ABSTRACT
In Egypt, in 1883, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and his student Muhammad Abdu formed the Salafiyya Party with the purpose of bringing about an Islamic renaissance. In 1897, Abdu helped his star pupil Rashid Rida to establish a monthly magazine called Al-Manar (The Lighthouse), which was to serve as the doctrinal organ of the party.1 In 1899 Abdu was appointed the Grand Mufti of Egypt, a position he held until his death in 1905. Abdu and Rida issued numerous opinions on various points of Islamic Law (fatawa, sing.fatwa). These opinions often were extremely controversial but none more so than those regarding riba. Rida continued to elucidate upon his and Abdu’s views until his death in 1938. However, determining precisely what Abdu’s views were regarding riba is difficult because Rida has been suspected of attributing his own opinions to Abdu.2 Moreover, perhaps realizing the volatility of the subject, many of Rida’s accounts of his own views as well as Abdu’s are vague.
