Abstract
This chapter approaches the formation of the Arab Nahḍah by treating representational sites as spaces of communication where intellectuals discussed the major issues of their time. Using personal reports, correspondence, press accounts, and publications from Egypt at the turn of the twentieth century, this chapter treats these sites as tributaries to the mainstream Nahḍah movement. While supporting the dominant aspiration for nationhood, these sites also contributed to a macro/micropolitics of emancipation that was concerned with community and individual identities. Issues such as the call for the Latinization of the Arabic alphabet, introduced by missionaries and colonial officials in the middle of the nineteenth century, were met with a heated discussion that continued into the first decades of the twentieth century, reaching Ziyādah’s salon and involving some of its prominent members. No less sensitive was the issue of women, which had a complex background in the Turkish conceptualizations of “ḥarīm” and “ḥarām” and in Napoleon’s intrusion into the private space of the Egyptian upper class. This intrusion had dire consequences for family life and triggered discussions of women’s education and participation in public life. This issue was broached in the salons of Princess Nazlī Fāḍil and Ziyādah, to mention but a few.
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Notes
Mayy Ziyādah, “al-Ḥarakatān al-Ṣāliḥatān” (The Two Beneficial Movements), al-Muqtaṭaf 62 (1923) and in Mayy Ziyādah, Al-A‘māl al-Kāmilah: Mayy Ziyādah (The Complete Works of Mayy Ziyādah), comp. and ed. Salmā al-Ḥaffār al-Kuzbarī, 2 vols. (Beirut: Mu’assasat Nawfal, 1982), vol. 2: 119–120.
Muḥammad ‘Alī was an Albanian military soldier. In 1799 he commanded a Turkish army in an unsuccessful attempt to drive Napoléon from Egypt. He succeeded in destroying the power of the Mamluks in Egypt, and founded a new dynasty of Egyptian rulers in 1805. He assumed the governorship by popular demand and forced recognition on the Sultan of Turkey, his nominal sovereign. As Pasha he was virtually independent of his nominal overlord, the Ottoman sultan. See Ahmad Shafiq Pasha, L’Egypte moderne et les influences étrangères (Cairo: Imprimerie Misr, S. A. E, 1931), 18–20;
Guy Fargette, Méhémet Ali: le fondeur de l’Egypte moderne (Paris: Harmattan, 1996), 5.
Ṭāhir al-Ṭannāḥī, Aṭyāfmin Ḥayāt Mayy (Visions from Mayy’s Life) (Cairo: Dār al-Hilāl, 1974), 69. For a full translation of the letter, see Appendix C.
Peter Gran, Islamic Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 1760–1840 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), 3–34;
Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, “L’Expédition d’Égypte et le débat sur la modernité,” Egypte/Monde Arabe 1 (1999): 47–54.
See also Eliott Colla, “‘Non, non! Si, si!’ Commemorating the French Occupation of Egypt (1798–1801),” MLN 118. 4 (September 2003): 1043–1069.
See Hasan al-‘Aṭṭār, “Wa Hādhihi Maqāmat al-Adīb al-Ra’īs al-Shaykh Ḥasan al-‘Aṭṭār fī al-Faransīs” (This Is the Maqāmah of the Foremost Man of Letters Shaykh Ḥasan al-‘Aṭṭār on the French), in Jalāl al-Dīn al-Suyuṭī, Mudhayyalah bi Maqāmah li Ḥasan ibn Muḥammad al-‘Aṭṭār wa Thalāth Nawādir Adabiyyah, ed. Ṣāliḥ al-Yāfī (Cairo, A.H. 1275 [1858/59]), 91–96; ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī, Tarīkh Muddat al-Faransīs bi Miṣr (Al-Jabartī’s Chronicle of the First Seven Months of the French Occupation of Egypt), trans. S. Moreh (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1975);
Rifā‘ah Rāfi‘al-Ṭahṭāwī, Takhlīṣ al-Ibrīz fī Talkhīṣ Bārīz (An Imam in Paris: Account of a Stay in France by an Egyptian Cleric (1826–1831)), trans. and introduced by Daniel L. Newman (London: Saqi, 2004).
