66-12,873SHEHAB EDDIN, Mohammed M. H., 1927- PAN-ARABISM AND THE ISLAMIC TRADITION.The American University, Ph.D., 1966 Political Science, international law and relations

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan

(5) Copyright by

Mohammed M. H. Shehab Eddin

1966

PAN-ARAB ISM AND THE ISLAMIC TRADITIONby

Mohammed M. H. Shehab Eddin

Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the American University In Partial Fulfillment of

The Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy In International Relations

Signatures of CChairman:

ee:

7AAnx

Date:

1966The American University

Washington, D.C.

J.6f,AMERICAN UNIVERSITY

L I B R A R Y

JUL5 1966WASHINGTON. D. C.

PREFACE

In this dissertation on Pan-Arabism and the Islamic Tradition, this writer has tried not only to give a thorough discussion of the various aspects of the topic but also to be thoroughly objective in so doing. For, with a Committee of which Professor Said was the Chairman and Professors Hoskins, Howard, Key, and Robinson were the Members, thoroughness and utter object­ivity were an obligation, not a generosity for which this writer is to be commended. Actually, as regards this point the views of this Candidate and his Committee were mutual.

Arabic terms used in this study were trans­literated according to the regulations of the Descrip­tive Cataloguing division of the Library of Congress, Definitely Anglicized Arabic terms, however, were used in their English forms.

I would like to thank my Committee, not for the supervisory work which they were supposed to do, but for the spirit, and the understanding with which they have carried on this work. I would like to thank Professor Hoskins, especially, for his guidance of the final changes, and for his unfailing understanding.

I would like to thank my wife, Edna, for her support and encouragement, and for the many sleepless nights and the long hours she spent typing and proofreading.

M. Shehab Eddin

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION........................................... iI. The Problem................................. i

II. The Literature............... iIII. The Crux of the Problem and Its

Importance...................... . .viiiIV. Definition of Terms....................... xiV. Summing Up.................................xix

CHAPTER ITHE SOCIO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT................. 1

I. Location and Main Features............... 1II. Population. ....................... 6

III. The Cultural Landscape...................... 14IV. One Ummah Through History..................22V. Integration'and the Role of Islam . . . . 32

VI. The Role of the Arabic Language........... 40VII. Principal Strategic Resources and

Avenues of Transport . . . . . . . . 52✓CHAPTER II

THE GLORIOUS PAST: THE SOCIETY UNDER AGUIDING PRINCIPLE............................58

I. Synthetical Forces..........................58II. Impact of the' Conquests . . . . . . . . . 93

III. Impact of the Early Controversies . . . . 99IV. Racial Unity versus Religious

Organization ....................... 109CHAPTER III

THE BACKGROUND: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS ........ 119

I. The Spread of Localism.................... 121II. The Rise of the Feudal Economy........... 135

III. The End of Political Independence . . . . 146IV. The Survival of Arabic Culture............153V. The Crusades............................ 159

VI. Capitulations and Millet System ........ 172VII. European Cultural Penetration .......... 181

VIII. The Dissolution of the Ottoman Empire . . 194IX. The Birth of Arab Nationalism............202X. The Nationalist Struggle Against

Imperialism.............. 210CHAPTER IV

TRADITIONALISM, TRANSITIONALISM, ANDIDEOLOGICAL TRENDS.................... 226

I. Islamic Movements........................ 227II. Tradition i#*Transition.................. 234

III. Islamic R e f o r m ...........................257IV. Pan-Arabism...............................274

V. Pan-Islamism............................. 282CHAPTER V

IN SEARCH OF COMPREHENSION................... 288I. Social Reform........................... 291

II. Westernization............ • 295III. The Arab League......................... 301IV. Arab Unity in Theory and Practice . . . 306

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY..............................334

INTRODUCTION

I. THE PROBLEM

This study specializes in a problem which-has not been covered before, in the existing literature on Islam and the Arabs, namely the comprehensive and specialized study of the "Arab society" in terms of a guiding princi­ple, an "ideological umbrella," above the society judging man and the state, as well as the partial or total absence of such a principle, from the rise of Islam to the present.

II. .THE LITERATURE

While preparing the dissertation this observer was faced with the question of the scarcity of primary sources on the problem of this study. Literature on the Arabs and Islam, in the English language, has been abundant. In this literature a specialized coverage of the crux of this study has been missing. It is true the literature at hand has been generally conscious of this problem. That is to say, its myriad data have been scattered in numerous,

iipredominantly secondary, sources. Yet the works which have emphasized even partial aspects of it have heen very few.

Generally speaking the works that reflect on the problem usually elaborate on harmony and dissension in the Arab society, but hardly in relation to a guiding cri­terion, or the lack of it, and certainly not comprehen­sively in terms of place and time. Of special interest is that this applies also in case of the corresponding literature in the Arabic language. Actually, in spite of the deliberate attempt, on the part of this writer, to rely majorly on Arabic sources, both ready and accessible sources in Arabic were overwhelmingly fewer than the ones in English.

While writing Chapter I, which introduces the areaand the people, this writer was in need of a comprehensive

1source of relevant information. Unexpectedly such neednever ceased throughout the time of writing. For this pur-

2pose the following works were the more frequently consulted:

. "A number of general comprehensive references per­manently available was indispensable.

2For works mentioned under Literature, see Selected Bibliography.

iiiThe Middle East. by Hoskins The Lands Between, by BadeauCrossroads: Land and Life in Southwest Asia. by CresseyCaravan: The Story of the Middle East. by CoonArabic Literature.. by GibbThe Near East in History, by HittiThe Arabs in History, by LewisIslam at the Cross Roads. by O'Leary

Besides being general references some of these served alsoas major sources. For instance, from O'Leary's book anambiguity concerning the use of force in the jihad was

3clarified. The Arabs in History. by Lewis, besides being a general reference, supplied an insight or more in almost every aspect of the problem, even though it is primarily an history. Caravan, by Coon, filled an important gap. When­ever anthropological data were required, Caravan was indis-

4pensable. The Middle East. by Hoskins, was consulted as a general source in relation to the status of the Arab League, Islam in general, and nationalism. It helped this observer to construct an overview which gathers significant ends, in a number of situations.

However, none of these valuable works is directly related to the crux of the problem of this study. A very

See page 66, footnote 8.For instance, see page 16, footnote 18.

important source which emphasizes at least some aspects of the problem is Mohammedanism, by Gibb, especially Chapter VII on Orthodoxy and Schism. This Chapter analyzes the cohesive power of the great tradition of orthodoxy versus other "little" schismic "traditions."With this major source at hand this writer had not only an access to valuable information, but also a greater assxirance of the worthiness of this study. Of no less importance is the work, *Ali and Mu* awiy.a in the Early Arabic Tradition, by Petersen. Insofar as the influence of the tradition of historiography, the Mu*tazilah and the Shu^ubTyah movement on social cohesion is concerned, this work was very useful, even though it does not analyze the impact of these traditions in terms of a guiding ideo­logical principle. Equally important is the article, "Near Eastern Nationalism Yesterday and Today," by Albert Hourani in Foreign Affairs (Vol. 42, No. 1, Oct. 1963, pp. 123-36). This article emphasizes in a clear language the need in the contemporary Arab Middle East for a guiding principle. Thus, this article is directly related to the essence of the problem although it does not cover it comprehensively in place or time. Another article by Hourani, "The Decline

of the West in the Middle East," in International Affairs, (Vol. 29, 1953, pp. 22-44), hints indirectly at the problem by portraying the fact that because, under European influence, the old theological order was disrupted in the Middle East and there was no substitute, instability came to characterize social institutions. The scope-of Hourani's scholarship insofar as the Arab world is con­cerned is wide indeed. His work Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, also a major source of this study, which investigates comprehensively a challenging and extensive field of Arabic scholarship, reflects on the problem of this study, especially in Chapter IV, where tradition is challenged by innovation. Obviously this combination of Hourani's writings constitutes one of the most enlightening sources on Arabic culture in general, and this problem in particular.

Besides these major works, other major sources, ofcomparatively less importance to the problem, were consulted.Among these there is one Arabic source, namely, Zucama*al-Islahfx al-Asr al-Hadlth, by Ahmad Amxn. A point of * " • + #interest is that this work is widely used by many an observer as a reliable source in both the humanities and the social sciences. Actually Ahmad Amin has one foot in

each of these areas. For a critical analysis of the back­grounds of such Islamic reformists as *Abd al-Wahhab, al- Afghanx, *Abduh, and al-Kawakibi it is a classic. As such it was consulted in relation to Islamic Movements, and especially Islamic Reform in Chapter IV. The book,Medieval Islam, and especially the essay, "The Problem: Unity in Diversity," by Gustave von Grunebaum, were useful, though in different capacities. The book was primarily and frequently consulted either to support an opinion or to clarify an ambiguity, which while often secondary to the main topic came to contribute to its compactness in the final analysis. Rosenthal's book, Political Thought in Medieval Islam, was consulted more or less in the same manner as Medieval Islam. Besides, the former work was especially useful as a source on Islamic philosophy. As to G. von Grunebaum's aforesaid essay it was a valuable source which helped this observer dissect the cohesive power of the ijma*’ institution. Like War and Peace in the Law of Islam, by Majid Khadduri, G. von Grunebaum's essay contributed to the dissection of one aspect of the problem. In comparison Khadduri's book was the support insofar as the tradition of the jihad is concerned.

viiThere remains a number of major sources which while

valuable in different capacities, their value to the problem of this study, though important, was either broad or localized. The following belong to this category:

The Arab Cold War, by KerrThe Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, by

LaneIdeology and Utopia, by MannheimTurkey, by Toynbee and KirkwoodIslam and the Integration of Society, by WattArab-Turkish Relations and the Emergence of Arab

Nationalism, by Zeine"Sati* al-Husrl1 s Views on Arab Nationalism," in * • •The Middle East Journal, by Kenney Arab Nationalism: an Anthology, by Sylvia Haim, editor

and translator.Nevertheless, none of these sources could have been re­placed, or eliminated without a relative detractive influence on the dissection of one aspect or another of the problem. That is to say each major source was carefully selected to supply a specific answer to an important question.

As to the''"secondary11 sources, most of them could have been replaced without any significant change in the char­acter of the study. Very few, however, could have been eliminated without effecting a relative change. However, all sources included in the Bibliography are there because

they were consulted in one capacity or another.

viiiIII. THE CRUX OF THE PROBLEM AND ITS IMPORTANCE

This study elaborates on the Islamic tradition as a criterion insofar as it reflects on the forces at work in the Arab society especially in relation to stability and conflict. From the rise of Islam to the end of the early Abbasid period the Islamic tradition had its greatest hold over the society. Thenceforth its power came to slacken9as a state » until it was relegated to the background during the nineteenth century. A new order in which the Arab so­ciety became relatively sua sponte came to occupy the fore­ground. The old order was attacked from within because of its unwillingness to assimilate innovation, and from with­out by the overwhelming influence of secular Europe.

While the West has replaced its old theological order by such a judging and guiding principle as democracy the Arab society as a whole has not developed a principle in this sense so far. A few secular traditions have devel­oped here and there, but none has filled the traditional place of the Islamic tradition as yet.

This study is important insofar as it explains how the presence of a guiding ideology is essential for social stability. This is made clear in this study through the

use of the comparative method- Historical events are •' discussed not only in relation to a guiding principle but often insofar as they reflect on modern developments. Yet this study is not interested in history per se. That is to say, critical evaluation of historical occurrences as they reflect on a guiding ideology or the lack of it, not the recording of historical developments for their own sake, is characteristic of this study. Thus this observer is comprehensive enough to draw on history for 4ibrah (ex­ample) , yet finite enough to be the authority on the object of his interest, namely, the Arab society in terms of a guiding and judging principle and the partial or total absence of such a principle.

An important conclusion this study develops is that under a guiding and judging ideology forces of dissension tend, in the main, to resolve themselves harmoniously into syntheses. Subseq ently, the stronger and the more compre­hensive such an ideology, the greater its synthetical power, and conversely. Another conclusion this study arrives at is that syntheses are effected largely in favor of the tradition most closely related to the guiding ideology, so long as the ideology is in control. For instance, so long as the Islamic tradition was in control syntheses were in

X

favor of the great orthodox system. As the guiding prin­ciple loses its hold over the society the tradition most closely related to it and other traditions tend towards polarization. In this manner traditionalism, modernism, and reformism are largely polarized in the Arab world today.

This study raises also the question whether social­ism may develop into a guiding and a judging ideology all over the Arab watan (fatherland). To this there, is no4 " "1

definite answer as yet. However, Nasserism is alreadyassuming the role of the tradition most closely related tosocialism. After all, in the application of the socialist

5principle in practice Nasser has been a pioneer. The Alger­ian F.L.N. and the Ba*th are also covered by the socialist umbrella. In the light of past experience the following analogy may be drawn. The Shi*ah versus the Sunnah in relation to the Islamic tradition, in the past, runs parallel to Ba*thism versus Nasserism in relation to social­ism at present. Thus one may understand why Nasserism should expect that syntheses must be made in its favor.

^George Lenczowski, "The Objectives and Methods of Nasserism," The Journal of International Affairs. XIX, No.l (1965), p. 75.

IV. DEFINITION OF TERMS

The term "Arabism" (*urubah) is frequently used in this study. "Isms" which are indicative of race may imply axiomatic, often nationalist, doctrines concerning specific anthropological characteristics of a race versus other races. In contrast Arabism rtirubah) does not imply such doctrines. „This is ascertained by Hisham B. Sharabi:

. . .‘urQbah is neither racial nor religious in essence, but fundamentally cultural and spiritual.It bestows on the sentiment of nationalism a broad cultural base which, like the humanistic nationalism of mid-nineteenth century Europe, frees it from the narrow limits of state or race and enables it to gespouse universalism and humanism as basic components.

Actually as understood by the average Arab individual*urubahdenotes the attributes of being an Arab, primarily on alinguistic basis. It connotes, however, the spirit andtradition of Arabic culture, and history, as well as thedesire of the Arabs to live together under one flag, andtheir craving for a dignified place under the sun.

