The Egyptian theologian and nationalist Muhammad Abduh ibn Hasan Khayr Allah (1849-1905) was a founder of modernist reform in Islamic religion, of the Arabic literary renaissance of the last hundred years, and of Egyptian nationalism.

Muhammad Abduh, born to peasant stock, was brought up in the village of Mahallat Nasr in the Nile Delta. His first education consisted of the traditional memorization of the Koran. In 1862 he studied at the Ahmadi mosque-academy in the provincial city of Tanta. In 1866 Abduh left Tanta for Cairo, where he completed the course of study at the Azhar mosque-university. In contrast to many of his fellows, Abduh pursued secular subjects such as history and natural science.

One of the turning points in Abduh's life was the arrival in Cairo in 1872 of the enigmatic political activist Jamal ud-Din al-Afghani, who, over three continents, clamored for the regeneration of the Moslem world. The two...