Abstract
This paper analyzes the influence of Western thought upon Muhammad 'Abduh (1849-1905), one of the greatest founders of modern Islamic thought. In Islam and Christianity in relation to Science and Civilization (1902), an important theological work of 'Abduh, he was influenced by History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874), the work of an American scientist John William Draper (1811-1882). Not only did he quote many elements from Draper's work, 'Abduh also employed Dei Filius (the Dogmatic Constitution of the Catholic Faith, issued in the first Vatican council, 1870), which Draper recorded in his book. During the rise of the secularist movement of the 19th century, the Catholic Church deliberated on how to defend its faith. Dei Filius, pronouncing the compatibility of faith and reason, corresponds 'Abduh's own theory that proposed "harmony between revelation and reason." 'Abduh took what he needed from the wide range of ideas being advanced by the modem Western civilization of the time, which contained not only modernization and secularization but also anti-modernization and anti-secularization. His delicate intellectual operations need to be understood properly in the comprehensive context of the world of the 19th century, in order to introduce a new model of the modern Islamic world, which tied and related to the modern Western world very closely.