Like the term "Arabism," the term "fatherland"(watan) has its denotations and connotations. Yet it means

6Hisham B. Sharabi, Nationalism and Revolution in the Arab World (Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand, 1966), pp. 96-97.

different things to different people. As used by a majority of Arab nationalists "watan11 means the total area which is inhabited by the Arabic-speaking popu­lation; from the Atlantic Ocean to the Persian Gulf. However, as used by a regional nationalist, it may mean such a geographical area as the Levant, the Fertile Crescent, the Maghrib, or even a single political entity such as Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, etc. To many an Arab nationalist "watan" also means simply the political

0

entity in which he lives. Frequently, however, thegreater Arab watan is called al-watan al-Arabx (the Arabfatherland) and the immediate watan is called "al-watan

• •

al-aslx" (the fatherland of oriqin). Thus "watan,"* 0

fatherland, is a vague term in Arabic. Yet the adjectivewatanx (patriotic) is even vaquer. For a watanx (a

• "•

patriot) is traditionally one vho loves his immediate watan of origin. Today a watani (patriot) is not

• 0

necessarily a. qawmx (nationalist). For watanlyah»

(patriotism), i.e., the love of one's watan aslx, may0 ~ •

give rise to regionalism, a distracting force in the Arab nationalist movement. Thus the denotations and conno­tations of the term watan and its derivatives watani and watanlyah have undergone significant changes during the last few decades.

XXXX

In this respect the term "regionalism" may be defined as exclusive territorial patriotism. Of special interest is that the Islamic sentiment, unlike region­alism, does not necessarily constitute a distracting element in the secular nationalist movement. For, after all, Arab unity, as popularized by the secular Pan-Arab nationalists, is aspired at equally by Pan-Islamists on religious grounds.

Now, could the distracting forces of regionalism and localism be transcended to any significant extent? Actually, there is no definite answer to this question,but one could elaborate on some factors that promote such forces. To begin with,localism and regionalism are combined under the Arabic appellation, iqlxmxyah, i.e., regionalism, or provincialism. Actually, the Arabic equivalent of “localism” is largely, ufiused. This is significant insofar as it reflects on the fact that there is no emphasis on whether the distracting force is local or regional. Besides, local and regional feelings are not always separatist or necessarily anti-unionist. It isunderstandable that an Arab may love his watan al-aslx more' * 111

than his watan al-^Arabx. It is true there are those Arabs

xivwho give lip service to Arab nationalism, but actually condemn it shoot and branch. The fact that the Pan-Arab movement is primarily leveling socialist, obviously republican, and predominantly Muslim is self-evident as to why some interest groups do not favor Arab cohesion. All the traditional nationalist category is, for all practical purposes, anti-unionist, for reasons among which the religious, the economic, and the political are the leading. The political factor cuts through the progressive national­ist category itself. In every Arab country the progressive nationalist group accepts unity on the basis of political self-preservation. That is to say there is no nationalist movement, at present, which is willing to step aside, or even to submerge itself in a unified nationalist movement, even if political self-preservation means the promotion of regionalism versus Arab nationalism (al-qawmxyah al-Arabx- ;yah) .

Like the noun qawmXyah (nationalism), the adjective qawmx (nationalist) is derived from the root qawn (people). The term qawmxyah has also undergone a change during the last few decades. What does it mean today? Hourani gives this answer:

XV

When a man in the Near East says he is a nationalist today he does not necessarily mean, as he would probably have done a generation ago, that he believes in constitutional government and the rights of individuals. Not that he would positively disbelieve in them, but his attention has shifted to national aims which he would regard as more urgent. He might well describe them in terms of "socialism," "neutral­ism " and "unity," and know more or less clearly what he meant by them.^

Even though there is a general agreement among the Arab nationalists on common ends, there is apparent disagreement as to the means. For instance, there are those who believe in a strong and centralized unity versus others whose preference is a loose federal union. Further, there are differences on whether the nationalists should file in a unified nationalist organization, or rather exist in a number of interest groups. Besides, there are shades of differences as to the interpretation of socialism and neutralism.

Socialism is gaining increasing momentum in the Arab world. Only two decades ago socialism was a "bad" word in the Arab East. Today socialism is a way of life in the United Arab Republic and Syria, with Algeria, Iraq, and Yaman following suit. As to what the average Arab means

Albert Hourani,"Near Eastern Nationalism Yesterday and Today," Foreign Affairs, Vol. 42, No. 1 (October 1963), p. 133.

xv iby socialism the following answer is given:

. . . he would mean the extension of schools and social services, reform of land ownership, and the rapid development of industry under control of the govern­ment — for only the government, with its authority and its access to foreign capital, could industrialize the country as quickly as he wishes.8

Apparently, such socialism cannot really fit into any con­cept of socialism in the West. It is different from the British guild-socialism. It does not resemble Fabian socialism, bearing in mind the revolutionary means by which socialism is carried on in the Arab world, and the absence of such means in the Fabian concept. Nor does it copy the Nazi national socialism because it is free from racial pride and aggression. Further, the deliberate attempt, on the part of the Arab socialists, to link socialism with the Islamic idea of social justice makes it "Arab socialism" as they actually call it.

One may wonder, in this connection, whether socialism stems in the Arab world from basic needs, or comes as a result of the prevalent tendency toward adopting a neutral­ist attitude between "Western capitalism" and "Eastern communism." Actually the Arab concept of socialism differs, for instance, from American capitalism and "Soviet

®Ibid., pp. 133-34.

xviic o m m u n i s m I n this sense, Arab socialism is neutralist. However, the idea that socialism arises in the Arab world, as an answer to social problems, rather than as a justification of the neutralist sentiment, is more reason­able. Albert Hourani also gives us what is meant by neutralism on the part of the individual:

By "neutralism" he would mean, essentially, that he would not wish his country, having achieved independ­ence, to fall into a new sort of political or economic dependence; neutralism is an expression of the difference between the ways in which a weak state and a great power look at the world.

As such neutralism arises rather from the desire of pre­serving independence, and the fear of imperialism, than from any other factor.

The term "imperialism" (al-istitmar) has always given rise to a complex of repugnant images. It symbolizes, in the mind of the Arab, the obstacles ofithe progress the Arabs could have achieved, had they been left alone to handle their own affairs. While the term "imperialism" is still widely used, its'’’derivative" "neo-imperialism" has been used frequently in recent years. Hisham B. Sharabi defines it as "indirect political or economic influence by

^ Ibid., p. 134.

xviiia big foreign p o w e r . E v e n though the Arabs are independent today, the general impression is that imperialism and neo-imperialism still constitute major hindrances to the natural growth of Arab aspirations toward full fruition, especially the aspiration of unity.

What is the essence of unity? One may wonder whether a united Arab world would be more powerful economically, socially, and politically than its exist­ing disunited political entities. The general impression in the Arab world is that the answer is positive. Now suppose a united Arab world would not be more powerful in any respect, or suppose it would be even weaker.Would Pan-Arabists still aspire at Arab unity? Put this way, the question is hardly asked by any one. This is so because Pan-Arabists do not think in terms of strength or weakness. To a Pan-Arabist the question is one of afundamental principle:

He would be talking not about strength but about legitimacy: he would not regard the state as havingan unconditional claim upon him unless it could call itself an Arab state.

10Hisham B. Sharabi, o£. cit., p. 99.11Hourani,"Near Eastern Nationalism Yesterday

and Today" p. 134.

xixIn this connection, the question is often raised as to what the Arabs could do together in terms of economic cooperation rather than unity. Questions of this nature may appeal to certain groups especially among the traditional national­ists . In contrast the true Pan-Arabist is not swayed from unity apparently at any cost.

However, to the disappointment of the Pan-Arabist, regionalism has been gaining momentum in recent years.

V. SUMMING UP

Chapter I gives a brief critical account of the socio-cultural environment. It was written with a view towards presenting the area and the people as comprehensive­ly as possible, though primarily in relation to Arabism and Islam. As such the first chapter is complementary to the total study. Getting acquainted with the area and the people before delving into the main discussion of the problem is useful, especially to the non-Arab reader. A moderate attempt was made in this chapter toward making Arabic culture more understandable in the West. Yet, admittedly, this attempt was neither comprehensive nor systematic because the total study concentrates primarily on different objects of interest. The contents of

Chapter I do not only reflect on the contents of the remaining chapters, especially those of Chapter IV and V, but also serve as a guideline to their keener under­standing.

In Chapter II one finds the Islamic principle in control above the society, and the hold of the Shari*ah over the individual is tight. Here, orthodoxy, the tradition most closely connected with the Shari*ah commands devoted allegiance from the overwhelming major­ity of Muslims. In the meantime sources of discord, especially, economy, government and politics, sectarian­ism, and the Shu<ubxyah (anti-Arabism) have their disturbing influence. In this chapter orthodoxy is militant and predominantly uncompromizing. Under the Islamic principle, as a guiding criterion, orthodoxy versus schism are often synthetical. That is to say, the non-orthodox traditions tend to make concessions to ortho­doxy. Nevertheless, egoism and feuds are always causing disruption. However, so long as the Islamic principle has a tight hold over the society, forces of disruption are more or less under control.

In Chapter III the hold of the Islamic principle over the society is looser. Hence the influence of the

xxiforces of disruption is greater. Here orthodoxy is less militant. Concessions in favor of specific non-orthodox traditions are granted by orthodoxy under the principle of inevitableness. Innovation gains increasing momentum. The Arab idea suffers a severe setback. Religious fervor ceases to arouse the Arab. The spirit of the jihSd (exert­ion in God's path) abates. The infiltration of European secular ideas burgeons. Finally as the hold of the Islamic principle over the society becomes loose, orthodoxy is relegated to the background, and the old order is shattered.

In Chapter IV the representatives of the old order try to re-organize the social institutions along the past (Islamic) experience. Because they are divided into "con­servatives," "moderates," and "liberals," uniformity is missing among their ranks. In this chapter there are also those who admit innovation by subjecting it to reformed Islamic institutions. In the meantime, there are those who conceive of the society as sua sponte. Simply the society, no longer the Islamic principle, is the center of things. Here, the social reality is supreme and ever unfolding. Besides all these orientations, there are those who give "imported" modern answers to indigenous problems. Sub­

sequently, because of the absence of a guiding criterion

xxiiabove the society, i.e.,"an ideological umbrella," a sub­stitute to the Islamic ideal, these orientations act in a void. In the (relative) absence of an ideological principle above the Arab society as a whole the forces at work tend towards polarization, rather than synthesis.

Chapter V emphasizes the need for comprehension in the Arab society. It investigates the immediate issues, rather briefly, in relation to a comprehensive ideology above the society, and the lack of it. It also raises a question as to the prospects of socialism as the compre­hensive ideology in the Arab world, in relation to the differing socialist, nationalist, and other "traditions."

CHAPTER I

THE SOCIO-CULTURAL ENVIRONMENT

I. LOCATION AND MAIN FEATURES

Since our purpose is to discuss location and main features in relation to Arabism and Islam, let us begin with this question: Is the Arab world an entity? One mayassume that the Arab world is an entity because it is rela­tively cohesive internally. The most obvious manifesta­tions of cohesion in the region are common history, language, location, nationalism, and government— the Arab League being, in fact, a live expression of a federal unity.^ But since the Arab world has less a claim to entity than a na­tion-state, in the modern sense of the word, it is safer to consider it a connoted rather than constituted entity. The title "Arab world," having no traditional foundation in Islamic concept, has become widely known in the outside world. This knowledge has been for reasons among which are not only the emergence to international view of a more

Jacques Berque, The Arabs: Their History and Future, Trans. Jean Stewart (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), p. 249.

2

pronounced Arabism but also the resumption by Egypt of an active Arab role and the assertion of the Arab personality of independent North Africa formerly called French. How­ever, while the distinctive character of the Arab world is recognizable nowadays, traditionally Arab lands, being inte­gral parts of the world of Islam, neither connote nor consti­tute entity or unity separate from the world of Islam.

Arab lands are penetrated and surrounded by water gateways and passages the control of which has been coveted by Great Powers for significant reasons. "Because the Med­iterranean leads from the heart of Europe to the Middle East, it has become the single most important route of outside influence and interference." Also the completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, linking the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, has dramatized international transport to a great extent. "When the land separating the two seas was pene­trated by the Suez Canal in 1869, the most important east-

4west highway in history was created."Arab lands occupy a strategic location in the globe,

and a central place in the world of Islam. They radiate

^Erskine B. Childers, Common Sense About the Arab World (New York: Macmillan Co., Inc., 1960), p. 11.

3John S. Badeau, The Lands Between (New York: Friend­ship Press, 1958), p. 8.

^Ibid., p. 9.

from the Suez Canal in various strategic directions; west and northwest to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Strait of Gibraltar, off the coast of Morocco, the Gulf of Gabes, and the Straits of Sicily, off the coast of Tunisia; southwest to the Atlantic, off the coast of Arab Mauritania; south to the Nile sources in tropical Africa; southeast to the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, Gulf of Aden, Arabian Sea (an extension of the Indian Ocean), Gulf of Oman, Strait of Omruz, and Per­sian Gulf, off the coast of the Arabian Peninsula; and northeast to the Gulf of Alexandretta, off the coast of Syria.

The world of Islam extends, farther, in various directions in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, including large minorities in China, Outer Mongolia, and the Soviet Union.

While the contemporary world of Islam has less a chance of entity than the Arab world, its unity has firmer traditional foundations.

