violation of the most basic tenets of Islam. When the caliph
al-Ma’mun (d. 833) joined the debate and sided with the Mu’tazilites, this
accusation led to the public prosecution of the Hanbalis. This included a series
of interrogations known as the mihna (literally meaning “ordeal,” “trial,” a
derogatory term chosen by later critics of this policy), which lasted ffteen
years and led to the imprisonment of numerous scholars of renown fame.
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The intervention of a caliph into a theological controversy is nearly unique in

the history of Islam, and modern historians have heavily debated al-Ma’mun
motivations in instigating the mihna (Hurvitz 2016). Some scholars have
claimed that al-Ma’mun was led by a sincere belief in Mu’tazilite rationalism
that pushed him to attempt reshaping Islamic theology;13 others have empha-
sized the political dimensions of the mihna and interpreted al-Ma’mun actions
as an attempt to strengthen the caliphal spiritual authority by undermining the
scholars’ monopoly on religious interpretations.14 Whichever angle takes, the
study of mihna is particularly useful “to examine how scholarly power was
constructed, what means of persuasion the scholars devised, and how they
applied them to different socio-cultural strata” (Hurvitz 2016: 658).

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 Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid 75

‘Abduh was well aware of the danger inherent in accusing fellow

Muslims of shirk or kufr: his constant criticism toward “useless controver-
sies” can be understood in this light. He relentlessly promoted the need to
fnd a compromise between apparently contradictory theological positions
and to overcome the differences between the various schools of jurispru-
dence (madhahib), rationalism and mysticism, and even between Sunnis
and Shias. He consistently avoided employing the accusation of kufr or
shirk against specifc groups of individuals: to him, “the only real kafr is
he who closes his eyes to the light and refuses to examine rational proofs”
(Hourani 1970: 148).
The philosophy of the Enlightenment, and particularly universalism
and rationalism, had a marked infuence on ‘Abduh’s conception of taw-
hid: he “read widely in the European thought of his age” and “had some
contacts with European thinkers” (Hourani 1970: 135). Pointing to his
admiration for European Enlightenment, some early Western commenta-
tors of his work have tended to overlook ‘Abduh’s creative agency and
to suggest, more or less subtly, that he did little more than translate the
dominant ideas of modern Europe into Islamic terms, even risking “to
distort if not to destroy the precise meaning of the Islamic concepts, or
to lose what distinguished Islam from other religions and even from non-
religious humanism” (Hourani 1970: 144). More recent scholarship has
contested these claims in the context of a more general criticism toward
a teleological view of modernity as a product of the West, holding an
inherent value.15 This scholarship has claimed that late nineteenth-century
Islamic reformism was “the product of a process of confuence, [. . .] a tale
of ‘transition,’ not of ‘translation’—and one that remained unfnished”
(Arsan 2013: 377). ‘Abduh was not a blind imitator of European thought,
nor was he an uncritical follower of the Islamic tradition; his universalist
and humanist conceptualization of tawhid was the result of the overlap-
ping and intertwining of elements from both worlds, a “synthesis between
classical rationalism and modern socio-political awareness” (Abu Zayd
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2006: 31). In comparing his theology with that of the classic scholar al-
Ghazali (d. 1111), Malcolm Kerr has remarked how “Abduh describes
material well-being as having an importance on its own which even ‘takes
precedence’ over acts or expressions of devotion. [. . .] for Ghazali, the
need is to show that worldly prosperity is no impediment to religion, and
is in fact necessary for it as a means to an end; and the end is faith” (Kerr
1966: 118).
In short, ‘Abduh’s main contribution to the conceptual history of tawhid
can be recognized with this marked shift in emphasis from the theological
to the sociopolitical articulation of faith, from a theocentric conception of
religion to a distinctively humanist one.

