As a young hadith student who studied al-Ghazali and Ibn Taymiyya, Rida believed reform was necessary to save the Muslim communities, eliminate Sufist practices he considered heretical, and initiate an Islamic renewal.[32] He left Syria to work with Abduh in Cairo, where he was influenced by Abduh's Islamic Modernist movement[33][34][35][36] and began publishing al-Manar in 1898. Through al-Manar's popularity across the Islamic World, Rida became one of the most influential Sunni jurists of his generation, leading the Arab Salafi movement and championing its cause.[37][38][39]
He was Abduh's de facto successor and was responsible for a split in Abduh's disciples into one group rooted in modernism and secularism and the other in the revival of Islam. Salafism, also known as Salafiyya, which sought the "Islamization of modernity," emerged from the latter.[40][41][37]
During the 1900s Rida abandoned his initial rationalist leanings and began espousing Salafi-oriented methodologies such as that of Ahl-i Hadith. He later supported the Wahhabi movement,[41][36][42][43][44] revived works by ibn Taymiyyah, and shifted the Salafism movement into a more conservative and strict Scripturalist approach. He is regarded by a number of historians as "pivotal in leading Salafism's retreat" from the rationalist school of Abduh.[45][46][47][32][48] He strongly opposed liberalism, Western ideas, freemasonry, Zionism, and European imperialism, and supported armed Jihad to expel European influences from the Islamic World.[49] He also laid the foundations for anti-Western, pan-Islamist struggle during the early 20th century.[50]
^ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Hammad al-Aql, Abdurrahman (2005). "Al-Ustadhun Al-Imam Hujjat al-Islam As-Sayyid Muhammad Rashid Rida" [Our Master, Imam Hujjat Al-Islam Sayyid Muhammad Rashid Rida]. Jamharat Maqalat Allamah As-Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad Shakir. Dar al-Riyadh. pp. 653–665.
^Ende, W. (2012). "Ras̲h̲īd Riḍā". In Bearman, P.; Bianquis, Th.; Bosworth, C.E.; van Donzel, E.; Heinrichs, W.P. (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd ed.). Brill. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_6240.
^Olidort, Jacob (2015). In Defense of Tradition: Muhammad Nasir Al-Din Al-Albani and the Salafi Method (Thesis). Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University. pp. 58–59. Albānī's son 'Abd Allāh calls Rashīd Riḍā muḥaddith Miṣr ("the ḥadīth scholar of Egypt")...
^Arabi, Oussama; Powers, Davis S.; Spectorsky, Susan A. (2013). "Chapter Twenty-One: MUḤAMMAD RASHĪD RIḌĀ (d. 1935)". In Haddad, Mahmoud O. (ed.). Islamic Legal Thought: A Compendium of Muslim Jurists. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Publishers. p. 457. ISBN978-90-04-25452-7.
^Arabi, Oussama; Powers, David S.; Spectorsky, Susan A. (2013). "Chapter Twenty-One: MUḤAMMAD RASHĪD RIḌĀ (d. 1935)". In Haddad, Mahmoud O. (ed.). Islamic Legal Thought: A Compendium of Muslim Jurists. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill Publishers. p. 458. ISBN978-90-04-25452-7. Although he was a Shāfiʿī, Riḍā defended the Ḥanbalī Wahhābīs.
^Lauzière, Henri (2016). The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 96. ISBN978-0-231-17550-0.
^Soage, A.B. (2008). "Rash? d Ridā's Legacy". The Muslim World. 98 (1): 1–23. doi:10.1111/j.1478-1913.2008.00208.x. He rejected the ulema unquestioning imitation of their medieval predecessors (taqlid), and the practice of blindly following a particular school of jurisprudence (madhhab).
^Lauzière, Henri (2016). The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 62–63. ISBN978-0-231-17550-0. (Rida)... claimed to be Salafi in creed and relied more heavily on transmitted knowledge (naql) than did Muhammad Abduh.
