JMS 316E

Islamic Intellectuals History

Dr. Ahmad Dzulfahmi Muhamad

Tel: 04-653 5900
Email: dzulfahmi@usm.my
Islamic Intellectuals History

Lesson 1: The Background

 The Fall of Baghdad & Its Impacts
Upon the Muslim World
Lesson 2: The Muslim World In The
19th Century
 Decline of the Ottoman Empire
Lesson 3: Reforms in the Ottoman
Empire
 The Early Reforms
 Tanzimat
 Pan-Islamism
Lesson 4: The Continued Decline of
the Ottoman Empire
Lesson 5: The Salafiyyah
 Lesson 1: The Fall of Baghdad and Its
Impacts Upon the Muslim World
 The Abbasid Caliphate ruled from 750-1258.
 The Capital of the Empire is Baghdad
 Came to power after the Umayyad
 Its leader is called the Caliph
 Rich and advanced Empire
 In this period, the Muslims held sway over the
intellectual, politics and economy.
 But, this Empire came to an end when fell under
brutal attack of the Monggol.
 Mongol under the leadership of Hulagu Khan the
grandson of Ghengiz Khan
 Shiite collaborated with the Mongols – Nasirudin al-
Tusi
 On seeing the weakness of the empire and offer
made by the Shi‟ite leaders Hulagu invaded
Baghdad in 1258
 According to Ibn Khaldun 1,600,000 muslims
perished in the slaughter of six weeks. Most of the
valuable works of knowledge on Muslim religious
sciences and other fields of importance to mankind
were destroyed completely.
 The beginning of the decline of Islamic Civilization
 There are several factors that led to the decline.
 The Muslim had abandoned the true teaching of
Islam.
 Moral decay –Caliph and the nobility life full of
enjoyment, spending lavishly, drinking spree,
womanizing, didn‟t care welfare of the people,
acted as tyrants.
 Lived luxuriously, compete in building palace
 Leaders did not practice „shura‟ (consultation).
 Refuse to listen to the „ulama‟ and tortured them.
 Disunity among the Muslims.
 Rebellion from the Shi‟a.
 Internal factors such as Harem system within the
courts – eunuch, slave girls (concubines) brought
degradation to the Muslim leaders.
 Malpractice and mismanagement of the economic
system – lavish gifts, expensive expeditions, heavy
taxation and extortion by rulers.
 Relationship between central government and the
provincial government were not cordial.
 Rise of various military commanders who set up their
own dynasties such as Seljuq Dynasty, Aghlabid
Dynasty, Ayyubid Dynasty etc.
 Religious fanaticism – struggle of influence between
the various schools of thought (mazhab) – Sunni and
Shiite.
 Sunni and Mu‟tazilah, Khrijites (Khawarij).
 Crusades – Christians powers from Europe and
Byzantines (Eastern Roman Empire) embarked upon
the struggle to establish their religious, political and
economic domination over Muslim territories
 They invade several middle east country like
Palestine, Egypt and Syria
 These invaders brought sufferings to the Muslims
 With the downfall of Baghdad the Muslim world
never fully recovered.
 In intellectual and scientific developments, the
Muslim world fell behind the Western world which
developed after much borrowing from the Muslim
ulama and thinkers.
 Muslims fall under the influence of taqlid as strict
orthodoxy developed.
 Ijtihad – the exercise of healthy reasoning within the
framework of Islamic Shariah was not practised.
 The state of apathy or stagnancy (al-jumud) took
place
 Misinterpretation of the Sufi teachings by some
spiritual teachers influence the Muslims.
 The state of affairs contradict to Islam which calls for
the mastery of various knowledge among the
believers.
 The Muslim suffered because of the Tartar invasion.
 Its intellectual progress has been blocked and a
general feeling of pessimism was created among the
Muslims about the future of Islam.
 Overwhelmed by it, the Ulama and Muslim
intellectuals closed the door of ijtihad. Stagnation
stole over them and they presumed that the safety of
Islam lay in rigidly pinning things down with iron pegs
in the existing state
Lesson 2: Muslim World in the 19th Century
 On 19th century, the Muslim world was in deep
decline.
 Its start with decline of the Ottoman Empire after the
death of Sultan Sulaiman the Magnificent (1520-
1566)
 Beside that, the declination of the empire because
lack of moral, corruptions, nepotism and military
weakness.
 The Christian world of Europe was develop in
intellectual, military and economy.
 Invasion by Napoleon Bonarparte had brought about
great changes in the history of the Middle East and
other Muslim territories to the east.
Decline of the Ottoman Empire
 In Istanbul – moral and material corruptions,
nepotism, intellectual lethargy
 Military weakness caused the once booming empire
to slip slowly into a mixture of deep stupor, nostalgic
and complacent mood.
 The decline as a result of both internal and external
factors.
 Internally, the Ottomans suffered from three major
problems. After Suleiman's death, the sultans were
less capable and energetic, being raised and
spending their time increasingly at court with all its
harem intrigues.
 Without the sultan's strong hand at the helm,
corruption became a major problem
 Second, the Janissaries became a virtual hereditary
caste, demanding increasingly more pay while they
also grew soft and lazy.
 Finally, the size of the empire created problems. The
sultan was expected to lead the army, setting out
with it each spring from the capital.
 This meant that as the frontiers expanded, it took the
army longer to reach the enemy, thus shortening the
campaign season to the point where it was very hard
to conquer new lands.
 Two external economic factors also contributed to
the decline of the Ottomans, both of them stemming
from the Age of Exploration then taking place.
 The Portuguese circumnavigation around Africa to
India had opened a new spice route to Asia.
