Muḥammad ʿAbduh (also spelled Mohammed Abduh; Arabic: محمد عبده; 1849 – 11 July 1905) was an Egyptian Islamic scholar,[5] judge,[5] and Grand Mufti of Egypt.

[4] He briefly published the pan-Islamist anti-colonial newspaper al-ʿUrwa al-Wuthqā alongside his teacher and mentor Jamāl ad-Dīn al-Afghānī.

[31] ʿAbduh joined Freemasonry and subscribed to various Masonic lodges alongside his mentor al-Afghānī and his other pupils,[5][32] but eventually left the secret society in his later years.

During this period, ʿAbduh studied under the tutelage of his Sufi Muslim uncle Dārwīsh, who was a member of the revivalist and reformist Madaniyya Tarîqâh, a popular branch of the Shadhiliyya order, spread across Egypt, Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia.

Apart from spiritual exercises, the order also emphasised proper practice of Islam, shunning taqlid and stressing adherence to foundational teachings.

ʿAbduh suffered from acute spiritual crises in his youth, similar to those experienced by the medieval Muslim scholar and Sufi mystic al-Ghazali.

Under the influence of Shaykh Dārwīsh al-Khadīr, Tasawwuf provided an alternative form of religiosity which would profoundly shape ʿAbduh's spiritual and intellectual formation.

As ʿAbduh would subsequently emerge as a towering scholarly intellectual in Egypt, he concurrently assumed his role as a traditional Sufi Muslim.

For ʿAbduh, Shaykh Dārwīsh and his teachings represented orthodox Sufism, which was different from the Sufi folklore and the charlatans prevalent in rural Egypt during the early modern era.

[44] He was a student of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī,[45] a Muslim philosopher and religious reformer who advocated Pan-Islamism to resist European colonialism.

As a young 22 year-old Sufi mystic seeking a charismatic guide and alternative modes of learning and religiosity, ʿAbduh chose al-Afghānī as his murshid.

[46] In 1877, ʿAbduh was granted the degree of ʿālim ("teacher") and he started to teach logic, Islamic theology, and ethics at al-Azhar University.

The following year he was granted control of the national gazette and used this as a means to spread his anti-colonial ideas, and the need for social and religious reforms.

In 1884 he moved to Paris in France, where he joined al-Afghānī in publishing al-ʿUrwa al-Wuthqā, an Islamic revolutionary journal that promoted anti-British views.

As a qāḍī, he was involved in many decisions, some of which were considered liberal, such as the ability to utilize meat butchered by Non-Muslims and the acceptance of loan interest.

His liberal views endeared him to the British, in particular Lord Cromer; however they also caused a rift between him and the khedive Abbas Hilmi and the nationalist leader Mustafa Kamil Pasha.

[50] His Muslim opponents accused him to be an infidel, whereas his students and followers regarded him as a sage, a reviver of Islam, and a reforming leader.

He believed that practices such as supplicating and seeking intercession by placing intermediaries between God and human beings were all acts of "manifest shirk" (polytheism) and bidʻah (heretical innovations) unknown to the Salaf.

[53] According to ʿAbduh: Shirk is of various types including that which has come to affect the Muslim masses ('āmat al-muslimīn) in their worship of other than God by way of bowing and prostration.

The language ʿAbduh employs to describe al-Afghānī's instructions was based on a distinctly Sufi framework that symbolised Ishrāqi philosophy.

The treatise dealt with substantiating the philosophical proofs of God's existence and his nature, elaborating a Sufi cosmology and developed a rationalistic understanding of prophecy.

ʿAbduh adhered to the cosmological doctrine of Wahdat ul-Wujud developed by mystical Islamic philosophers, which held that God and his creation are co-existent and co-eternal.

Since the 19th century,[58] Freemasonry and its semi-secret organizational structure provided an open forum for the discussion and exchange of ideas between Egyptians from various social-economic backgrounds in Egypt, as well as among populations of various other countries in the Muslim world, predominantly those living in the Ottoman Empire and its provinces (Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus, and Macedonia).

[60] A. M. Broadbent declared that "Sheikh Abdu was no dangerous fanatic or religious enthusiast, for he belonged to the broadest school of Moslem thought, held a political creed akin to pure republicanism, and was a zealous Master of a Masonic Lodge.

"[62] ʿAbduh was asked by his associate Rashid Rida, a vehement anti-Mason, regarding the reason for him and his teacher Jamal al-Din al-Afghānī joining Freemasonry.

[67] In his later years, ʿAbduh additionally began promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories associated with Freemasonry through the early issues of Tafsir al-Manar that were co-authored with Rashid Rida.

In their commentary of the Quranic verse 4:44, ʿAbduh and Rida asserted that world Jewry were enemies of the Muslim Ummah as well as Christendom.

[68] They accused a Jewish clique of conspiring alongside Freemasons to destroy the religious culture of Europe and Islamic world by fomenting secularist revolutions and inciting Christian nations against Muslims.

[69] In response to the above publication, Egyptian nationalists and Jewish Freemasons initiated a protest movement against ʿAbduh, who was the Grand Mufti at that time.

[71][72][73] In an article published in the al-Manār magazine in 1903, ʿAbduh and Rida further accused Freemasons of conspiring with the Jews and French colonialists of weakening the pan-Islamic spirit:[72] "There is no people in the world like the Israelites in their adherence to their sectarian affiliation and tribal fanaticism... Freemasonry is a secret political society that was formed in Europe - contrary to what they claim from their predecessors - to resist the tyranny of the heads of the world from kings, princes and heads of religion from the popes and priests who joined forces to enslave the masses and deprive them of the light of knowledge and freedom.