Responding to arguments made in the Victorian period that Islam is 'irrational' or 'inferior to Christianity' and that the unification of religious and political power is a 'barrier to progress,' Rida sought to defend Islam and often charged Christianity of its own brand of irrationality. Wood analyzes these arguments and contends that Rida's work cannot be separated from the period of colonial humiliation from which it originated. He also takes on the traditional accusation that Rida was a fundamentalist and argues that he was in fact distinctly modernist.