Anne Godlewska, “Map, Text, and Image. The Mentality of Enlightenment Conquerors: A New Look at the Description de l’Egypte,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, New Series. 20. 1 (1995): 6.
For a thorough reading of this issue, see Sheikh Ibrāhīm al-Yāzijī’s (d. 1906) articles, predating Ziyādah’s salon, in al-Ḍiya’ 4 (1901–1902), 257–265, 321–326, 353–357, 385–389, 417–424 collected in Abḥāth Lughawiyyah (Linguistic Studies), ed. Yūsuf Qazmā Khūrī (Beirut: Dār al-Ḥamrā’, 1993), 217–232; Anwar al-Jundī, Al-Lughah al-‘Arabiīyyah bayna Ḥumātihā wa-Khuṣūmihā (The Arabic Language between its Defenders and Opponents) (Cairo: Maktabat al-Anglū al-Miṣriyyah, 1963);
‘Abd al-Laṭīf Sharārah, Ma‘ārik Adabiyyah (Literary Battles) (Beirut: Dār al-‘Ilm lil-Malāyīn, 1984), 213–226.
See Peter Gran, Beyond Eurocentricism: A New View of Modern World History (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1996), 5;
Mohammad Rifaat, The Awakening of Modern Egypt (Lahore: Premier Book House, 1976), 2; Brugman, An Introduction to the History of Modern Arabic Literature, 4.
See Brugman, An Introduction to the History of Modern Arabic Literature, 12–14; Mounah A. Khouri, Poetry and the Making of Egypt (1882–1922) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1971).
Mayy Ziyādah, “Ḥayātunā al-Jadīdah Yajibu an Takūna Malī’ah bi al-Thaqāfah wa al-Nashāṭ” (Our New Life has to be Full of Culture and Energy), Al-Muqṭaṭaf 81 (1932): 11–12 and in Al-A‘māl al-Kāmilah, 2: 186.
Mayy Ziyādah, “Khitābān Khaṭīrān lil-Za‘īm al-Tūnisī al-Ustādh al-Tha‘ālibī wa li Mawlānā Shawkat ‘Alī” (Two Dangerous Speeches by the Tunisian Leader al-Tha‘ālibī and by Shawkat ‘Alī), al-Ahrām 57. 16581 (February 2, 1931): 1 and in Al-A‘māl al-Majhūlah li-Mayy Ziyādah (The Unknown Works of Mayy Ziyādah), ed. Joseph Zaydān (Abu Ẓabī: Cultural Foundation Publications, 1996), 410;
see also Mayy Ziyādah, “Ḥayāt al-Lughāt wa Mawtihā wa Limadhā Tabqā al-‘Arabiyyah Ḥayyah?” (The Life and Death of Languages: Why Does Arabic Remain Alive?), Bayn al-Jazr wa al-Madd: Ṣafaḥāt fī al-Lughah wa al-Ādāb wa al-Fann wa al-Ḥaḍarah (Between Ebb and Flow: Papers on Language, Literatures, Art, and Civilization) (Cairo: Majallat al-Hilāl, 1924), 21–46 and in Al-A‘māl al-Kāmilah, 1: 407–424.
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Margot Badran, “Introduction,” Harem Years: The Memoirs of an Egyptian Feminist (1879–1924) by Huda Sha‘rawi, ed. and trans. Margot Badran (New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1987), 14.
Edouard de Villiers du Terrage, L’expédition d’Egypte: journal d’un jeune savant engagé dans l’état- major de Bonaparte (1798–1801) (Paris: Cosmopole, 2001), 343; see also Aḥmad Shafiq Pasha, L’Egypte moderne et les influences étrangères, 17.
See J. Christopher Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt (London: H. Hamilton, 1962), 167–176.
See Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt, 164–176; Napoléon Ier Bonaparte, Correspondance de Napoléon I, publiée par ordre de l’empereur Napoléon III (Paris: H. Plon, J. Dumaine, 1857–1870), vol. 4: 383–386, 390–391.
Shmuel Moreh, “Napoleon and the French Impact on Egyptian Society in the Eyes of al-Jabarti,” in Napoleon in Egypt, ed. Irene A. Beirman (Reading: Ithaca Press; Los Angeles: Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, 2003), 84.
See Bonaparte au Caire (Paris: Prault, an VII? [1799]), 161; Nicolas Turc, Chronique d’Egypte, 1798–1804, ed. and trans. Gaston Wiet (Le Caire: Imprimerie de l’Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale, 1905), 45–79.
See Trevor Moystyn, Egypt’s Belle Époque: Cairo 1869–1952 (London, New York: Quartet Books, 1989) 18; du Terrage, L’expédition d’Egypte, 87.
This lady followed her husband, dressed as an aide-de-camp. She was in love with General Kléber and said to be his mistress. See Guy Breton, Histoires d’amour de l’histoire de France (Napoleon and His Ladies), trans. Frederick Holt (London: Robert Hale, 1965), 58.
François Charles-Roux, Edme François Jomard et la reforme de l’Egypte en 1839 (Cairo: IFAO, 1955), 34;
A. Louca, Voyageurs et écrivains Egyptiens en France au XIX éme siècle (Paris: Didier, 1970), 33, 253–254.
Nada Tomiche, “The Situation of Egyptian Women in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,” in Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East, eds. W. R. Polk and R L. Chambers (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1966), 180 (citing Clot-Bey, 1840).
Mayy Ziyādah, “al-Ḥarakah al-Nisā’iyyah ‘indanā” (Women’s Movement in Egypt), al-Maḥrūsah 44. 3012 (February 3, 1919): 1 and in Al-A‘māl al-Majhūlah li-Mayy Ziyādah, 185.
See ‘Abd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī, ‘Ajā’ib al-Āthār fī al-Ṭarājim wa al-Akhbār, eds. Ḥasan Muḥammad Jawhar, ‘Umar al-Dusūkī, and Ibrāhīm Sālim (Cairo: Lajnat al-Bayān al-‘Arabī, 1966), 5: 238–239.
Leila Ahmed, “Early Feminist Movements in the Middle East: Turkey and Egypt,” in Muslim Women, ed. Freda Hussain (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 111.
Francesco Gabrieli, The Arab Revival (New York: Random House, 1961), 35.
Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 133.
Jack A. Crabbs, The Writing of History in Nineteenth-Century Egypt: A Study in National Transformation (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 1984), 201.
Roger M. A. Allen, Introduction to Arabic Literature (Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 45.
See Muhsin J. al-Musawi’s The Postcolonial Arabic Novel: Debating Ambivalence (Leiden: Brill, 2003 [2005], 32, 38 n, 48, 54, 72–73; and Islam on the Street (Maryland: Roman and Littlefield, 2009), 9, 13–14, 17–18.
See Muḥsin al-Mūsawī, Mujtama‘ Alf Laylah wa Laylah (The Society of the Arabian Nights) (Tunis: University Publication Center, 2000).
As cited in Iqbal Baraka, “The Influence of Contemporary Arab Thought on the Women’s Movement,” in Women of the Arab World: The Coming Challenge, ed. Nahid Toubia (London and New Jersey: Zed Books Ltd., 1988), 48.
Nadav Safran, Egypt in Search of Political Community (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961), 34.
J. Heyworth-Dunne, An Introduction to the History of Education in Modern Egypt (London: Luzac and Co., 1939), 416–418.
Shawqī Ḍayf, Al-Adab al-‘Arabī al-Mu‘āṣir fī Miṣr (Modern Arabic Literature in Egypt) (Cairo: Dār al-Ma‘ārif, 1961), 15, 24–25; see also Moystyn, Egypt’s Belle Époque, 101–102; Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam, 136–137.
