Ijtihād and Ibāḍī Reform Movement in North Africa: Shaykh Muḥammad Aṭfayyish’s “re”-interpretation of Kitāb al-Nīl

In the 18th century started the Ibāḍī “renaissance” (Wilkinson in Der Islam, 1985/62, Hoffmann 2012). ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Tamīnī al-Mus‘abī (1718-1808) wrote the monumental Kitāb al-Nīl wa shifā’ al-‘alīl, a compendium of Ibāḍī fiqh which Wilkinson calls the “Mozabite bible” (1985, 232). Al-Mus‘abī’s most important student was Ibrahīm b. Yūsuf Aṭfayyish who was in turn teacher of his younger brother Muḥammad (1820-1914), the most outstanding scholar of the reform time. Muḥammad Aṭfayyish wrote a commentary (sharḥ) of the Kitāb al-Nīl which represent a cornerstone of the contemporary Ibāḍī jurisprudence.
In some respect Muḥammad Aṭfayyish was unconventional. He tried to reconsider many issues of the Ibāḍī law and jurisprudence, promoting a modernist interpretation of doctrine and tradition. As well known, Ijtihād took a dramatic turn beginning in the 18th century as a reaction to the decline in Muslim learning and political ascendancy on the world scene.
Muḥammad Aṭfayyish, as well as many Ibāḍī ‘ulamā’ and activists from Oman, Zanzibar, and North Africa, responded enthusiastically to the Sunnī modernist reform movement led by Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī, Muḥammad ‘Abduh, and Rashīd Riḍā.
This paper aims at investigating the way Muḥammad Aṭfayyish adopted ijtihād and dismissed the body of juristic precedents (taqlīd) in favour of a more accessible approach to the Qurʿān and sunnah in order to articulate a vision of Islam that could both withstand and accommodate modernity while preserving Ibāḍī identity, particularly in the face of Western European colonialism.