The concern of the world in the area lies in trans­port and strategy. Nowhere in the globe, as in the Middle East, are the old continents— what Mackinder calls the World' Island— and the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans intercon­nected in such a juxtaposition making for narrow gateways and passages, thus allowing for land, water, and air short­cuts, and check network, uniquely essential to international

transport and global strategy of the Great Powers.The West has established great interests in the Arab

Middle East, especially since the completion of the SuezCanal. To protect these interests the West has managed tocontrol the narrow gateways and passages of the region by aseries of sea, land, and air bases, the greater among whichare the American Sixth Fleet, Gibraltar, Bizerte, Aden, Malta,and Dhahran. Western interests reached a climax with thediscovery of the world's largest and most indispensablereservoir of oil in the region. While Western interestshave remained high since the discovery of oil, Anglo-Frenchinfluence came to suffer a recess, since the Franco-British

5military intervention in Egypt, in late 1956.6The Suez crisis was a "point of no return" that sym­

bolized Anglo-French failure to understand the trend of events in the Arab world. It was surprising, in this respect, that the United States sensed a crystallization of strong forces in the United Nations' General Assembly, directed against the intervention, and led it by actually opposing the action of

^The influence of the United States, however, did not suffer any recess during the crisis, because it did not take part in the intervention.

6Erskine B. Childers, The Road to Suez (London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1962), p. 305.

5

her allies. Since then the burden of Western initiative, in7the region, passed to the United States. Apparently only

the United States is in a position at present to reconstruct Western attitudes towards the Arab world.

The Arab world comprises an area strategically located in the heart of the old world where routes of international transport are intensive. People who live in the region gen­erally speak Arabic and feel themselves Arab regardless of religious or racial differences. The predominant majority of the population is Islamic in creed. The non-Muslim minorities are mainly Christian of several denominations, and Jewish.

The region is predominantly desert and low in rainfall. The coastal area between Alexandretta and Sinai enjoys moist winter winds which give the coastal Levant a heavy rainfall which diminishes as it reaches Sinai. This area resembles the coastal area from Morocco to Libya in winter moisture.The non-coastal area of the Levant gets a decreasing amount of rainfall depending, largely, on proximity to the coast.Iraq enjoys a heavy winter rainfall in its mountainous area in the north, otherwise it depends on the.Euphrates and Tigris

^Ibid-., p. 305.

rivers, for the irrigation of its other areas. Arabia gets very little rainfall except in the mountainous coast of the Red Sea, and in Muscat and Oman. Everywhere in the Arab world rainfall occurs in the winter except for some summer rainfall in the Yaman and the Sahara. Egypt and the Sudan, however, depend almost entirely on the Nile River for water.It is common knowledge that rainfall in the Arab world is deficient, and all water resources are localized. Conse­quently, great activities in vast expanses have been nomadic. Wherever good water resources exist a great concentration of settled agricultural population exists.

II. POPULATION

The Arab world maintains a high rate of population increase. That this has its origins in Islamic'institutions is supported by the fact that those tribes that carried arms for the spread of Islam, and achieved great conquests in its name, resorted to a vast multiplication. The Arab con­querors found themselves a minority among the conquered peoples. They became in the habit of hoarding concubines, and maintaining polygamous marriages, in order to have the largest possible number of sons to run the affairs of their vast empire. Nowadays because there is no such empire to run, and because both conqueror and conquered, having lost much of

their original identities, consider themselves Arabs, con­cubinage has almost disappeared, and polygamous marriage has declined. Yet it seems that nowadays a good number of parents have made the most of their marriages in terms of rearing children. Such parents usually seek the respect accorded families, with large male members, in society. In many instances, however, largeness of family may not draw respect in society without due economic prosperity to go with it. Further, parents seeking a large number of sons may end up with a large number of daughters instead. Yet in spite of many economic and social disappointments, a good number of parents have always continued to rear large families. Other reasons have contributed to the rapid population increase in the Arab world.

Besides the requirements of respect accorded large families in society, fatalism contributes a good deal to population increase. The status of fatalism in the Islamic tradition has been controversial. The fatalist outlook is inherent in the Islamic attitude of al-tawakkul *ala Allah (trust in God). Interpreted in terms of predestination, here, fatalism means get married, have as many children as Allah (God) has already decided to create, and have trust in Him for their support. The doctrine of fatalism, commonly attri­

buted to Islam, was rejected by Muhammad Abduh who considered

true Islam as the negation of fatalism and affirmation ofQthe free will. Fatalism, however, prevails primarily in

rural and desert areas where the population has been influ­enced by modern secular ideas to the least extent, if at all. The predominant majority of the Arabs is rural; about

g75 per cent. It xs hard to give an accurate figure forthe nomads; however, they "constitute only a small anddeclining proportion of the Arab population."-*-® Bothpeasant and bedouin have resented the use of any means ofbirth control. It is the urban population which constitutesa small but rising sector that has been receptive of modernsecular ideas, yet has failed so far in taking veryeffective birth control measures.

Where fatalism is not responsible for populationincrease, other reasons are. Take for example the economicnecessity of children to engage in time-saving errands andworks especially in the rural areas. This has been so inspite of the fact that International Labor Standards havediscouraged child labor, to some extent, and the fact that

gOsman Amin, "Muhammad Abduh— Islamic Modernist,"The Contemporary Middle East, Benjamin Rivlin and Joseph S. Szliowicz (eds.) (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 165.

9Morroe Berger, The Arab World Today (New York: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1962), p. 76.

10Ibid., p. 60.

9female children in rural areas become, starting with puberty, more of an economic burden than relief. In this respect traditional institutions demand very strict requirements of chastity. In most cases girls stay at home at this age, except for a number of all-female outside occupations.

In non-metropolitan areas where the material luxuries of the West are greatly nonexistent, marriage brings about an unequaled (sexual) luxury and, in some cases, probably the only one. Here the large separation of the sexes works on the imagination of the teen-age males and females, gen­erating a tremendous romantic desire resulting in an early marriage in most cases. Early marriage is encouraged by parents who usually seek such a marriage for their daughters, either because of their fear of *ar (shame, resulting from violation of the strict requirements of chastity), or relief of an economic burden or both. The effect of such marriages on population increase is that the female has a compara­tively longer span of fertility.

Population pressure is felt in some Arab countries more than others, yet, in some, population expansion is necessary for economic development. Population pressure, especially when economic expansion is limited, gives rise to typical handicaps which may be lessened by able govern­ments, strategic resources, nationalism, and foreign

1011assistance.

Besides economic development, solutions have beensuggested as to the reduction of birth rate in the Arabworld. An observer suggests delayed marriage, continence

12in marriage, abortion, and sterilization. Unfortunately these courses are greatly impracticable; continence, because it either reduces or cuts an essential luxury, and the rest because of the lack of unanimous approval of the *ulama'> .All forms of birth control were rejected by the rector of

« - 13al-Azhar, Shaykh Abd al-Rahman Taj.Thus Islamic institutions have contributed to the

population problem in the Arab world. Yet the solution to the problem which Islam offers, namely elimination of polit­ical boundaries and permission of free movements of the population throughout the domain of Islam, is unlikely in the foreseeable future. Of relevant interest is that the solution offered by Islam is applicable within the" frame­work of Pan-Arabism. With the fulfillment of Arab unity

11Robert B. Pettengill, "Population Control to Accelerate Economic Progress in the Middle East," The Con­temporary Middle East. Rivlin and Szyliowicz (eds.) (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 376.

12Ibid.. pp. 381-82.13Al-Ahram, Newspaper, Cairo, April 23, 1956.

11

political boundaries may collapse and over the years internal redistribution of the population may materialize. Internal migration may not only solve the problem of popula­tion pressure in certain spots but in some cases may hasten economic development.

Historically the Islamic tradition is known to abro­gate political boundaries among the Islamic provinces, and recognize one nationality for all citizens. Therefore internal migration was free for both commoner and intellec­tual. Countless authorities refer to great movements of population from less privileged areas to centers of riches and culture in the Arab empire. Even after the fall of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad, Egypt, and to a less extent the Maghrib, remained for centuries centers of Arab culture and power, which continued to receive waves of migration from Arabia, the Fertile Crescent, and Africa. These remain­ing centers of Arab prosperity and enlightenment, like the rest, fell under the yoke of Constantinople at first, then that of the powers of Western Europe. Of special interest is that it is Egypt and the Maghrib that face a hard popula­tion pressure today.

An extensive process of secularization took place in the Arab areas, since the beginning of the nineteenth

century. Parliaments, political parties, separation of powers, constitutions, and, above all, political boundaries, became commonplace. After World War I the Arab areas were fragmented into a number of territorial nationalities. In the meantime the availability of education to the Arab masses resulted in the increase of consciousness of common history, culture, and language. A strong desire of de- fragmentation, symbolized in the rise of Arab nationalism and Pan-Arab nationalism, has taken place, in the form of drops, here and there at first, then in a stream. The nationalist movement was characterized in its first stages by its Islamic orientation. Many religious leaders aspired to destroy the secular influence and reconstruct the tradi­tional Islamic institutions. Others sought the borrowing of modern secular institutions only cautiously. Two fac­tors worked against the tendency toward the re-Islamization of institutions. First, secular institutions were already too well established to give way and, second, the re-Islamization of institutions was not in the best inter­ests of very important non-Muslim Arab minorities in many places.

To the disappointment of many a zealot the desire of de-fragmentation had to abandon much of its religious char­acter. Simply, Pan-Arabism has acquired secular character-

13isties, borrowed from European civilization, which empha­size Arab unity rather than Islamic unity. The forces of Pan-Islam, however, have been far from negligible although no one can weigh their strength. According to Halford L. Hoskins, ,rthe influence of Islam on the peoples who makeup the greater part of the contemporary Middle East can be

14described but it can hardly be measured." Unlike reli­gious data, demographic factors are measurable.

In demographic terms a unified Arab world would be economically complementary. An observer says that in some Arab countries there are peasants that hardly find employ­ment whereas in some others there are great expanses of cultivable land which hardly find cultivators, and ascer­tains that under unity it would be easy to exploit such idle expanses for the prosperity of both the regions whichat present neglect their potential wealth and the ones

15that are overpopulated.Actually what is said of solving the population

problem on the agricultural level may apply also in rela­tion to such areas of development as industrialization

14Halford L. Hoskins, The Middle East (New York: Macmillan Co., 1958), p. 143.

■^M. al-Tamawi, 3.1-Tatawwur al-SiyasI li al-Muitama* al-*Arabi (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-^Arabi, 1961), p. 232.

14

and transportation. In the Arab world today, there are countries which need outside technical skill and others that have surplus skill for export. The same is said of capital, and potential food supply. This political frag­mentation complicates not only the exploitation of sur­plus skill and capital but also the simple exchange of products, needed in some Arab countries, and in excess in some others. In conclusion, political de-fragmentation may not only hasten the general development of the region but may also obliterate artificial contrasts in the orig­inally homogeneous cultural landscape.

III. THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE

The cultural landscape of the Arab world is bas­ically homogeneous. Undoubtedly Arabism and Islam con­tribute a good deal to the homogeneity of the cultural landscape. Generally Arabism and Islam may contribute to the homogeneity of the landscape in the following sense. Frequently an Egyptian Arab may feel one with a Lebanese Arab regardless of religion. Also an Egyptian Muslim may feel one with a Muslim Berber from the Maghrib regardless of language. As to the Lebanese who may be Christian and the Berber who is Muslim, they may feel one with each

other in the manner, in a family, one feels one with one's

stepson.However, that there are relative contrasts in the

cultural landscape is correct. Yet "the difference doesnot arise from race or caste, which do not exist in Muslim

16lands, but in function and environment." An opinion maintains that, unlike the common belief in America, the Arabs draw very lightly of a color line in comparison with the United States, and in spite of the Arabs' admir­ation and trust of their slaves, not all kinds of employ­ment are open to Negroes everywhere, and as to intermar­riage the Arab is as color oriented as a Southerner of

17the United States. This opinion apparently connects slavery with Negro channels. The historical fact in Arab lands was that slavery did not follow a color line.Slaves were both white and black. The Mamluks (slaves) whose offspring once ruled Egypt as sultans, generals, and nobility, were white. Further, many a time a black man of Negro ancestry owned white slaves. Distinction is either achieved or inherited in the Arab world. However it goes

■^Badeau, op. cit. . p. 32.■^Carlton s. Coon, Caravan: The Story of the Mid­

dle East (London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1952), p. 161.

16along lines of scholarship, piety, heroism, professionalachievement, prosperity, and influence. The distinguishedcommands from the commoner love or fear— seldom hatred orscorn. The commoner, on the other hand, may raise theunderstanding of the distinguished, his sympathy, love,scorn, anger, and some odd other feelings depending on thesituation and how far the commoner acts as expected fromhim. Actually the division of labor which characterizesthe social system requires always something like this:

. . . in his daily contacts with members of other ethnic groups, it behooves the individual to behave as expected. Whether the ethnic personality pattern to which a man has been trained suits his natural capacities and tendencies or not, he must conform.He must exhibit this stereotyped personality to the outside world.**-8

Admittedly this opinion is correct of the Arab world, but isit not correct of almost any society? For instance, thisauthor was a teacher in Syria and Egypt before travelingto the United States to accomplish some graduate study. Asa teacher he was respected by his students and the society.It took him a long time in the United States to adjust towhat is expected from him as a "foreign student." Theadjustment was very great because in the age of 34 he had

18Ibid.. pp. 169-70.

17already been used to much attention from his students and the society. He decided to change only his outside per­sonality, but many a time he felt as if he were two dif­ferent persons— the one the world sees, and the other one inside. It was impossible to act like himself in the new situation. Stereotypes do exist in the Arab world not only in the functional relations between the individual and his immediate environment, but also in the inter- environmental, even international relations of peoples. Take for example a Damascene who considers himself shatir (crafty) but considers a HomsI gadbih (innocent). Apeasant is almost always baslt (simple). . Certain tribes

— 19are considered lusus (thieves). At least some elements* «

of the population in Southwest Asia regard themselvesahsan (superior) to others in North Africa and vice versa.

*

A progressive looking individual is often regarded muta- farnii. A conservative gentleman is often looked at as muta * akhir. Many an Arab takes so much pride in his background that if by accident you mentioned to him that

19Abdul Rahman Azzam, "The Arab Nation," The Arab Nation; Paths and Obstacles to Fulfillment. William Sands (ed.) (Washington, D.C.: The Middle East Institute, 1961), p. 8.

