Abstract
In the course of a long life (1882–1968) al-Husri was able to ensure that his ideas gained maximum publicity. He published frequently, and also managed to spread his theories in the course of his employment as an educationalist in various Arab countries. The application of his general theory to the specific conditions of the Arab world appeared in the form of painstaking historical works on the genesis of the Arab national movement, as well as in polemics and controversies with representatives of other political currents in the Arab Middle East.
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Notes
On Turanianism, see Gotthard Jäschke, ‘Der Turanismus der Jungtürken’, in Die Welt des Islams, XXIII (1941) Nos. 1–2, 1–54.
al-Husri, vol. V. There is a complete English translation by S. Glazer: The Day of Maysalun, a Page from the Modern History of the Arabs (Washington, 1966).
al-Husri, vol. VI, pp. 200 ff. For the American Protestant missions in the Middle East, see A. L. Tibawi, American Interests in Syria 1800–1901, a Study of Educational, Literary and Religious Work (Oxford and London, 1966),
and David H. Finnie, Pioneers East, The Early American Experience in the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass., 1967). For a general survey of the work of the missionaries in Greater Syria, see B. Tibi, introduction to Muhammad Kischli, Kapitalismus und Linke im Libanon.
See here Gerhard Höpp, ‘Zur Rolle internationaler panislamischer Organisationen in der Befreiungsbewegung der arabischen Völker’, in Werner Loch (ed.), Asien, Afrika, Lateinamerika, 1969 (Berlin, 1969) pp. 159–76; Sylvia Haim, ‘The Abolition of the Caliphate and its Aftermath’,
postscript to the second edition of Sir Thomas Arnold, The Caliphate (London, 1965) pp. 205–44; Anwar G. Chejne, ‘Pan-Islamism and the Caliphal Controversy’, Islamic Literature (1955) 679–97. These works give a useful survey of the Pan-Islamic movement and the whole question of the Caliphate since its dissolution. Arnold’s work (to which Haim has contributed a postscript) is still useful on the question of the Caliphate since the beginning of Islam. It was first published in 1925 and was reprinted without alterations in 1965. On the question of the Caliphate,
see also E. I. J. Rosenthal, Islam in the Modern National State (Cambridge, 1965) pp. 64 ff.
Franz Taeschner provides a survey of the development of Islam after the dissolution of the Ottoman Caliphate, ‘Der Islam im Banne des Nationalismus der Zwischen weltkriegszeit’, in R. Hartmann (ed.), BASI (Leipzig, 1944) pp. 484–513. Even some contemporary Arab authors mourn the passing of the Caliphate. Thus the Pan-Islamist Salah Munajjid criticises the Arab nationalists because the call for nationalism has had two results. In the first place, it has destroyed the Islamic Caliphate of the Ottomans. In the second place, it has brought neither independence nor freedom to the Arabs. After the Turks were defeated, and the Ottoman Empire had fallen, the Arab countries became mandates, protectorates and colonies. But the Arab nationalists castigated the Ottoman Turks, who were of course Muslims themselves, as “colonists”, as the Europeans had taught them to do.
(S. Munajjid, Wohin treibt die arabische Welt? (Munich, 1968) p. 19)
For the Muslim Brethren, see the study of R. P. Mitchell, The Society of the Muslin Brothers (London, 1969).
See here the biographical information by Nikki Keddie in her introduction to N. Keddie (ed.), An Islamic Response to Imperialism: Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamal al-Din ‘al-Afghani’ (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968).
An original copy of this journal is available in the Public Record Office, London (FO 78/3682). al-Afghani’s articles are included in ‘Ammara, op. cit., and in a number of different Arabic publications with the same title which have appeared in Cairo and Beirut. Some of these have appeared in Orient (Paris), in French translations by Marcel Colombe during 1962 and 1963. N. Keddie’s selection only includes one article from al-’Urwa al-Wuthqa (pp. 175 ff). The following Arabic edition has been used: Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad ’Abduh, al-’Urwa al-Wuthqa (Cairo, 1958).
Sylvia Haim, ‘Islam and the Theory of Arab Nationalism’, Die Welt des Islams, n.s. IV (1955) Nos. 2–3, 124–49; here p. 130.
On al-Kawakibi see Sylvia Haim, The Ideas of a Precursor: ’Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi (1849–1902), in Relation to the Trend of Muslim Arab Political Thought, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (Edinburgh, 1953); idem., ‘Alfieri and al-Kawakibi’, Oriente Moderno, XXXIV (1954) No. 2, 321–34; idem, ‘Blunt and al-Kawakibi’, Oriente Moderno, XXXV (1955) No. 3, 132–43.
See also the dissertations of G. Roth, al-Kawakibi, ein arabischer Nationalist (Berlin, 1942),
and C. Kessler, Abdal-Rahman al-Kawakibis Reform des Islam (Berlin, 1956),
and Norbert Tapiéro, Les idées réformistes d’al-Kawakibi (Paris, 1956). See also the chapter on al-Kawakibi in the book by al-Husri’s son;
Khaldun Sati Husry, Three Reformers, a Study in Modern Arab Political Thought (Beirut, 1966) pp. 55–112.
