ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the entry and participation of Abdul-Baha and Abduh in the nineteenth-century gedankenwelt of socio-political reform and religious revival. Baha ullah’s and Abdul-Baha’s exile to the Ottoman Empire where they both would live until the end of their lives brought them into contact with the reformist discourse among Ottoman intellectuals and bureaucrats who experimented with European ideas of nationalism, parliamentarianism and liberalism. Baha ullah and Abdul-Baha actively sought links with Middle Eastern reformers in order to place themselves within the mainstream of contemporary Middle Eastern reform movements. Similarly, Abduh’s relationship with Afghani turned his interest to the question of the modernisation of Egyptian society and later of the entire Muslim world. Hence, a period in the lives of Abdul-Baha and Abduh is discussed in which they share very similar concerns and engage in very similar debates. Therefore, it is not surprising that their paths should have crossed at some point in this period as happened when they met in Beirut in 1887.