^Halverson, Jeffrey R. (2010). Theology and Creed in Sunni Islam. New York, USA: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 61–62, 71. ISBN978-0-230-10279-8. ... the early progressive liberalism of these modernists quickly gave way to the arch-conservatism of Athari thinkers who held even greater contempt for the ideas of the nonbelievers (as well as liberals). This shift was most pronounced in the person of Rashid Rida (d. 1935), once a close student of 'Abduh, who increasingly moved to rigid Athari thought under Wahhabite influences in the early twentieth century. From Rida onward, the "Salafism" of al-Afghani and 'Abduh became increasingly Athari-Wahhabite in nature, as it remains today.
^Cite error: The named reference webman was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^Aziz, F.; Abbas, H.; Zia, S.M.; Anjum, M. (2011). "Some Social Issues in the Eyes of Muslim Modernist Thinkers". Interdisciplinary Journal of Contemporary Research in Business: 773.
^Saeed, A. (2013). "Salafiya, modernism, and revival". The Oxford handbook of Islam and politics. pp. 34–36. Section: 'Muhammad Rashid Rida: Taking the Modernist-Salafiya Movement Toward Conservatism' "Under Rida Islamic reformism took a more conservative turn.. Despite Rida's commitment to Islamic reform and the important role of al-Manar, his modernism gave way to an increasing conservatism after WWI..... Rida became increasingly literalist in his understanding of the driving force behind the Salafiyya movement.... his later salaforientation was closer to the approach of contemporary groups that go under the banner of Salafism than to that of `Abduh."
^ abOlidort, Jacob (2015). "A New Curriculum: Rashīd Riḍā and Traditionalist Salafism". In Defense of Tradition: Muhammad Nasir Al-Din Al-Albani and the Salafi Method (Thesis). Princeton, New Jersey, USA: Princeton University. pp. 52–62. Rashīd Riḍā presented these core ideas of Traditionalist Salafism, especially the purported interest in ḥadīth of the early generations of Muslims, as a remedy for correcting Islamic practice and belief during his time.
^Lauzière, Henri (2016). The Making of Salafism: Islamic Reform in the Twentieth Century. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 39–46. ISBN978-0-231-17550-0.
^Hourani, Albert (1962). "Chapter IX: Rashid Rida". Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939. University Printing House Cambridge United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. pp. 225, 231. ISBN978-0-521-27423-4. The suspicion of Sufism... was one of the factors which in later years was to draw him nearer to the teachings of Ibn Taymiyya and the practices of Wahhabism... Sympathy with Hanbalism led him, in later life, to give enthusiastic support to the revival of Wahhabism...
^Achcar, Gilbert (2016). Islamic exceptionalism: how the struggle over Islam is reshaping the world. New York: St Martin's Press. p. 91. ISBN978-1-250-06101-0. The basic premise of Islamism was that Islam was the natural, authentic setting for all believing Muslims. In Rashid Rida's words, it was "the religion of innate disposition." In that sense, Islamism... was meant to resolve the problem of ideology.
^Bennet, Andrew M. (2013). "Islamic History & Al-Qaeda: A Primer to Understanding the Rise of Islamist Movements in the Modern World". Pace International Law Review Online Companion. 3 (10). Stetson University College of Law: 345. JSTOR41857681. Rida... became increasingly Islamist throughout his lifetime....Rida's views against modernity added a strong anti-Western element to the Islamist ideology, and were reinforced by the Muslim Brotherhood and other like-minded organizations with a greater intensity...
^Reynolds, Dwight F. (2015). The Cambridge Companion to Modern Arab Culture. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 71. ISBN978-0-521-89807-2.
^ abAyubi, Nazih N.; Hashemi, Nader; Qureshi, Emran (2009). "Islamic State". In Esposto, John L. (ed.). The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 27 February 2021.
^Kerr, Malcolm H. (1966). "Muhammad Rashid Rida: A Revived Doctrine of the Caliphate". Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad 'Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. 153–187.
^Kerr, Malcolm H. (1966). Islamic Reform: The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad 'Abduh and Rashid Rida. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. pp. 15–16. Ridä's intellectual career symbolizes in some ways the political failure of the whole Islamic modernist movement. Without any particular shifts in doctrine his position evolved,.. from that of liberal reformer to radical fundamentalist to orthodox conservative.
