Arab Nationalist Thought of the Nahda

It is clear that the nationalisms that so inspired political movements in Europe in the 19^th Century were also inspirational in the Arab world among its leading thinkers and opinion makers in the period. But what precisely developed from this and how did the debates on this question proceed? The Arabs in this period who were mostly Muslims were also subjects of the Muslim Ottoman Turks and nationalism was as a result difficult to define in an uncontroversial way. Some nationalists (often Christian and other non-Muslim Arabs) also preferred to localise their nationalisms to places such as Egypt, Lebanon and Syria while others preferred the idea of a politically and culturally united Arab world further confusing the ideological landscape. Hubb al-Watan (from the French la Patrie) came to be also referred to as wataniyya.

At-Tahtawi carefully linked the freedom of the Arab nation that would be the result of Hubb al-Watan with responsibility to and sacrifice for the validly established state authority and love of Watan itself to the concept of ‘asabiyyah made famous in the Arab world by Ibn Khaldoun in the late 14^th Century. He suggested that the size of the Watan depended upon the size of the ‘asabiyyah. It appears that Tahtawi saw Egypt as an adequately-sized and linguistic and cultural but especially historical Watan to be the object of his own particular love of Watan. His view of the national community that he wanted to foster in Egypt encompassed more openness to the local Christians and Jews. Patriotism was seen very much in terms that Muslims traditionally understood Islam with, as a brotherhood, but Tahtawi, at least, saw the brotherhood of the Egyptian Watan as a higher priority than that of the Islamic Umma.

Arab nationalist thought proceeded from there (especially among Christian Arab thinkers). A positive Arab identity developed in response to the literary inspirations of the writings of Shaykh Nasif al-Yaziji, Faris al-Shidyaq, Ibrahim al-Yaziji and Butrus al-Bustani and the encouragement of the American and British missionary school movement after 1850. Despite the evident religious support for the Christian Arab scholars, the Nahda movement was certainly generally anti-clerical and experimented, for example, with socialist ideas not approved by the religious establishment. The Christian Arab Nahda movement spanned Maronite, Melkite Catholic and Orthodox Christian thinkers who also considered Protestantism and Islam as inspirations. This really followed the Tahtawi notion of the brotherly and openly ecumenical Watan that saw loyalty to sectarianisms as unnecessarily limiting of the requisite ‘asabiyyah and wataniyya for the fullness of proper Arab growth and development. Newly thriving Arabic periodical presses founded mainly by Lebanese thinkers in Beirut and Cairo (and even in Turkish Constantinople) were features of the early Nahda that further fuelled the developments of these new post-religious Arab identities.

A critical mass was thus soon achieved of western-educated Arabs imbued with the new ideas via their schooling and family and professional associations so that clubs soon sprung up (generally by the first decade and a half of the 20^th Century) around the Arab world and beyond with the objects of furthering these ideas first culturally and socially and then overtly politically. The idea of Arab patriotism was common to all these club movements and the new systems of national schooling which also developed while other ideas may have been more divisive within them. The movements were parallel growths to a similar Turkish movement to which they were necessarily in opposition as the Turkish movement sought the Turkification and assimilation of the Arabs within the then Ottoman Turkish Empire.

The first significant political club was the Arab Renaissance Association begun in Istanbul in 1906 but transferred to Damascus and led by ‘Abd al-Karim al-Khalil, Shukri al-Jundi, Muhibb ad-Did al-Khatib, ‘Arif ash-Shihabi and Salah ad-Din al-Qasimi. The Covenant (or al-‘Ahd) Association was then formed in 1913 led by ‘Aziz ‘Ali al-Misri especially in furtherance of Iraqi-Syrian Arab political unity. The Young Arab Association (al-‘Arabiyyah al-Fatah) formed in 1909 in Istanbul in parallel with the Young Turk Association (al-Turkiyyah al-Fatah). Outside Ottoman territories, young Arabs also combined in the Paris Congress of June 1913 attended by ‘Awni ‘Abd al-Hadi from Nablus in Palestine, Jamil Mardam of Damascus, Muhammad Mahmasani of Beirut, al-‘Uraysi and al-Zahrawi of Hims in Syria, Nudra Mutran, Shukri Ghanim, Jamil Malouf and Charls Dabbas.

While the movements initially sought decentralised power for the Arabs within the Ottoman Empire, the upshot of this club movement was, of course, the coherence and success of the Arab Revolt against the Ottomans during the First World War and a consequent complete post-War shake up of the political world of the Arabs. Now the (at least potential) ‘enemies’ of Arabism were no longer Ottoman power and nationalism. They had become the British and French Mandatory powers. Resistance to the new ‘rulers’ soon became armed in both mandates while a negotiated settlement was yet hoped-for. National ‘freedom’ became the first goal of Arab nationalist movements. Between the wars, two notable representatives of secular Arabism emerged: Sati’ al-Husri (1879 - 1967) and Ameen Rihani (1876 - 1940).

Al-Husri was employed by King Faisal’s new Arab government in 1919 at first in Syria and then in Iraq when the King was forced out of Syria by the French. He had an especial interest in government in providing a Pan-Arab education to as many Arabs as possible. In 1945 he worked for the formation of the Arab League which at that time consisted of seven states plus Palestine. He also wrote a textbook on nationalist ideas in Europe and more generally and generally emphasised the secularity of nationalism.

Rihani hailed from Mount Lebanon although he lived in Brooklyn, New York from his teens. Nevertheless, he was an extended visitor to the Arab world throughout his life and died there. While not especially politically active, his belief in the Arab nation as a single nation, his personal cachet in both the Arab world and the US and his wide literary popularity made his contributions to the Arab nationalist debate significant. His Book of Khalid published in English in 1911 was especially notable. His idea of Arabism, too, was a secular-based one.