Abdo, Muhammad

Born 1849; died July 11, 1905. Egyptian reformer of Islam and public figure. Graduated from the Muslim Al-Azhar University in Cairo.

Abdo was a disciple of Jamal-al-Din al-Afgani. He took part in the national liberation movement of 1879–82. From 1883 to 1888 he was an emigré. He returned to Egypt in 1889, received a judgeship, and taught at Al-Azhar University. He was grand mufti from 1899 to 1905. In the latter years of his life he supported the Europeanization of Egypt and opposed feudal despotism but did not struggle actively against the British colonial order. Abdo’s teachings on “true Islam” were objectively directed toward adapting that religion to bourgeois relations.