1893 - 1963
Egyptian Muslim leader who emphasized combining modern science with religious studies
Shaykh Muhammad Shaltut studied and taught at al-Azhar University in Cairo, then became Grand Shaykh of al-Azhar in 1958. Shaltut advocated combining the modern sciences with traditional religious studies. As a result, his work is often cited in Egypt and the Arab world by Islamic modernists and moderates.
Early on, Shaltut actively served in cultural, legal, journalistic, and educational capacities within Egypt. In his religious role, his primary focus was to make the Islamic sciences accessible to Muslim laypersons and applicable to modern Muslim life. Indeed, Shaltut emphasized societal unity and faith, social justice, and independence as key manifestations of Islamic principles. He did not, however, offer detailed theories of "Islamic socialism," or advocate the creation of an Islamic state in Egypt. As a reformer, Shaltut held to the traditional tenets of Islam, but castigated religious thinkers and students for blindly following legal schools (taqlid), and failing to consider Islam within a modern context, visà-vis maslaha (public interest). On a practical level, many of Shaltut's years at al-Azhar were spent modernizing teaching methods, textbooks, and courses to reflect this approach.
Shaltut's arguably most influential contributions dealt with jihad and the agreement among legal schools (al-taqrib bayna al-madhahib). In 1940 Shaltut endeavored to reconcile the Qurʾanic verses of fighting with those of forgiveness in order to clarify the notion of jihad in Islam. He concluded that there is no basis in Islam for conversion through violence, and that in both the classical and contemporary periods, jihad was and is only permissible in self-defense. During his tenure at al-Azhar, Shaltut issued a groundbreaking legal ruling (fatwa) declaring the gate of ijtihad (independent reasoning) open. Therefore, jurists could legitimately draw from any of the Sunni or Shiʿite madhahib in order to gather the most sound arguments and evidence for their judgments. His efforts were formalized in the Islamic Research Academy in 1961, and with the implementation of courses in Shiʿism at al-Azhar.
Bibliography
Shaltut, Mahmud. "A Modernist Interpretation of Jihad: Mahmud Shaltut's Treatise Koran and Fighting." In Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam, edited and translated by Rudolph Peters. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1996.
Zebiri, Kate. Mahmud Shaltut and Islamic Modernism. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press, 1993.
— RAYMOND WILLIAM BAKER
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