Abdelwahab Elmessiri' S Critique of Western Modernity and the Development of an Islamic Humanism Helen Elizabeth Mesard Stuart
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Abdelwahab Elmessiri' s Critique of Western Modernity and the Development of an Islamic Humanism Helen Elizabeth Mesard Stuart, Florida BA, University of Virginia, 2003 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Religious Studies University of Virginia May, 2013 ii © Copyright by Helen E. Mesard All Rights Reserved May 2013 iii ABSTRACT This dissertation provides a study of Egyptian thinker, writer, and public figure, Abdelwahab Elmessiri (1938-2008). It identifies and tracks the commitments, virtues, and values shaping Elmessiri’s critical analysis of “modern Western civilization” and his formulation of an “Islamic humanism.” The study begins by demonstrating that critiques of modernity are oriented by ethical commitments, and developing analytic tools for thinking about the critical discourses of Elmessiri’s predecessors, peers, and interlocutors both inside and outside the Muslim world. In developing his critique and his alternative Islamic humanist vision, Elmessiri integrates a wide range of discursive threads, from the Traditions of Islam, to Marxism and German social theory, to British and American Romantic poetry. Elmessiri’s efforts have also played a significant role in ethical and political thought in Egypt since the forced resignation of Hosni Mubarak in 2011. These features of his work warrant further attention from scholars outside of Egypt as they investigate the moral contours of our age and seek to contribute to constructive discourse about living together in an increasingly pluralistic world. In addition to contributing a first major study of Elmessiri’s life, work, and legacy written in English, the project also develops a framework for reading and analyzing comprehensive critical analyses of Western modernity that have been put forward by numerous writers in the past century or more – particularly those oriented by theological concepts and vocabularies. This framework expands the space available for research at the intersection of Religious Ethics, Islamic Studies, and Social and Political Theory. It also invites comparative study of practices of critique in the context of Religious Ethics. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS My advisor and committee chair Jim Childress has guided me through the entirety of this project and the accompanying degree. I am grateful for his generosity with time, patience, encouragement, and countless kinds of professional opportunities and support. I’m also grateful to Larry Bouchard, Abdulaziz Sachedina, Chuck Mathewes, Ahmed al-Rahim, and Bill Quandt for their input, advice, and encouragement with this dissertation and beyond. It was a privilege to have this large and esteemed committee review and challenge my work. Each of them has been much more than a reader during my graduate years. The Religious Studies Department at the University of Virginia has been like a family to me almost since my first undergraduate course in the spring semester of the year 2000. If there are any worthwhile ideas or insights in this project, they must be traced all the way back to lessons learned and conversations had beginning in those early years. I am especially grateful to Professors Jamie Ferreira, Peter Ochs, and Larry Bouchard – it has always been (and is to this day) one of their doors that I knock on with a ‘big question’ or for a nourishing dose of intellectual passion. Doug Burgess has also been an invaluable part of my entire experience in the department. His door has been the one to walk through whenever in need of snacks, or penetrating insights about the academic species. The dissertation, including the writing period and much of the background language training, were made possible by generous support from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at U.Va. My work benefited from both the Summer Foreign Language Institute funding and the GSAS Dissertation Year Fellowship. Too many friends to list helped me through this long process – and everything else in life that was going on around it. Karen Guth, Emily Filler, and Nadim Khoury deserve special mention. And as formative and influential as any course or text were the many long conversations with friends from the ‘Charlottesville School,’ which is sure to leave its mark in more than just these acknowledgements. In Egypt, Lisa and Natalie and the rest of the ‘Layla Murad family’ made our wild-wonderful Cairo apartment a home for me. I spent a great deal of time in Egypt while researching and writing this project. I could not have completed it without the input and assistance of many friends and colleagues there. I met many students, colleagues, and other acquaintances of ‘Dr. Elmessiri.’ Both his wife, Dr. Hoda Hegazy, and the manager of his library and papers, Fadl were extremely helpful in meeting with me and providing me with research materials. I probably learned as much about Elmessiri’s world of ideas from conversations with Dr. Heba Raouf, Dr. Jehan Farouk, and Dr. Haggag Ali as I did from reading his works. I’m also grateful for conversations with Khadeega, Nada, Ahmed, Mahmoud, Mazen, and Dina. Many thanks, as well, to Alex Caeiro for the opportunities to meet other dissertation-writing friends and conversation partners while abroad. My mother Geraldine and my father Frederick. There is no way to duly express how important they have been in this process – how unwavering was their support, how open were their arms and their phone lines, how measured was their reaction to my decision to fly to Egypt during a revolution. They have both given me so much and taught me even more. And my husband, Ahmed. He’s the only one in the world who knows both my squished-in- a-hot-Cairo-subway-car face and my tediously-checking-citation-formatting-in-Alderman- library face. His love and partnership have seen me through the completion of this project and degree, and helped to make life about much more than scholarship in these years. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Glossary of Terms viii INTRODUCTION 1 I. Opening: Elmessiri the Critic 1 II. Background and Scope of Project 5 III. Components of Methodology 7 IV. Overview of the Argument 12 CHAPTER 1: CRITIQUE AS ETHICAL PRACTICE 16 I. Introduction 16 a. Terminological Preface 17 II. Problems and Limitations in the Study of Critique 18 a. Muslims as Uncritical Critics 18 b. Critique as Domain of Enlightenment Rationality 23 c. Critique as a Project Excluded From Ethics 25 III. The Nature and Meaning of Critique: An Alternative Reading 27 a. Kant, Foucault, Butler 30 b. Critical Theory 39 c. Is Critique Secular? 41 IV. Elaborations of Methodology: Ricoeur’s Dialectic as Interpretive Lens 43 V. Toward Comparative Critique in Ethics: A Discussion of Reading Partners 47 a. Constructive Critique: Some Other Helpful Precedents 48 b. Critique and Narrative 57 c. “Anthropos” and Humanism 65 d. Comparison, Continued 68 CHAPTER 2: BACKGROUND AND CURRENTS OF MUSLIM CRITIQUE 71 I. Elmessiri’s Background: Beginnings, Achievements and Transformations 73 II. Cultural Invasion and the Onslaught of Modernity 81 a. Connotations and Associated Terms 82 b. Emergence of Terms 87 c. The West as an Invasive Culture 91 III. Intellectual Responses 93 a. History: Reform Generation 93 b. Recent Trends in Arab and Muslim Critique 95 c. Egyptian Peers and Colleagues 100 d. Islamization of Knowledge and the IIIT Community 102 IV. Politics and Practice 103 a. Post-Islamism and the Wasat Party 105 b. Kefaya 108 V. Closing: The Search for Authenticity 111 vi CHAPTER 3: A PARADIGM HOSTILE TO HUMANITY: ELMESSIRI’S CRITIQUE OF WESTERN MODERNITY 113 I. Introduction 113 II. Limitations and Impositions: “Bias” and “Paradigms” in Human Knowledge 117 a. Terms of the Problem 119 b. Bias and the Human 127 c. A Science of Bias 132 d. Science of Bias versus Islamization of Knowledge 134 III. Elements of the Dominant Western Paradigm 136 a. Ḥulūliyya and the Metaphors of Modernity 137 b. Materialism 145 c. Rationalization and “Value-Free Modernity” 149 d. Racism 153 IV. The “Sequence” of Modernity: Progress, Secularism, and Postmodernity 155 a. Progress: The “Magical Entity” 157 b. Secularism: A Comprehensive Transformation 159 c. Postmodern Ethos 164 V. A Common Predicament: Seeking Allies in Critique 171 CHAPTER 4: A CRITICAL RETRIEVAL: THE DEVELOPMENT AND MEANING OF ELMESSIRI’S ISLAMIC HUMANISM 175 I. Introduction 175 II. Critical Interface: The Need for and Needs of Alternative Vision 179 III. The Formulation of Humanism 188 a. Human Nature and Common Humanity 190 b. Transcendence 195 c. Humanism: Some Practical Effects 202 IV. Sources 210 a. Romantic Literature 211 b. Marxism and Critical theory 226 c. Islam: Ijtihād as Critical Retrieval? 238 V. Other Humanisms 246 VI. Closing 252 CHAPTER 5: A SCHOLAR’S LEGACY AND FOLLOWING 254 I. Introduction 254 II. Critique Beyond the Text 256 a. The How of Humanism: Two Cues for Further Exploration 256 b. Ethics Beyond Argument 259 III. Rituals of Remembrance 263 a. Confronting the Loss of an “Arab Human Thinker” 264 b. Commemorations Through Ayām al-Dhikra 268 c. Ṣalūnāt 271 d. Youth Admiration 273 vii IV. From Discipleship and Devotion to Critical Gratitude 276 a. The Meaning of Discipleship 276 b. Heba Raouf Ezzat 279 c. Haggag Ali 285 V. Revolutionary Thinker 288 a. Critical Retrieval and Social Movement Theory 291 b. Elmessiri as Prophet of Revolution 296 CONCLUDING REFLECTIONS 302 I. Review of the Project 302 II. Contributions and Limitations 305 III. Toward a Comparative Study of Critique 308 IV. Closing 309 Appendix 1: Chronological List of Key Published Works 311 Appendix 2: Biographical Timeline 313 Appendix 3: Elmessiri as a Scholar of Zionism 314 BIBLIOGRAPHY 321 viii Glossary of Terms al-‘almāniyya1 al-juz’iyya Partial Secularism. al-‘almāniyya al-shāmila Comprehensive Secularism ḍῑq Narrowness. A term Elmessiri uses to characterize the Western paradigm.