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 76 Margherita Picchi

THE LEGACY OF MUHAMMAD ‘ABDUH

The conception of tawhid as a tool for social change and a symbol of religious
as well as political unity became increasingly central in Muslim thought as
the Islamic world continued to experience political fragmentation and socio-
economic setbacks. The issue of political Islam, which made its appearance
under colonial occupation, erupted in the aftermath of World War I. One of
the consequences of the war was, in fact, the collapse of the Ottoman Empire,
the partition of its former Middle East territories into the League of Nation
mandates, and the correspondent emergence of an assorted galaxy of anti-
colonialist nationalist movements. Corollary to the collapse of the Ottoman
Empire was the abolition of the Caliphate by the newly founded Turkish par-
liament in 1924, a move widely considered to be “one of the key events of the
political genesis of the modern Middle East” (Guida 2009: 275). At the time
of its abolition, the Caliphate had long since lost its political power. However,
it had maintained the fundamental symbolical function of representing the
unity of the dar al-Islam, of being the “fag holder” of the Islamic umma.
The symbolic void left by the loss of the Caliphate pushed Muslim thinkers
to increasingly raise questions concerning the nature, the features, and the
function of a legitimate Islamic political authority: for instance, should a
single overarching political structure such as the Caliphate rule the umma to
preserve its unity, or should politics be left to national states? What modern
political system could best ft the requirements of Islam? Was there such a
thing as an “Islamic” political authority?
Muhammad ‘Abduh’s intellectual heirs discussed these issues extensively,
and scholars often draw a distinction between “liberal” followers of his
thought and “conservative” or “radical” ones through their different political
conceptions. ‘Ali Abd al-Raziq (d. 1966) is cited as one the frst models of
the former group; in his famous book Al-Islam wausul al-hukm, he pushed
the audacious claim that no mentioning of the Caliphate—in its specifc
meaning as a political institution—could be found in the Qur’an or the
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Sunna; hence, “political authority and government, however indispensable

for implementing Islamic ideals, do not belong to the essence of Islam and
do not constitute any of its cardinal principles” (Enayat 1982: 64). On the
other side of the spectrum is Rashid Rida, ‘Abduh’s direct disciple and coau-
thor of the Qur’anic commentary Tafsir al-manar, whose role was crucial in
the development of political Islam, especially as he introduced the idea of
a national Islamic state as a viable alternative to a global Caliphate (Enayat
1982; Abushouk 2019).
In the following decades, tawhid became more and more popular in Islamic
political literature, with scholars of very different backgrounds and positions
reclaiming it as the fundamental pillar of the Islamic worldview. Sayyid Qutb

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 Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid 77

(d. 1966), the most infuential of the radical followers of ‘Abduh’s teachings,
made tawhid the center of his understanding of Islam and the cornerstone of
his entire theology.16 In Qutb’s thought, tawhid became the foundation of a
totalitarian view of Islam, according to which not only God and the cosmos
but also society is conceived as an organic whole that does not allow for
internal division—be it social, ethnical, tribal, or national—nor any form of
sovereignty (hakimiyya) that belongs to something other than God. In Qutb’s
view, tawhid became the theological basis for affrming the need for a rigor-
ous Islamic state where God was the sole legislator and His law, the shari‘a,
the ultimate source of any political or juridical authority. Little room is left
for tolerating diversity, although it should be stressed that the primary focus
of Qutb’s radical criticism is society, not individuals. The exceptional empha-
sis conferred on the sociopolitical aspects of the doctrine of tawhid and its
fundamental role in guiding an Islamic revolution can also be found in radical
Shi’i discourse: for instance, ‘Ali Shariati (d. 1977) transformed tawhid into
a platform for revolutionary action, the foundation for the achievement of
social justice and political change (Machlis 2014). The tawhid-based revolu-
tionary worldviews of radical thinkers such as Qutb or Shariati were driven
by an absolute idealism that left no room for doubt or compromise with
the ruling power; an ethical intransigence that contains within the seeds of
extremism. Their followers have sometimes taken this radical intransigence
to its most tragic conclusions: for instance, violent Sunni extremists have
often made reference to Qutb’s theory to launch accusations of takfr against
anyone deemed to be an enemy of Islam, as well as to justify taking up arms
against those in power.17
If some Islamist groups and thinkers have relied on tawhid to justify
religious chauvinism, totalitarianism, and political violence, others have
reclaimed it as a conceptual tool for addressing differences, in order to
promote religious pluralism and uphold social justice and gender equality.
For instance, South African scholar Farid Esack has referred to tawhid in
denouncing the Apartheid policy as shirk and used it to promote interreligious
Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved.

