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Renewing Religious Thought in Islam:
Prerequisites and Impediments(*)
Dr. Taha Abderrahman(**)
Readers have the right to seek further explanation and clarification on the concepts and conditions governing our intellectual endeavors, and to aspire to further knowledge about the correlation of these endeavors with other activities. They may request to understand the conditions of this religious and moral revival and its relationship with intellectual conditions in the Islamic and western worlds. For this reason, we have chosen to address, in line with the objective of the book -which is to revisit the moral issue as the title suggests-, some of the relevant questions we received from our dear readers. We will endeavor to provide answers to the best of our knowledge and in such a way as to enrich the 'philosophical debate' on the religious issue in general and the moral one in particular. These questions are:
First question: In your opinion, what are the prerequisites that must be met in order for the renewal of religious thought to achieve the desired impact?
Answer: Determining the conditions of religious thought renewal depends on the sound assessment of the dimensions of religious reality. Religion is not, as some claim, a form of behavior relevant to a specific and well delineated cycle in Man's multiple behavioral cycles. Rather, it is a fully integrated approach which encompasses all of Man's actions in their complementarity and their correlation, no matter how abstract or tangible their concepts might be. Therefore, determining the conditions of religious thought renewal should take into consideration the attributes of generality and complementarity which characterize religious truth. In this way, no aspect of Man's life will escape the consideration of the religious rights inherent to it. These conditions may be divided into two parts: practical prerequisites and theoretical ones.
1. Practical prerequisites for renewing religious thought:
These practical prerequisites can achieve the generality and complementarity required in Islam only if they are associated with Man's most particular attribute, that of morality. In Islam, morals are the foundation of every action, and good morals are the basis of any benefit. Any other human actions are tributary of these morals, and therefore thought is a tributary of these morals, as are social activities. Politics should also be a tributary of morals if their purpose is to benefit and not harm, and so on so forth. However, if the source is faulty, there is no hope of redeeming the tributaries. If we attempt to reform the tributaries without first tackling the source and the foundation, there is no guarantee this might not jeopardize Islamic action by either halting or misrepresenting it. There can be no renewal without a reinvigoration of morals, and morals cannot be regenerated unless reform is applied to their most particular aspect, sincerity of intention. Achieving sincerity of intention is the prelude to achieving all other virtuous behavior. Sincerity of intention is to invoke Allah as a witness to every action that will be brought before Him for judgment, to pray that Allah grants it success and safety from any injustice or misfortune. He who takes Allah as a witness to all his actions rises above all personal gain, and his actions will be blessed and benefit greatly to each and everyone.
However, it seems that the new Islamic revival(1) has not given much importance so far to this mystical aspect of the practice of Islam. Instead, it has focused all its attention on the materialistic aspects of this practice, such as the political and the economic ones. By doing so, it substituted the tributaries for the source and the novel for the authentic.
This prevalence of the materialistic dimension is explained by two main factors: the eagerness of Muslims to catch up with the civilizational march, and their succumbing to the emulation of the West.
A- Eagerness to catch up with the civilizational march: While the eagerness of Muslims to catch up with the civilizational march is a legitimate pursuit, they should not follow a materialistic approach thereto until they have secured their starting base, pondered the goal they seek to achieve and were satisfied with the legitimacy of their premises and the soundness of their objectives. Should they miss the opportunity to first grasp the materialistic approach to development borrowed from the West, they will follow this approach without being armed with the degree of spiritual power and moral strength necessary to protect this approach from the failure and frustration that may prey upon it should it remain lacking in moral fortification.
B- Emulating western modernism: It is not advisable for Muslims to emulate the West's modernist approach because that approach was originally built around the total rejection of morals and considered the association of science or technology with morals a factor of backwardness and diminished productivity. Once science and technology were stripped of morals, they soon veered towards a purely materialistic dimension and ceased to be beneficial.