 Therefore, the Turks lost their monopoly on the spice
trade going to Europe, which cost them a good deal
of much needed money.
 The Spanish Empire in the Americas that was
bringing a huge influx of gold and silver to Europe.
This triggered rampant inflation during the 1500‟s,
which worked its way eastward into the Ottoman
Empire. This inflation, combined with the other
factors hurting the empire's revenues, led to serious
 First of all, after 1600, the Turks lost their
technological and military edge. While European
armies were constantly upgrading their artillery and
firearms, the Ottomans let theirs stagnate, thus
putting them at a disadvantage against their
enemies.
 Also, as Turkish conquests ground to a halt, a stable
frontier guarded by expensive fortresses evolved,
which drained the empire of even more money.
 At the same time, Europeans were reviving the
Roman concept of strict drill and discipline to create
much more efficient and reliable armies.
 However, the Turks failed to adapt these techniques
and, as a result, found themselves increasingly at a
disadvantage when fighting against European
 Second, the tough feudal Turkish cavalry that had
been the backbone of the army in the mobile wars of
conquest were less useful to the sultans who now
needed professional garrisons to run the frontier
forts.
 Without wars of conquest to occupy and enrich
them, they became restless and troublesome to the
central government.
 That combined with the problems from the
Janissaries, caused revolts that further disrupted the
empire.
 The following centuries saw the Ottoman Empire
suffer from steady political and economic decay. By
the 1800's, its decrepit condition would earn it the
uncomplimentary title of "The Sick Man of Europe".
 Finally, the shock of World War I would destroy the
Ottoman Empire once and for all, breaking it into
what have become such Middle Eastern nations as
Turkey, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Lebanon, and
Israel
 Both of these military problems, the failure to keep
up with the West and the increasingly rebellious
army, fed back into the empire's economic decline,
which further aggravated its military problems.
 Leadership : 17 sultans after Suleyman (from 1566
to 1789) were, with few exceptions, men of little
ability, training, or experience, and some were
incompetent, even mentally defective; their average
rule of 13 years was less than half that of the first 10
sultans.
 Mehmed III died in 1605 leaving two minor sons as
the only direct male survivors. The elder, Ahmet I,
spared the life of his brother, Mustafa, but kept him
secluded in a special apartment in the harem of
Topkapi Palace.
 Mustafa I‟s accession in 1617 marked the end of
succession by military contest and the practice of
royal “fratricide,” replaced by confinement of princes
in the palace and succession by the eldest male of
 The Sultans were not only were most inexperienced
and incompetent, many were minors under the
influence of the Queen Mother (Valide Sultan) and
harem favorites, giving rise to palace cliques and
intrigue.
 The first half of the 17th century, women of the palace
exercised such influence that the period is called
“The Sultanate of the Women”
 Bribery, purchase of office, favoritism, nepotism,
Promotion by merit, long the hallmark of Ottoman
administration, became less common.
 Corruption spread to the provinces where an official
would buy his office, then squeeze more taxes from
the populace to reimburse himself. There were
frequent shifts in judicial as well as civil officials, with
 Military: The devshirme was abandoned; sons of
janissaries were admitted to the corps, then other
Muslims; and imperial slavery became a legal fiction.
 Provincial janissaries sometimes acted as semi-
autonomous local rulers, while in Istanbul they
become a disruptive force, often in collaboration
with artisans / craftsmen and students.
 The provincial cavalry army was made obsolete by
musket-armed European troops, requiring the
Ottomans to increase their standing infantry and
equip them with firearms. This required money.
 The military fief system was all but abandoned and
replaced by tax-farming.
 The heavy tax burden was responsible in part for
revolts in Anatolia, abandonment of farm lands, and
depopulation of villages; thus the empire
experienced a decline in tax revenues despite higher
taxes.
 Economics: The Ottoman Empire suffered from
severe inflation, as did all of Europe, as New World
silver flooded in.
 This, together with debased coinage, fueled
corruption. By the 17th century, Europeans and
consolidated their control of new sea trade routes,
by-passing the Middle East and diminishing the
transit trade through Ottoman lands.
 Asian spices were shipped directly to Europe, and
wars with Iran interrupted the silk trade. European
manufactured goods flowed in, undercutting local
handicraft products and enriching Levantine
merchants.
 The Ottoman Empire‟s unfavorable trade balance
resulted in an outflow of gold, while European states
demanded more favorable trade treaties
(Capitulations) and were guilty of blatantly abusing
them.
 Intellectual decline- Selim and Sulaiman‟s victory
over Safavid Shi‟ism so consolidated Sunni
orthodoxy that Muslims in the Empire were not
forced to engage in intellectually challenging and
stimulating conflict as Catholics and Protestants
were in Europe.
 Muslim scholars became intellectually conservative
and resistant to new ideas; convinced of the
superiority of Muslim / Ottoman civilization, they
were seemingly oblivious to the advances being
made in the infidel West.
 Meanwhile, the Ottoman religious establishment
gradually became infiltrated by the Sufi orders,
