102 Egypt
were much the same as in other Oriental nations then in
the making, There was in the first place the movement
for reform of Islamic ideals and institutions. This had
always had its centre in Egypt, just as the Wahabite
movement for a puritan reaction has always been con-
fined to Arabia. Islamic reform was at this time headed
by a remarkable man, Jemal-ed-Din, by origin an
Afghan. His philosophy taught that all progress can not
only be reconciled with, but is revealed in the principles
of Islam. Which doctrine was about as welcome to the
rulers of Islam as would be to our rulers the doctrine that
Communism is applied Christianity. So as soon as his
intellectual gifts and spiritual power had made him the
leading influence with the young Softas at Constanti-
nople he was exiled, and came to el Azhar (1871).
There, though a Sunnite of the Hanefite school, he had
even greater success with the more liberal Malekite and
Shafiite Moslem. And as the political bearing of his
philosophy was hostile to the Ottoman Khalifate he was
not interfered with by Ismail His following was indeed
used by Ismail in his last efforts to excite an anti-foreign
agitation. Consequently, on the accession of Tewfik and
the Dual Control, one of their first acts was the exile of
"el Afghani/' But his following by then included the
Sheikh Mohamed Abdu, afterwards Grand Mufti, and
all the active minds of el Azhar. These spiritual leaders
inspired the new national movement with an Islamic and
Asiatic philosophy, and invested it with a moral sanction
for Moslem minds. Even more material service was also
rendered by Sheikh Mohamed Abdu, who as press
censor, with the aid of British Liberalism, allowed a free-
dom of speech previously unheard of in the Near East,
At least, these Moslem reformers neutralised the re-
actionary Turcophil Ulema.