2- Theoretical prerequisites of renewing religious thought:
These theoretical prerequisites can achieve the generality and complementarity called for in Islam only when theory finds its bases in action. This applies to many aspects of which we shall mention three here: ascertainment through religious action, the utilization of knowledge, and recourse to practical Charia concepts in theorizing. These points are addressed in detail hereunder:
A- Ascertainment through religious action: Intellectual productivity should be based on the conviction that is reached using the features of religious action. Thus, the attributes of these features are reflected upon this productivity which thus becomes blessed with divine support in the objectives it seeks to achieve and the means it employs to fulfil them. Those who claim that intellectual productivity has no bearing whatsoever on religious practice have sought to obliterate this aspect to such extent that some Muslims began to think that knowledge comes in two distinct groups: one group belongs in the field of religious values such as Charia, and legal and moral sciences and literary and artistic knowledge, and a second group that has no link whatsoever to these values and that includes disciplines such as mathematics, informatics, natural sciences, chemistry and biology. But such claim is devoid of any veracity. Sciences, irrespective of their nature, should be used to serve the Islamic religious essence on two fronts, both as a means of revealing the purposes of faith and as a tool regulating the mechanisms used to reveal these purposes.
Therefore, knowledge becomes knowledge in terms of the Charia only when the facts established by this knowledge are related to the facts put forth, warned against or referred to in one way or the other by the Charia.
There is no better example of this than the fact that sciences, whether related to nature or to man, should serve the essence of Islamic Charia and prevent it from the aberrations that occur in the processes of scientific research and technical applications. Such aberrations have reached advanced levels where man has started to anticipate the harm that scientific and technical developments will bring to humanity instead of looking forward to the benefits they may provide. How is it that knowledge which Allah (SWT) praised in His Noble Book and that His Noble Prophet urged us to seek has become harmful to mankind in many of its aspects? This can be explained by either of the two facts: what people engage in and call knowledge is not the knowledge praised by Allah and of which the pursuit was recommended by Mohammed, or that knowledge takes many paths, some of which are beneficial and others are harmful.
A category of Muslims supports the theory that knowledge as known among men is not the knowledge thus praised and recommended. They argue that the knowledge meant in the Quran and the Sunnah is the 'transmitted knowledge' as opposed to reason-based knowledge. Unfortunately, this argument is not valid since creating a link between these two forms of science is crucial to achieving the perfection of Islamic knowledge. Reason-based knowledge is no lesser in importance than the transmitted one in acquiring Charia attributes or in its adherence to the faith. But this distinction was set by former as well as contemporary scholars as a result of foreign influences that have altered the Islamic perception of knowledge and that attach no value whatsoever to religious truth.
To admit that knowledge may have multiple, beneficial as well as harmful, possibilities and paths is conditional upon recognizing the need to establish a link between knowledge and the divine element, so that guidance and assistance are sought from this divine source. Thus, the knowledge seeker avoids the negative forms of science and the harmful paths of technology, and engages solely in what benefits him and all people.
B- Utilization of knowledge:A scholar needs to apply what he teaches. Knowledge advocated by a scholar who does not apply it becomes tainted by two forbidden features: 'abstraction' and 'shortfall in benefit'.
Abstraction does not refer here to the act of stripping something of meaning, distinguishing between meanings or coordinating them for some scientific purpose or the other. It is used to mean 'a breakdown in action', and the obliteration of its real value in guiding the course of theory. The possibilities of theoretical construction are unlimited and require no commitment other than what we choose to commit ourselves to, contrary to what is commonly believed. These possibilities become comparatively better or worse only through their reflection of the action and how profoundly the impact of this action penetrates these possibilities. Consequently, action can be used to redress theory.
The shortfall in benefit of abstract knowledge is manifest in the fact that those who adopt such knowledge remain in need of something to validate it. If such proof cannot be seen in those who preach this knowledge, they cannot be elected as a role model, nor can the seeker form in his mind a true image of what he receives or who he receives it from. Furthermore, should he develop an inclination to differentiate between his sayings and his actions, such inclination will generate tremendous harm for the society hosting him.
C- Recourse to practical Charia concepts in theorizing: It is necessary in developing theoretical explanations to resort to equations and premises proven through practice and inspired from religious occupations. The foreign perception of knowledge has become so prevalent amongst us that we are able to perceive only those of its potentialities that the West has fulfilled and to visualize only the horizons that the West has reached. We now believe that there is only one form of knowledge, that knowledge does not have many avenues, that it is crucial and none of its phases can be questioned, that it is absolute and that its results are not open to relativity. All of this is pure illusion. Knowledge has many courses and diverse forms and those of its paths and gates that have opened up before the West are just a small particle of its immense potential. If the West has chosen to release its knowledge from the shackles of action and the constraints of religion and to give such abstraction names that confer a false sense of legitimacy on these choices, such as 'objective', 'causal', 'automatic', 'procedural' and 'scientific', such option is only one possibility among a multitude of others. The most important of these other choices is to choose knowledge that is bound by work and defined by religion. This possibility is not meant to refer to what the advocates of the islamization of science preach in the form of an 'Islamic beautification' of knowledge copied from the West. This beautification consists of starting scientific studies with the basmala or ending these with the phrase "Allah knows best," or sprinkling these studies with Quranic verses and hadiths. What is needed is an approach to science and knowledge that differs from the West's, namely the ability to deconstruct the emulated theoretical edifice and reconstruct it according to various conversion processes that are applied to concepts and rules.
