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Al-Azhar and the Orders of Knowledge

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Al-Azhar and the Orders of Knowledge Al-Azhar and the Orders of Knowledge Dahlia El-Tayeb M. Gubara Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Dahlia El-Tayeb M. Gubara All rights reserved ABSTRACT Al-Azhar and the Orders of Knowledge Dahlia El-Tayeb M. Gubara Founded by the Fatimids in 970 A.D., al-Azhar has been described variously as “the great mosque of Islam,” “the brilliant one,” “a great seat of learning…whose light was dimmed.” Yet despite its assumed centrality, the illustrious mosque-seminary has elicited little critical study. The existing historiography largely relies on colonial-nationalist teleologies charting a linear narrative of greatness (the ubiquitous ‘Golden Age’), followed by centuries of decline, until the moment of European-inspired modernization in the late nineteenth century. The temporal grid is in turn plotted along a spatial axis, grounded in a strong centrifugal essentialism that reifies culturalist geographies by positioning Cairo (and al-Azhar) at a center around which faithfully revolve concentric peripheries. Setting its focus on the eighteenth century and beyond, this dissertation investigates the discursive postulates that organize the writing of the history of al-Azhar through textual explorations that pivot in space (between Europe and non-Europe) and time (modernity and pre- modernity). It elucidates shifts in the entanglement of disciplines of knowledge with those of ‘the self’ at a particular historical juncture and location, while paying close attention to the act of reading itself: its centrality as a concept and its multiple forms and possibilities as a method. It thus locates al-Azhar in the modern order of knowledge, even as it imagines another intellectual universe bounded by ideas, texts and authors who lived before and outside Europe: one which articulated itself in conceptual, epistemic, moral, social, cultural and institutional ways, modernity as such cannot not capture. CONTENTS Note on Translation, Transliteration, and Citations iii List of Illustrations iv Acknowledgements v Introduction: On the Importance of Being al-Azhar and Other Historiographical Spectacles 1 - Spatio-temporal Collisions and the Persistence of Modernity - Al-Azhar in the Philological Order of Things - Spiraling Historiography - Words, Orders, Disciplines: Or, the Road to Ballynahinch - Chapter Outline - A Word on Sources Chapter One: The Spaces of Modern Time 60 - The Idea of the (Islamic) University - Force of Law, Force of History - Reform. In Three Acts - The University through Arab Eyes - Indigenous Grammars Chapter Two: Disciplining the Bibliographic Imagination 133 - More than Words: Traversing the Bibliographic Imagination - Orientalism as Library i - The Repositories of Nation-Empires - A Figure of Lack: Al-Jabartī, ‘Science’ and the Library - Al-Maktabah al-Azhariyyah - Education for Heritage, Heritage for Education Chapter Three: On Searching for Africans in al-Jabartī 185 - History, Language and Race: The Arab, the African - A Liberal Incitement to Racial Discourse - ‘Al-Jabartī and the Africans’ - Embodied Writing - Embodied Reading Chapter Four: Muhammad al-Kashnāwī and the Everyday Life of the Occult 247 - Re-enactments - Manuscripts, Mosque and Market: Anthropological Meanderings - The Magic of Modernity: Or White Magic, Black Magic - Shaping Azhari Orthodoxy - Al-Durr al-Manzūm: Glimpses of an Esoteric Episteme Conclusion: “Man errs, till he has ceased to strive” 335 Bibliography 346 ii NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION AND TRANSLATION For transliterations from the Arabic, I have generally followed the system of the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES), with but with some variations. For certain words, I have used more common forms (e.g. Qur’an, ijāza, ʿulama, sunna, shariʿa, Sufi etc.), except when quoting from another source, in which case I have left the transliteration as it appears in the original. Full diacritical notations have been retained for the names of historical (and in many cases, contemporary) persons and for the titles of works in Arabic. Translations derived from published sources are noted in the text. iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure 1: Azhar diploma, 1934 130 Figure 2: Text of an ijāza (al-Jabartī, ʿAjāʾib al-Āthār, Cairo, Bulāq 1882), I: 393-4) 131 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS A project this long in the making is sure to acquire many debts along the way, small and large, patent and subterranean. To accurately keep stock and sufficiently acknowledge my appreciation for the many people, places and institutions to which it is owed is no easy task: in fact, it is tempting to forgo the exercise all together rather than risk neglecting someone, something or someplace. But this cannot do, and so with hand on heart – here goes! The preparation and research for this dissertation were made possible mainly by funding from Columbia University’s Department of History and the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences; as well as through an