What about the Modern Arab Renaissance (An-Nahda)?

Now the Arab story begins to get very interesting. This post and the next several are in essence an exploration in outline of the attempts that the Arabs are finally making to get to grips with modernity and modern thought. I've just finished a series on Muslim political thought but this is so much broader than that. It includes political thought and Muslim thought but also other thought and secular thought (and secular thought from both Muslims and non-Muslims). It also includes religion-inspired thought from non-Muslims. In one sense, though, it is narrower (and it is no less engaging for this), it only includes Arab thought, so whereas we have considered the ideas of Turks, Persians and Indians in the recent posts, I will now focus on modern Arab thought.

While Islam as an ideal was dealing with the West and modernity and in a sense attempting to make sense of those forces in a Middle Eastern context, so were both Muslim and non-Muslim Arabs. The Modern Arab Nahda (Renaissance), beginning in the 19^th Century, or an-Nahda al-‘Arabiyya al-Haditha, is so-called essentially because of its (re-)birthing of confident and searchingly critical analysis that this inquiry brought on in the Arab world in that period (and that continues to come in waves of ongoing creativity).

Western ideas and reforms had become a necessary part of the political landscape partly because of direct Western interference in the Arab zone and partly because Arabs ironically and subversively but always creatively sought the support of the dominating Western culture itself for their own emancipation from it. The ideals expressed in the period of the French Revolution were naturally especially popular and Arabs (especially those inclined to be secularist for whatever reason) also saw in European nationalisms models for their own. More recently even post modernist ideas have been marshalled to the cause of understanding and dealings with the problems of being an 'Arab' citizen of the world today.

The essence of the Nahda was a realisation of the need for some kind of reform that might take Western ideas as its inspiration but that would lead to renewal of Arab culture and pride. In a sense it thus carried a kind of “if you can’t beat them, join them” ethos. A rearguard action was, of course, always being fought in the period as today by traditionalist forces which naturally conflated Arab modernisation and even post modernism with Westernisation and opposed them all. Traditional Arab society needed no ‘remaking’, the traditionalists argued. This sector of the Arab world (also generally seeking ‘remaking’, however, but in their case a ‘truly’ Islamic one) may be generally described as Salafiyya and naturally partly draws inspiration especially today from the teachings of Muhammad Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab and his wealthy Wahhabi followers. The issue posed to the traditionalists and that has ultimately divided many of them to this day was should their traditionalism have a political or a religious focus or indeed whether Islamic traditions could or should be so divided. I've discussed their confusion in the recent posts.

The first issue with which Arab thinkers dealt in the early part of the Nahda was the deficit of scientific knowledge and thought in the Arab world and the first solution was to send students to the West (mainly to France). Muhammad ‘Ali in Egypt was the notable ruler of Arabs (though not an Arab) who encouraged this process (as well as a major translation project of European works of interest into Arabic guided by such students) and the Imam of one such group of Egyptian Arab students in Paris was an early pioneer of the Nahda, Rifa’a Rafi’ at-Tahtawi (1801 - 1873), who I mentioned in an earlier post as he was also a Muslim political thinker (or at least inspired Muslim political thinking).

Tahtawi, as an Imam, naturally considered that the process of any reform should necessarily be fully in conformity with Islam and attempted to produce a synthesis of Islamic and European ideas. He explored the European ideas of a motherland (Watan) and patriotism (Hubb al-Watan), European institutions and the European ways of life and thought generally in public writings in the Arab world for virtually the first time. His interpretation of what patriotism required in the Arab world was a nation of ‘children’ of the Watan speaking the same language and loyal to a single sovereign power such as a king, a single political administration and a single set of laws (shari’a). In return, he suggested, the Watan would be a source and place of shared happiness for its people as a community.

Another early example, this time from Lebanon and Syria, was Butrus al-Bustani (1819 - 1893). From a Maronite Catholic Christian family, he received an extensive Western education and became a noted secular educator and Arab nationalist and Nahda pioneer. As a noted educator and thinker, he added weight to the calls for learning from the West and reform sparked by the writings of Tahtawi. As Tahtawi did, al-Bustani also suggested that borrowing from the West should be discriminating rather than a process of blind copying. He also followed Tahtawi in considering the idea of Arab patriotism and pursued a national secular education system in Lebanon in furtherance of the interests and identity of the Arab peoples while maintaining the merit of their loyalty to the Ottoman system.

In a way, this early thinking produced a momentum for more engaged thinking in what it meant to be a modern Arab that continues today. One kind of thought led to another in ways that can be seen as a process of progress and in the next few posts I will follow that progress. The first thought was nationalist, then it was how to arrive at freedom of the nation and even from the nation. Then as free people it was how to measure progress and whether or how to arrive at modernity. Then the question of whether secularism is or should be a consequence of seeking freedom and progress. Then people wondered whether secular socialism in some form met the needs of all of these things: the nation, freedoms and progress. All of these debates were followed by debates on what they meant for women as did the debates in all of the Muslim world (as discussed in my last post). What was freedom and progress and the nation and socialism to look like for womankind? After considering all of these arguably but not completely Western-inspired ideas, the next wondering that began to go on was what does our own heritage (Turath) have to offer us Arabs in relation to all of the above? Finally this all left the modern Arab with a final overarching question to ponder: what, then, if anything, is (or should be) my modern (or post modern) Arab identity now? The next several posts will basically follow these flows of thought to see where they lead us (and the Arab thinkers) today. It will all be in scant outline as it must be, of course, but I hope it will be interesing and useful. I will finish the series with more on communication and education which is really what I started this post with. The flowering of communication that began the Nahda isn't letting up anytime soon (what with the increased literacy and thoughtfulness inspired by the Nahda and with the internet age) and my final post in the series will explore some of the (political) cartooning of the Arab world (you may even get to see Jesus with a bomb in his robe).