We cannot address this issue in details here, but for argument's sake I shall give the example of how we can transform the way science perceives the issue of objectives and means. This perception is based on the admission that Man's work seeks to fulfill well defined objectives and uses equally specific means to reach such objectives. However, Man totally forgets that these objectives cannot be guaranteed to benefit him except through divine will. Similarly, the means used can only be effective thanks to this divine will. The Muslim needs to take this divine will into consideration in his choice of objectives and of the means that will achieve them, and cannot limit himself to a superficial acceptance thereof, such as believing in the inherence of this divine will in these human actions. Such a belief does not change in any way the theoretical construction at hand, nor does it not prompt the person pondering it to accept the premise of divine will or to consider this will as a sine qua non condition for the validity of such equation. We need to integrate this admission of divine will in the formulation itself of the equation through specific processes that would be apparent to all those who reflect upon it. This involves integrating in this scientific construction two main premises: 'divine-granted success' which guarantees the beneficial aspect of the objectives chosen by man, and 'divine support' which guarantees the effectiveness of the means adopted. We may choose to name the first element 'guidance' and the second one as 'support'. 'Guidance' thus becomes a scientific requirement for the validity of objectives, and 'support' a scientific condition for the effectiveness of the means, contrary to the Western perception of the whole issue. This issue was addressed in more detail in our book: Religious Action and Renewing the Mind.(2)
Second question: The process of renewal and edification presupposes freedom. How do you assess the ability of the Arab and Muslim mind to liberate itself from the pressures and powers of reality which have long hindered the movement of this mind?
Answer: No one can deny the 'oppression' and 'vilification' that the contemporary Islamic renewal movement is subjected to by external and internal powers, in stark violation of all the principles, claims and slogans put out by these powers in their alleged drive to create a new world order.
There can be no better proof of the oppression and vilification of the Islamic renewal movement than its accusation of violence and extremism and the transformation of its champions into symbols of fanaticism and terrorism, to such extent that even some Muslims have started to take part, out of ignorance or lack of pride, in these unfair practices.
Muslims find it beneath their dignity to either follow or preach all the forms of destruction and debauchery that they have witnessed and continue to witness in the form of gay movements and radical currents as they are contrary to the teachings and history of their religion. Yet, the West does not direct as many of its oppression or vilification efforts against such trends as it does against Islamic movements, being perfectly aware that its hegemonic designs can only be countered or defeated through the power of faith intrinsic to the principles of Islam.
In its usual cunning, the West has resorted to mobilizing groups of Muslims to act on its behalf in carrying out its oppression and vilification campaigns in the lands of Islam, having sensed that this guaranteed more success for its plans to control and maneuver. Had it engaged single handedly in this iniquitous venture, it would not have met the same success as its pawns, provided naturally that such approach does not backfire and result in the Muslims' closing ranks against it to foil its plans.
What these hired guns have achieved in countering Islamic renewal has reached extents where they dare take stances against deeply-entrenched religious foundations and to spew opinions that challenge absolute religious constants. Some of these actions include:
- Proclaiming their opposition to the renewal of the spirit of Islam by organizing gatherings and rallies to denounce all efforts at renewal made by Islamic movements;
- Creating associations and organizations to lobby for rescinding some religious beliefs and the repealing legal and religious limitations;
- Inciting local bodies to curtail the spread of Islamic movements in order to enable them to spread their own borrowed secular ideas and atheist trends.
In light of this, how can the movement of Islamic renewal fend off these various methods of vilification and oppression?