In ‘Alfieri and al-Kawakibi’, Sylvia Haim suggests that Taba’i’ al-Istibdad (Features of Tyranny) was strongly influenced by Delia Tirannide, by the Italian writer Vittorio Alfieri, which appeared in 1800, since the two works are almost identical. Alfieri’s ideas are borrowed from Voltaire, Rousseau and Montesquieu. al-Kawakibi was probably familiar with the Turkish translation of this work which had been carried out by the Young Ottomans in Geneva in 1897, since he himself knew no European language. E. Rossi discovered the Turkish text of this work as a result of Haim’s research. See E. Rossi, ‘Una Traduzione Turca dell’Opera “Delia Tirannide” di V. Alfieri Probabilmente Conosciuta da al-Kawakibi’, Oriente Moderno, XXXIV (1954) No. 7, 335–7. Husry, op. cit., pp. 72 ff. contests Haim’s thesis, but in contradistinction to his objections to her essay on Blunt, he cannot put forward any valid evidence against this claim.
al-Husri, vol. IV, pp. 214 ff.; although al-Husri says that al-Kawakibi wanted an Arab instead of an Ottoman Caliphate he does not give sufficient emphasis to this, and tends to make al-Kawakibi into an Arab nationalist in the modern sense, which is inaccurate. For both al-Kawakibi and al-Afghani, Islam was the guiding principle, the main difference between them being that al-Afghani assigned a special place to the Arabs within Islam, since they were allegedly its dignitaries. It is also wrong to suggest that Rashid Ridha shared al-Kawakibi’s views, even though he published his writings. Like al-Kawakibi, Ridha was a pupil of ’Abduh, and he held an orthodox view of the Caliphate. He considered Islam not simply as a religion but also as a system of government, and held that the two could not be divided. Like ’Abduh, Ridha considered that an Arab revivalist movement was essential, but only because he believed that this would be identical to a restoration of Islam, in which the Arabs would have pride of place. For Ridha, therefore, Islam is never subordinated to Arabism, although this emerges as an unintended consequence of al-Kawakibi’s theory. Ridha’s support for the Arab Revolt of 1916 does not contradict this. The Arab Revolt was not backed up by secular nationalist arguments from its nominal leader Sharif Husain of Mecca, but by the argument that the Turks had abandoned Islamic orthodoxy (see here C. E. Dawn, ‘Ideological Influences in the Arab Revolt’, in J. Kritzeck and R. Bayly Winder (eds) The World of Islam (New York, 1960) pp. 233–48). When Ridha became aware of the nationalist features of the Revolt, he turned away from it and gave his support to the archaic Wahhabi movement, and its representatives, the House of Sa’ud, who had taken over the Arabian Peninsula in 1924 and declared the area an ‘Islamic State’ (see A. Hourani, op. cit., p. 231, and the account in Chapter 4 above).
For his ideas on the Caliphate see Rashid Ridha, al-Khalifa aw al-Imama ul-’Udhma (The Caliphate, or the Great Imamate) (Cairo, 1923), originally a series of essays in the periodical al-Manar, XXIII–XXIV. There is a French translation by Henri Laoust, Le Califat dans le Doctrine de Rashid Ridha (Beirut, 1938). See the Arabic text pp. 62 ff., and the French text pp. 105 ff., where Ridha criticises the Arab nationalists, and refers to them disparagingly as mutafarnijin (Westernised). There is a partial English translation by Sylvia Haim, ‘Rashid Ridha: Islam and the National Idea’, in idem (ed.), Arab Nationalism, an Anthology, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976) pp. 75–7. See also Malcolm Kerr, Islamic Reform, The Political and Legal Theories of Muhammad Abduh and Rashid Ridha (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1966) pp. 153 ff., 187 ff.
The difference between Ridha and al-Kawakibi emerges clearly in H. Z. Nuseibeh’s The Ideas of Arab Nationalism (Ithaca and New York, 1956) when the author ends his analysis of Ridha’s ideas, and then turns to those of al-Kawakibi: ‘It is with a sense of relief that one comes to the works of ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi …’ (p. 129). However, Nuseibeh avoids falling into the trap of describing al-Kawakibi as an Arab nationalist, and describes him accurately as an islamic revivalist’, whose ideas had an important influence on Arab nationalism.
