The Magazine That Took Salafism to the World

In 1898, an obscure Syrian scholar called Rashid Rida founded a magazine in Cairo called al-Manar (‘The Lighthouse’). Over the next forty years, it reached readers as far apart as India and Argentina, Africa and Indonesia, spreading worldwide the new form of Islam called Salafism. Despite never holding any formal religious office, by seizing the opportunities of the Arabic media revolution Rida became the preeminent Muslim influencer of the age of print. Urging readers to return to the pure Islam of the ‘pious ancestors,’ he aimed to free his fellow believers from the shackles of tradition that prevented them from embracing modernity. As both prosperity gospel and means of empowerment, Rida’s magazine reveals the attractions of early Salafism. Nile Green talks to Leor Halevi, the author of Modern Things on Trial: Islam's Global and Material Reformation in the Age of Rida (Columbia University Press, 2019).