ভূমিকা

2- Rifa'a At-Tahtawi (1801-73) was the first to campaign for interaction with the European civilization with the objective of borrowing from it that, which does not conflict with the established values and principles of the Islamic Shari’ah. A graduate of Al-Azhar, the well-known Islamic university in Cairo, he was appointed as an Imam to the Egyptian regiment that was dispatched by Muhammad Ali to France.

Although sent there as an Imam and not as a student, and as a descendant of an ancient family with a strong tradition of Islamic knowledge, he threw himself into study with enthusiasm. He acquired a precise knowledge of the French language and read books on ancient history, Greek philosophy and mythology, geography, mathematics and logic and, most importantly, the French thought of the 18th century - Voltaire, Rousseau's Contrat Social (Social Contract) and other works.

Returning home after five years, he diagnosed the illness of the ummah (community) as being due to lack of freedom and suggested multi-party democracy as a remedy. At-Tahtawi criticized those who opposed the idea of taking knowledge from Europe, saying: 'such people are deluded; for civilizations are turns and phases. These sciences were once Islamic when we were at the apex of our civilization. Europe took them from us and developed them further.

It is now our duty to learn from them just as they learned from our ancestors.' A. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939 (Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 69, and R. S. Ahmad, Ad-Din Wa'd-Dawla Wath-Thawra (Religion, State and Revolution), (Al-Dar Al-Sharkiyah, 1989), p. [^34]: 3- Ibid., p. 121, quoting Lewis Awad's The History of Modern Egyptian Thought (Arabic reference). 4- Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939, op. cit., pp.

70-[^1]: 5- Ahmad Sudqi Ad-Dajani, op. cit., p. [^121]: 6- Faruq Abdessalam, Al-Ahzab As-Siyasiyyah fi'l-Islam (Cairo: Qalyoob Publishing House, 1978). 7- Ahmad Sudqi Ad-Dajani, op. cit., pp.