It seems that resorting to the same weapons and methods is of little help in confronting this coordinated campaign against Islamic revival. I personally cannot conceive of the idea of publicly denouncing the principles and slogans put forth by this campaign's architects as such a denunciation would only trigger more vilification and oppression. In fact, and thanks to a shrewd media escalation, these principles and slogans have become more akin to indisputable facts which apparently can only be denied by ignoramuses and criticized by those whose evil trait exceeds their good one and who should therefore be silenced and repressed.
I believe that creating organized formations to fight these people can only place the movement of Islamic renewal in danger of even more vilification, and its champions of more repression. In fact, the stigma of terrorism and violence is more likely to attach itself to organised opposition movements than to spontaneous uncoordinated struggle.
Thus, I can easily imagine that seeking help from repressive authoritarian apparatuses would only lead to further vilification and repression from the opponents of the Islamic renewal movement as levelling backwardness, opportunism and collaboration accusations against this movement becomes a new weapon in the hands of the opponents.
Finally, it seems that boosting the 'political dynamism' of the Islamic renewal movement is not of great help in foiling the designs and methods of the enemy. In fact, the monopoly exercised by the political drive over the trend's activities accounts for the systematic persecution and intense vilification emanating both from within and from without. Indeed, human nature inherently covets leadership and prone to fighting for power using any means that could guarantee its victory over the rivals.
The movement of Islamic renewal cannot overcome the vilification and persecution it is enduring except by fully clarifying the Islamic meaning of renewal. From an Islamic perspective, renewal is not the mere erection of a worldly edifice made up of private fortunes and shared interests. It is much nobler because it aspires to edify man's rapport with his God. It is not a simple act of modifying the political conscience of individuals but moves beyond as it leans towards changing man as a whole entity.
The campaign of vilification and oppression targets the Islamic renewal movement through two common aspects which have always represented a bone of contention over which mankind has always fought, namely 'erecting the worldly edifice' and 'engaging in political sensitization'. This being the case, should not the movement, in its quest to achieve renewal and revive Islamic productivity, rise in its actions above the low worldly level to the sublime and divine one, and from the narrow political plane to the vast humanistic one? The truth is, rising to the sublime divine level which renews man's rapport with God can only come about if the soul is purified and refined, and elevation to the broad humanistic level can only occur through 'developing thought'.
- Purifying the soul: The Islamic movement is in dire need of focusing all its attention on this pillar which can, single-handedly, make possible the generation of men who are truly worthy of being role models for the rest. Needless to say, the need for role models is today stronger than it has ever been, for the dawwa discourses have become so numerous and reached unprecedented levels in their inflation, creating a real need for lively discourses that take form in tangible actions.
- Developing thought: Great is the need of the new Islamic revival to further promote this aspect. Only through a developed thought can we dispet the doubts cast by the enemies and build sound and correct Islamic knowledge. There is an undeniable need for Islamic thought today, greater than any other time before in view of the escalating denigration and belittling targeting the intellectual acumen of the Islamic movement. In the face of such onslaught, there emerges a need to develop a new and fertile thought that is equal in coordination and depth to the opponent's borrowed and rehashed ideas.
It thus becomes clear that if the contemporary Islamic renewal movement is oppressed and vilified in its methods and goals, as a result of its competition with internal and external role-players for the practice of politics and for power, it can source in Islam what may elevate its action and expand its scope. This elevation in action becomes possible when the movement arms itself with 'moral sustenance' that boosts its spirit and renews its relationship with the Creator and His creation. It also becomes possible to expand its scope of action when it secures the sort of 'intellectual sustenance' that refutes all suspicions and ensures recognition.
Third question: How do you see the relationship between the renewal movement in the Arab and Islamic countries and Western thought?
Answer: I disagree with those who claim that any hopes of Islamic renewal are tied to the edification of industrial institutions and technical centres, the launching of upgrading programmes and the mobilization of material resources. This opinion may be correct if the purpose behind the renewal is to create a Muslim society that is no more than a copy of the Western one. Unfortunately, most Islamic leaderships lean, either unconsciously or with misguided premeditation, towards this vision of renewal. Were they to deeply ponder the issue, they would see that this approach to modernisation will only lead to further dependency upon the West and to more backwardness, in addition to the loss of our legacy and the freezing of our capacities. There are three causes to this:
A- Determining the criteria of modernisation according to the Western model and applying this perception to the Islamic reality is likely to confine the Muslim society within a scientific scope defined through Western parameters. But this scope becomes narrower the higher the expectations of the Muslim society are. The West's perception and monitoring of the Muslim society is conditioned by this society's ambitions, unless it chooses to shed its identity and unconditionally embrace the West. Needless to say, we have no words for those who choose the West as an ally who teaches them how to live, a tutor who dictates how they should think, and a mentor who shows them how to be Muslims.
