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https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ Theses Digitisation: https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/research/enlighten/theses/digitisation/ This is a digitised version of the original print thesis. Copyright and moral rights for this work are retained by the author A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge This work cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given Enlighten: Theses https://theses.gla.ac.uk/ [email protected] The Reaction of Reformation Scholars in the Islamic-Arab Culture to the Effects of European Thought. THESIS SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY KHODR MOHAMMED AMINE ETER GLASGOW UNIVERSITY. 1991 ProQuest Number: 11011419 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11011419 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 SCHEME OF TRANSLITERATION A. Consonants Transliteration Arabic Not shown initially; s. otherwise: ’ b t O th O j £ h c kh c d * dh r J z J s u * sh J s u * d u * t J* z & 6 t gh i f q 3 k 1 J m f n u h _A w J y iS h in idafah: t B. Vowels Transliteration Arabic ay ACKNOWLEDGMENT I wish to acknowledge the assistance this work has received from Professor John. N. Mattock under whose direction this study was carried out os a Ph. D. dissertation. His numerous suggestions concerning the clarity of the work were valuable. DEDICATION To the memory of my brother, the martyrdom of Kamal Junblat, and the heroism of Michel ‘Oun, for preserving the eternity of Lebanon in the face of the plague of locusts on the Eastern horizon. Ill ABSTRACT This thesis represents an attempt to examine, through selected materials, the reactions of Arab scholars to the problem of Western modernity upon the Arabic-speaking world. This impact was, of course, not uniform in every area of this world, or in every sphere of its activities. This thesis Is concerned primarily with political reactions and only secondarily with others, religious, social or cultural. From the firs t half of the nineteenth century, Arab scholars were faced with a situation sim ilar to that faced by their predecessors in the period from the ninth to the twelfth centuries. At that time the cultural influences that they confronted wen diffuse, from Greece, from Persia and from India, and they arrived in a comparatively leisurely manner. Now they were concentrated, and the means by which they arrived were abrupt; confrontation was direct, with Westerners who appeared in the name of m ilitary intervention, or missionary or commercial activity. From that time onwards, there was hardly a thinker of note, in any field of intellectual activity, who had not received a Western-orientated education, without the influence of western culture, which brought with it a distaste for traditional institutions, it is difficult for the historian to see from what quarter the impetus for the revival of intellectual inquiry, and consequent desire for political reform, might have come. IV This scarcely requires substantiation, when we take into consideration the fact that these countries ‘were for the most part subject to the stultifying rule of the Ottoman Empire. In what wau should the tide of this Western influence be responded to? This was the question that constituted the basis of the theories formulated by the scholars. The thesis is divided into an Introduction and seven chapters, as follows: • Introduction: The Study and its Method. • Chapter One: Europe and the Beginning of the Arab Awakening. • Chapter Two: The Dawn of the Reformation in Modern Arab Thought. (Rita4 ah al-TahtawT). • Chapter Three: The End of an Era or a Crisis of Empire. (Khayral-Din al-Tunisi). • Chapter Four Earlier Lebanese !ntellectuals.(al-Shidyaq, al-Bustam, (al-Khayyat, and Nawfal Newfal al-Tarabulusf). • Chapter Five: The Theologian's Last Defence and the Secularist's Illusion. (Jamal al-Dfn al-Afghant, *Abduh, Antun, Ya cqub Sannift • Chapter Six: From Ottomanism to Arabism. fAbd al-Rahman al- Kawakibi). • Chapter Seven: Later Lebanese Intellectuals. (al-Shumayyil and cAz"uri). V Throughout the thesis, an attempt has been made to arrive at a correct estimate of the achievements of the scholars of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. They have had a profound and lasting effect on the recent history of the region. V! TABLE OF CONTENTS • The Title of the Thesis. • Transliteration. 1 • Dedication. II • Abstract. Ill • Table of Contents. IV • Introduction. 1 The Study and its Method. 1 Notes to Introduction. 16 • Chapter One. IS Europe and the Beginning of the Arab Awakening. is New Interests In Arab Thought. 19 The Napoleonic Expedition and its after-effects on the Arabic- Speaking world. 21 The Influence of the West on the Concept of Democracy in the Arabic- Speaking World. 25 From Colonies to Statehood 26 • Chapter Two. 40 The Dawn of the Reformation in Modern Arab Thought. 40 Rifac ah al-TahtawT. 40 Notes to Chapter Two. S4 •Chapter Three The End of an Era or a Crists of Empire. Khayr al-DTn al-Tunisi. Some Philosophical Implications of Khayr al-Din's Views. Motes to Chapter Three. • Chapter Four Earlier Lebanese Intellectuals. The Background Cultural Development in the Lebanon. Beginning of Critical Thinking. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq. Early Years. 1 he Beginning of Secularism in the Fertile Crescent. al-Mu€ alllm Butrus al-Bustanl Notes to Chapter Four. Chapter Five. The Theologian's Last Defence and the Secularist/s Illusion. Muhammad ‘ Abduh. Yac qub SannuT Adlb Ispaq. Notes to Chapter Five. Chapter Six. From Ottomanism to Arablsm. cAbd al-Rahman al-KawakM Notes to Chapter Six. V II Chapter Seven. 301 Later Lebanese Intellectuals. 301 Najlb eAzuri. 322 Notes to Chapter Seven. 326 Conclusion. 329 Bibliography. 333 ] Introduction The Study and its Method One may wonder about the advantages to be derived from a study of the philosophical works of Arab scholars of the nineteenth century, when the contemporary scene abounds with others who may be more relevant to us. It would be less than accurate to say that because of their period, the Arab scholars under discussion should hold our interest solely on historical grounds. On the contrary, although many of their ideas have become obsolete or no longer pertinent to the present day, they, nevertheless, collectively represent the basis of 311 modern Arab thought. Indeed, it was the work of these scholars that changed the character of Arab thinking and led their countrymen into the modern world. The work of these pioneers is s till read today in the Arab world, Just as in the West Descartes, Kant, Machiavelli, Rousseau and Hegel s till form the backbone of the Western philosophical tradition. Thus, this period stands out in the perspective of Arab history as a period of transition from the regional isolation of the pre-1798 era to the assimilation of European values that began in the nineteenth century. A reassessment the corpus of the work of these scholars may well prove significant for some of the problems of our present time which affect both Arabs and westerners. The principal reason for the importance of this period in the history of both East and West was the great politico-social transition brought about primarily as a result of the French Revolution. The rate at this transition occurred differed widely in the various societies, largely 2 because of their divergent historical experiences. The Arab scholars of the nineteenth century were quick to appreciated the significance for their countries of events of the last years of the previous century. They realized that, although one of the principal results of European involvement in the Near East was to be 3 commercial disadvantage to them, this might, nevertheless, be accompanied by both social and political change which could prove advantageous. Of the ideas that entered the Arab world, at this time, the most important in terms of philosophical and political influence was Constitutionalism, which was alien to the prevailing Islamic ideology of- the day. But as Constitutionalism developed in the Arab world, it assumed characteristics quite different from its original western form. it quickly becomes apparent that, throughout the nineteenth- century, Constitutionalism was the subject that produced the most conflicting interpretations and the bitterest of polemics among the representatives of the various trends of Arab thought. This study w ill endeavour to explore the reaction of reformist scholars in the Islamic- Arab culture exposed to the impact of European thought on this and associated topics. Western impact on Arab culture was not in fact a new phenomenon at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Exchanges between the