18he behaved in a given situation like an Englishman, you have actually insulted him. Generally speaking an Amer­ican in the minds of the masses is one who makes money as easily as he carelessly gives it away, and has time to do little more. An Italian is often thought of as romantic, and a Frenchman as an existentialist.

An Arab is largely unconscious of his image in the West; the sandy, oily, polygamous, exotic, romantic, double- dealing, wug-like (a British coinage), explosive, anti- matriarchal, hungry, illiterate, diseased, and populous complex of images that the Arab world monotonously pro­vokes in the Western channels of communication, is a pity. True, the Arab world is guilty of adopting a few stereo­types misrepresentative of the West, but the West is even guiltier of misunderstanding the Arab world. One wonders whether, instead of widening this gap, the channels of mass media on both sides, rather, try to fill it, in the cause of mutual interests and world peace.

In spite of the apparent homogeneity of the cultural landscape, the political fragmentation of the Arab world has contributed to the creation of relative contrasts. In this respect an authority comments:

19

Today Middle Eastern peoples are much more local­ized than they were several centuries ago, when caravans carried the trade from China to Iran, and from Morocco to Egypt, and from Iran to Syria and Egypt in turn.20

The modern nation-state system, which gave rise to the present political boundaries, has not only limited the free movement of trade, and hastened localization, but also made local nationalism possible.

Further the long political and social separation has over the years intensified the differences among eastern and western Arabic dialects. Today it may be difficult (if at all possible) for a Maghribx Arab and a Yamani Arab to communicate verbally without resorting to the Classical Arabic for help. The differences among the Arabic dialects probably constitute the sharpest contrast in the cultural landscape. But in comparison English, French, and German have similar differences in their dia­lects.

Moreover the same factor of political fragmentation has contributed, if not completely created, grave irregu­larity in population distribution, which an observer describes as follows:

2°Coon, op. cit., p. 163.

20

Thousands of square miles are either without people or have such a sparse population that the density is negligible. In contrast, other sections appear con­gested. Everywhere man is irregularly distributed.

Undoubtedly the scarcity of water resources has been partlyresponsible for the contrast, but equally responsible hasbeen the lack of free population movements.

To many an observer the cultural landscape of the Arab world often seems full of contrasts. Such contrasts an Arab usually considers as inseparable parts of a com­plete whole. The slightest differences in the scenery or occupations of the population quickly strike an observer as contrast.

The cultural landscape of Swasia is full of vivid contrasts. Near the head of the Persian Gulf, swamps cover thousands of square miles. Here live a spe­cialized people, the Marsh Arabs, whose income is derived from the rice, fish, and the reeds of this submerged land. A few tens of miles to the- east or west, where a superabundance of water gives way to extreme aridity, Bedouin Arabs roam the desert with their flocks in search of scanty pasture. South of the swamps is the modern port city of Basra, stocked with merchandise from across the Seven Seas; here other Arabs live in a westernized urban existence, some in poverty, others in wealth.

The contrasts between Shia and Sunni Moslems are of geographic significance, as are the location of racial minorities such as Kurds or Armenians. . . .

21George Cressey, Crossroads; Land and Life in Southwest Asia (Chicago: J.B. Lippincott Co., 1960), p. 35.

21

The well established moral codes of the nomad do not automatically fit the life of a factory worker in a city.^

Striking as they seem to an observer such contrasts in the landscape constitute one whole for the Arabs. An author­ity recognizes similar contrasts but elaborates on how the Arabs treat them:

Probably their [Mid-Easterners] greatest accom­plishment has been their success at working out a rather complicated way of living, which consists basically of treating the various segments of the landscape as parts of a coordinated whole, rather than as separate economic realms. To do this they have developed an elaborate division of labor on several discrete levels. The first is the ethnic level. . . . A second is a division into three mutu­ally dependent kinds of communities, the village, the nomadic camp, and the city, which distinctively offer each other, in the same order, vegetable foodstuffs, animals suited for transport, and processed goods, including tools.23

In their attempt to achieve political unity the Arabs have been trying to identify unifying factors not only in the cultural landscape, in order to create a con­cept of a geographical unity, but their attempt escapes no chance at drawing on history for similar reasons.

22Ibid., p. 33-34.2 Coon, op. pit., p. 171.

22

IV. ONE UMMAH THROUGH HISTORY

Generally speaking, today the Arab world is charac­terized by apparent desire for unity on the popular level,

24and dissension among governments. In contrast the Umayyad regime in Damascus was characterized by apparent unity on the governmental level, and varied dissension between the Sunnah and the Shi*ah, the Khawarii. the ‘ulania* , and the Mawali. and between these and Ahl-al-Kitab, which contri­buted to the fall of the regime in the hands of the Abba- sids. True, there was some tolerance, under the Umayyads among the Arab conquerors, the Mawali (clients), and Ahl- al-Kitab (people of the book), but the Arab tribes remained an aristocratic military class, with their occasional dis­sensions between southerners and notherners. National identification was apparently underdeveloped. Yet this is expected of different peoples who came to live together for the first time under one flag. In comparison the early Abbasid regime in Baghdad, with the exception of a strong Persian influence at first, and later Turkish influence for its own protection, guaranteed relative equality for all. Under the Abbasid Caliphate a sense of "peoplehood"

94 _ ^ al-Tamawi, op. cit.. p. 239.

23flourished, but even then it was Islamic peoplehood in which the Arab tribes lost their traditional prestige.

It was under the Ottoman regime that the strong feeling of identical peoplehood which developed into the present condition grew, in the Arab populated areas. It was then that all Arabs and Arabized shared common humili­ation and loss of political power. Yet in spite of the fact that the word "Arab" gave rise to an image of back­wardness during the era, it was then that Arabism adopted its modern sense and that, Arab genealogy, except for the ashraf,^ became no longer worth anything to be proud of. As a result, an Arab became one who spoke Arabic and took pride in . Arabic culture. However, in the early nine­teenth century, Egypt was not only overwhelmingly Arab, but the most representative of the progressive classes of the A r a b s . Y e t , because under the Muhammad*Ali dynasty Arabism became no longer much of a prestige, and also under European influence, some Arabs, in Egypt and the Levant, came for a moment to take pride in their newly

2^The ashraf are the descendants of the Prophet. 26William Edward Lane, The Manners and Customs of

the Modern Egyptians (New York: E.P. Dutton and Co.,1860), p. 26.

24discovered pre-Islamic history. Gradually the masses became conscious of their common history only vaguely, because of the new emphasis on European ideas. As a re­sult, in spite of the uninterrupted flow of Arabic histor­ical (descriptive) writings, some Arabs, fortunately a minority, came to take pride in their fragmented presence. Thus the Ottoman era characterizes an important stage in Arab history.

Because the Ottoman regime was Islamic it was not considered imperialist by the Arab population.

Those who had historical consciousness and looked back at history for *ibrah (example) could find that Con­stantinople was as glorious and triumphant as the former regimes of Baghdad and Damascus, only Constantinople was Turkish, Baghdad Arabo-Persian, and Damascus Arab. True the Ottoman regime was corrupting and obstructing to pos­sible progress and development the Arabs could have achieved, had they been independent from Constantinople, but the lat­ter, nevertheless, not only furthered the spread of Islam and carried its banner triumphantly, but also protected the Arabs, Christians, and Muslims alike, for long, against further deterioration, possibly under the yoke of foreign powers. True the Arabs suffered their longest eclipse under the Ottomans, but that eclipse was obviously the

25melting pot in which many a stubborn former disparity came to break.

However, the Ottoman regime was feudalist, oppres­sive of the Arabs, and ethnocentric in general, and inef­ficient and incohesive to some extent. Further, its grow­ing weakness enabled it only either to delay or partially hold the fall of the Arab areas under foreign imperialisms, and its final collapse brought about such fall. Arab national consciousness stirred against Turkish secularism and corruption, at first in sparks, and it grew stronger as the regime grew weaker, then it gained strength when the regime collapsed, abolished the Caliphate entirely, became secular (modern Turkey since Ataturk), and effected foreign imperialism in the Arab areas.

It may be useful to mention, at this point, a few lessons from Arab history. One, had the Umayyads treated non-Arab elements equally and allowed for gradual but con­trolled non-Arab influence in the government, and sought the forgiveness of the Shi6ah instead of their hatred, the population might have merged into homogeneity, even identical peoplehood. Two, had the Abbasids allowed for controlled Persian and Turkish influence, they might have been able not only to suppress court and army intrigues,

26

but probably to stop the Mongols. Three, had the Ottomans retained the Arab Caliphate as a symbol, treated the Arabs equally and remained themselves neutral between the Euro­pean powers, the course of Pan-Islamism, if not the course of history, might have changed; the Arabs might have favored Pan-Islamism on Pan-Arabism.

Gradually Arab nationalism, with it the urge for unity, the urge for independence and the urge for neutral­ism, came to occupy the foreground; Pan-Islamism has receded, but remained as a considerable force, in the back­ground. Two main processes have discouraged Pan-Islamism from occupying the foreground. First, Pan-Islamism has receded not only as a consequence of the Arabs' reaction to the oppressive, and corrupt policies of the Ottomans and the secular policies of modern Turkey, but also of the sec­tarian sentiment of Persia, one of the oldest units to enter Islam, and especially the secular policy of Riza Shah Pahlivi, with modern Iran as a barrier dividing the world of Islam in Asia. Second, it was not only the Sahara that has functioned as a divisive force in the world of Islam in Africa, but also the inability of Muslim North Africa to absorb Pan-Islamism freely and associate with fellow sub-Saharan Muslims naturally, until both sides have

27achieved their independence. Today Pan-Islamism is hopeful of more initial achievements in Africa than in Asia. Both Pan-Islamism and.Pan-Arabism aspire at achiev­ing objectives which lack historical precedence.

At present Arabism is oriented towards statehood, and Islam, having lost its status as a state except in its birthplace, Arabia, is only a religion. Prior to the Ottoman period the story of one was the same as of the other-i Arabism and Islam have assumed separatist atti­tudes under Turkish and European influences. Yet Islam will always aspire at regaining its historical status as a state as well. Its claim is supported by a well estab­lished traditional precedence. The claim of Arabism to statehood has little, if any, acceptable traditional pre­cedence, but since the majority of Arabs are Muslims, they tend to use their religio- national traditional precedence as *ibrah in their attempt to establish a secular national union. Actually, Islam's traditional urge for unity pro­vides the only cohesive push from the past.

History shows us that the Islamic unity was lost under repression, political fragmentation, and seculariza­tion. It also gives us the insight that once repression is removed by independence, and political fragmentation

is abrogated by secular Pan-Arabism, Pan-Islamism may then gather its forces towards a process of re-Islamization or de-secularization, on the basis of an achieved form of Arab unity. If this is correct one may safely state that Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism are actually one and the same thing, only Pan-Arabism is a step earlier in time than Pan-Islamism. It seems that Pan-Islamism anticipates entering a renaissance after the fulfillment of Arab unity. The situation is the same today as it was yesterday;Arabia had to unite first before it was able to spread Islam.

The contemporary Arabs are one ummah not only be­cause their ancestors lived uninterruptedly, though not exclusively, in a place during a period of time— since Abraham at least— and within a common culture, but, first of all, because they feel they are one. That their history is full of great many unifying factors is realized and emphasized by the contemporary Arabs, but that their past experience is largely that of Islam is unduly overlooked.As a result secular theoreticians may seek in history the wrong‘ibrah for a wrong situation. And the fact that their experience is also full of many a divisive factor weighs unreasonably lightly in their present thinking.The lesson that a unified symbol, leadership, party, or

29ideology is essential is not yet absorbed. Yesterday such

_ - ( _ _ _ 27idols as al-Lata, al-Uzza , and Manata divided theArabs, today the modern "idols" of political parties, economic disparities, offices, and political boundaries, do. Generally speaking, a comprehensive and explicative understanding of their history is lacking. That is why many a modern Arab repeats past mistakes. That the great popular urge towards unity is capable of removing such obstacles remains to be seen.

Some factors influencing the march of Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism are inherent in the relations among nations. The situation of the Arab world today resembles, to some extent, that of Arabia before Islam. Arabia, then, was a neutral power between two conflicting great powers— Byzan­tium and Persia. It was to the advantage of the Arabs that Byzantium and Persia conflicted with each other. Today, as yesterday, the Arabs are neutral in the Cold War, to their own advantage.

Perhaps the concept of an urtimah through history is especially manifested by the great Arab tradition of his­toriography. Its universal approach to the past of the

27 — — C _ — .Al-Lata, al-Uzza , and Manata are tribal paganidols.

30

Arab ummah, in general, and its application of transmis­sion as a method of research, in particular, should manifest to the contemporary Arabs, in the Arabic language and a native approach, the continuity of their "peoplehood" in an identical place and time for many centuries. The useof transmission in historiography stems directly from the

28Hadith transmission which is a native Arab tradition.•

The use of transmission in historiography did accord the -• . facts of history the objectivity accorded the compilation of the Apostolic Traditions. Thus, whether in Hadith or in history, transmission aims at the absolute truth. Yet, the study of Arab history was little more than mere com­pilation of data. A large absence of personal opinion characterized Arab historiography.

In theory the modern Arabs are in a position to find in their past history not only the concept of their ummah. but also the absolute truth about the accomplishments of this ummah. In practice the facts of Arab history have been interpreted either disjointly or in part. By detach­ing issues from their contexts modern scholars have often

28A Hadith is a tradition of the Prophet.

31made of Arab history what it is not. Probably the onlycritic who took a total view of history in Arab lands wasIbn Khaldun. Actually, Arnold Toynbee places Ibn Khaldun inan unique position among Arab historians:

In his chosen field of intellectual activity he appears to have been inspired by no predecessors, and to have found no kindred souls among his contemporaries, and to have kindled no answering spark of inspiration in any successors; and yet, in the Prolegomena (Muqaddi- mat) to his Universal History he has conceived and formulated a philosophy of history which is undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place.^

Accordingly one may assume that a modern comprehensive approach, a. JLa methode d.1 Ibn Khaldun, to Arab history is still missing. Until such approach materializes Arab his­torical consciousness may promote a dualist situation— uni­son on the one hand and controversy on the other. However a Khaldunian revival has been in the making since Muhammad *Abduh.

