The publication of this essay in Egypt in 1925 took the contemporaries of AliAbdelraziq by storm. It was the focus of much attention and the seed of a heateddebate. At a time when the Muslim world was in great turmoil over the questionof the abolition of the caliphate by Mustapha Kamal Ataturk in Turkey Abdelraziq, a religious cleric trained at Al-Azhar University, argued in favour of secularism. The abolition of the caliphate had re-ignited the issue of Islam and politics, as traditional political systems were dissolving under pressure from European powers while most Muslim countries had lost their sovereignty.