Categorizing people into groups is useful and even necessary when we are faced with complicated situations and try to organize our understanding. For example, the political tug-of-war in post-revolutionary Egypt since 2011 may not be easily understood without grouping the actors. For this purpose, various terms have been used: youths, liberals, Islamists, military forces, and so on. However, a closer examination reveals great diversity within each category.

Liberalism in Twentieth Century Egyptian Thought: The Ideologies of Ahmad Amin and Husayn Amin, by Makoto Mizutani, a Japanese historian with a deep knowledge of Islamic thought, clearly demonstrates this last point. According to the author, what “liberals” in the modern Arab-Islamic world in general, and twentieth-century Egyptian Muslims in particular, have in common is that they “accept positive aspects of the West and admit to employing innovative thinking on Islam” (p. 3). The similarity, however, ends there, since the interpretation of the “positive aspects of the West” and the “innovative thinking on Islam” has differed among the liberals. Mizutani's work tells us how and by whom this liberal thought was propagated in twentieth-century Egypt, by detailing the writings of two intellectuals, Ahmad Amin (1886–1954) and Husayn Amin (b. 1932), father and son, respectively, who lived through that tumultuous period.

Ahmad was born in Cairo while Egypt was under British occupation. During his youth, he received several different styles of education: secular Western education in elementary school; traditional Islamic instruction at home from his father and at al-Azhar, an Islamic institution with a thousand-year history; and modern Islamic training at the newly established School of Islamic Jurisprudence where he learned “Western academic manners of research and study” (p. 33). Although he did not study abroad, his exchange with returnees from Europe, attending lectures by European scholars at recently established universities, and mastering English enabled him to acquire “a solid foundation for encounters between traditional Islamic learning and modern European science” (p. 7).

Ahmad became a lecturer at the School of Islamic Jurisprudence after graduating from there, and then served as a judge for a few years. He took up teaching in 1926 at the University of Egypt (now Cairo University). Thereafter, his career as an author of more than 700 works (including some fifty books) began. Ahmad was known in particular for his writings on Islam that employed new methodologies and approaches. For example, in a book titled Dawn of Islam (Fajr al-Islam) published in 1928, he depicted Islamic history by adopting modern Western methodologies on history writing and argued that Islam had developed under the influence of surrounding religions and cultures. The book caused a major stir among Egyptian Muslims because it challenged conventional views on Islamic history according to which Islam had remained unchanged from the beginning of time (pp. 78–81).

In addition to activities in the academic field, Ahmad served various public functions as an Egyptian and Arab intellectual, including becoming the director of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of the Ministry of Education (1945) and the director of the Cultural Department at the Arab League (1947–52). He was also editor-in-chief of The Culture (al-Thaqafa), a weekly journal published between 1939 and 1953, to which Ahmad and other prominent intellectuals, such as Taha Husayn (1889–1973) and young Najib Mahfuz (1912–2006), contributed regularly. In recognition of all his efforts and achievements, the honorific title “the venerable professor (al-ustaz jalil)” was bestowed on him (p. 8).

In his lectures and writings, Ahmad emphasized the importance of science and human reason in dealing with issues such as Islam, civilization, and politics. He also encouraged “the resurrection of genuine religious belief in the modern world” (p. 73). In other words, Ahmad did not conceive of science and reason as the only ways to reach the truth but believed that “[i]nspiration, purification of the soul, and opening one's heart all constitute paths to truth” (ibid.). In an article published in The Culture, he argued that, although Eastern Muslims might not be happy without adopting Western science and reforming the existing conditions, it was necessary, at the same time, for them to appreciate their own inherited religion and spiritual power, which the West had lost. “They [Eastern Muslims] should be able to color European science, thanks to Islamic teaching, in a spiritual color and in a proper manner to be used for the welfare of mankind” (“Between the Past and the Future,” published in 1950, cited in Mizutani, p. 107).

In sum, Ahmad, who had been active during the earlier half of twentieth-century Egypt, where future-oriented intellectuals were mainly concerned about how to modernize the nation and its people, had to fight against traditional views on Islam, which conceived of it as untouchable and sacred, thus not subject to change, as well as a spreading tendency to blindly subscribe to Western science and secularization.

