Arabic Thought beyond the Liberal Age: Towards an Intellectual History of the Nahda

Cambridge University Press, 12/22/2016
EAN 9781107136335, ISBN10: 1107136334

Hardcover, 458 pages, 22.8 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm
Language: English

What is the relationship between thought and practice in the domains of language, literature and politics? Is thought the only standard by which to measure intellectual history? How did Arab intellectuals change and affect political, social, cultural and economic developments from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries? This volume offers a fundamental overhaul and revival of modern Arab intellectual history. Using Hourani's Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Cambridge, 1962) as a starting point, it reassesses Arabic cultural production and political thought in the light of current scholarship and extends the analysis beyond Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and the outbreak of World War II. The chapters offer a mixture of broad-stroke history on the construction of 'the Muslim world', and the emergence of the rule of law and constitutionalism in the Ottoman empire, as well as case studies on individual Arab intellectuals that illuminate the transformation of modern Arabic thought.

General introduction
Time, language, mind and freedom
the Arabic Nahda in four words Jens Hanssen and Max Weiss
Part I. The Legacies of Albert Hourani
1. Albert Hourani and the making of modern Middle East studies in the English-speaking world
a personal memoir Roger Owen
2. Albert's world
historicism, liberal imperialism and the struggle for Palestine, 1936–48 Jens Hanssen
Part II. The Expansion of the Political Imagination
3. Debating political community in the age of reform, rebellion and empire, 1780–1820 Dina Rizk Khoury
4. The question of the Ottoman caliphate in global Muslim political thought, 1774–1914 Cemil Aydin
5. From rule of law to constitutionalism
Arab political thought in its Ottoman context, 1808–1908 Thomas Philipp
Part III. Means and Ends of the Nahda Experiment
6. Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq (1804–87)
the quest for another modernity Fawwaz Traboulsi
7. Liberal thought and the 'problem' of women
1890s Cairo Marilyn Booth
8. 'Illiberal' thought in the liberal age
Yusuf al-Nabhani (1849–1932), dream-stories and the polemics against the modern era Amal Ghazal
Part IV. The Persistence of the Nahda
9. Participation and critique
Arab intellectuals respond to the 'Ottoman revolution' Thomas Philipp
10. Men of capital
making money, making nation in Palestine Sherene Seikaly
11. The demise of 'the Liberal age'? 'Abbas Mahmud al-'Aqqad and Egyptian responses to Fascism during World War II Israel Gershoni
Part V. The Afterlives of the Nahda in Comparative Perspective
12. Indian and Arabic thought in the liberal age C. A. Bayly
13. The autumn of the Nahda in light of the Arab spring
some figures in the carpet Leyla Dakhli
Epilogue
14. The legacies of Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age Rashid Khalidi.