B- The path followed by the West in achieving modernisation was initially built around matters of faith and doctrines which are inherently contradictory with the Islamic charia essence. Anyone who blindly follows this modernisation path with its intrinsic faith considerations and without fully understanding its short and long term implications can but undermine his own faith and charia-inspired action. This path was built around two types of distinctions: distinguishing between reason and any perception of the Unseen and distinguishing between knowledge and morals. In Islam, knowledge is of no value unless it is used in practice and serves to condition the behaviour of man. When the Muslim espouses these modernist methods which totally deny the element of the Unseen and disregard the impact of knowledge on moralisation, he will be at risk of acquiring perceptions and inclinations that will, unbeknownst to him, deprive him of the safety of faith. He will not be safe from exposure, sooner or later, to trends and actions that will soon cause him to forget how to interact with Allah.
There is a clean break between Western modernisation and the dimension of the Unseen in thought as it remains to the sensorial connotation, and between this modernisation and the moral dimension of knowledge as it is confined within an abstract connotation. Therefore, it is necessary for the Muslim to be wary of the gradual nature of the persuasion he is subjected to by this western paradigm of modernisation, and to seek a different approach away from this gradual entrapment. This is only possible through reclaiming the two lost dimensions of the link between thought and the Unseen and the link between knowledge and actual actions.
C- The West will never wait for Muslim societies to match its scientific productivity and secular drive. It will instead endeavour to draw many times more profit from this productivity, thus further increasing the divide separating it from Muslim societies. These societies will lose many times more scientific productivity since they would have been forced to follow modernisation paths that run counter to their original moral orientations and undermine their true potential for contribution and productivity.
Once we establish that the modernisation path followed by the West will only confer on us a status of 'spectator' and the stigma of 'backwardness', we will appreciate the need to follow a modernisation approach where our progress will not be easy to monitor by the West and our achievements will not undermined by it.
There is in the message of the Prophet (PBUH) the greatest example that can be found. Two great nations co-existed at the time of his call, two nations whose scientific and technical progress was to the Arabs of yesteryear as the West's scientific and technical progress is to the Muslims today: the Romans and the Persians. The Prophet (PBUH) did not engage in an imitation of these two great civilizations, or in copying their approach to knowledge and industry. He regenerated the faith of the Arabs, purified their souls and redressed their behaviour. Once this renewal, purification and reform had been achieved, he invited them to acquire the tools necessary to compete with the Romans and the Persians by adhering to something that the others neither had nor knew how to acquire, observe, or assess with a view to destroy, namely 'divine accompaniment'. No tools can be beneficial except if the Muslim using them ensures the presence of Allah (SWT) in his heart while using them.
It becomes clear that leaving the backwardness of yesterday entails two essential requirements: consecrating the human entity and ensuring divine accompaniment. If the condition of Muslims today can be reformed using what had served to redress the conditions of yesterday' Muslims, what is their current situation in terms of these two prerequisites? Have they fulfilled the requirement of consolidating the human entity through regenerating faith, purifying the soul and reforming actions? Have they done what it takes to ensure the divine accompaniment of their development drives, faithfulness to Allah in their active preparations and reliance on Allah in their practical achievements?
It would be a lengthy process to try and assess the new Islamic awakening from these diverse aspects. We will limit ourselves to two facets that characterise this awakening: failure to achieve the necessary moral rectitude, and forsaking the discourse of divine accompaniment.
- Failure to achieve the required moral rectitude: It seems that the new Islamic awakening has turned to political action without allowing time for moral reform and regeneration. Perhaps, the western approach to modernisation is what actually lured it to this hasty action and to ignoring the moral aspect considering that the concerns of this modernisation do not stretch to the moral weight of matters. Politics in their western sense are reduced to a material practice that is as much affected by whims and desires as are fortunes and sensorial interests. Anyone at risk of being drawn into the political form of Western modernisation- a form that has little regard for spiritual values- is in dire need of caution and careful consideration, perquisites that become possible only through a moral education. Thus, the desired renewal can be achieved for the Muslim who becomes capable of taking social decisions, making plans and steering his political orientations in ways that keep him out of harm's way while reinvigorating his humanity.
