Late 19th–Early 20th Century: (Emergent Protest in the Islamic World — The Salafiyya Movement in Egypt Bridging Islamic Reformism and European Modernity, Al-…

Late 19th–Early 20th Century: (Emergent Protest in the Islamic World — The Salafiyya Movement in Egypt Bridging Islamic Reformism and European Modernity, Al-Afghani as Political Modernizer, Abduh as Spiritual Revivalist, the Formation of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928, Algeria’s Association of Ulama, and Armed Resistance Continuing in Libya and Morocco Through the Interwar Years): Islamic resistance to European hegemony across northern Africa was deeply rooted, drawing on historical precedent stretching back centuries. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Islamic reformism took new forms as Muslim leaders sought innovative ways of combating European rule and creating identities capable of doing so — modern nationalisms in the making. In Egypt, Islamism was particularly associated with the Salafiyya, an intellectual movement whose leading figures were Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Muhammad Abduh, and Rashid Rida. The Salafiyya placed great emphasis on governance by the Quran and Sunna while seeking to bridge the gulf between Islamic reformism and European modernity — promoting wider political participation, the pursuit of science and reason over blind superstition, and action within the framework of an Egyptian nation-state. Al-Afghani saw in modernizing Islam the potential for the rebirth of autonomous Muslim nations, while his disciple Abduh perceived the dilemma confronting Muslims in religious rather than political terms. In the 1880s and 1890s, the Salafiyya created the impetus for political revival in Egypt following the defeat of Urabi Pasha, and the movement’s ideas inspired the formation of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928 — an organization embracing Islamic reform and asserting that the Quran should become the constitution of an Egyptian nation-state, gradualist and moderate yet rejecting all Western cultural influences perceived as having infiltrated the ruling elite. The Salafiyya was also influential in Algeria through the Association of Ulama. Elsewhere, armed resistance continued in the interwar years — in Libya the Sanusiyya held out against the Italians until the early 1930s, only crushed through concentration camps and the execution of key leaders, while Abd al-Karim led determined resistance in Morocco in the 1920s.