Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-1939

Hourani and Hitti have always been the darlings of modern Western (American at least) thought on the Middle East and while Hitti may cloud much of what he writes with a bizzare form of Lebanese nationalism that is equally as far fetched as Turkish, Arab, Persian and Slav nationalism that have done little but bring misery to those nations. Hourani on the other hand is a little more down to earth and while this book may have its faults until someone else comes out with better it remains the best of its kind. The book covers the history of Arab reform in the latter part of the Ottoman Empire, I have no idea what point a previous reviewer was trying to make about the Portuguese conquest of parts of Moghul India (he seems to have failed to point out the Portugues also had colonies in present day Morocco and Muslim East Africa also) as around the same time the Ottomans (who he wrongly calls a 'Turkish' empire) had conqured much of Eastern Europe and their Tatar allies much of Russia. If only Americans would stop to look beyond their own narrow history and even give a glance to Europes history. Hourani points out the foundations of the Arab nationalist movement were from to some extent a Christian background and how the teachings of Islamist reformers such as Afghani and Abduh (formerly a darling of the Ottoman Caliphs) became one and the same with the ideas of pan-Arabism and Arab nationalism. Hourani gives extensive detail into the lives of Afghani and especially Abduh and just where they took much of their inspiration from. One fault I do feel I have with this book is he covers little of the the structure of the Ottoman empire that the myth of Arabs being some kind of 'colonised people' is just a complete nonsense and that the roots of Arab nationalism are far more complex than that. The book however does give some insight and does act as a useful introduction to modern Middle Easter thought. I would definately recomend this book to anyone who realy is serious about wanting to know about the roots of some of the modern conflicts in the Middle East. Not the be and and end all but without doubt a very good place to start.

Although Islam had begun retreating at least as early as 1509 (when a small Portuguese squadron operating far from home destroyed Muslim naval power at Hormuz), the Muslim world was so hermetic that it did not realize the terms of trade had changed decisively for almost 300 years. Only when Napoleon slaughtered the Mamelukes in 1798 did Muslims recognize that they were backwards. Some of them anyway. In this classic, though known more than read, work, Albert Hourani says that the first interest in the West was a quest for weapons. That began the tradition, which exists today, of liberal army officers attempting to reform traditional governments. Liberal in only a restricted sense, of course. After a generation, a civilian Arab intelligentsia began to emerge, especially in Cairo and Beirut. Reforming despots (again, reforming in a limited sense) recognized the need for western (largely French) knowledge to staff their governments. Hourani traces how these modernizing men began to wrestle with competing ideas: religion vs. territory vs. culture (Arabic language) as the basis of a successful government. Some of these men were litterateurs only, but many got involved in politics. Not a few were murdered. All attention is directed toward reformist thought. In a masterful introduction, Hourani sets out the traditionalist view of Islam and then lets it sit in the background. Some of his comments approach the aphoristic. For example, "Muslims believed themselves obliged to keep their neighbors' consciences as well as their own." He gives pride of place among the new men to al-Afghani of the "strange personality" and his disciple Abduh. But there were many others. To an infidel, the most attractive, by far, was Qasim Amin, who told the Arabs: "It is useless to hope to adopt the sciences of Europe without coming within the radius of its moral principles." Hourani rightly emphasizes the context of the times: Within the ken of the Muslims, the world was comprised of empires, including their own Ottoman one, with which they had a difficult time coming to terms. Some thought the empire, though led by Turks, vital to Islam; others were ready to adopt a more particularly Arab stance. The second approach allowed Arab Christians to join with Arab Muslim reformers. Hourani's history is of Arab thought, not exclusively Muslim thought. Only occasionally does the old Islam peek through, but when it does it signals a message to the 21st century. Even the "reformer" Bakhit could write: "The Islamic religion is based on the pursuit of domination and power and strength and might, and the refusal of any law which is contrary to its shari`a and its divine law, and the rejection of any authority the wielder of which is not charged with the execution of its edicts." This sentiment, well into the third generation of "reform," should have caused more concern that it did. Hourani ends his assessment in 1939, when world war upset everything, including the French and B

This book is an extensive version of Hisham Sharabi's Arab Intellectuals. It highlights the reaction of the Arab intellectual circles to the expanding European influence that had reached the Arab world by the early 19th century. Hourani, however, presents a more thorough description of the life and thought of the most prominent Arab thinkers of the time including Jamaluddine Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdo among others as opposed to Sharabi's brief account on the life and works of these people. Despite the academic nature of this work, grasping what's in it is easy and not at all complicated. Hourani's narration is well-researched and elegant while his translation of the original texts is also remarkable. The end result is an accurate account that invites the admiration of the readers. This book is so much needed for those who are interested to understand the evolution of Arab thought over the past two centuries and how this evolution was interrupted with the discovery of oil and the advent of imperialism.