The Waning of ‘Secular’ Nationalism in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa

This chapter explains the gradual dissolution of the transnational movement for reform that Anderson tried to foster amidst the rise of liberal and Islamist approaches to legal reform by considering Anderson’s students and his response to the Iranian Revolution. It considers Anderson’s approach to religion and legal reform in Britain as well as the increasingly visible presence of Muslim immigrants and concludes with his reflections on the role of Islam in Iran’s revolution. Following the Iranian Revolution, Anderson began to grow more and more concerned about the influence of theologically conservative but militant forms of Islam on the global movement of legal reform and on global conflict. However, this did not affect his continued belief in the ‘moderate’ approach to Islamic legal reform he had supported for over thirty years.

Nationalism and Islamic Legal Reform in Sub-Saharan Africa

This chapter follows Norman Anderson’s attempts to foster legal reform in Northern Nigeria in the late 1950s by criticizing indirect rule and appealing to reforms associated with the Arab world. Despite his criticism of imperialism, Anderson developed contacts in Britain’s Colonial Office and utilized British imperial networks to attempt to spread reform strategies popularized by scholars in Egypt to countries emerging out of formal British imperial rule. Anderson was particularly concerned about restricting traditional approaches to criminal law in Northern Nigeria and justifying this restriction on grounds popularized by Arab thinkers that seemed to find wide support amongst Muslims.

Nationalism, Protestant ‘Modernity’ and the Reform of Islamic Law

This chapter traces Anderson’s entry into the world of British academia as a specialist in Islamic law. It scrutinizes the attention paid by various British academics and Muslim intellectuals to Anderson’s academic work and the ways in which a Protestant conception of modernity influenced his analysis of Islamic legal reform. It situates Anderson’s academic work against the backdrop of the general evolution of oriental studies in Britain after World War II and the specific developments at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. It also highlights the ways in which Anderson’s attachment to natural law theory shaped his approach to comparative law and Islamic legal reform.

Inter-war Evangelicalism, Cambridge Student Missionary Enthusiasm and Anderson’s Mission to Evangelise Egypt

This chapter follow’s Norman Anderson’s career as a missionary with the Egypt General Mission in Egypt from 1932 to 1939. It traces the influence of prominent missionary thinkers, Egyptian Christians and Islamic intellectuals on Anderson’s missionary strategy and his growing interest in Islamic reform. Anderson’s missionary strategy coalesced around evangelistic outreach to Egyptian students at Cairo University. In order to reach these students he attended classes in law, constructed a modern purpose-built house to host gathering near campus and wrote an apologetic for the Christian faith in Arabic aimed at sceptics and Muslims. Anderson also became fascinated with the movement to reform Egyptian law and began to study the Arabic writings of the leading teachers in Islamic law at the University.

‘Disinterested’ Scholarship, Arab Nationalism and the Study of Islamic Law in Britain

This chapter provides an account of Norman Anderson’s views of Anglo-Arab relations amidst the decline of British imperial involvement in the region and analyses the debt his account of the development of legal reform owed to a diffusionist vision of the globalization of the ‘modern’ European state. It does so by providing an account of Anderson’s influence on the domestic laws of Libya and Tunisia and the international laws of commercial arbitration in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The chapter illustrates the parallels between Anderson and secular nationalist legal thinkers and politicians who advocated for legal change in Muslim majority countries during the period.

Cambridge Legal Studies and Anderson’s Sense of the ‘Modern’

This chapter charts Norman Anderson’s early education at St. Lawrence College, Ramsgate, and Cambridge University. Its places his approach to law and to Islam in their intellectual and cultural contexts and provides a foundation for analysis and assessment of the project of Islamic legal reform that would grow to become his life’s work. It provides an analysis of Anderson’s views of law and Islam against the backdrop of evolving conceptions of modernity and shifting Christian theological understandings of non-Christian religions. Anderson was particularly influenced by traditions of reflection on comparative law initiated by Henry Maine and appraisals of Islam shaped by conservative Evangelicalism.

Christian Missions and Islam in the 1950s

This chapter analyses Norman Anderson’s contribution to the reassessment and revision of the evangelical missionary engagement with Islam in the 1950s. It focuses on his participation in multiple influential Christian missionary conferences concerned with articulating general principles to guide evangelistic outreach to Muslims and compares his theological conclusions with those of other key Christian missionary thinkers such as Kenneth Cragg. While Anderson differed with Cragg on many points, they were both attempting to help formulate a theologically grounded response to the growth of nationalist movements, the apparent revival of non-Christian religions and the decline of European imperial influence.

Christian Missions and Islam in the 1960s and 1970s

This chapter tracks Anderson’s role in promoting the idea of dialogue between Christianity and Islam in the 1960s and 1970s. It also follows Anderson’s efforts towards working out practical institutional responses to the dissolution of the Christendom-heathendom dichotomy amongst Anglican missionary societies. It takes up Anderson’s ongoing debates with figures like Kenneth Cragg and assesses his theological contributions to missionary theories about contextualization and salvation outside of the Christian faith. It makes a case for viewing Anderson as an influential theologian of pluralism and religious dialogue within the conservative Evangelical tradition.

Nationalism and Islamic Legal Reform in Asia and East Africa

This chapter explores Anderson’s role in debates about Islamic legal reform in Pakistan, South-East Asia, East Africa and India. It shows the ways in which his work appealed to secular nationalists outside the Arab world, but also differed in substantial ways. Throughout his travels, Anderson engaged with a wide variety of Muslim opinion including prominent Islamists, feminists and secularists. He was particularly interested in the fate of Pakistan as an Islamic state and partook in important debates about the uniform civil code in India. In the case of India, while secularists openly courted Anderson’s support for their cause, Anderson gravitated towards more moderate thinkers within the Muslim community.

Introduction

This chapter provides a sketch of Norman Anderson’s lifelong interest in Islam against the broad backdrop of three major developments:1) the long-term growth of secular imaginaries in western culture, 2) the geopolitical transformation of the ‘Near East’ into the ‘Middle East’, and 3) the evolution of liberal imperialism in the midst of decolonization. It draws on key features of Anderson’s thought, situating them against ancient, medieval and early modern trends, to develop broader conclusions about the historically unique features that define and distinguish twentieth-century Christian concern about Islam from its historical predecessors. It finds these features in the growing association of spiritual authenticity with private, voluntary, personal religion.