Muhammad Abduh was born in 1849 to a Turkish father and Egyptian mother in the Nile Delta. He also had Kurdish roots. His family was of the Egyptian elite. His father was part of the Umad, or the local ruling elite. His mother was part of the Ashraf. He was educated in Tanta at a private school. When he turned thirteen, he was sent to the Aḥmadī mosque, which was one of the largest educational institutions in Egypt. A while later Abduh ran away from school and got married. He enrolled at al-Azhar University in 1866. Abduh studied logic, philosophy and Sufism at the Al-Azhar University in Cairo. He was a student of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a philosopher and Muslim religious reformer who advocated Pan-Islamism to resist European colonialism. Under al-Afghani's influence, Abduh combined journalism, politics, and his own fascination in Islamic mystical spirituality. Al-Afghani taught Abduh about the problems of Egypt and the Islamic world and about the technological achievements of the West.