“I went to the West and saw Islam, but no Muslims; I got back to the East and saw Muslims, but not Islam.”
“In Europe, I found Islam without Muslims, while in Egypt I found Muslims without Islam.”
Now need to check original Arabic text and its context?
When the Arab-Ottomani young men returned back home, they gave reports on their scientific studies and on the life of people in Europe. It is still interesting to read such reports about what they had found in Europe. Mohammed Abdo [Abduh] wrote at the time that he himself had found "Islam" in Europe, "An Islam without Muslims", whereas at home (Egypt) there were "Muslims without Islam" - an expression still used in Arabic, which means that the people of Europe were living in a spirit of high values, whereas at home this was not the case.
p81-82, Adel El Sayed, Egyptian Colloquial Arabic and the British Occupation: The case of Football, The Linguistics of Football, Eva Lavric, 2008
[Also something interesting:
*"The separation of Classical from Colloquial Arabic was the main consequence of that encounter [British occupation and Egyptian reaction - 1881-82]: there are in fact two languages used in the Arabic homelands." (from head summary) ]