Progress and Modernity

Before I begin on the meat of today's post, I want to thank Neil (the only Wordpress blogger from the sidebar) for supporting this blog with a message in his header (I'm not sure of my blogging terminology so I hope that's right). He called this blog "interesting", which is very generous. His blog is more than interesting to me and I highly recommend it. While I'm being self-conscious, I also want to remind anybody who comes to my blog that it may make more sense (hopefully) read as a serial from start to finish as I'm developing it somewhat narratively as a comprehensive (admittedly quite flawed, I expect) history of the Middle East, Islam and the Arab World and its relationship with the West. I'm now up to 59 posts of varying quality (with this one) so I quite understand if readers would prefer not to read them all, however.

I do want to renew my pledge that I am always keen to receive any comments, corrections or suggested improvements. I am aware of some of its flaws but I would love to hear what anyone thinks (please be kind). I would probably also do a lot more linking and include more images, which may improve its look, if I was more familiar with the medium. I'm not and I have a persistent wrist sprain so I am a little limited in my ability to edit and improve things at the moment. I still hope it is an informative read and may help to give context to debates that so often reveal, at the moment, the ignorance of the region's history and culture of otherwise intelligent and admirable Western men (usually). The best example of such a thing (that I regard ironically as irrationally Islamophobic given his general support for the practice of rationality) is the general attitude to Islam of Richard Dawkins, a man that I otherwise admire. For those who haven't read it in earlier posts, I am an atheist and actually want a post-religious world. I just dislike what I regard as bigotry from atheists I admire like Dawkins (who calls himself a cultural Anglican, which indicates roughly the issue I have with his attitude). That's my rant done for today. On back to the Nahda.

Having discussed freedom and the nation, then, it was natural (because its effects were all around) to also consider what modernity meant to a free Arab and a free Arab nation and whether progress and modernity were in keeping with being Arab and with being free. Was democracy progress, for example? Arabs had attemped it and found the form wanting. I've mentioned in another post that the idea that Arabs needed to be readied for democracy before it could be transplanted effectively to the Arab world (as Europeans were supposed to have been readied for it by various benevolent or enlightened despots) was considered. These were progressive ideas perhaps leaving the problem to be considered how could an Arab enlightened despot be enlightened without an Arab enlightenment (or was the Nahda it)?

The Arab proponents of progress visualised it as a forward movement (taqaddum) and an upward one (taraqqi or ruqiyy). It was also seen as a civilising process (tamaddun or hadara).

The idea of progress in knowledge and thus towards civilisation had earlier been considered in the classical Arab period before modernity became the multicultural idea it has since arguably become (whose modernity being the basis of the problem for many Arabs?) Major thinkers involved included al-Kindi and al-Mas’udi of the 9^th and 10^th Centuries and Ibn Khaldun of the 14^th Century.

The first problem for these theoreticians’ ideas taken up in the 19^th Century was how to account for an apparent ‘reverse progress’ from the 15^th to the 19^th Centuries. The next problem was how to achieve a re-reversal that was not dependent on external forces and this led thinkers to seek an internal cultural revival. Many of the thinkers, considering the society and progress produced in the early Islamic period, regarded ‘true’ Islam as the potential catalyst for this or at least not incompatible with the required revival.

Afghani, ‘Abduh and their followers discussed how to achieve this modernism within Islam by renewal of a ‘true’ Islam. Kawakibi, whose ideas about freedom I mentioned in the last post, viewed the political, economic and religious despotisms he discussed as obstacles to progress as well as to freedom.

Tahtawi, Bustani, ‘Abduh and Qasim Amin all discussed education (including of women - especially for Bustani and Amin) as necessary for progress. The putative links between education, reform, progress and freedom were naturally then examined by such thinkers as Bustani and Qasim Amin. The Ottoman Tanzimat reforms were naturally subject to discussion in the early part of the Arab Nahda as they were represented as progress but also arose from elements of Turkish nationalism and had impacts on freedoms (especially on the freedoms of non-Turks). Arab cultural nationalist societies played a significant role in these discussions.

The 19^th Century 'fashions' of so-called ‘social Darwinism’, science and socialism also played roles in the discussions concerning progress especially in the writings of Farah Antoun (1874 - 1922) and Shibli Shumayyil (1850 - 1917).

