Conclusion

The Conclusion considers the Egyptian intellectual landscape from the perspective of the last Shaykh al-Islām of the Ottoman Empire, Muṣṭafā Ṣabrī. Upon his exile from Istanbul, Ṣabrī spent a short time living in Egypt, concluding that the country had become thoroughly Europeanized. Relying especially on the theological question of free will and predestination, Sabri argued that Egyptian writers’ inclination toward a free will position was an indicator of European dominance. European thinkers had indeed criticized Muslims for being too deterministic in their evaluation of the question; the remainder of the Conclusion examines Egyptian responses to these critiques. Among them was a lecture given by Muḥammad Bakhīt which stressed human agency in the world, an analysis of which once more lays bare Bakhīt’s domestic rivalry with Reformist figures, his reliance on the transregional “social madhhab” in crafting modern solutions, his mode of responding to the challenges posed by colonialism, and his subjection of Ḥanafī tradition to transformation.