An integrative overview of Arab history stems from the fact that it is largely Islamic history.

29Charles Issawi, An Arab Philosophy of History (New York: John Murray, Ltd., 1963), p. ix, citing Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History (London: Oxford University Press), III.

32

V. INTEGRATION AND THE ROLE OF ISLAM

. . . Islam appeared, not as a new religion, but as a revival of pure Abrahamic monotheism. . . . Hamilton Gibb3^

Like the Judeo-Christian tradition, its Islamicextension and conclusion relates familiar versions of Adamand Eve, Cain and Abel, the Satan, the Angels, Lot, Moses,and Jesus. Further, the very recognition of true Jews andChristians as believers is granted by Islam. Actually oneof the aspects of Islam is imSn (belief) according to

31which a Muslim is also a mu*min (believer). Iman is thefamiliar belief in God, His Angels, His Scriptures, HisMessengers, and Last Day (Last Judgment). While a Muslim

32is necessarily a mu*min. the latter may be non-Muslim. Here the Islamic tradition widens to recognize Ahl al-Kitab (people of the book) as believers. Moreover, believers—

Muslim and non-Muslim— may form an integrated community

30 . . .Hamilton A. R. Gibb, Mohammedanism: An HistoricalSurvey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 47.

■^Muhammad Ali, A Manual of Hadith (Lahore: Ripon Printing Press, [n.d.]), p. 17.

32Ibid.

3333and even an alliance against al-Kuffar (non-believers).

A cluster of old Arabian customs were retained byIslam, especially al-Haii (pilgrimage). The very medium

0

of the tradition is Arabic. The holy places of Islam and its great centers of learning are in the Arab world.Arabic, however, has assumed a bicameral nature since the rise of Arab nationalism; its role as the holy language of the Our >an and the Sunnah has continued, and it has also assumed the predominant factor in secular Pan-Arabism.Like Islam, the Arabic language commands a great integra­tive power in the Arab world.

Yet, to say that the integrative power of Islam is greater than that of the Arabic language, or conversely, is to misunderstand social integration. Strictly speaking, integration exists in an interdependent value system, in relation to presumably understood aims, and means different things to different people. A very careful view of inte­gration, in this sense, goes as follows:

. . . integration is a relative thing — that is,relative to goal achievement, adaptability, and expression for Parsons and Bales; relative to asabivvah and its determinants for Ibn Khaldun;

33Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore, Md.: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 206.

34relative to the rational ordering of authority in the state for the falasifa (based, of course, on the preva­lence of correct belief and philosophical wisdom); and relative to piety, scholarship, military power, admin­istrative order, and physical and mental health for the orthodox jurists.

One comes across such a view everywhere in the humani­ties and social sciences and ends up with indecision. Here the critic's view is correct, yet measuring social integra­tion accordingly becomes as difficult as trying to answer the question of why Hamlet hesitated to kill his uncle. Actually the mere fact that the meaning of integration is unsettled is disintegrative. For instance, let us ask a simple question concerning the highly desired and presum­ably understood goal of Arab unity. What is the desired form of Arab unity and how to achieve it? Apparently, there are at least several valid answers to the question. Hence, one feels safer to discuss issues of social integra­tion rather than define them. This may sound like an escape from duty, but since definitions are never definite, one has to avoid them in dealing with integrative issues which search desperately for conformity and uniformity.

Islam succeeded in integrating Arabia by forming one community from the conflicting tribes. Before Muhammad,

■^Leonard Binder, The Ideological Revolution in the Middle East (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1964), p. 127.

35these tribes had little consciousness that they belonged together. The coming of historical consciousness with Islam resulted in the development of the new feeling of brotherhood among the members of the individual tribe into a sense of identification among the members of the Islamic community or the ummah. including non-Arabs. On the basis of modified mores of the tribes and the fresh ideas of the Our *an and the Sunnah. Arabia witnessed unprecedented social integration. Miraculously, Arabia came to worship one God, follow one leader, form one community, and abide by one law. Furthermore al-Ans5r (supporters) and al- Muhajirun (immigrants), basically conflicting elements, clustered around the Messenger of God in one party> Ashab Rasul Allah (Companions of the Messenger of God).

Unfortunately this tight integration did not last long. This generation of the Companions quickly witnessed the first current of Fitnah (dissension) among the members of the community, and those who lived long enough saw a full stream of it during the first few decades of the Umayyad Dynasty, when the integrative power of Islam could not maintain the traditional unity of the community. Whose

ifailure was it actually?

36The failure is to be attributed to the politicians and members of ruling institutions, though it may be added, to excuse their failure, that in circum­stances of the time with its poor communications and the limited political experience of the great majority of the Muslims, especially the non-Arab Muslims, there probably was no way of ruling so as to maintain political unity.35

Very many critics have been of the opinion that the failure of social integration, especially under the Omayyads, must be attributed majorly to the rulers and only slightly to lack of experience or access to more integrative means of government. Actually the Umayyads proved Ibn Khaldun's theory that integration is relative to *asabivah and its determinants. This is not to say, of course, that the Umayyad regime was not good, or even the best, for its pur­pose. The assumption is merely to say that the regime was marked by a process of social disintegration which prevailed on the surface; the integrative power of traditional Islamwas oppressed but very much alive below the surface, reviv-

36ing in the community "a deep movement towards uniformity."The Abbasids are often credited with starting social

integration all over again as if it were entirely missing

O C *William M. Watt, Islam and the Integration of Society (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, Ltd., 1961), p. 175.

36Ibid.. p. 177.

37under the Uraayyads; the truth is that "this is something the *Abbasids did not create but found already in existence." The Abbasids should be credited with responding to some­thing of mutual interest, i.e., while integration was essen­tial to the Islamic community, it also served the purpose of the rulers, e.g.,the willingness of the rational falasifah (philosophers) and orthodox jurist-theologians to tolerate each other in a religio- scholarly atmosphere was fostered and utilized by the authority in the state toward the estab­lishment of order in the community. It was something like a compromise. The following shows how the situation was:

The existence of a tradition and of a body of at least partly independent experts in it, and the spe­cial place of uniformity in the political outlook of the Muslims, together suggest that in the Islamic state there was a high degree of genuine integration. There were still many dissatisfied groups, of course, but even in their dissatisfaction they often approved in general of the Islamic community, were proud to belong to it, and only found fault with it innminor respects.

Attempts were often made to disturb this harmonious state of affairs, e.g., Caliph al-Ma*mun tried to force the principle of the Mu^ tazilah on the orthodox jurist- theologians. Orthodoxy, however, was too well established

38Ibid.

38to yield to such attempts. It was when the Abbasid state fell that this system of integration came to change, espe­cially under the Ottomans.

The Ottoman Empire was, of course, Islamic, but its concept of integration sounds much like a revival of the old Umayyad fasablyah. only it was Turkish, no longer Arabic.m

The traditional movement toward conformity persisted in thecommunity, but the Ottoman Turks responded to it sometimespartially, sometimes nominally, and sometimes negatively,but hardly positively. Muslims in general and Arabs inparticular had to achieve uniformity which meant to themthe very significance of life:

. . . Muslims, especially the Arab Muslims had been so moulded by their previous tradition that only where there was a large measure of uniformity could they find a fulfillment of the community's potentiality3Qfor significant life. ^

The Ottomans' dedication to their Turkish *asabiyah made the achievement of Islamic uniformity impossible. The commun­ity's crave for uniformity was strongest among the Arabs.In the meantime, European secular ideas of government and nationalism found their way in the community. Thus, Arab

39Ibid.

39nationalism had a very favorable environment for its rise.

A concluding remark is that Islam's concern withintegration makes its jurist-theologians reluctant, if atall willing, to respond to, or project, divisions or dis-

-40ruptive issues within the community. it is helped in this way by the absence in its structure of an authority (clergy or otherwise) to formalize such differences.Gustave von Grunebaum says:

The consensus of Muslims has always condoned theo­logical disputation, but it has been slow in recog­nizing that a group of dissenting believers had put itself outside the pale. As a rule, exclusion from the body of the faithful was the consequence of political disagreement fought out on religious ground. Exclusion never meant a formal excommunication of the sectarian — there would have been no authority to pronounce it. It only meant that-majority sentiment ^ held his teachings incompatible with received beliefs.

Undoubtedly Islam contributes a great deal to social integration. In comparison the Arabic language has played a great integrative role.

^ A c t u a l l y at no time was a dissenting group or sect formally denounced as un-Islamic by the official*ulama* .

^Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 186.

40

VI. THE ROLE OF THE ARABIC LANGUAGE

Those who speak the same language have an immense common bond, which also reaches back to a common store of social memories; those who do not, have a gulf of silence between them which can only be bridged by some third intermediary. Rupert Emer­son. ^

That the Arabic language is the badge of the Arabnation is confirmed by Arnold Toynbee who found "the cri-

43terion of Nationality in the shibboleth of Language" andby Edward A. Freeman who observed that, "mankind instinc-

44tively takes language as the badge of nationality."The phenomenon that a nation is ordinarily a linguistic unit does not, of course, apply in great many examples in the globe, yet it applies, at present, almost exclusively in the Mediterranean and the Middle East where the Arabs have had a maximum of their direct contacts during the

42Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 133.

^3Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History (New York:Oxford University Press, 1958), VIII, p. 536, cited by Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 132.

44Edward A. Freeman, "Race and Language," Histor­ical Essays (London: Macmillan and Co., 1879), p. 203, cited by Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 132.

past few centuries. Today, in a region where Spaniards, Frenchmen, Italians, Albanians, Greeks, Turks, and Persians speak Spanish, French, Italian, Albanian, Greek, Turkish, and Persian, likewise the Arabic-speaking population of the region naturally feel themselves Arabs. In recent times their consciousness of their Arabism stemmed from their oppression by peoples who belonged to identical nationali­ties and linguistic units— English, French, Italian, and Turkish. Even their belonging to a common faith with the Turks did not prevent the Turkish *asabiyah from exerting undue oppression on the Muslim Arabs, not to mention non- . Muslim Arabs, and refraining from identifying itself with them. It was a great disappointment for Muslim Arabs to see the only independent non-Arab Muslim states— Turkey and Persia— turning their back on Pan-Islamism, if not on Islam, after World War I, and following secular and patriotic policies in which the Arabs figured the least, if at all. Possible Muslim Arab hankering after Pan-Islamic achievements would be, thus, unavailing. It was then, as no time before, that the Arabs, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, realized their distinctive character. They had no other choice than to resort to the path of Arab nationalism for giving signifi­cance to their present and future. They realized they shared a common language, a common culture, common memories,

42and, for the predominant majority, a common religion whichcould hardly be divorced from each other. Nevertheless,Arab nationalism, in order to be integrative, had tofollow a secular career. Hazem Zaki Nuseibeh gives ussome self-evident hints.

Diffidence and ambiguity have kept important sections of the Christian Arabs lukewarm and suspicious, for they fear, with some justification, that Arab nation­alism without a more forthright reorientation along secular lines may be no more than a facade for an Islamic policy, to which they naturally could notsubscribe.45

Thus, the Arabic language, the symbol of the con­temporary Arab nation, is given a totally worldly assignment. The question becomes one of how to divorce Arabic from its Islamic background; are contemporary Arabs, in seeking guidance for modern issues, to reconstruct their histor­ical experience which was predominantly Islamic, or must they consult modern secular ideas? On this point alone the Arab world is divided into two parties— conservatives or zealots— who observe past traditions and represent the masses, and liberals or herodians whose intellect sets them above traditions and appeals mainly to the modernized

Hazem Zaki Nuseibeh, The Ideas of Arab National­ism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956), pp. 67-68.

43members of the intelligentsia. The rapid spread of moderneducation in the Arab world has been in favor of herodianismand, hence, secular Arabism.

True, Arabic creates among the Arabs a strong senseof identification, yet, apart from its Islamic tradition,

46it has little more than its Jahillyah tradition to guide a secular ideology towards the attainment of its goals. How­ever the significance of traditions in modern thought is controversial. For instance, an intellectual herodian might argue that how Caliph al-Ma*mum ruled his state is of little significance to the Arab world today in com­parison with how Switzerland or the United States are gov­erned. A conservative zealot would probably reject the argument as Jahillyah-like heresy. For practicable rea­sons, the herodian could be correct. Yet the zealot could be correct also, because while herodian groups agree on rejecting traditions and, relatively, on obvious ends, they differ, Jahillyah-like. on almost any significant means.If the peculiarities of the situation are set aside, it fits the description of Lerche and Said as follows:

The non-Western world is in the grip of a crushing necessity to reconcile tradition with the demands of

Jahillyah is pre-Islamic paganism.

44modern thought and life. Success in this effort has been no more than minimal because of the peculiar dimensions of the problem: non-western leaders areseeking a sufficient mass revival to produce a poli­tical and cultural renaissance, but they fear massive social or political revolutionary change. Thus caught between the necessity of doing something and the re­luctance to do too much, leadership in the non-western world faces the danger of fleeing from over contradic­tion into moral and intellectual skepticism. Old codes no longer meet the social and political need, but new principles of intellectual life from the West are unpalatable. Socio-political stasis has become the consequence.47

Apparently in such a centrifugal situation a nation feels the need for a comprehensive ideology, an alternative to zealotism and herodianism.

Both zealot and herodian represent extremes. True, the zealot is often stubborn and outmoded, but he has a live conscience and, being an observer of traditions, has an integrative sense of self-sacrifice. It is true also that the herodian is often pragmatic and energetic, but he is often a status-seeker, a hypocrite, a conspirator, and ut­terly mundane. Of the two, one trusts the zealot, but one is also disappointed in him because he lacks that push that gets things done. Thus, in order to be effective, one is obliged to associate with a herodian group, as a client, usually in a tribal-like atmosphere.