Quoted in al-Husri, vol. III, p. 169. Maraghi was not only one of the most militant opponents of the Arab national movement, but also one of the leading Egyptian members of the Pan-Islamic Caliphate movement. For further information on his activities, see E. Kedourie, ‘Egypt and the Caliphate’, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (1963) 208–48. Kedourie points out that Maraghi was supported by King Fu’ad, since the latter had ambitions to become Caliph himself, and to revive the Pan-Islamic Caliphate movement after the dissolution of the Caliphate by the Kemalists. See also M. Colombe, L’évolution de l’Égypte 1924–1950 (Paris, 1951) pp. 171 ff.
al-Husri, vol. XIII, pp. 42 ff. After the fall of the ‘Abbasid dynasty in Baghdad in 1258, the Mamluke rulers of Egypt made use of one of the surviving members of the family, whom they installed as Caliph and successor to the ‘Abbasids in Cairo in 1261. This ‘Caliphate’ was clearly a fictional veneer for Mamluke rule, but it lasted until the Ottoman conquest of Egypt under Selim I in 1517 (Sir Thomas Arnold, The Caliphate, pp. 89 ff., R. Hartmann, Zur Vorgeschichte des ’abbasidischen Schein-Chalijats von Cairo (Berlin, 1950)). The Ottoman court historians claim that al-Mutawakkil, the last ‘Abbasid Caliph in Egypt, surrendered the Caliphate to Selim I, although’… of the alleged transfer of the dignity of the Khalifat there is no contemporary evidence at all’ (Sir Thomas Arnold, op. cit., p. 143). In Islamstudien, vol. II, p. 244. C. H. Becker dismisses the view that the Ottomans were the lawful heirs of the Caliphate as an ‘anecdote’, and says that the Ottoman ‘flatterers and court historians’ also invented a ‘fabulous Arab family tree’, which would prove the ‘legitimacy’ of the Ottomans’ claim to the Caliphate by tracing their descent back to the Prophet Muhammad himself.
al-Islam wa Usulal-Hukm, ed. M. Dasuqi (Beirut, 1966), first ed., Cairo, 1925; French translation by L. Bercher, ‘L’Islam et les bases du pouvoir’, Revue des Etudes Islamiques, VII (1933) 353–91, and VIII (1934) 163–222. References below are to Dasuqi’s edition.
For the fatwa of the ‘ulama’ of al-Azhar against ‘Abd al-Raziq, see L. Bercher, ‘De la brochure intitulée “sentence des grands Uléma” (d’al-Azhar) sur le livre “L’Islam et les bases du pouvoir”’, Révue des Etudes Islamiques, IX (1935) 75–86. See also G. E. von Grunebaum, Modem Islam, p. 132. The Arab nationalist Sanhoury has also criticised ‘Abd al-Raziq: Le Califat, son évolution vers une Société des Nations Orientales (Paris, 1926) pp. 37 ft. For a criticism of Sanhoury’s thesis see R. Hartmann, ‘Ein moderner Ägypter über die Chalifatsfrage’, Der Islam, XVI (1927) 274–6. Hartmann proves that in spite of all his assurances to the contrary, Sanhoury has himself departed from true orthodoxy in his criticism of ‘Abd al-Raziq.
Ibid., p. 70. ’Abd al-Raziq’s interpretation is in line with the Sunni tradition in which the Caliphate only lasted for 30 years, and was then transformed into a kingdom (mulk). Independently of ’Abd al-Raziq, Horovitz wrote that contemporary Arab thinkers were also seeking a division between a religious and secular authority, basing their claims on the same Sunni tradition. See J. Horovitz, ‘Neuere Literatur über das Kalifat’, Der Islam, XV (1926) 79–82, especially p. 81.
‘Abd al-Raziq, op. cit., p. 73. Ibn Taimiyya’s interpretation of Islam denies this: see here G. von Grunebaum, ‘Problems of Muslim Nationalism’, in R. N. Frye (ed.), Islam and the West (Gravenhage, 1957) pp. 7–29. von Grunebaum shows that Ibn Taimiyya considers that the exercise of power is an integral part of the Islamic religion, an interpretation accepted by Rashid Ridha and the Wahhabis.
G. E. von Grunebaum, ‘Nationalism and Cultural Trends in the Arab Near East’, op. cit., p. 126, writes ‘It is much more difficult to identify the cause of Islam with any of the actually existing Arab states; and where ‘Pan-Arabism’ and Islam may be considered complementary aspects of the same cultural and political manifestation, the local nationalism cannot as readily be reconciled with the Islamic aspiration’. This essay and ‘Problems of Muslim Nationalism’ have been reprinted in Grunebaum’s Modern Islam, The Search for Cultural Identity (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1962). This collection is an interesting survey of contemporary Islam, though the interpretation is somewhat ethno-centric and is thus not always reliable. Other standard works on contemporary Islam include: R. N. Frye (ed.), Islam and the West; E. I. J. Rosenthal, Islam in the Modern National State (Cambridge, 1965);
Bernard Lewis, The Middle East and the West (Bloomington, 1965);
R. Hartmann, Islam und Nationalismus (Berlin, 1948),
and the essays in R. Hartmann (ed.), BASI, vol. III (Leipzig, 1944) pp. 425–530. See also the references in Chapter 4 above.
Thus Elie Salem, ‘Nationalism and Islam’, The Muslim World, lii (1962) 277–87. Salem claims that ‘Arab nationalism was … the synthesis between universal Pan-Islamism and the local nationalism’ (p. 277). The examples that he gives are almost entirely irrelevant, and are taken from unimportant authors.
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Tibi, B. (1997). Pan-Arab Nationalism versus Pan-Islamism: The Role of Islam in al-Husri’s Writings. In: Arab Nationalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230376540_9
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