Thomas Philipp, The Syrians in Egypt: 1725–1975 (Stuttgart: Steiner-Verlag-Wiesbaden-GmbH, 1985), 97.
Beth Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt: Culture, Society, and the Press (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994), 14–15.
Juan R. I. Cole, Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East: Social and Cultural Origins of Egypt’s ’Urabi Movement (Cairo: American University of Cairo, 2000), 164.
George Lloyd, Egypt since Cromer, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1933), vol. 1: 165–166.
See Charles Issawi, Egypt at Mid-Century (London: Oxford University Press, 1954), 50–51.
Baron, The Women’s Awakening in Egypt, 14, 16, 18–21; Philippe Tarrāzi, Tārīkh al-Ṣiḥāfah al-‘Arabiyyah (History of Arab Journalism), 4 vols. (Beirut: al-Maṭba‘ah al-Adabiyyah, 1913–1937).
Margot Badran, Feminists, Islam, and Nation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 61.
Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, “Introduction,” in Opening the Gates: An Anthology of Arab Feminist Writing, eds. Margot Badran and Miriam Cooke, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis and Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004 [1990]), xxvi–xxvii.
Zaynab Fawwāz, Al-Durr al-Manthūr fī Ṭabaqāt Rabbāt al-Khudūr (Cairo/Būlāq: Al-Maṭba‘ah al-Kubrā al-Amīriyyah, 1894).
Marilyn Booth, May Her Likes Be Multiplied: Biography and Gender Politics in Egypt (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001), 69.
Maryam al-Naḥḥās, Ma‘riḍ al-Ḥasnā’ fī Tarājim Mashāhīr al-Nisā’ (Alexandria: Maṭba‘at Jarīdat Miṣr, 1879).
Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot, “The Revolutionary Gentlewomen in Egypt,” in Women in the Muslim World, eds. Lois Beck and Nikki Keddie (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1978), 270–272.
Earl L. Sullivan, Women in Egyptian Public Life (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 31.
Beth Baron, “The Rise of a New Literary Culture: The Women’s Press of Egypt, 1892–1919.” Diss. (Los Angeles: University of California, 1988), 20. This passage does not appear in her book.
As cited in Anwar al-Jundī, Aḍwā’ ‘alā al-Adab al-‘Arabī al-Mu‘āṣir (Lights on Contemporary Arabic Literature) (Cairo: Dār al-Kātib al-‘Arabī, 1968), 267.
Soha Abdel Kader, Egyptian Women in a Challenging Society, 1899–1987 (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1987), 83.
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Nasr Abu Zayd, Reformation of Islamic Thought: A Critical Historical Analysis (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006), 38–39.
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‘Abd al-Qādir al-Māzinī, Ḥaṣād al-Hashīm (The Harvest of Chaff), 1924 (Cairo: Dār al-Sha‘b, 1969), 208.
Her letter “Min Mayy ilā al-Fatāt al-Miṣriyyah” (From Mayy to the Young Egyptian Woman) was incorporated in the School of Girls’ syllabus in Shubrā. See Mayy Ziyādah, “Al-Ḥayāt Amāmaki,” Bayn al-Jazr wa al-Madd, 92; Amal Dā‘ūq Sa‘d, Fann al-Murāsalah ‘inda Mayy Ziyādah (Mayy Ziyādah and the Art of the Epistle) (Beirut: Dār al-Afāq al-Jadīdah, 1982), 274.
Lillian S. Robinson, “Treason Our Text: Feminist Challenges to the Literary Canon,” in The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature, and Theory, ed. Elaine Showalter (New York: Pantheon Books, 1985), 106.
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© 2012 Boutheina Khaldi
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Khaldi, B. (2012). The Ambivalent Modernity Project: From Napoleon’s Expedition to Mayy Ziyādah’s Salon. In: Egypt Awakening in the Early Twentieth Century. Middle East Today. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137106667_2
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