solidarity among the oppressed, making the concept one of the fundamental
hermeneutical keys of an Islamic theology of liberation (Esack 1997). In
her gender egalitarian exegetical work, the African American scholar amina
wadud has developed what she calls “the tawhidic paradigm” as a tool to con-
trast the dominant discourse that has constructed gender relations in a vertical
line that sees God at the top, the male fgure in the middle, and the female
individual at the bottom. In her words, “the tawhidic paradigm becomes the
inspiration for removing gender stratifcation from all levels of social interac-
tion: public and private, ritual and political. Not only does it mean the I and
Thou are equal, but also it means that I and Thou are one within the oneness
of Allah. Social, liturgical, and political functions become determined by the

Islamic Political Theology, edited by Massimo Campanini, and Donato, Marco Di, Lexington Books, 2021. ProQuest Ebook
 78 Margherita Picchi

capacity of both women and men in a larger realm of education, dedication,

and contribution with no arbitrary exclusion of women from performing any
of these functions” (wadud 2006: 32).18

CONCLUSIONS

Tawhid, defned as the belief that God is One and has no peers, is consid-
ered the fundamental pillar of Islam. All major issues that infamed the
theological disputes in the formative and classical ages of Islam stemmed
directly from the necessity to reconcile the plurality of this world (and
God’s signs) with the uncompromising affrmation of tawhid as found in
the Qur’anic text. By the nineteenth century, however, theological refec-
tion had entered a process of decline and fossilization. Therefore, reviving
the religious discourse and generally the Muslim capacity for rational rea-
soning became a fundamental task for Islamic reformist thinkers such as
Muhammad ‘Abduh.
The Risalat al-tawhid was conceived with this precise purpose. It was
part of an intellectual effort aimed at reviving Islamic thought as the only
way to contrast cultural and political subjugation to Western colonialism.
‘Abduh viewed tawhid not merely as a theological concept but rather as a
tool for social reform and cultural transformation. In doing so, he represented
a marked epistemological break in Islamic exegetical history, which had a
lasting effect on subsequent Islamic political thought.
In fact, tawhid emerged as a powerful symbol of religious and political
unity after the political fragmentation that resulted from the colonization
of the Muslim world and continues in the postcolonial era. Throughout the
twentieth century, Muslim thinkers have generally agreed on the fundamental
importance of tawhid in defning the sociopolitical ethos of Islam but have
sharply disagreed on how to put it into practice. This has given rise to exclu-
sivist, inclusivist as well as pluralistic interpretations.
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Muhammad ‘Abduh was a precursor to all these tendencies, and it would

be rather futile to engage in a debate over which interpretation should be
considered closer to the original or even “truer” to the Qur’anic text. Rather,
it would be benefcial to answer Farid Esack’s call for a “conscious denial
of objectivity” (Esack 1997: 103) and to reformulate the question in terms
of for whom and in whose interest are certain interpretations preferred over
others: “truth, for the engaged interpreter, can never be absolute” (Esack
1997: 111).
In the end, as the Qur’an itself states, “God leaves whoever He will to stray
and guides whoever He will—no one knows your Lord’s forces except Him”
(74: 31).

Islamic Political Theology, edited by Massimo Campanini, and Donato, Marco Di, Lexington Books, 2021. ProQuest Ebook
 Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid 79

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I have worked on this chapter during a research fellowship at Fscire-La Pira

Center on the History and Doctrines of Islam in Palermo (2019–2020), a fel-
lowship that is gratefully funded by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and International Cooperation, according to Art. 23-bis of DPR 18/1967;
the positions contained in this chapter exclusively represent those of the
author.

NOTES

1. Theology is also known as ‘ilm al-kalam, “because the chief point on which
the scholars were in disagreement was whether the Qur’anic word (kalam) was cre-
ated or pre-existent, and also because [theology] is based on rational demonstration.”
‘Abduh (1994: 17).
2. Given the time of its translation, it is unsurprising that Cragg’s use of lan-
guage—which describes the theology of tawhid as “aggressive,” “militant,” or even
“crusading”—bears signs of the Orientalist assumption that Islam was spread by the
sword. Linguistic choices notwithstanding, Cragg makes a valid point in highlighting
the assertive character of tawhid.
3. All Qur’anic translations of verses cited here are by M.A.S Abdel-Haleem
(2004).
4. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 1209) was a Persian Sunni theologian. A critical
Ashari and a philosopher, al-Razi wrote al-tafsir al-kabir, a commentary widely
considered to be the most notable expression of the methodology of tafsir bi-l-ra’y,
in which the authors examine the Qur’an relying on the methods of dialectic theology
and rationalist philosophy.
5. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, al-tafsir al-kabir, translated in Hamza and Rizvi
(2008: 535).
6. Not surprisingly, given the fact that the belief in One God is the basis of all
Abrahamic religions, very similar controversies have also developed in Christian and
Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved.

