Modern Things on Trial: Islam’s Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida, 1865–1935 by Leor Halevi (review)

In the five decades either side of 1900, the Muslim world faced a flood of new products, technological innovations, and new ways of doing things, coming from Western civilization. This made Muslims anxious whether it was permissible in religious terms to use these—often very seductive— novelties. Consequently, they asked a mufti for advice. The collections of fatwas issued throughout the Muslim world in this period are testament to the anxieties occasioned by the great onslaught of material modernity.

In Modern Things on Trial, Leor Halevi identifies some of the products and innovations that were a source of concern. He then examines how one great mufti was able to demonstrate to what extent something that superficially might not seem so, was permissible. This mufti was the Syrian, Rashid Rida (1865–1935), a leading thinker of his day. In this sense the book is not just about the challenges of modern things but also about the ideas of Rida, who the author calls “The world’s first global mufti.”

At the heart of the book is a study of Rida’s famous magazine al-Manar and its popular fatwa section. Readers were encouraged to submit questions. These came from all over the world: China, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Russia, North Africa, and the Ottoman Empire, even South Africa and Argentina, indicating the geographical breadth of al-Manar’s reader-ship. This said, up to the end of World War I, the magazine seemed to circulate much more readily within the British Empire than in Ottoman territories. There were, for instance, more fatwa-seekers in Singapore alone than in the entire Ottoman Empire.

Among the objects of concern was toilet paper. A Muslim soldier wrote to al-Manar from Sudan after he was forbidden from using water to cleanse himself and required to use toilet paper. Rida did not take the easy way out in his reply, by invoking the doctrine that Muslims must not imitate the ways of Christians. Straightforwardly, he declared that it was permissible to use toilet paper, and this might be better than some of the means traditionally used by Muslims.

A second concern involved Quran recitation on gramophone records. The question came from Kazan, where Muslim modernists and traditionalists were divided on the topic. Modernists enjoyed listening to the Quran on the gramophone without needing a trained reciter. Traditionalists were concerned that the Quran was being played on an instrument used for frivolous purposes and that the recordings gave no room for prostration at key verses. Rida sided with the modernists. Yes, listening to the Quran was permissible, providing there was no breach of manners. Moreover, it was commendable if the aim was to derive moral advice and correct pronunciation, and imperative if there was no other way for a believer to hear the sound of Surat al-fatiha.

Rida’s fatwas involved the full range of modern challenges, from using railways and telegraph to charging interest, paper money, and investment in businesses selling alcohol. His judgments almost invariably enabled Muslims to engage with these modern things. “Principally,” Halevi declares, “because he believed in the need to adjust religious ideals to current realities. He was convinced that Islam’s survival depended on its adaptability to the times, for Muslims would join what he saw as the inexorable march of modernity with or without their religion” (p. 255).

This is a remarkable piece of research. The “modern things” of Rida’s day are richly contextualized. Some may feel too much so, but the extra information is never without interest. The main thrust of Halevi’s argument is that Rida’s Islamic modernism was driven by the need to accommodate successfully modern things in Muslim life. It is a new way of looking at the issue of religion and modernity. Among other things, this book would be an excellent focus for graduates reading...