B- Forsaking the divine accompaniment discourse: It seems that the discourse of Islamic revival unconsciously leans towards using the same message-conveying means as those of the modernist discourse. In its analyses and conclusions, it only gives credence to what places these analyses and conclusions within human willpower only. If one ponders this Islamic discourse, one may acquire the impression that it was developed by someone with little concern for the divine duty placed on one's shoulders. It would have been more appropriate if the champions of revival strived harder to produce a discourse characterised by divine accompaniment. It is not enough to simply acknowledge this divine accompaniment. It should be referred to in practice and used as a reference to infer procedural rules and laws that can be used to build a unique discourse, and making these rules a key to enabling this discourse to develop many ramifications and create a correlation between these various ramifications.
Fourth question: Many decades ago, the Muslim philosopher Mohammed Iqbal called for the renewal of religious thought among Muslims. How did time affect this call in your opinion?
Answer: Mohammed Iqbal, may Allah bless his soul, was one of the prominent contemporary thinkers who made use of the original Islamic culture in dealing with western culture and in benefiting and reforming it. He did call for the regeneration of religious thought but his call, although positively received by some salafists and moral reformists, was rather limited and remained restricted within the field of spontaneous intellectual activity without ever ascending to the level of proper theorizing.
In his book 'Renewing Religious Thought in Islam'(3), Mohammed Iqbal cited two essential conditions for the revival of Islamic thought, one being the development of the concept of action in Islam, and the other the renewal of Islamic religious philosophy.
A- Developing the concept of 'movement in Islam: No one can deny that contemporary Islamic renaissance was the result of the revival of religious rites, i.e. engaging in religious action after that action had shrunk or almost disappeared. But this blessed revival of the practice of religion soon progressed into political movement. The concept of action instantly moved from the pure practice of worship rites -i.e. ritual performance- to the realm of political transactions -the practice of power-. As a result, this concept remained short of what was sought by Mohammed Iqbal, namely the intellectual analysis and scientific theorization of the concept of action in Islam. There is a strong need to research the origin and branches of this concept, to ponder its characteristics and functions through the issues that emerged and the horizons that opened up as to the meaning of 'practice'. Treating this lightly or ignoring this practical aspect explains the difficulties through which the Islamic action is stumbling and the recklessness that marks the planning of this course.
B- Regenerating Islamic religious philosophy: Mohammed Iqbal called for formulating an Islamic philosophy that fulfils the needs for scientific development and the requirements of intellectual renewal. But his call for regeneration went unanswered by all. This may be explained by the aversion of some towards the term 'philosophy' used by Mohammed Iqbal, and the resentment by others of his defence of the role of 'moral Islam' in this renewal.
In truth, there is in the call for the edification of a new religious philosophy a profound awareness of what is required at this current historical juncture, namely the need to arm oneself with the intellectual ammunition in confronting the enemies of the Islamic faith, whether they hail from within or without, as well as the need to secure a cultural environment that would provide the Islamic movement with the power to resume its activities every time its methods are met with resistance and its champions are subjected to oppression.
(*) A Chapter in the book: 'A Question of Morals: A Contribution to the Moral Critique of Western Modernism' which won the ISESCO Prize for 2006 as the best Islamic thought book and was published by the Arab Cultural Centre in Casablanca, 2005.
(**) Lecturer of logic and philology at the Mohamed V University in Rabat and president of the Wisdom Forum of Thinkers and Researchers.
(1) Most people refer to the new Islamic renaissance as 'awakening', but we prefer to use the term 'revival which seems to better convey the moral aspect we are addressing here. However, we do not mean by morals the prevalent definition which refers to a specific form of behavior among others that may surpass it in importance.
(2) Published in 2004 by the Arab Cultural Centre in Casablanca.
(3) The book was published in English under the title: The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam in 1930 in Lahore. The book is a compilation of six lectures delivered by Mohammed Iqbal to students in the cities of Madras, Hyderabad and Aligarh. The second edition was published in 1934 by Oxford University Press. The first Arabic edition of the book (translated by Abbas Mahmoud) was published in Cairo in 1955 by the Board of Translation, Authorship and Publishing under the title: "Tajdeed Al Fikr Ad-Dini fil Islam' - editor's note.
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