From the Dreyfus Affair to Zionism in Palestine: Rashid Riḍā’s Views of Jews in Relation to the ‘Christian’ Colonial West

Abstract

The ideas of the well-known reformist Sheikh Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (1865-1935) in his journal Al-Manār (Lighthouse, 1898-1935) still inspire many academic researchers who are interested in the study of the Muslim world in the first decades of the twentieth century. As one of the most influential advocates of Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism, Riḍā’s critiques of Zionism and Jewish expansion in Palestine were part of his anti-colonial activities against the ‘Christian’ west. The article discusses how Riḍā was frustrated that European powers let down the Arabs by supporting the Jews in establishing their homeland at the cost of the rights of its indigenous habitants. We shall argue that Riḍā’s harsh views of Zionism should be understood as a mixture of religious rhetoric, nationalist ambitions, resistance to Turkish policies, and political frustration with Europe’s ‘unjust’ colonial policies and special political privileges given to the Jews in Palestine. In the early years of the twentieth century, Riḍā anticipated the progress of the Jews in establishing a nation of their own in Palestine, but his concerns grew after the British Mandate in 1922. The article looks at how Riḍā, in his confrontations with Zionism and Judaism, combined these debates with other ideas on freemasonry, the authority of the Church, the crusades, and the role of Jesuits in curbing the asserted increasing Jewish power in Europe. The article highlights how Riḍā’s Islamic national outlook against the Jews and Zionists in Palestine bears the character of religious and political ferment against the ‘Christian’ west.