The Shifting Politics of Identity 265earlier formulations as tropes and themes for individuals, states and societies
who appropriated them after 1967. We need fi rst to return to these styles and
their creators in order to recognise the identity implications they hold. Each of
these styles has bequeathed an important resource to modern Muslim societies.
A careful analysis of the signifi cance of the self in these styles and responses will
illustrate the meaning of modern identities.
Muslim reform (islah)
Muslim reformists, also often called modernists, were engaged directly with
the challenges of modernity. Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905), one of the
leading protagonists, called his project islah (reform) and in one essay associ-
ated it with the Protestant Reformation (Abduh 1989: 77). Here we can see a
slight intimation of the signifi cant change that he may have seen in modernisa-
tion. Abduh argued that the path of modernisation could be taken only when
Muslims returned to the original teachings of Islam. Such a position would
overlap with notions of tajdid, of reminding the Muslim umma of returning to the
model of early Islamic society. But, by making a comparison with the Protestant
Reformation, he was perhaps also suggesting a uniqueness to the demands of
the new age. In this chapter, I will use the case of the reformists as an attestation
that people like Abduh drew from the earlier tajdid (renewal) traditions of Islam,
as well as advocating reforms in response to modernity.
Nineteenth-century reformers were varied in their approach to modernity,
often being intensely critical of each other. For example, two of the leading
exponents of the time, Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, had
very different political goals. Khan saw the British Empire as the guardian of
Muslim interests in the Indian subcontinent, while al-Afghani was a paragon of
anti-imperialism and pan-Islam. On an intellectual level, al-Afghani wrote an
extensive pamphlet against Khan (Keddie 1983). Khan’s followers in India were
inspired by his ideas on reform while rejecting some of his daring modernisms in
the translation of the Quran (Rahman 1958; Ahmad 1967: 112). Even though
Abduh was directly inspired by al-Afghani, he took a very different political
approach towards the British. Joining al-Afghani’s anti-imperialism at fi rst, he
later adopted a more conciliatory approach and became a protégé of the British
interests in Egypt (Hourani 1962: 158–9; Asad 2001: 9).
In spite of these differences, however, the reformists were promoting some
aspect of universalism that they shared with each other and with the colonis-
ers. Secondly, and fl owing from this universalism, they also held in common
a critical attitude to the inherited traditions of Islam. This was the fi rst critical
movement in the construction of modern Muslim identity. It was an articula-
tion of universalism that emerged from a critique of existing Muslim state and
society. And the universalism matched aspects that colonialists brought to these