Mohamed El-Tahir El-Mesawi

This article revisits the origins of the Islamic reformist movement that arose in response to the challenges presented by western civilization in the nineteenth century. Tunisia was chosen because the spirit of reform manifested itself in the form of intellectual activity and socio-political action. The article highlights the features of the Tunisian experience before the French occupation in 1881, reveals the cooperation and complementary relationship between religious scholars and statesmen that gave the reform efforts their substance and form, and discusses the dynamic of the forces that were in play and helped determine the attempted reforms’ fate.

Introduction

The reform spirit and ideas that germinated in Tunisia during the nineteenth century and the efforts made to implement them were part of a general current seen in many Muslim lands, especially in those affiliated with the Ottomans. Despite the common aspects of the reform movements and efforts that unfolded in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere, each experiment had its distinctive features due to its guiding ideas and the type of challenges it faced. In the following pages, a textual and historical analysis delineates the procession and dynamic of the ideas that guided and underpinned Tunisia’s reformist action and culminated in the work of Khayr al-Din Pasha.

The First Phase: Military-based Reforms

Early reform efforts were undertaken by Hammuda Pasha (r. 1782-1814)1 and gained momentum under his successor Ahmad Bey (r. 1837-55).2 Due to the European military threat and France’s occupation of Algeria in 1830, Ahmad Bey’s reforms had a prominently military aspect3 and were geared toward modernizing the army.4 For this purpose, he founded the Bardo Polytechnic School in 1840, on whose nature and mission Ibn Abi al-Diyaf has provided first-hand information.5 Its primary purpose was to train army officers and make them successful government bureaucrats by teaching them “what the nizami soldier needed of the sciences, such as engineering, geodesy, mathematics and the like, as well as the teaching of French, for most of the books on these sciences are written in this language.”6 It also included courses on history, geography, Arabic, and Islamic studies.7 While French, English, and Italian teachers taught the modern subjects, the traditional subjects were entrusted to Shaykh Mahmud Qabadu (1812-71), an eminent Zaytuna `alim and poet-scholar. An inquisitive man with a penchant for mysticism and philosophy, Qabadu had a special interest in mathematics and the natural sciences. Acting as the school’s spiritual guide, he seems to have had a share in its administration along with its director, Luigi Calligaris.8 Khayr al-Din, a mamluk of Circassian origin,9 was responsible for supervising the school even though he was one of its students.10

Asecond important aspect of the bey’s reforms concerned the higher education provided by the Zaytuna Mosque, Tunisia’s historical seat of Islamic scholarship, which included introducing administrative, staff, teaching, and financial measures designed to make the pursuit of Islamic knowledge more systematic and stable. An equal number of Maliki and Hanafi teachers were appointed and expected to teach specific courses daily for a specified salary based on performance. Apermanent source for securing their salaries was put in place. To ensure that these measures were implemented, a supervisory body consisting of the two shaykhs and the two chief judges of both schools was formed.11 A decree, al-Mu`allaqah, was issued in 1842 to this effect.12 A third reform measure was the establishment in 1840 of a permanent and catalogued library in the Zaytuna. The bey, who donated thousands of volumes, directed the Shari`ah Council, the country’s highest religious authority, to appoint two officers in the library to look after its management, thereby facilitating “the pursuit of knowledge for the poor and the rich alike.”13 The significance of these measures can be seen when contrasted with the pre-reform situation. Generally speaking, the teachers’ personal temperament, the lack of organization, the absence of specific regulations, the shortage of reference books, and the uncertain financial sources had harmed this institution for many years.14

A fourth, equally important, step was the abolition of slavery in 1848, thus culminating a gradual policy launched by the bey nearly five years earlier. This policy consisted of two things: “the ban of selling slaves on the market like animals” and the subsequent abolition of the slave market.15 The significance of this decision might be seen through its psychological effect on the personality and future career of Khayr al-Din, a mamluk who had been bought for Ahmad Bey at an Istanbul slave market.16 This action was also of great doctrinal importance for Islamic thought as well as global political significance at a time when some European countries were championing anti-slavery campaigns.

Qabadu, whose intimate relationship with Khayr al-Din and Ibn Abi al-Diyaf (Ahmad Bey’s private secretary) is beyond doubt,17 was most likely one source of inspiration behind these reforms, especially in the case of Islamic learning and education. He was the link between the Zaytuna and the new elite being formed along modern lines in the Bardo School. A group of reform-minded people from the Zaytuna and this school who gradually clustered around him would eventually form what Ibn `Ashur has described as “a party founded on theoretical principles of educational, social, political and administrative reform.”18

Most probably out of personal interest, Qabadu encouraged some of the Bardo students to translate the lectures of their European instructors and the textbooks used to teach modern disciplines intoArabic.19 He would then edit the translation and give it an Islamic spirit. This experience allowed him to interact with the European teachers and gain better insights into the factors behind their countries’ power and progress. It also provided the seeds of a theoretical and more systematic reformist thinking that went beyond the pragmatic concerns of Ahmad Bey and his political aides and eventually crystallized into a somewhat general doctrine of islah (reform).20  Qabadu first formulated this doctrine in his introduction to the translation of a book on the principles of warfare.21 For him, the causes of the Muslims’ backwardness should be traced to their attitudes rather than to Islam’s teachings.

The neglect of the “mathematical, natural, and philosophical sciences” was the real cause of the Muslim world’s present state of decline and weakness. For him, Muslims were no longer pursuing the natural sciences, and Europe was building up its strength and might by assimilating Muslim scientific achievements and developing them further. As a result, a new balance of power favoring Europe had occurred. Given this analysis, the only way for Muslims to regain their strength and protect themselves from western threats was to cultivate the sciences they had lost by readopting them from Europe. Qabadu saw this as an Islamic duty enjoined by the Qur’an.22

The above-mentioned reformist party, whose actions would become visible in the 1860s and 1870s, featured Khayr al-Din23 as its spokesman. Thanks to his previous experience with Ahmad Bey’s reforms,24 he had first-hand knowledge and a better perspective on both the requirements and obstacles of such an enterprise. This matured his conception of islah and strengthened his ties with several people with whom he would work in the future. Toward the end of Ahmad Bey’s rule, the old order had been undermined and the seeds of a new one sown, although the country’s external appearance and the people’s ordinary life had not changed much.25 The bey’s ambitious program can be said to have failed materially,26 whereas the reformist thought of Khayr al- Din and those associated with him reached a considerable level of maturity and clarity of vision and won over more supporters.

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