Ameen Rihani continued this new tradition of scientific emphasis and support for liberalism among progressive Arabs further into the 20^th Century. He linked science itself with moral progress rather than merely the 'material progress’ produced by technology. He argued against what he saw as the American form of progress (dependent upon the material advances produced by industrialisation and capitalism) as a legitimate goal. Nevertheless his experience of America and the Arab world convinced him of the value of some form of modernisation in the Arab world and suggested to him what obstacles to and resources of progress existed there. He pioneered the idea of progress based on a combination of Eastern and Western cultures between the two mono-cultural extremes until his time being the only two ‘options’ for progress under serious consideration. In this he can be said to have continued in and expanded on the tradition of the Egyptian, Tahtawi. Egyptian thinkers such as Ahmad Lutfi as-Sayyid (1872 - 1963), Taha Husayn (1889 - 1973) and Ahmad Amin (1886 - 1954) had arrived at similar conclusions by the early 20^th Century partly as a result of Egyptian thought already being so evidently the result of such a synthesis of cultures.

After the Second World War and the beginning of independent Arab states, the debates continued throughout the Arab world based on this variety of regional, religious and other perspectives.

The idea of Islam as a self-contained ‘system’ built for progress and as a solution for Arab social stagnation was reinforced against the secular tendency of most of the pre-war ideas for progress. The ideas of Sayyid Qutb, another Egyptian thinker and a Muslim Brother, constitute a most significant example of this trend of thought. His views are criticised as fundamentalist for their allegedly too-narrow and not sufficiently humanistic interpretation of the ‘correct’ traditions of Islam.

On the scientific side of the debate, thinkers such as the Syrian/Lebanese Constantine Zurayq (1909 - 2000) sought to rationally and scientifically (and self critically, where necessary) consider the reasons for the successive ‘disasters’ (beginning with the 1948 war against Israel) which continued to mar Arab history. He thus fell into the camp that regarded science and rationality (rather than religion) as the sources of progress for Arab society. Another advocate of Arab scientific awakening was Fu’ad Sarruf of Lebanon. Various liberal literary and intellectual journals were also significant supporters of this view (such as al-Adab and al-Mustaqbal al-‘Arabi in Beirut, al-Ma’rifah in Damascus, ‘Alam al-Fikr in Kuwait and Afaq in London).

The further disaster (Nakba) of the 1967 war against Israel produced yet more soul-searching among Arab thinkers. More radical measures were seen to be necessary than had previously been considered in the light of this further apparent humiliation. Sadiq Jalal al-‘Azm (b. 1934), a Syrian scion working in Lebanon, produced his Critique of Religious Thought. The Moroccan Mohammad ‘Abid al-Jabiri (b. 1936) viewed the Arab thinking of the past as a burden to be shrugged off by Arab thinkers of today. Hasan Hanafi (b. 1935) of Egypt saw rationality combined with an attitude of conciliation in approaching Arab-Islamic tradition as necessary for Arab-Islamic progress.

The feminist aspect of the new Arab Nahda thinking continued to be somewhat in evidence as it had been among earlier Nahda thinkers. For example, the idea that a special impediment to progress in Arab societies in particular was a thing he labelled “Neopatriarchy” was also propounded in this period by the Palestinian-American political sociologist, Hisham Sharabi.

Also a new range of journals and other mass media continued to play a role similar to that played by an earlier generation of print periodicals. Satellite television stations such as al-Jazeera, for example, played a greater and more balanced intellectual role than has been suggested by much Western criticism and today the role is beginning to be played by internet sites. The Arab daily press and literary supplements now play a role in introducing readers to the in-depth analysis of issues via columnists once played by a more intellectually specialised press. In Cairo, Al-Ahram and Al-Ahram weekly (also published in English) play this role, while An-Nahar and its weekly supplement play this role in Beirut. Two periodicals published in London, Al-Hayat and Al-Quds al-Arabi, also play this role. Today’s rather existential and post-modern debates concern whether change is possible without progress and whether progress is possible without change. Next post, is secularism the change that refreshes?

Freedoms and Government (and Democracy?)

So clearly the valid nation discussed by the thinkers mentioned in the last post deserved freedom from oppression - both external and internal - or did it?

The Arab thinkers of the Nahda took up ancient ideas of freedom from despotism and tyranny in producing a new discourse of an independent Arab nation as well as Western ideals. The ideas of justice ('adl) versus oppression (zulm) being the outcomes of rule and constitutional rights were two ideas that were central to the overall debate concerning freedom/liberty (hurriyya) versus servitude (isti’bad) to despotism/tyranny (istibdad).

The first notable linkage between the ideal of Arab nationalism and the requirement of freedom made in the Nahda was made by Tahtawi. He spoke of the authority of the ruler to rule being subject to that rule being within the limits of moral norms and conforming to an ideal of moderation and justice (‘adl). He further explained that freedom (hurriyya) was necessary for the continuing strength of any patriotic national community and even its creation.

