Islamic Media and Its Impact on Shaping the Thought of the Renaissance

Media: a source for the action "I informed the quarter," which means knowledge, i.e., perceiving things as they are. This indicates the strong connection between knowledge and indicating the will of communication. Technically, media is considered one of the means or commercial organizations responsible for disseminating news and delivering information to individuals, usually nonprofit, varying in ownership, whether public or private, official or unofficial.

Some researchers argue that media is a universal human phenomenon, not tied to any specific time or place, as media work has accompanied human existence on this earth. It is useful to note in this context the discoveries in Egypt of the Rosetta Stone dating back to the fifth century BCE, which contained writings in three languages: Greek, Demotic, and Hieroglyphic. Some writings dating back to 196 BCE were also discovered during the Ptolemaic period. The Seven Wonders could be included within this broad framework of the concept of media, ancient and modern.

As for the beginnings of the journalism profession, it dates back to the Middle Ages. The Pope used to record events of the year on a whiteboard, and the first newspaper was published in America in 1690 in Boston. In Britain, the Daily Courant was published in 1702, and The Times, founded by brothers John and Walter, was published in 1785.

The question arises: what is Islamic media, and when did newspapers with Islamic content begin to appear? Islamic media is part of contemporary media directed at Arab and Islamic communities. It bears the responsibility of investing in the system of values inherent in the sources of Islam, enhancing the central position of the Islamic nation culturally and strategically to fulfill its desired media roles. This is particularly crucial today, as Muslim individuals are exposed to multiple philosophical and conflicting values and principles through various media messages, influencing their intellectual and social formation and shaking the identity of Muslim communities amidst contemporary media challenges.

The Quran itself represents a media phenomenon, as Allah says, "About what are they asking one another? About the great news." (Quran, Surah An-Naba, 1). Thus, divine revelation continues to be a form of media, a linguistic tool that encompasses many meanings and connotations, calling for the reshaping of society intellectually, politically, economically, and cognitively. The Quran was able to create a cultural and spiritual shock in the Arabian Peninsula, compared to other religions and ideologies prevalent at that time in the Arabian Peninsula and its surroundings.

Islamic media in the early days of Islamic propagation did not only include Quranic and prophetic texts but also represented the five pillars of Islam with their doctrinal and behavioral aspects as a media phenomenon. When we semiotically analyze these pillars—prayer, fasting, charity, and pilgrimage—they reveal both media and advertising dimensions simultaneously. The Adhan (call to prayer), as a media and advertising tool, targets the listener or receiver beyond the boundaries of time and place, transcending the auditory-verbal frame by linking the limited word to the limitless ethereal, connecting the earth to the heavens, the tangible to the intangible, and the present to the absent... etc.

Islamic media is not confined to a specific time period or limited geographical area but rather transcends temporal and spatial boundaries. It carries within it the seeds of suitability for every time and place. If media crafts public opinion and carries a message, serving as a means of communication between the transmitter and the receiver, then the Quran itself is the most important media tool, both ancient and modern.

In the context of the Renaissance and its relationship with Islamic media, the thinker Fahmi Jad'an says in his book "The Foundations of Progress Among Islamic Thinkers," if the state of the Arabs and their days has been studied, as noticed by Ibn Khaldun, and the matter afterwards was in the hands of others among the Persians, like the Turks in the East, the Berbers in the West, and the Franks in the North, Islam itself did not fully comprehend this state and those days. The credit for that goes partly to the Turks. Ibn Khaldun says, "While the Islamic Caliphate had weakened and its affairs corrupted, unable to repel its enemies, Allah brought to it, by His wisdom, good governance, and kindness, new rulers from the great Turkish tribes, to breathe new life into the body of Islam and restore unity among Muslims."

If Professor Albert Hourani traced the Arab intellectual Renaissance from 1798 to 1939, I consider that a large number of Islamic newspapers and magazines formed the theoretical and intellectual foundations of the Arab and Islamic intellectual Renaissance from 1850 to 1950. Among these newspapers and magazines are Al-ʿUrwat al-Wuthqā, issued by Sayyid Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī and Imam Sheikh Muhammad ʿAbduh in Paris in 1884, Al-Manār, issued by Sheikh Muhammad Rashīd Ridā in collaboration with his teacher Sheikh Muhammad ʿAbduh in 1898, and Al-Ikhwān al-Muslimīn magazine, issued by Imam Hassan al-Banna in 1933. Also included are Al-Nathīr, Al-Shihāb, Al-Daʿwah, Al-Kashkūl, Līwāʾ al-Islām, and Manār al-Islām, all issued by the Muslim Brotherhood.

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