producing a new sort of symbiosis which gave
greater strength to conservative religious elements.
Lesson 3: Reforms in the Ottoman Empire
The Early Reforms
 Early reforms started in the time of Sultan Murad IV
(1623-1640)
 End of 18th century, Sultan Selim III had initiated
reforms after consultation with King Louis XIV
 He pronounced a programme called Nizam-I Jedid
 Founded army and military school and used
foreigner instructor to teach the Turks modern
military.
 Despite strong resistance, Selim pressed on with his
reforms but this programme were abruptly ended.
 The Tulip Period (1718-1730) marks the first
conscious borrowing of European culture and art.
 During the mid-century interlude of peace on the
European frontiers, Ottoman political authority was
further diffused.
 Provincial notables and governors barely heeded
orders from Istanbul. Levantines and Phanariot
Greeks enjoyed enormous prosperity and
influence.
 The Imperial reforms begun by Selim III were taken
up again in the early decades of the 19th century by
Sultan Mahmud II.
 They aimed at curbing provincial autonomy and
achieving political centralization and modernization
through Western-style military, administrative, and
fiscal reforms.
 The first war with Catherine of Russia ended in the
Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarca (1774) by which the
Ottomans gave up the Crimea, the first time they had
lost territory inhabited primarily by Muslims.
 But Selim‟s failure to prevent Napoleon‟s invasion of
the rich Ottoman province of Egypt in 1798 revealed
to Europeans as never before that the balance of
power had now shifted decidedly in their favor.
 They aimed at curbing provincial autonomy and
achieving political centralization and modernization
through Western-style military, administrative, and
fiscal reforms.
 But European intervention in the Greek struggle for
independence signaled the beginning of the modern
"Eastern Question”
Tanzimat
 The second reform was started again in the final
year of Mahmud II (1807-1839).
 Tanzimat, (Reorganization), series of reforms
promulgated in the Ottoman Empire between 1839
and 1876 under the reigns of the Sultan Abdul
Hamid II.
 These reforms, heavily influenced by European
ideas, were intended to effectuate a fundamental
change of the empire from the old system based on
theocratic principles to that of a modern state.
 The Tanzimat statesmen still adhered to Islamic
principles and respected the role of ulama
 The Tanzimat period (1839-1876) saw reforms
center around a new concept of justice (adalet):
equality before the law for all Ottoman subjects,
Muslim and non-Muslim alike.
 This concept was fundamental to the prevalent
ideology of the Tanzimat, Ottomanism (patriotism but
not yet nationalism).
 In the 1850s-60s, intellectuals known as the New
Ottomans” engaged in a liberal critique of Tanzimat
policies with emphasis on fatherland (vatan),
freedom (hurriget), and constitutionalism.
 The Tanzimat reforms culminated in the constitution
and parliament of 1876,
 The 1877-78 war with Russia and the Treaty of
Berlin, by which most of the Ottoman lands in
Europe were lost and the European powers laid
claim to spheres of influence in the Middle East,
 Allowed Sultan Abdul Hamid II to bring an end to
“liberalism” and proceed with reforms under an
autocratic regime.
 By the 1880s Germany under Kaiser Wilhelrn had
replaced France and Great Britain as friend and
military advisor of the Ottoman Empire, and new
ideologies were challenging Ottomanism.
Pan-Islamism
 Abdul Hamid II embraced Pan-Islamism; his
opponents, known collectively as Young Turks, were
drawn to a secular Ottoman pseudo-nationalism and
some to Pan-Turkism.
 Pan-Islamism is a ideology emphasized on unity and
cooperation among all Muslims under the leadership
of caliph.
 This policy is to strengthen Abdul Hamid II position
while the empire was threatened by Western
imperialism
Lesson 4: The Continued Decline of the
Ottoman Empire
 By late 19th century, the empire had existed only in
name althought Abdul Hamid managed to deflect
the intervention of the West.
 Its because of military weakness, intellectual
lethargy, political and economy turn down.
 The Empire was named as „The Sick Man of Europe
by Western enemies.
 Islamic reforms through the efforts some islamic
activist had not reach the mass of the people.
 Furthermore, the reformists also faced constant
intervention and harrassment of the West.
 The Hamidian despotism was ended by the Young
Turk Revolution (1908-09) and replaced by
constitutional, parliamentary government under the
Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress.
 Their policies reflected a growing sense of Turkish
nationalism. But in the five years preceding World
War I,
 Two Balkan wars and a war with Italy, which had
invaded Libya, brought the military element of the
Young Turk movement to the fore and resulted in the
domination of the Istanbul political scene by the
Young Turk Triumverate (Enver, Talat, and Jemal
Pashas)
 Under their leadership, the Ottomans entered
World War I on the side of Germany.
 The victors dictated the peace to end all peace at
Paris in 1919. With even the heartlands of the
Empire partitioned and Istanbul occupied by the
victorious allies.
 The Turks of Anatolia under the leadership of
Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) rejected the terms of the
dictated Treaty of Sevres.
 Again they took up arms, fought successfully for
their independence, and bringing to an end the
600+ year-old Ottoman Empire negotiated the
Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 which granted
international recognition to the boundaries of the
new Republic of Turkey
Lesson 5: The Salafiyyah