International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council and a Doris G. Quinn Foundation Dissertation Writing Fellowship, Columbia University. Further support was provided by the Institute of Religion, Culture and Public Life and the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. Material assistance in the form of access to libraries, archives and collections, office space and other facilities and services was equally critical in the execution of the research and writing. For this, I wish to thank the staff and scholars of: al-Azhar Library, The Egyptian National Library and Archives, the Egyptian Historical Society, Madbouli Bookshop, and the Institut Français d’Archéologie Orientale in Cairo; Butler Library at Columbia University in New York; the British Library in London; the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; Jaffet Library and the American University of Beirut more largely – and especially, the Centre for Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies of the University of Bergen in Norway, the American Research Center in Egypt, and the Orient Institut-Beirut, to all of which I was formally affiliated at various points. v My arrival at Columbia University and New York more largely, has altered my life in the most profound ways. The students, professors, staff members and friends who are to be acknowledged there are many. I am especially thankful to my committee members for their careful readings and many important suggestions and comments: my advisor Richard Bulliet has been a steady source of inspiration, knowledge and humor and has patiently backed my every move and direction; Rashid al-Khalidi and his family have likewise provided unyielding support and friendship over the years in New York, in London, and in Beirut; Marwa Elshakry agreed to join my committee soon after her own busy arrival at Columbia. Her enthusiasm, encouragement and significant insights have since not diminished; Mahmood Mamdani and Timothy Mitchell’s work has helped to fine tune many of the ideas behind this dissertation, their addition to the committee brought it balance and new perspectives, for which I am grateful. Sharee Nash is the motor that keeps the history department running with efficiency and grace. I am grateful to her for her support and tolerance of every annoying query and concern and above all for the good times. Joseph Massad embodies all that is right in the academy: a piercing intellect, unshakable integrity, an open and charitable spirit (with unsurpassable class and abundant wit to go with). While, to my loss, I never took classes with him, I am fortunate to have had him as a mentor throughout and to call him a friend. Talal Asad continues to inspire scholarship and virtue. I thank him for his intellectual generosity and astute comments. Saba Mahmoud likewise provided valuable encouragement and feedback on an early version of part of what became chapter three, as did later, Partha Chatterjee and other scholars participating in the Ifrīqīyya colloquium meetings at Columbia University. I am grateful to them for their insights and contributions and to Mahmood Mamdani for providing me the opportunity to be a part of this exciting network, as well as to Ousmane Kane who first thought of me. vi The many conversations with scholars and friends who partook of the international winter school on Textual Practices Beyond Europe 1500-1900 (of Forum Transregionale Studien Berlin and the Department of Arab and Islamic Civilizations, American University in Cairo) in 2010 have provided critical input on matters philological: I am especially grateful to Bodhisattva Kar, ʿUmar Ryad, Paolo Aranha and Martin Mulsow for their vital feedback and to George Khalil and the organizers for making it all possible. At the School of Oriental and African Studies in London where my academic life first began, I have old debts to acknowledge: to colleagues at the Journal of Qur’anic Studies, to Werner Menski and Fareda Banda - and above all to Lynn Welchman who taught me to love law and first pushed me to pursue doctoral studies; to (Khalto) Samia Adnan, whose counsel and attention have been constant throughout; and to Khaled Ziadeh whose political integrity and commitment are unmatched and whose friendship remains precious to me. In Norway, R. Sean O’Fahey provided many critical inroads and an open library; while Anne Bang generously furnished us with a home, offices and her charming company during the gloomy winter days; and later made it possible, with Shamil Jeppie, for us to be part of the important workshop on Knowledge and Modes of Transmission: Islamic Africa and its Connectivities in Lamu, Kenya, and to have a most fantastic time while we were there. In Cairo, special thanks are due to Dr Mustafa Ramadan of al-Azhar University and his family for their hospitality during my fortnightly Friday visits. Dr Ramadan introduced me to the workings of al-Azhar and guided me to many an important text, while al-Husayni Hammad and Badawi al-Sawi provided key research support. And to Dr Emad Helal at Dār al-Kutub who encouraged my project from the start and assisted with many a bureaucratic obstacle.
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