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Foundations of Modern Arab Identity (Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2004) is a book-length study of the Nahda, or Arab Renaissance, by Arab American scholar Stephen Sheehi, that critically engages the "intellectual struggles that ensued when Arab writers internalized Western ways of defining themselves and their societies" in the mid-1800s. [1]
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Among the first of a wave of scholars to apply post-colonial and post-structural theory, most notably the theory of Jacques Lacan, Jacques Derrida, and Homi Bhabha, to a decolonial and marxist re-examination modern Arab culture and Arabic literature, the book discusses major Arab intellectuals of the 19th century including Butrus al-Bustani, Salim al-Bustani, Jurji Zaydan, Farah Antun, Ahmad Faris Shidyaq, Nasif al-Yaziji, Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, Muhammad Abduh and others including Jamal ad-din al-Afghani.
Foundations of Modern Arab Identity is a cornerstone for Nahdah Studies, critically re-examining the intersection of European colonialism and the creation of Arab modernity. Reframing the conception of modern Arab identity from a confrontation between two undifferentiated cultures, the book closely reads "foundational" Arabic texts from turn of the century to demonstrate that the ideology and discourses of Arab subjectivity were internally formed within the Ottoman Empire at a time of radical transformations in governance and political economy. Sheehi locates the battle for "self" and "other" outside of the "colonial encounter" between Western colonizer and Eastern colonized. Instead, the dialectic between Self and Other transpired internally—epistemologically and discursively—on a plane of dynamic cultural and social formations within Ottoman Arab society and polity during the Tanzimat. A groundbreaking work of decolonial theory within modern Arabic literature and thought, Sheehi proposes that the concept of cultural "failure" is inherent to the ways modern Arab intellectuals critically reorganized and redefined Arab subjectivity during modernity. Examining a host of varying sources including Arab fiction and commentary from the Arab press, Sheehi maps out a "formula" for Arab reform during 19th and 20th century al-nahda, which predicates "progress and civilization" as "proleptic" teleological endpoints. Linguistically and semiotically structuring this formula was an axiomatic "nomenclature of reform" that was found in all Arab reform writing and thought despite the ideological, sectarian, political, or national position of the author. This commonality, Sheehi reveals, is due to that historical and political fact that all reform paradigms during the late Ottoman and Mandate periods arose from a fundamental epistemology of Arab modernity; a hybridized but still thorough modern form of modernity that Sheehi states was "autogenetic."
As this epistemology is based on priorities of indigenous and colonialist capitalist development and Western political hegemony, recast in the form of liberalism and Western cultural and superiority, intellectual paradigms, political programs, and visions of new national social order among Arab thinkers inevitably always express "lack" as the core of Arab identity because it is engaged in an endless struggle of authority and "subjective presence" with the West, who otherwise accuses Arabs as being inherently "backwards". This condition of failure is written into Arab subjectivity by Arabs themselves, internalizing racist notions of Arab otherness that accompany the "modern", humanist, Enlightenment project. Hence, what is self-diagnosed as "the inherent failure of Arab culture and "identity" is not proof of the inability of the Arab world to enter into modernity but in fact is precisely a condition of it. [2] Hence, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity reveals that a "spectral European presence" is ever present in Arab modernity and its paradigms of Arab identity. [3]
Middle East scholar Orit Bashkin stated that "Sheehi’s work is an innovative and important contribution to the field of Arabic literature, Arab culture, and intellectual history" is noted for its "imaginative outlook on the ways in which we read the texts that make up the canon of the Arab nahda," otherwise known as the Arabic Renaissance. [4] Bashkin added that "Sheehi's selection of texts is unique and original. Instead of focusing on either works in social thought or narrative prose, the book studies a variety of texts - pamphlets, newspaper articles, and philosophical tracts as well as maqamat, novels, and sketches - in an attempt to explicate new conversations and ideas, which were articulated in different genres and linguistic modes." [4] Anthropologist Lucia Volk writes that Sheehi proves that these intellectual "elites actively produced indigenous ideologies of modernity while struggling against the overwhelming powers of Western colonialism." [2]
Butrus al-Bustani was a writer and scholar from present day Lebanon. He was a major figure in the Nahda, which began in Egypt in the late 19th century and spread to the Middle East.
The Nahda, also referred to as the Arab Awakening or Enlightenment, was a cultural movement that flourished in Arab-populated regions of the Ottoman Empire, notably in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, and Tunisia, during the second half of the 19th century and the early 20th century.