47charles 0. Lerche, Jr., and Abdul A. Said, Con­cepts of International Politics (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1963), pp. 127-28.

45Actually, the present era of Arab history resembles

to some extent that of the pre-Islamic period, in which thepredominant bond among the tribes was linguistic. Themodern break away from tradition resembles the break awayfrom the Hanlfivah tradition in pre-Islamic Arabia. Then,

»

Allah, the supreme God, was known to the Arabs, yet immedi-. 48ate allegiance was given the idols, not Him. Each tribe

took pride in its genealogy and worshipped a local idol and probably gave lip service to a Pan-Arab idol. Now, instead of conflicting tribes, there are political parties, both formal and underground. And, instead of genealogy and idols, some take pride in and "worship" provincial nation­alities and political boundaries. Now, as then, there has been a desire of unification among most Arabs, but to some this stems not primarily from a sincere sense of identifi­cation but from a wish of solving a local problem, attain­ing an economic benefit, or checking an outside danger.Now, as then, the Arabic language has had its power over thought. An Arab critic comments as. follows:

It is characteristic of the Arab mind to be swayed more by words than by ideas, and more by ideas then

i

^®Tor Andrae, Mohammed: The Man and His Faith. Trans., Theophil Menzel (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), pp. 24-25.

46by facts. Transcendental principles, especially when put into resonant speech, seem to the Arabs to have power capable of conquering the greatest practical realities.^

In pre-Islamic Arabia, in spite of the conflictsamong the tribes, the Arabs were indebted to their poetry,a highly bombastic medium, for their vague consciousness

50of being one people. Today, as yesterday, little fact and deed but plenty of "sonorous words and slogans charac­terize their consciousness of their common peoplehood. An observer describes the situation like this:

Every Near Eastern political leader is, or at the very least professes to be, an ardent and sincere nation­alist. This verbal unanimity, however, merely indi­cates that the significant ideological battles tend to be fought over the implications and applications of "true" nationalism.51

The experience of the merger between Egypt and Syria throwsmore light on this state of mind. Our fellow Syrians usedto demonstrate in public, singing with emotion, "min Marra-kish ila *Oman, wa min Surlyah ila al-Sudan" (from Morocco to

^Edward Atiyah, The Arabs (London: A Pelican Book, 1955), p. 96.

^®Carl Brockelmann, History of the Islamic Peoples. Trans., Carmichael Perlmann (New York:'Capricorn Books, 1960), p. 11.

■^Gabriel Almond and James S. Coleman, The Politics flf. the Developing Areas (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1960), p. 415.

47Oman and from Syria to the Sudan), but in private some of the demonstrators resented the existence in Syria of a handful of "Egyptian" officials. The gulf between slogans and words, and what they actually stand for remains to be bridged in the Arab world. This gulf was also character­istic of the Jahillyah period probably more than later periods.

The resemblance between the present era and that of the pre-Islamic period is manifested farther in the exist­ence of a cluster of local dialects besides the common classical language. Then, as now, the average Arab used both the common language and his local dialect. The first was used in the formal media of poetry and speech, and the other as a means of communication among the members of a tribe in their teases, jokes, some of their songs and the casual daily talk.^2 In Islam Arabia solved its problem of dialects; the language of the Quran simply supplanted all. By the end of the nineteenth century, the centrifugal forces of modern dialects almost supplanted Classical Arabic.Thanks to the Quran, Classical Arabic has survived through a long period of disintegration of Arab power.

5^IbrahTm Anis, Mustaqbal al-Lughah al-cArabxyah al-Mushtarakah (Cairo; Jami*at al-Duwal al-'Arabxyah, 1960), pp. 9-10.

48Let us at this point elaborate on the problems of

modern Arabic, then conclude with a remark on the resem­blance between the contemporary era and that of the Jahiliyah. At present, Classical Arabic is gaining fresh strength through the spread of literacy on unprecedented scale. Yet, it has to undergo much reform before it reaches a reasonable stage of uniformity. Practically, there are no feasible plans anywhere of imposing it as a casual medium of oral communication except probably for increasing broad­casts.

It is certain that the local dialects will persist but they will achieve refinement and possibly understands

able proximity.Reform plans, to modernize Classical Arabic, have

been considered. The prospect is that the gulf between itsrole as the holy language of the Our* an and its role as areformed secular medium of technology and business willwiden. Nevertheless, extreme forms of reform which go sofar as to substitute Latin letters for the Arabic lettersor to change the system of accentuation are unlikely tomaterialize because they "run contrary to the religious ele-

53ment m the heritage of the Arabs." A few years ago, the

S^Hans e . Tutsch, Facets of Arab Nationalism (De­troit: Wayne State University Press, 1965), p. 36.

49Arab Academy was against any change, and for long has given old names for new things; today the tendency is towards evolutionary response to modern demands. But finding the efforts of the Arab Academy too impracticable, the channels of mass media— press, radio, and television—

have actually created and used a standard language called 1ughat al-sahafah (language of the press) which resembles the standard (English) language used in the B.B.C. Now, if the Arab Academy decides to become more mundane and the channels of mass media resort to more refinement in their usage, probably Classical Arabic may not lose its unity and dignity.

As to the problem of the dialects which do not often lend themselves easily to the comprehension of dif­ferent groups, some believe that mass education will tend to eliminate them. This may happen in a generation or more and may not happen at all without much gain or loss. After all, a dialect constitutes no harm unless it is the only means of communication with speakers of another dialect.In case of incommunicability mass education will, in time, spread the knowledge of Classical Arabic; then, those who could not communicate through dialects would resort, par­tially or totally, to the Classical form for help.

50In this connection, Kurdish, Berber, and a few other

minor languages may be treated as dialects of Arabic; actu­ally almost all have great Arabic influence, especially in vocabulary. Furthermore, the speakers of these languagesare mostly Arabized in culture, and constitute only six

54per cent of the total population. An authority predictsthat these languages will withdraw gradually towards finalreplacement by Arabic in about 50 years when the knowledge

55of Arabic becomes complete. In fact, it does not matter whether such languages withdraw or not; what matters is the gradual spread of Arabic schooling in such a manner as to make Arabic known to every citizen in the Arab world regardless of the existence of other languages. The chan­nels of mass media will, certainly, help the spread of Arabic.

A concluding remark on the significance of the Arabic speaking area, to the rest of mankind, should be useful. We have seen that the influence of the Arabic language on its speakers has been generally centripetal, and centrifugal in part. In this the present era resembles the pre-

5^Mu^iammad‘Azzah Darwazah, al-Wihdah al-Arabiyah (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Tijarx, 1957), p. 56.

55Ibid., pp. 56-57.

51Islamic era. Yet the centrifugal influence of Arabic is limited to the inside situation. For, undoubtedly, its influence on the international relations of its speakers is centripetal, i.e., Arabs now and then differ on domes­tic issues, but they normally face their internationalproblems with relative cohesion. Today this cohesion is

56manifested m international organizations, as well asin formal and individual diplomacy. Yesterday, as today.,while divided against one another internally, the pre-Islamic Arabs maintained a harmonious foreign policytoward the conflicting blocs of (West and East) the Graeco-

57Roman Empire of Byzantium and that of Persia. Finally, now as then, the significance of the Arabic-speaking area to the rest of mankind has crystalized in the area's strategic resources and avenues of transport.

56Harry N. Howard, "The Arab-Asian States m the United Nations," The Middle- East Journal (Summer, 1953), 279-2925 Passim«

57John B. Glubb, The Great Arab Conquests (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1963), p. 19ff.

52

VII. PRINCIPAL STRATEGIC RESOURCES AND AVENUES OF TRANSPORT

. . . the significance of the Near East today is reduced into a function of its economic resources (mainly oil), strategic importance, and political relations; it is these that focus the interest of the world upon that region. . . . Charles M a l i k . 5 8

The urge for independence, a component of Arab nationalism lends itself easily to mean complete inde­pendence including total utilization of the region's stra­tegic resources and avenues of transport by its people towards their goals. So far the concessionaire of such resources (mainly petroleum, bases, and water gateways) has been the West. In order for the Arabs to utilize their resources in the manner they aspire at, they believe they must at first fulfill another component of Arab nationalism; namely Arab unity. Thus, because the Arab nationalist move­ment is very closely concerned with the region's strategic resources and avenues of transport, it constitutes a threat to the traditionally favorable status of the West in the region. Naturally the Eastern bloc, having nothing to lose and much to gain by displacing the West from the. region,

58Charles Malik, "The Meaning of the Near East, n iL»'Ji£ International Affairs. VI (Winter, 1952), 32.

53has been in favor of Arab unity. Subsequently the Westhas to look at Arab unity with apprehension. The conflictof interests of East and West in the region has focused theinterest of the world on it.

At no time since their glorious past have the Arabsacquired as much world-wide attention as they have hadtoday. Two main factors have contributed to this atten-

59tion; namely, communications and natural resources.Nowadays, the Suez Canal, the local air and sea ports areindispensable to the general transport of the world. BothSuez and petroleum are vital to the West in times of war

60and peace. Actually, Suez and oil constitute the Westernmajor interest in the area.

The fact that the region is looked at as such inthe West is resented by Charles Malik who emphasizes thequality of the region as cultural-genetic; the regionwhere the fundamental components of Western civilization

61had their origin. However, while the objection arises

59E. A. Speiser, The United States and the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952),p. 19.

60John C. Campbell, Defense of the Middle East: Problems of American Policy (New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 348.

61Charles Malik, op. cit., p. "52..

54that the cultural-genetic conception of the region has

52 ,no immediate relevance, its strategic-political concep­tion has the backing of the experience of the West for a long time.

The importance of the Middle East oil is manifestedin the fact that "European nations have to have access to

63it to keep their economies alive." The fabulous oil reserves of the region are met with ever increasing needs from Western Europe, Asia, and Africa and will continue to do so in the feasible future. In the meantime the sig­nificance of the oil has pushed the Arab world amidst the international struggle over the control of the spheres of influence. To counteract the pressures exerted from both sides of the struggle, the Arabs find it to their politico- economic advantage not to withdraw entirely from the strug­gle, but rather to participate in it so positively that their views of the issues involved may prevail; towards this end they adopt the principle of positive neutrality and use petroleum as a politico-economic weapon. Lucile Carlson says in this respect that oil not only places in

62Ibid.. p. 32.6 3Campbell, loc. cit.

55

the hands of the Arabs a tremendous geopolitical weaponwith which to wield power, but also one with which theycan make— and get— demands from the foreign concession-

64aires. Thus, oil diplomacy is closely connected with the Arab nationalist movement. Actually the idea thatthe question of exploiting Arab petroleum is nationalist

.65 , 66before it is economic has a great popular appeal.In order to woo nationalist support or avoid its

pressure governments will always demand greater royalties and more participation in the management and, in time, the demands will probably include nationalization. Yet even in case of nationalization no government could norm­ally stop selling the petroleum because the revenue would always be needed for stabilizing the local economy. The most that could happen in case of nationalization is the price might increase or a rival country such as the Soviet Union might buy the oil for a high price in order to re­sell it for a higher price. The Soviet Union itself does

6^Lucile Carlson, Geography and World Politics (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1958), p. 409.

65 r cAhmad al-Mu*tasim bi Allah. al-Bitrul al- Arabim ■ 1 ■ ■ ■— ■ ■ ■ " ii ■ ■■(Cairo: al-Dar al-Qawmiyah li al-Tiba * ah wa al-Nashr, 1963), p. 113.

66Campbell, op. cit.. p. 257.

566 7not need the oil of the Arab World. The United States

may do without it. But it is Europe that is largely depen­dent on the regular flow of the Middle Eastern oil through the Suez Canal and pipelines as was made clear during the experience of the 1956 Suez crisis.

Traditionally the Arab world owed its importance to its strategic location as well as its cultural-genetic conception. Today, cultural factors excluded, the region"affords,strategically, the most important land bridge in

68the world." However, unless a culture-community devel­ops in the future between the West and the Arab world the status of the West in the region may deteriorate because of the powerful growth of nationalism.

To relate this chapter to the next, one may com­pare the past and the present. During the glorious past the main forces at work were related to each other largely dialectically. Today the forces at work are innovation versus tradition, each aims at supplanting the other.In other words the forces of today are largely polarized.

67Ibid., 250.6^Carlson, pp. pit.., p. 325.

This is so because the one stems from religion and the other is basically secular. In contrast the forces of the glorious past centered on religion which was also a state. That is why the forces of the past were greatly thesis versus antithesis resolving themselves often into syn­thesis. It is true secular forces did exist in the glori­ous past, but their total impact was more or less marginal. The main forces were great traditions versus little tradi­tions. Their synthetical tendencies were often manifest. Not until secular forces became overwhelming during the eclipse did polarization occupy an impregnable ground.

CHAPTER II

THE GLORIOUS PAST: THE SOCIETYUNDER A GUIDING PRINCIPLE

I. SYNTHETICAL FORCES

The glorious past of the Arabs encompasses two and a half centuries from the middle of the seventh century to the end of the ninth century A.D. when sentiments stemmed in the world of the Arabs mainly from *urubah. Islam, economy, power, and fame. Like fundamental monotheist religions, fundamental Islam requires that all its adherents stand on complete equality regardless of race, color, or fortune. Its adherents theoretically constitute a single consolidated body. They are urged to think and act in this world in terms of the hereafter, though not exclusively.

The vision of the hereafter, especially as conceived by the mu~iahidun (exerters in God's path) and the Sufis (mystics), functions as a leveler of all Arab and non-Arab differences. The hereafter is either paradise or hell. A sure way to paradise is through participation in the jihad.

