The forces of the ummah ought to be joined in one party that...

The forces of the ummah ought to be joined in one party that would have to work for the restoration of its independence and freedom, and that would lay down the foundations for general domestic reform.'[^36] Between the two World Wars, thinkers affiliated with the liberal trend campaigned, like their 19th-century predecessors for total Westernization.

Embracing secularism, they called for formulating modern constitutions and legal systems that, just as the Europeans had done, exclude religion and restrict its rule to the private domain. They hoisted the slogan of 'separating state and religion' and blamed Islam for the backwardness of the Arabs.[^37] The abolishment of the Khilafah in 1924 aroused a debate among thinkers of the time over its importance.

Ali Abd Ar-Raziq (1888-1966), an Al-Azhar graduate who later studied at Oxford, contributed to the debate with a book that turned out to be among the…