Syrian nationalism, also known as Pan-Syrian nationalism, refers to the nationalism of the region of Syria, as a cultural or political entity known as "Greater Syria".
Sheikh Ahmad Rida (1872–1953) was a Lebanese linguist, writer and politician. A key figure of the Arab Renaissance, he compiled the modern monolingual Arabic dictionary, Matn al-Lugha, commissioned by the Arab Academy of Damascus in 1930, and is widely considered to be among the foremost scholars of Arab literature and linguistics.
Suleyman al-Boustani was a statesman, teacher, poet and historian born in Bkheshtin, Lebanon.
Islam and modernity is a topic of discussion in contemporary sociology of religion. The history of Islam chronicles different interpretations and approaches. Modernity is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon rather than a unified and coherent one. It has historically had different schools of thought moving in many directions.
Rifa'a Rafi' at-Tahtawi was an Egyptian writer, teacher, translator, Egyptologist, and intellectual of the Nahda.
Ibrahim al-Yaziji was an Arab Christian philosopher, philologist, poet and journalist. He belonged to the Greek Catholic population of the Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon.
Nāṣīf bin ʻAbd Allāh bin Nāṣīf bin Janbulāṭ bin Saʻd al-Yāzijī was an author at the times of the Ottoman Empire and father of Ibrahim al-Yaziji. He was one of the leading figures in the Nahda movement.
Jurji Zaydan was a prolific Lebanese novelist, journalist, editor and teacher, most noted for his creation of the magazine Al-Hilal, which he used to serialize his twenty three historical novels.
Farah Antun, also spelled Farah Antoun, was among the first Lebanese Christians to openly argue for secularism and equality regardless of religious affiliation. He also, though uncommon for his background, argued against Arab nationalism. Antun became popular for his magazine, Al Jamiah, and his public debate with Muhammad Abduh over conflicting worldviews.
The history of Middle Eastern newspaper publishing goes back to the 19th century. The Nahda was an important period for the development of newspaper publishing in the Middle East. During this period, a shift from government and missionary publishing to private publishing occurred. Especially in Egypt and Lebanon, newspapers became intertwined with daily life. Consequently, the rise of newspaper publishing impacted nationalism in Arab countries.
'Abd al-Razzaq al-Hasani (1903–1997) was an Iraqi historian and politician. Al-Hasani was a prominent proponent of Iraqi nationalism. He was also a proponent of Arab nationalism.
Arab nationalism is a political ideology asserting that Arabs constitute a single nation. As a traditional nationalist ideology, it promotes Arab culture and civilization, celebrates Arab history, glorifies the Arabic language as well as Arabic literature, and calls for the rejuvenation of Arab society through total unification. It bases itself on the premise that the people of the Arab world — from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea — constitute one nation bound together by a common identity: ethnicity, language, culture, history, geography, and politics.
Daoud Corm (1852–1930), David Corm in English, was an influential Lebanese painter and the father of writer, industrialist and philanthropist Charles Corm. He was a teacher and mentor to the young Khalil Gibran as well as Khalil Saleeby and Habib Srour.
Esther Moyal was a Lebanese Jewish journalist, writer and women's rights activist. She has been described as a key intellectual in the 20th century Nahda, or Arab Renaissance.
Decolonization of knowledge is a concept advanced in decolonial scholarship that critiques the perceived hegemony of Western knowledge systems. It seeks to construct and legitimize other knowledge systems by exploring alternative epistemologies, ontologies and methodologies. It is also an intellectual project that aims to "disinfect" academic activities that are believed to have little connection with the objective pursuit of knowledge and truth. The presumption is that if curricula, theories, and knowledge are colonized, it means they have been partly influenced by political, economic, social and cultural considerations. The decolonial knowledge perspective covers a wide variety of subjects including philosophy, science, history of science, and other fundamental categories in social science.
Thamarāt al Funūn was a Lebanese biweekly that was published between 1875 and 1908 in Beirut. It was one of the significant publications and the sole media outlet of the Lebanese Muslims during that period. It circulated regionally as part of the rising Arabic-language press of the mid-19th century.
Tarek El-Ariss is the James Wright Professor and Chair of Middle Eastern Studies at Dartmouth College, as well as an accomplished novelist and author of Water on Fire: A Memoir of War.
Salim Al Bustani (1848–1884) was a Lebanese journalist, novelist and political figure who edited many publications with his father Butrus. He is known for being the pioneer of the genre of historical novel in Arabic.