 Trend of thought to bring the Muslim ummah back to

pure Islam.
 Try to emulate the understanding and practices of the
first generation of Muslim who had received direct
guidance from Rasulullah s.a.w, Sahabah, Tabi‟in and
Tab‟ Tabi‟in.
 The Muslim should go back to the al-Quran and
Sunnah
 Make new interpretations of Islam on matter related
to politics, economic and social but not in term of
aqidah and ibadah
 Two basic components of Islam have been set by
 The matter about politic, economy and social it can
be discussed and decided by the ulama (ijtihad) to
find suitable answer according to the need of a
society.
 A person making ijtihad is called a mujtahid.
 However, from among such mujtahid, they have also
acquired being mujaddid and muslih.
 These reformers have not only referred to pristine
Islam but they also instill the spirit in the people to
move forward and look for fresh guidance.
 First mujaddid was Umar Abdul Aziz and followed the
famous mazhab such as Imam Hanafi, Imam Maliki,
Imam Syafie, Imam Hambali, Imam Ghazali and Ibn
Taymiyyah
 This mujaddid is to revive, to defend and promote it
against internal and external corruptions.
 They also to strive for the progress and happiness of
the Muslim ummah
 They never promoted violence and terrorism against
the non Muslims until Islam itself is challenge.
 Hence, tajdid and islah are meant for peace and
harmony of mankind especially for the Muslim
ummah.
 JMS 316E
 Islam, the West and Modern Ideologies
 Islam, the West and Modern Ideologies
 The Ottoman Empire / Modern Turkey
 Egypt
 Saudi Arabia
 North Africa
 Indo-Pakistan Sub-continent
 Indonesia – Malaysia
 Wasalam,
Terima Kasih