Jewish theological disputes. For a comparative exploration of the concept of tawhid in

classical Islamic theology and earlier Christian and Jewish commentaries on Genesis,
see Aradi (2013). For a short introduction to the history of Kalam in the formative age
of Islam, see van Ess (2006).
7. Ibn Arabi (d. 1240) was an Andalusian philosopher, theologian, and mys-
tic, whom the later tradition called al-shaykh al-akbar, “the greatest master” for
his extraordinary contribution to the development of Islamic philosophy and Suf
thought.
8. All translations from ‘Abduh’s treatise are mine.
9. ‘Abduh’s ambiguous attitude toward Mu’tazilism is best exemplifed by his
early defense of the Mu’tazili doctrine of the creation of the Qur’an, which was
included in the frst edition of the Risala but removed from later editions. To quote

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 80 Margherita Picchi

Malcolm Kerr, “Abduh appears to accept the spirit of the Mu’tazilite rationale but
carefully eschews Mu’tazilite terminology” (Kerr 1966: 111).
10. ‘Abduh’s autobiography, translated and quoted in Hourani (1970: 140–141).
Infuenced by the sharp criticism of taqlid and the emphasis on ijtihad promoted by
reformist scholars such as Muhammad ‘Abduh, Western scholarship on the topic has
historically tended to conceive taqlid and ijtihad as binary opposites. This perspec-
tive has been criticized by more recent works, which have re-evaluated the relation
between taqlid and ijtihad as more complex than it is usually understood (Ahmed
2013).
11. Rallying behind the slogan “Egypt to the Egyptians!,” the so-called Urabi
revolution sought to overthrow the rule of the aristocratic elite, a minority of Turkish-
Circassian origin, over the majority of the Arab-speaking population, that was essen-
tially excluded from all centers of power. Worried that the new Urabi government
would have curtailed its economic interests in the country, the British imperial power
then intervened with a military action, frst bombing the city of Alexandria and then
occupying all Egypt, proclaiming it an English “protectorate.” For more information
on the Urabi revolution, see Cole (1999).
12. The doctrine of takfr has received growing attention from Western scholars,
mainly because of the centrality it holds in contemporary Islamic radicalism. For a
thorough examination of the subject of takfr in a diachronic perspective that spans
the entirety of Muslim history, see Adang et al. (2016).
13. The very frst monograph published in English on the topic (Patton 1897)
advanced this thesis, and heavily infuenced later literature.
14. For a recent work that put the mihna in the broader context of a struggle
between political-religious authority in the formative and classical ages of Islam, see
Turner (2013).
15. Recently published Kateman (2019) focuses specifcally on Muhammad
‘Abduh. For a more general analysis of the complex relations between modern
thought and Islamic reformism, see Abu Zayd (2006).
16. A few scholars have depicted the relation between Qutb’s thought and that of
the Salafyaas one of rupture rather than continuity; this view is shared by centrist
(wasati) Islamic thinkers such as Yusuf Qaradawi and Tariq Ramadan as well as by
secular observers (Ramadan 1998; Moussalli 1992). I nevertheless agree with Olivier
Carré that there is a “direct fliation” between Qutb’s radical ideas and earlier Islamic
Copyright © 2021. Lexington Books. All rights reserved.

reformism (Carré 1984). Filiation does not imply full agreement: Qutb’s might
indeed be labeled ‘Abduh’s most rebellious son, but the family resemblance remains
undeniable.
17. To some analysts, this connection between Qut’bs writings and contemporary
violent extremism is so evident that the word “Qutbism” is considered more proper
than “Jihadism” to describe Islamist groups that legitimize and use weapons in the
fght against secular powers to establish an Islamic state. As I have argued elsewhere
(Picchi 2017), this identifcation of Qutb as the forefather of modern violent Islamic
extremism, which led many self-declared “moderate” thinkers and groups to distance
themselves from his writings, is the result of a partial reading of his thought. It does
not take into account his writings as a whole, nor the complexity of his theories.

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 Muhammad ‘Abduh and the Doctrine of Tawhid 81

18. The I-Thou-God model is borrowed from the work of the Christian philoso-
pher and theologian Martin Buber (1958).

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