^ abShapoo, Sajid Farid (2017-07-19). "Salafi Jihadism-An Ideological Misnomer". Small Wars Journal. Retrieved 2023-03-20. Rashid Rida during the later years of his life, made a dramatic shift towards Wahhabism and grew closer to the Wahhabis and their ideational approach.
^C. Martin, Richard (2004). Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. Macmillan Reference USA. p. 597. ISBN0-02-865603-2. Rashid Rida was ... one of the most influential scholars and jurists of his generation.
^Tauber, Eliezer (18 October 2021). "Rashīd Riḍā, Jews, and Zionism". The Journal of the Middle East and Africa. 12 (4): 405–424. doi:10.1080/21520844.2021.1938451. S2CID239249082 – via tandfonline. Muhammad Rashīd Riḍā was one of the most prominent religious scholars of Sunni Islam in the first third of the twentieth century...
^Belen Soage, Ana (January 2008). "Rashid Rida's Legacy". ResearchGate. pp. 2–6. Archived from the original on 20 February 2021.
^ abAchcar, Gilbert (2010). The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives. London, UK: Actes Sud. pp. 104–105. ISBN978-0-86356-835-0. The development of Rida's thought brought him closer to the Puritanical doctrine known as Hanbalism and especially to that of its Wahhabi adherents,.. Rida's fundamentalist turn manifested itself above all in his defence of the Wahhabis.. In his articles he tirelessly reiterated- .. that the Wahhabis were the best Muslims
^Mouline, Nabil (2014). The Clerics of Islam: Religious Authority and Political Power in Saudi Arabia. New Haven, London, UK: Yale University Press. p. 131. ISBN978-0-300-17890-6. After the fall of the Caliphate in 1924, Rida.. promoted Hanbali-Wahhabism.
^McHugo, John (2013). A Concise History of the Arabs. New York, NY: The New Press. pp. 160, 162. ISBN978-1-59558-950-7. Rida's endorsement of Wahhabism was a major factor in the spread of its influence.. It was also one of the reasons why he has been described as advocating return to a medieval, sectarian past...
^Dudoignon, Stephane A.; Hisao, Komatsu; Yasushi, Kosugi, eds. (2006-09-27). "Chapter 3: THE MANARISTS AND MODERNISM". Intellectuals in the Modern Islamic World(PDF). p. 56. doi:10.4324/9780203028315. ISBN9780203028315. The most glaring example of such developments and differences of opinion is Rashid Rida's transformation in the last phase of his life into a spokesman for the Wahhabi movement in the Arabian Peninsula...
^Cite error: The named reference ryad was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^al-Din Zarabozo, Jamal M. (2003). The Life, Teachings and Influence of Muhammad ibn Abdul-Wahhaab. Riyadh: The Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Endowments, Dawah and Guidance, The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. pp. 172–173. ISBN9960-29-500-1. ... he was very different from his Shaikh Muhammad Abduh,.. when it comes to a leaning toward the salaf. He was a strong supporter of ibn Taimiyyah—publishing his works—as well as of the scholars of Najd.... Through his magazine, al-Manaar, Muhammad Rasheed Ridha greatly contributed to the spread of ibn Abdul-Wahhaab's teachings in the whole Muslim world.
^Meijer, Roel (2013). Global Salafism: Islam's New Religious Movement. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 7, 46, 64, 117. ISBN978-0-19-933343-1. ...Rashid Rida, who later became an admirer of Wahhabism..." "..After the death of Muhammad 'Abduh, his disciple Rashid Rida drew closer to the traditional Salafi teachings... he became seriously involved in the editing and publication of the works of Ibn Taymiyya.. His writings,... also expressed traditional Salafi theological and legal positions..
^Abu Rumman, Mohammad (2017). I AM A SALAFI: A Study of the Actual and Imagined Identities of Salafis. Amman, Jordan: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Jordan & Iraq. pp. 47, 179. ISBN978-9957-484-41-5. Muhammad Rashid Ridda (1865-1935), ... later on became more aligned with Wahhabi Salafism..." "A number of historians regard him as pivotal in leading Salafism's retreat from Sheikh Mohammad Abduh's school of thought.
^Cite error: The named reference Nakissa 211–212 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).