Muhammad Abduh and Islamic unity: Difference between revisions

Abduh regularly called for better friendship between religious communities. He made great efforts to preach harmony between Sunnis and Shias. Broadly speaking, he preached brotherhood between all schools of thought in Islam. However, he criticized what he perceived as errors such as superstitions coming from popular Sufism. <ref>Benzine, Rachid. Les nouveaux penseurs de l'islam, p. 43-44. </ref> As Christianity was the second biggest religion in Egypt, he devoted special efforts towards friendship between Muslims and Christians. He had many Christian friends and many a time he stood up to defend Copts. <ref><ref>Benzine, Rachid. Les nouveaux penseurs de l'islam, p. 43-44. </ref></ref> During the Urabi revolt, some Muslim mobs had misguidedly attacked a number of Copts resulting from their anger against European colonialism.