Rashid Rida

Muhammad Rashid Rida was an Islamic scholar, reformer, theologian and revivalist, born in al-Qalamoun, in present-day Lebanon, in 1865. He joined his mentor Muhammad Abduh in Cairo and in 1898 began publishing al-Manar, through which he became one of the most influential Sunni jurists of his generation and a leader of the Arab Salafi movement. An early Salafist, he later turned from rationalist leanings to a stricter scripturalist approach, supported the Wahhabi movement and revived the works of Ibn Taymiyyah. He opposed secularism, nationalism and European imperialism and championed a pan-Islamist program to re-establish a Caliphate.