Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā’s Reform Vision: Between Renewal and Traditionalism

This chapter highlights the main components of Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā’s reform vision and assesses his impact on the movement of Islamic reform. It also revisits commonplace assumptions about Riḍā, mainly that he was merely a mouthpiece of Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s ideas and a translator of his thought; that he was not actually a reformer but a traditionalist promoting conservative Salafi and Wahhabi thoughts; and thus he aborted the reformist efforts of al-Afghānī and ʿAbduh. The chapter argues that Riḍā developed a multifaceted reform program; his program was more comprehensive and coherent than al-Afghānī’s and ʿAbduh’s; and, though his later Salafi tendency and methodology obscured the reformist nature of his program, Riḍā in fact laid down the foundation of a new phase in Islamic revival.