^"Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 52, citing

59

The jihad is one of those great traditions, such as orthodoxy, historiography, etc., which is Arabic in origin and synthetical in career. In the Jahillyah peace was missing among the Arab tribes. Under the Islamic ideo­logical umbrella the fighting spirit of the desert Arabs came to resolve itself integratively in the j ihad in the cause of the Faith. Under the Islamic principle the old disintegrative tradition (tribal war), came to be not only integrative but also a major factor of survival:

The importance of the jihad in Islam lay in shifting the focus of attention of the tribes from their inter­tribal warfare to the outside world....It would, indeed, have been very difficult for the Islamic state to survive had it not been for the doctrine of the jihad, replacing tribal raids, and directing that enormous energy of the tribes from an inevitable internal conflict to unite and fight against the outside world in the name of the new faith.^

Actually, the glorious epochs of the Arabs were those of the j ihad. No less than the Islamic principle and its great tra­ditions, including the' jihad, the Arab idea left its imprint on the society. Prior to Islam many a fundamental Arab tradi­tion had been dormant. In Islam things Arabic, of fundamental origin, entered a renaissance. Under the Prophet and Rashidun

Muhammad Ibn al-Hassan Shaybani, Kitab al-Siyar al-Kabir, Sarakhsi's Commentary (Hyderabad, A.H. 1335), I, p. 20.

^Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam, (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 62,

60

(rightly guided) Caliphs, Arabism was one with Islam; i.e.,\Islam transcended Arab patriotism. The Negro Bilal, and

the Persian Salman were Companions of the Prophet and equal with the dignitaries of Quravsh. However, during the greater part of the t/mayyad period, Arabism, once more patriotic, became exclusive of new non-Arab converts; thus detaching itself from Islamic fundamentalism. This re­sulted in the revolt of those universally oriented Arabs and non-Arabs against such clannish and tribal concepts of furubah. Nevertheless, whenever Muslims were called to the holy war, they fought in a consolidated body. Inter­nal baghv was remarkably transcended whenever an outside

warfare arose.Under the early Abbasids, the racial aspect of

Arabism was superseded by Islamic universalism. This hap­pened as a result of Abbasid repression of the Arab ele­ment. Without an attempt at theorizing, one finds the following: Arabism used to react to changes in economicand power factors. When the economy boomed, Arabism tended to be inclusive as in the early Abbasid period. But, when the economy faltered, Arabism was exclusive or inclusive, depending on the powers of the rulers. When the rule was

patriarchal, Arabism was exclusive, as in the Umayyad

example, including Umayyad Spain. When the rule was checked by the Islamic ideal, Arabism tended towards including non-Arab elements, as under*Umar II (717-720). Oddly, as the powers of the rulers became absolute under the Abbasids, the socio-political institutions tended towards secularization and articulation. Intellectual activity, opposed to secularization and articulation, stemmed from the fervor of Islamic fundamentalism with which Arabism, for the first time under repression, came to identify itself. Yet, it was not always when the powers of the rulers were checked by orthodox principles that intellectual activity prospered; cultural excellence mater­ialized in support of Abbasid absolutism and Umayyad patri­archy.

Nevertheless, under non-Arab rulers Arabic cultural continuity escaped rupture hardly anywhere except in Egypt. Generally speaking, when the fragments of the Islamic state were ruled— totally or partially— by non- Arab rulers, a new system of values gradually materialized. Arabism then was transcended by localism, fatalism, and Sufism. Only the Arab idea remained in the Arabo-Islamic conscience. Intellectual activity stagnated, and the vision of the hereafter compensated mundane depravity as

62

under Ottoman and European rule.As if it were iahid (exert in God's path) or perish,

Arabism saw its great and fundamental days in the iihad.As soon as the last waves of holy wars abated, a great num­ber of Arabs retired back to the desert. The halt of the jihad contributed to the eclipse of the Arabo-Islamic do­main.

The glorious past of the Arabs could go back to include the J*5hillyah period, which is characterized by political independence and excellence albeit its vague sense of harmony and identification among the Arab tribes. Nowadays, the average Arab does not include that period in the glorious past. Nor is the dawn of Islam included; it is rather characterized by the creation of an ideal, or a constitution, based on the word of God and the guidance of the Prophet and the Rashidun (rightly guided) Caliphs.The glorious past, as a result, may encompass only the per­iod of the jihad, or holy wars, during which al-Muiahidun (exerters in God's path) expanded the domain of Islam far and wide in Asia, Africa, and Europe.

In the mind of the average modern Arab, the glorious past usually gives rise to memories of great military, scientific and scholarly achievements, and seldom to

63

factionalism arising from racial and sectarian controver­sies. An observer comments:

. . . today when an Arab is asked about the past of his nation he recalls first and foremost, as the high spots in his nation's history, those epochs during which, for a moment, the Islamic ideal and the poli­tical life of his people were in unison: the time ofthe great conquests, that of the Umayyad Caliphs or the early fAbbasid dynasty.u Yet the glories of those epochs should not prevent

us admitting that times of chaos and division also form part of the historical heritage of the Arab people.

Here one must warn against a harmful attitude towards the glorious past which tends, in the mind of the average Arab, to maximize factors of harmony and minimize, if not entire­ly overlook, factors of discord; the harm is that by mini­mizing or overlooking such factors, one may, unawares, promote their equivalents at present.

Because the jihad is a basic principle of the inter­national law of Islam, its discussion in a constitutional theory is related to the Islamic conquests which had their synthetical impact on Arab - non-Arab relations. An ideo­logical retrospect of the impact of the conquests on the social scene, following such theoretical discussion, should be informative.

3Arnold Hottinger, The Arabs: Their History, Culture, and Place in the Modern World (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963), p. 33.

64In a very broad sense, the jihad is conterminous

with redressing munkar (evil) including that committed by one against one's self„ In terms of a constitutional the­ory, the jihad encompasses baghv (aggression) among Muslim individuals and groups, and conflict between Dar-al-Harb and Dar-al-Islam. Redressing munkar is exerted by the individu­al or the state, depending on the gravity of the act and its nature. There is a certain line where arrangement, initiation, and termination of the jihad is strictly a state function. However, the individual is invested with a very wide mediatory role, especially on the domestic level. Insofar as relations among nations are concerned, the jih5d is an international institution regulating war in the cause of Islam. The role of private diplomacy in sucha/iihSd is defined by the state.

The causes for resorting to the jihad have been con­troversial. According to an authority, the j ihad is a form

4of religious propaganda, a means of preserving this worldfor believers, a sanction against polytheists and dhimmlswho refuse to pay tax, and infliction upon enemies of and

5renegades from Islam, and an instrument for converting all

Khadduri, op. cit.. p. 56.

5Ibid.. p. 59.

65

peoples to Islam or (for dhimmls), at least, belief in 6God. Yet, according to another authority, force may not

be used for converting people to Islam? the causes of fight­ing are limited to redressing aggression and securing reli­gious freedom; fighting is a means to peace and security and establishing life along confines of justice and equal­ity, without covetousness, egoism, and repression of the weak? and, finally, tax is not a substitute of faith or life— it is, rather, an indication of loyalty and end of aggression, and participation in the obligations of the state. How could vxews dxffer so wxdely over the ixhad?It is simply that the latter authority is a fundamentalist who delineates only the ideal in the Islamic tradition.Such a view depicts what should be, or, in other words, what is constitutional. The former authority is an indi­vidual investigator who, by detaching issues from their contexts, has been able to establish a well-documented the­ory according to which the -jihad falls short of the standards originally conceived by the fundamental tradition. Thus, we can hardly compare the two views, because, apparently,

6 Ibid. G^Shaykh MaTjmud Shaltut, al-Islam wa al-*Ilaqat

al-Duwalxvah fx al-Harb wa al-Salm (Cairo: Matba*at al~Azhar, 1951), pp. 37-38.

66each is specialized. The two views may be reconsidered inlight of the following opinion:

Nothing can be more absurd than to picture the early Muslims as religious fanatics who poured out of Arabia to give the alternative of Qur7 an or the sword to those whom they conquered. They did thus approach the set­tled Arabs of the Syrian and Persian frontiers because they were fellow Arabs, and the claim was that all Arabs must unite in the fraternity of Islam, though those who were already Christian were not compelled to renounce their religion — they already confessed the One God so there was no necessity — but when the frontier Arabs were attacked the powers of Byzantium and Persia were compelled to come to their relief and thus, quite unexpectedly, the Muslims were drawn into war with those two great empires, and even more unex­pectedly, defeated them.^

Admittedly, polytheism was not tolerated in Arabia in the name of Arab unity under the One God. Fundamentally speak­ing, Ahl-al-Kitab were tolerated in Arabia. That all Arabs in Arabia became Muslims was a side effect— not necessarily a result of intolerance. Shortly, Islam offered people a choice, on the one hand> and the jihad was offered on the other hand to guarantee that those who chose Islam were free to do so. The fundamental theory of the jihad Is portrayed by orthodox teaching.

QDeLacy O'Leary, Islam at the Cross Roads (New York: Kegan Paul, 1923), pp. 5-6.

67The concept of the iihad is still more comprehen­

sively conceived by taking into consideration the influ­ence of the Khawarii . Shi * ah. and Mu*tazilah. The Khawarii- are originally a group of idealists who could find no fault only with the Prophet and probably his two immediate Caliphs; they were the first sect to secede.They found faults with Uthman and All. They also main­tained that the Imamate was most essential, and that anImam (Caliph) could be any elected Muslim, e.g., a non-

10 . . .Arab slave. Only as long as an Imam complied with theirphilosophy, they gave him allegiance; otherwise, they might reject him, fight him, or even kill'him. Like the Shi* ah. they had their own concept of the Caliphate; this had its disintegrative influence.

Regarding the iihad. an authority describes the Khawarii as users of violence, imposers of conviction, forcers of obstinate heretics to believe or be killed, strict and fanatical, and killers, not only of prisoners

9 * -Muhammad Bin'Abd al-Karim al-ShahrastSnl, Kitabal-Milal wa al-Nihal (first edition; Cairo: Matba*atal-Azhar, 1947), pp. 201-2.

10Ibid.. p. 200.

68

of war, but also of women and children. Evidently the jihad here is synonymous with aggression.

Admittedly, the Khawarii were uncompromising and rigid; but they were so, according to an observer, for fundamental reasons:

The . . . sectaries known as Kharijites or "se- ceders" were the advocates of free election in the appointment of a leader, but did not regard any earthly head as essential to the existence of Islam, whilst on the theoretical side, they were reaction­ary out of touch with the intellectual development of Muslim doctrine; puritans of the most rigid type, and may perhaps be regarded as the true representa­tives of early Islam. Admittedly, they adhered to the earlier standards of life and conduct when the rest of Islam was falling under a luxurious and alien culture.

Thus, even according to the puritan Khawarii. the jihad did not entirely lose its fundamental character. Actu­ally, the views that describe the jihad in terms of reli­gious propaganda, or use of violence, etc., avoid the natural appeal of Islam to the oppressed masses in Asia, Africa, and Europe in the Middle Ages. Such appeal is expressed by H. G. Wells as follows:

. . . it was instinct with the chivalrous sentiment of the desert; and it made its appeal straight to

12Khadduri, op. cit., p. 68.13O'Leary, o p . cit.. p. 12.

69the commonest instincts in the composition of ordi­nary men.. . . what appealed to them was that this God, Al­lah, . . . was by the test of the conscience in their hearts a God of righteousness, and that the honest acceptance of his doctrine and method opened the door wide, in a world of uncertainty, treachery, and in­tolerable divisions, to a great and increasing brother­hood of trustworthy men on earth. . . .^

Viewed as such, Islam required, in order to spread, the useof force hardly in any respect except for guaranteeing achoice for new and possible converts.

The Shi*T approach to the iihSd is not different from 15that of orthodoxy. Then, we do not have to enter into

further elaboration to justify the large absence of the use of force in any concept of the jihad. in winning con­verts to Islam. The fact remains that the Shi*ah were, theoretically, a disintegrative element in the j ihad.Since they gave allegiance only to their own imam, the latter's approval had to be acquired before any non-ShiC1 authority was able to initiate a jihad involving Shl*i participation. Practically, the Shi* ah played a great role in the jihad because their approach to it did not differ

■^H. G. Wells, Outline of History (New York: Garden City Books, 1949), I, pp. 611-12.

l^Khadduri, pp. cit.. p. 66.

70from that of orthodoxy. Remarkably, not only all Muslims, but also willing dhimmls were united in the iihad in the face of a common enemy.

The Shi*ah were notably considered the intellectuals of their society. That they were liberal is doubtful; their doctrines contained some of the most puritanical tenets— especially concerning the Caliphate. Yet, con­versely, in their feverish opposition to the Sunnah. they were progressive. During the period of the Shi x expan­sion, they propagated a rationalist interpretation of the Qur * an and the Sunnah. Under influence of the Mu*tazilah some of the Shi*ah assimilated Greek rationalist ideas.

As the Mu*tazilah1s rationalism gained momentum during the ninth century, the principle of the jihad slack­ened. In other words, as interest in foreign ideas bur­geoned, the jihad faltered, on a large scale, for the first time, Islam was willing to absorb Greek philosophi­cal ideas. The doctrine of kalam (scholasticism) flour­ished; verbal disputes between the mutakallimun (scholas­tic theologians) and the orthodox doctors of law persisted for over a century; not to mention the wars of words between the orthodox theologians, in general, the Mu*tazilah.and the falasifah (philosophers). As verbal

71disputes culminated, the jihad slumbered:

The shift in the conception of the jihad from active to dormant war reflects a reaction on the part of the Muslims from further expansion. This coincided with the intellectual and philosophical revival of Islam at the turn of the fourth century of the Muslim era (tenth century A.D.), when the Muslims were probably more stirred by the contro­versy between orthodoxy and rationalism than by fighting Byzantine encroachments on the frontiers.

If this is to say that rationalism drowned the iihad, inIslam, it is correct. The assumption is that the wars ofwords contributed to the abatement of the iihad; certainlythey did not cause it.

In this connection one must differentiate between the jihad. which is the only legal war in Islam, and secu­lar war. Suffice it to say that wars of secular purposes existed in the glorious past. The. difference between a holy war and a secular war was often subject to religio- political articulation; rulers sometimes managed to enter wars with secular purposes in the name of the iihad.

