The Case for God

by Karen Armstrong

At the turn of the twentieth century, every single leading Muslim intellectual, with the exception of the Iranian ideologue Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–97), was in love with the West, recognized it at a profound level, and wanted his country to look just like Britain and France.7 Muhammad Abdu (1849–1905), grand mufti of Egypt, hated the British occupation of his country, but he felt entirely at home with Western culture, had studied the modern sciences, and read Guizot, Tolstoy, Renan, Strauss, and Herbert Spencer. After a trip to France, he is said to have made this deliberately provocative statement: “In Paris, I saw Islam but no Muslims; in Egypt, I see Muslims but no Islam.” His point was that their modernized economies had enabled Europeans to promote conditions of justice and equity that came closer to the spirit of the Qur’an than was possible in a partially modernized society.