516 Martin Riexinger
did – that anybody arguing against scientific findings with reference
to the literal meaning of verses from the Koran would embarrass Islam
instead of defending it.^82
In the South Asian context Abū al-Kalām Āzād praised Ibn
Taymiyya as outstanding intellectual hero who dismantled the argu-
ments of the Muʿtazilīs and philosophers as no one else had done before
and he equated his intellectual struggle to Ibn Ḥanbal’s resistance to
the “pagan” ideas supported by the caliph al-Maʾmūn.^83 His image of
these two figures and other puritan authors betray unmistakably that
he was acquainted with the “invented tradition” of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth, in
particular with the respective writings of Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān. However,
like Rashīd Riḍā he too avoided any reference to the theologians he
praised when he interpreted the Koran. In fact, his ideas were even more
radical than those of the editor of al-Manār. Teaching that the Koran
did not deal at all with scientific issues he rejected literalist interpreta-
tions and he even accepted the theory of evolution which Rashīd Riḍā
rejected.^84 Decades later the Pakistani modernist Fazlur Rahman dis-
played an equally inconsistent attitude. On the one hand he applauded
Ibn Taymiyya as opponent of Sufism, which he saw as the root cause
for the prevailing passivity in the Muslim world (see above). On the
other hand to free Islamic thought from the limitations enforced by the
Hadith was the major objective of Fazlur Rahman.^85
82 Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad: Ithbāt istidārat al-arḍ wa-dawrānihā min al-qurʾān,
in: al-Manār 7 (1904/05), pp. 260–262; Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad: Asʾila min
Jāwah/Ajwibat al-Manār, in: al-Manār 12 (1909/10), pp. 260–270, here pp. 260,
269–270; Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad: ʿIlm al-hayʾa wal-sunna al-nabawiyya, in:
al-Manār 13 (1910/11), pp. 117–119; Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad: Ḥarakat al-arḍ
wa-dawarānihā, in: al-Manār 13 (1910/11), p. 119. These fatwas show, that
also in the Middle East and South East Asia, where some of the petitioners
(mustaftīs) resided, the interpretation of cosmological verses of the Koran was a
contentious issue before World War I.
83 Khānpūrī, Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh, Tadhkira-i ʿulamāʾ, pp. 175–177, 222–224,
245–246.
84 Āzād, Abū l-Kalām: Madhhab-i nushūʾ u irtiqā kā ek ṣafḥa, in: al-Hilāl (Dec. 10,
1913), pp. 14–16; (Dec. 17, 1913), pp. 8–9. Rashīd Riḍā did not accept the theory
of evolution, however, he refused to denounce someone who did so as an unbe-
liever: Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad: Naẓariyyat Dārwīn wal-islām, in: al-Manār
30 (1930/31), pp. 593–600; Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad: Iḥtiḍār madhhab ʿilmī,
in: al-Manār 31 (1931/32), pp. 131–134; Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad: al-Maqāl
al-thālith ʿashar, in: al-Manār 33 (1933/34), pp. 58–64.
85 Rahman, Fazlur: Islamic Methodology in History, Islamabad 1995, pp. 27–84,
esp. pp. 75, 80.
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