Archived - How philosophy-influened Islam faded, while traditionalists dominated
During the Golden Age, both attitudes co-existed, the strict salafi view and the Greek-influenced schools of thought. Traditional jurisprudence schools of fiqh, mystics, mu'tazalis. One could even argue that the constant debates between those contradicting views strengthened the Athari traditionalists. Ibn Hanbal became ulltra-famous as salafi imam after standing up to the mu'tazilah. His funeral was reportedly attended by hundreds of thousands.
The intellectual battles never stopped. 14th century Ibn Taymiyyah was considered a champion of strict orthodoxy because he fought all his life against what he considered heretical ideas, especially philosophy-influenced theology. His one-man war was so successful, it basically eradicated any public trust in those other schools. His pupil, Ibn Kathir, didn't have to fight that hard, and his Qur'anic exegesis (tafseer) became a de-facto standard till this day.
When the Rasheed Ridha movement appreared in the 19th century, it could easily draw upon an already rich tradition, while also incorporate (some) strands of what you would call "permissive" attitude, via Muhammad Abduh & Gamal Afghani. Abduh was an official mufti of Ehypt, and (in)famously adopted the opinion that the stone-carrying birds that killed Abraha's army, mentioned in Qur'an, could be an allegory for an ordinary plague.
Ridha's al-Manar magazine was a hub for Islamic revivalism, pan-Islamism, and anti-liberalism during the British occupation of Egypt.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Rashid-Rida
A Lebanese by birth but relocated to Egypt, he was very influencial in the salafi movement in the 1900-1930s, with particular attention to foreign politics that affect the Islamic Caliphate (which was dying in Turkey at the time), hoping that Egypt would be the next capital of a caliphate.
He also, like the famous historian al-Jabarti a century before, sympathized with Saudi salafism (what some call Wahhabism).
The archive of al-Manar is fascinating, reading readers' mail of the era, the concerns of the public, the early attitudes toward freemasonry, freedom movements, calls for independence. A very vibrant time that the modern Arab is still in, in one way or another, facing the same question of: How to deal with alluring foreign ideologies when they clash with orthodox Islam?
Note regarding Ibn Katheer's famous tafseer:
He hit the sweet spot of being concise but elaborate enough for the average reader. Ibn Katheer also was a hadith scholar himself, a historian (his history, the Beginning and the End, starts from Adam, goes until Ibn Katheer's time, then adds a volume for prophecized end-times events!), and uses acalm, assured style, unlike the debate-oriented scholars.
His tafseer gained favor for being orthodox, while Zamakhshari has a reputation of deliberately twisting the ayat to fit his mu'tazali beliefs,, even though otherwise he was a linguistic authority on obscure words. Al-Razi used a confusing method of recording an unislamic criticism, in detail, then trying (and many times, failing) to properly respond to it (while the solution existed already in other books)! Naturally this put off the average reader, who doesn't want to be left in doubt when looking up the meaning of a Qur'anic ayah, and it became of interest to academic in-depth studies, not the everyday Muslim.
Tabari is the oldest and, some would argue, the best, but Ibn Kathir already incorporated his opinions into his commentary, ("Ibn Jareer said.." is a common phrase in Ibn Kathir's tafseer, referring to Tabari), so there is little benefit to use Tabari alone. He also supports his opinion by mentioning detailed chains of narrators, going all the way back to the first companion who commented on the ayah. This is helpful for students & scholars, but the average Muslim gets lost in the sea of names.
An example of relatively modern tafseer is ibn Ashour, which is tremendously useful, connecting the ayah to all sorts of Biblical & scientific topics, but is too long, and too assured of himself when linking last century's science to the Qur'an. (there was a trend of "scientific miracles" you must have heard of. Fortunately it died down nowadays after the death of geologist Zaghloul al-Najjar)
Posted Sep 29, 2026, 2:31 AM UTC