Following Tahtawi, Khayr ad-Din at-Tunisi (c. 1825 – 1889) and Butrus al-Bustani made further early contributions to the discussion of freedom. Tunisi discussed the institution of political institutions based on the concepts of justice and freedom in the context of Tunisian Islamic modernism and Bustani was especially concerned to discuss religious freedoms and equality. I mentioned Tunisi in my post on modernising wazirs as the founder of the constitution of Tunisia. In the context of the Arab world, it is significant that Bustani, a member of a minority religious and ethnic group in the Middle East at birth, raised especially issues of equality and religious freedom that naturally concern such groups in the context of the wider Arab world.

Late in the 19th Century, ‘Abd ar-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1854 - 1902) wrote Taba’i’ al-Istibdad (Characteristics (or Nature) of Tyranny/Despotism) to define and explore despotism and its relationship with freedom. Despotism consisted of autocratic rule, he wrote, and the arbitrariness of the powers of heads of religion, family and classes. It could also be imposed on the basis of disparities of religion, knowledge, education and wealth. Kawakibi opposed despotism in all its forms and argued for its removal.

Following Ottoman reforms in the early 20th Century and the 1908 Constitutional restoration, the freedom and justice debate continued especially among Arab intellectuals in modernising Egypt. One great participant and Egyptian Arab secular nationalist involved in that debate was Ahmad Lutfi as-Sayyid (1872 - 1963). He stressed the importance of individual freedom and the problematic of its relationship with the control of its freely constitutionally contracting citizens by the state. He opposed both despotism (istibdad) and servitude (isti’bad). He concluded that true government must spring from free agreement of citizens and their innate sense of justice.

In more recent times, intellectuals and creative writers have continued this discourse of freedom and oppression reflecting the realities of post-World War Two Arab political and cultural developments. The simultaneous existence of evident freedom/liberation of Arab nations (tahrir) from external oppression and continuing failure of internal freedom (hurriyya) from the ‘liberated’ state has needed explanation. While the real existence of national tahrir may still be questioned, the clearest examples of oppression do appear now to be internal. Critics have effectively requested the same sauce for the internal goose as for the external gander and the sexual element of that analogy is not entirely irrelevant when one considers the demands from Arab ‘feminists’ for freedom for women within this debate. The traditional Arab ‘obedience paradigm’ has been questioned and accused of being an obstacle to rightful freedoms. Taher Labib, a Tunisian sociologist, has spoken of an accumulation of tyrannical political practice occurring. Halim Barakat and Issa Boullata have also been prominent in the recent freedom/despotism debate.

A sense of disappointment has also pervaded some of the debate that parties seeking national liberation and ‘progressive’ parties have not also brought about the personal liberation of their peoples when in government. Several ostensibly progressive parties and ideologies are given particular attention such as the Ba’th party, the Communist parties of the Arab world, the parties of Nasser and others nationalists and the ideologies of those parties. Thinkers within the parties themselves have often considered these issues in some detail. So-called “Islamists” or at least traditional Islamic thinkers and ideologues also discussed what freedom means today and what freedoms should be promoted and foremost among these was the progressive Islamist thinker, Rashid Ghannoushi.

Some of the issues that have been considered have been proper restrictions on certain kinds of expression and communication versus complete freedom of expression and individual versus group freedom in an Arab world currently dominated by political elites with their various agendas. Various forms of economic dependency within the Arab world have also been discussed as significant inhibitors of political and cultural freedoms.

Democracy has not had a high priority in this Arab discourse until quite recently. Civil rights struggles likewise have a long way to go before freedoms and civil rights protections are regarded as absolutely necessary in Arab societies. A lot of this probably has to do with their association with the imperialism of the 'democratic' West. The Egyptian scholar Saad Eddin Ibrahim has been a major proponent of democratic and other 'freedom-related' reforms in the Arab world.

The history of the Arab world has produced a problem for freedom discussed in the works of Adonis (‘Ali Ahmad Said Asbar) (b. 1930), the Syrian poet and thinker, and especially in his study of Arab culture, The Permanent and the Changing: a Study of Arab Conformity and Creativity. Other poets, too, have discussed this issue. For example, Nizar Qabbani (or Kabbani) (1923 - 1998) also discusses the historical burden limiting the freedom of women and Muhammad al-Maghout (d. April 2006) discusses the burden restricting the freedom of the Arab “masses”. Durayd Lahham, also an artist, also made a contribution to this discussion. The innate links between freedom, knowledge and the status of women have been thus examined in detail in the Arab world.

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.

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).