The situation was different for Husayn, his son, who graduated from the Department of Law at Cairo University in 1953. After continuing his studies at London University, he worked both as a lawyer and as a broadcaster for the BBC and Egyptian Radio for some time. Later he joined the Egyptian Foreign Service and held posts in various countries. He retired in 1992, completing his service as an ambassador in Algeria. In the early 1980s, Husayn began to publish his articles on Islam, civilization, and politics in popular magazines, such as the weekly The Pictorial (al-Musawwar). Those articles were later compiled and published as books. After his retirement, he became a prominent writer, like his father. What he had to fight against, though, was different: the spreading narrow-mindedness in the people's understanding of Islam.

In Husayn's time, “Western” science was already adopted by Egyptians and its compatibility with Islamic faith was no longer questioned. Thus, the members of Islamic groups, who became active during the presidency of Anwar al-Sadat (1918–1981; presidency 1970–1981), when people were deceived by Arab nationalism and sought hope in Islamism, were “often recruited from among young scientists trained in Western colleges and institutions” (p. 142). The question that the intellectuals of that age faced, whether they were members of “Islamic groups” or “liberals,” was how to frame their Islamic faith. While the former tended to restrict the alternatives by attaching importance to traditional sources (such as the hadith, prophetic traditions) and regarding Islam as immutable, the latter employed “historical relativism to project a flexible Islam” (p. 43).

After the assassination of Sadat by a member of a militant group, and the presidential inauguration of Husni Mubarak (b. 1928; presidency 1981–2011), Husayn, through his writings, began to criticize Islamic radicalism, developing Amin's approaches and arguments. One of the best examples is the discussion of the “application of shari‘a (Islamic law).” Husayn, who inherited his father's historical approach to Islam, saw shari‘a as a multilayered law. He emphasized that “[i]n the Qur'an, there are no more than 80 verses of a legal nature, hence the shari‘a must contain man-made segments that have developed and solidified over hundreds of years” (p. 88). He added that man-made positive laws may change, while holy laws (or “the essence of a stable God's will” (p. 91)) do not. Thus, the important thing for Muslims was to ascertain the latter and to permit a flexible interpretation and application for the former. In the same vein, he cast doubt on the authenticity of many hadith in his book titled Guide for a Sad Muslim (Dalil al-Muslim al-Hazin), published in 1983.

Husayn's works and voices, though welcomed by a certain circle of people, never saw the light of day until the end of the century. He and other “liberal” thinkers of the age were often accused of being secularist, meaning “non-religious,” or even atheist and apostate. It was, in part, as Mizutani put it, because “their [liberals'] discourse is too difficult and too complicated when compared to the simplified fundamentalist call” (p. 56). Thus, Husayn's appeals to adopt “innovative thinking on Islam,” though it was in fact not so “innovative” as we have seen above, were drowned out.

Referring to extensive sources, including more than a thousand articles from various journals written by Ahmad Amin and Husayn Amin and also those on them written by their contemporaries, Mizutani unravels “a history of liberalism” in twentieth-century Egyptian thought. While tracing developments and changes in the thoughts of two intellectuals during their lifetimes, the author also introduces various ideas of other liberals of their age. Readers are informed of the diversity and dynamism that marked the history of liberalism during the twentieth century.

What we need to remember is that this is “a history of liberalism” from one perspective. As Mizutani clarifies in the Prologue, Ahmad Amin, one of the protagonists of his book, “never claimed membership as a liberal” (p. xv). He was, however, together with many other intellectuals of his time, labeled a “liberal” by later generations. While reading this book, I could not stop wondering whether I should call the whole story “a history of Islamism”; for Ahmad, “innovative thinking on Islam” was one of the keys to open the door to a new civilization, whereas for Husayn, it would serve to change Egyptian society for the better. Both valued, in the first place, its “Islamic” foundation. In the end, I assumed that this was perhaps what the author wanted to bring to the attention of the readers while questioning the historical significance of the thoughts of these people.

No matter what categorical term may be used, this work presents “a history of twentieth-century Egyptian thought” from a new angle. It is certainly essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the contemporary situation in Egypt. Furthermore, this book might have an impact on a wider audience; it may help develop new perspectives in twenty-first-century Islamic thought by giving detailed accounts on the discourses, deemed “too difficult and too complicated,” using an accessible and plain language. There is already indication of this, as the Arabic edition is projected to be released in autumn 2016.