Generally speaking, in the glorious past the ebb and flow of war went, more or less, parallel to those of Arabism; the greatest years of Arabism were jihad years and conversely. As protectors of the Faith the Arabs

~^Ibid., p. 65.

72carried the sword in God's path. They protected the Faith also by carrying the pen in God's knowledge. Thus, they mastered both jihad and iitihad (independent reasoning).When their sword was nearly arrested (by other Muslims) the jihad abated. At the risk of minorly rupturing their own ranks, they had no alternative but to rely heavily on the pen to protect the Faith from the extremist holders of both sword and pen. Their mammoth duty was to escort ortho­doxy to safety from the arrows of rationalism and intel- lectualism. For three centuries, their pen not only pro­tected the Sunnah. but triumphantly subjected to it all institutions including the Caliphate. The ijtihad preserved their warlike quality; it was a war of words.

The idea of nationality, and its by-product of "nationalism," lagged behind that war of words, the media of which were political issues involving economy, power and fame, the classical antithetical secular forces, here based on religious grounds. It was the little traditions of patriotism, liberalism, and intellectualism versus supra­national Arabic traditions— jihad, orthodoxy, historio­graphy, etc.— directed at preserving and promoting the fundamental quality of Islam and maintaining its unity by the carefully deliberated means of universalizing the

73Sunnah. synthesizing sectarian and reconcilable issues before finally closing the door to the iitihad concerning irreconcilable axioms.

The Sunnah stood for that great (also universal,subjective, supranational) tradition which was based onthe Islamic ideal and the Arab idea. The contra-Sunnahmovements while sustaining the great traditions for self-identification, sustained the little (also sub, objective,or patriotic) traditions for self-expansion. The lattercould, among Arabized groups, supersede the former:

Foreigners, widely apart in ideas and traditions, found themselves united in the bosom of Islam. Among them naturally flourished the spirit of faction and rivalry, born of the feeling of differing nationali­ties. Thus the idea of nationality, once fully awakened to life, led to most fateful results. It proved stronger than the tie of religion, and made the first breach in the proud edifice of the Cali­phate. 17

The spirit of'faction and rivalry here stems actually from factors of economy, power and fame. Besides, these were not^foreigners*’; all were considered citizens in the Mid­dle Ages. Modern writers fail to realize the impact of the Arab idea.

*1 7Khuda Bakhsh, Politics in Islam (Lahore: Kashmiri Bazar, 1954), p. 116.

74History shows that economy, language, and religion

have influenced nationality. Of the three, the (disinte­grative) villain has been economy. Language has been as integrative as religion. Before Islam, Arabia was divided into economic units, among which the Arab idea that had stemmed from monotheism and Arabic was dormant.With Muhammad a new universal religion came ixt. the Arabic language. The tribes that before Islam were practically separate nations became one nation. Thus, their revived nationality stemmed directly from two universal sources:Islam and its tool, Arabic. From the universality of Islam came the universality of Arabic and from both the Arab idea was revived. Economy and its components of power and fame stopped to play the villain. In ancient times, the Arab idea transcended religion and nationality. Since the rise of Islam it has transcended religion and nation­ality. The Arab idea is often confused with Arabism or Arabic culture. Arabism, Arabic and Arabic culture tran­scend religion. Islam transcends language and nationality. The Arab idea transcends religion, language, and nationality. Much more, it transcends many a religious gap.

Certain gaps in the Sunnah exposed it to frequent attacks. On matters of dogma, the Sunnah was attacked

75for a while by Mu*tazili rationalism. While assuming a religious color, the controversy marked also a struggle be­tween the masses and the intellectual middle class. The Mu*tazilah, however, were sincere Muslims who rendered invaluable services to the course of Islam by molding Islam in forms appealing to the non-Arabs. Perhaps the only serious criticism surviving nowadays against the Mu6 tazilah is that it was official; al-jahiz (d. 859),the most prominent Mu*tazili spokesman, was no doubt offi-

18cially inspired in his writings. The crux of his claim was that rationalistic scholars like himself, not the narrow-minded traditionalists, should lead the masses; that the Caliphate should be above the law; and that rationalism provided the ideal means of transcending such divergent

19movements as Shu*ubiyah and al-Nabitah(Raw Youth Party).It was because of the Mu*tazilah1s synthetical character that it came to propitiate the Sunnah which was also syn­thetical. Gradually the Mu* tazilah was drawn so close to the Sunnah that it finally filed among its ranks. The pro­cess is described by Sir Hamilton Gibb:

18 t tErling Ladewig Petersen, Air and Muawiya in theEarly Arabic Tradition (Copenhagen: Scandinavia University Books, 1964), p. 127.

19Ibid.

76The right wing of the Mu*tazilites, who in their searchfor some synthesis of philosophy with orthodox doctrinehad been gradually drawing apart from the rationalistleft wing, threw in their lot with the defenders of the 90Sunna.

The hero whose name is connected with that rapprochementwas al-Ash*afi (d. 936) who came from the rationalistMu* tazilah. The crux of Ash*arism was the deliberate re-

21jection of causality which characterized rationalism.It was an uneasy reconciliation. Even in the service of

22orthodoxy, rationalism continued to be suspect; not until231065 was Ash*arism definitely established. In the mean­

time other rationalist developments were in the making.The rise of the scholastic Ash*arism resulted in the

introduction of kalam. dialectic theology, as an answer to the challenge of such metaphysical questions as the crea­tion from nothing, the eternity of matter, and the immortal-

24ity of the soul. Within orthodoxy, there were those

90Hamilton A. R. Gibb, Mohammed a m sm; An Historical Survey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 116.

21Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), p. 143.

22Gibb, op. pit. , p. 118.

24Erwin I. J. Rosenthal, Political Thought m Medieval Islam (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1962), pp. 114-15.

77*ulama* of the Hadith who still suspected kalam1s foreign

25origin and philosophical association. Thus while the traditionalists opposed the very existence of rationalism, the Ash*aris rejected only its causality. Subsequently the victory of Ashlarism was also a victory of political philosophy; by not questioning the dogmas of orthodoxy, the works of al-Kindl (d. 973), al-Farabx (d. 950), Avi­cenna (d. 1037), Avempace (d. 1138), and Averrhoes (d. 1198), were -feasible. But, by claiming that religion spoke inmetaphors and parables for the masses and that the inner

26 . . . meaning was seen only by themselves, the Islamic falasifah(philosophers) were largely unorthodox. The fact remains that political philosophy and scholastic orthodoxy rendered great services to each other. The assumption that the absorption of Mu6tazili scholasticism by orthodoxy provided a favorable environment for the growth of political philo­sophy is correct. But, it is almost certain that the definite establishment of Ash*arism in 1065, a century and a half after its initial victory, was encouraged by the falasifah. Thus rationalism was actually a synthetical

^Gibb, op. cit., p. 118.26Rosenthal, op. cit.. p. 115.

force.Both political philosophy and I<tizal (Mu4tazilism)

shared rationalism and the use of foreign ideas, though in different media, in common. In the meantime, political philosophy shared the rejection of causality with ortho­doxy. Yet, unlike the Mu*tazilah. the falasifah were not reformers, and, unlike the traditionalists, they relied on reason. The philosophers, however, did not aim at teaching the masses; thus, they did not constitute a threat to the Sunnah1s leadership. Even in their concen­tration on dogma, and an axiom, their media were imper­sonal. Further Islamic philosophy was not officially in­spired. On the contrary through the use of the rationalist dialectic it insured the supremacy of the Shari4ah over every­thing. In short, it provided a disinterested tradition between two opponents. As a result, political philosophy won enough admiration to sustain scholasticism not only within its ranks but also in other systems. That is why in spite of the suspicion it raised in traditionalist cir­cles because of its importation of the foreign dialectic, its synthetical quality is recognized. Because political philosophy shared attributes in common with orthodoxy and Mu4tazili scholasticism it acquired stimulating, stabil­

79izing, and even revolutionary influences. ASywithin orthodoxy, the interests of traditionalism and scholas­ticism tended towards common harmony . , Political philoso­phy served as a catalyst. When the interests of orthodoxy conflicted with those of the Caliphate, it provided an invaluable buffer condition. Furthermore, under its revolu­tionary influence the differently tainted threads of funda­mentalism, scholasticism, and rationalism were woven into an identical tissue. The victory of that synthetical achievement is accredited to the great tradition of ortho­doxy. Political philosophy remained a little tradition outside orthodoxy, yet its catalytic influence was a com­mon denominator among different traditions. To sum up, developed by the Arabized, political philosophy was able to engage in importing the foreign. Initiated and devel­oped by both indigenous and hybrid, the Mu*tazili doctrine was able to specialize in blending the foreign, the indi­genous, and the hybrid. Universally inspired, the Sunnah engaged in sieving and absorbing.

The Sunnah1s claim to universality was also ques­tioned by the counter dogmatism, intellectualism, universe- nationalism of the sectarian. The sagacity of the Sunni

system— Mallkl. HanafI. ShaficI , Hanbali — manifested

80itself in preserving the unity of Islam, by not excommuni­cating the sectarian in general, and the Shi * ah, in parti­cular. Von Grunebaum has observed the following:

As a rule, exclusion from the body of the faithful was the consequence of political disagreement fought out on religious ground. Exclusion never meant a formal excommunication of the sectarian— there would have been no authority to pronounce it.27

and the following:. . . the self-identification as a Muslim of a "na­tionalistic" Persian of the Samanid period would appear perfectly legitimate, inasmuch as he would continue to accept the Islamic axioms of monistic theism and prophetism as well as the value judgment which dedicates the life of man to the service of God.28

True, the sagacity of orthodoxy was a great contrib­uting factor, but it was the weight of the Arab idea that helped the orthodox system prevail. Admittedly that system became universal primarily through consolidating some ten­dencies and transcending others* However its first con­tributing factor was the moral strength of Arabism in Islam.

27Gustave E. von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam (Chi­cago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 186.

28von Grunebaum, "The Problem: Unity in Diver­sity, " Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization. Gustave E. von Grunebaum (ed.) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1955), p. 19.

81In its ultimate search for rapprochement the Sunni

system introduced the principle of i-jma* (consensus of the community), a synthetical mechanism which not only filled all possible gaps and integrated the Islamic tradition, but also sieved out the sectarian bid*ah (innovation) and theoretically transferred all powers to the people whose only representatives became the orthodox doctors of law. Subsequently politics was not only subjected to religion, but also superseded by the Sunnah which ruled supremely.For instance, bav*ah (election) by the orthodox *ulama» became a prerequisite of succession to the Caliphal office.

One of the gaps of orthodoxy was that in certain political matters it was fundamental only in theory. The­oretically the Sunnah could legitimize only an elective Caliphate; practically the bay*ah was given dynasts. Often­times the Sunnah made concessions, in extreme cases, to the realities of power politics, but even then it was synthetically oriented. Fundamentally speaking, free elec­tion, not hereditary descent, was necessary for succes-

29sion. Originally the bay*ah was sought from Madinah and Makkah as a prerequisite for Caliphal succession. Gradu­ally that practice was replaced by the less fundamental

^Bakhsh, o]D. cit. , p. 128.

82alternative of election by the nearest set of doctors and inhabitants of the capital. Further, when the Caliphs grew weaker, they were obliged to delegate their temporal powers to regional vassals who gradually managed to usurp sovereignty. Against that development the Arab jurist- theologians acknowledged accomplished facts. The princi­ple of inevitableness, or necessity, was established to compromise standards and synthesize views concerning the central authority and the increasing number of independent regions. Subsequently, governorship by usurpation, pro­vided the central authority confirms it, was accepted by

30Mawardl as inevitable. That the acknowledgment ofinevitableness was established for synthetical reasons isobserved by the Egyptian writer, Ibn Jama*ah:

Force is the last alternative on which a Government may be founded. When there is no legitimate Imam present, or when none capable or competent to assume the leadership seek the Imamat, and. some one takes possession of the government by force, and even though there has been no election nor transmission of sovereignty to him (by any of the recognized methods),, he is to be acknowledged as ruler and is entitled to obedience; and this, indeed, to keep Muslims together and to avoid growth of parties. It matters not if

30Ibid.. p. 132-33.

83the ruler is ignorant or godless. But if one has seized the government by force, and another rises against him and conquers him, the conqueror is to be acknowledged as the rightful Imam; and this for the reasons already given. 1

Otherwise should an authority be established, for example, to excommunicate usurpers of the temporal power, or disqualify an Imam, the spiritual unity of Islam would falter. True, the temporal power of the Caliphate was dribbled out by mismanagement and re-piped away by rivals and opportunist adventurers, but the spiritual unity of Islam, symbolized in the Sunnah and conferred upon the Caliphs, remained the center of great respect and venera­tion. Scarcely did the loss of the temporal power of the Caliphs impair the spiritual dignity conferred on them by the religious element. Only by trying to regain their lost temporal power by profane means were counter profane means used against them.

It could be that, by superseding rule, the .Sunnah outgrew fundamentalism as ideally conceived by the Godly Shari*ah. This is both difficult and unnecessary to prove here. But it is a simple fact that the lima4 outgrew both

"^Ibid., p. 136, citing Ibn Jama*ah, Kitab Tahrlr- ul-Ahkam (MSS [n.p.]), fol. 7.

fundamentalism and the Sunnah. The ijma* however, wasbased on a famous Apostolic Tradition maintaining thatthe consensus of the ummah could never be wrong. On thisbasis a bid*ah sayi*ah (bad innovation) could be trans-

32formed into bid * ah hasanah (good innovation). In other words, unfundamental issues could be fundamental!zed, and the other way around. Also on this basis, peculiar, lit­tle, local, and objective traditions could be synthesized, aggrandized, or universalized. Thus Islam's ability to adjust to new developments is established beyond any doubt Actually the iima* obliged the heavenly Shari* ah to stoop to the most earthly issues. lima1s ability to adjust to local issues was recognized by von Grunebaum:

The universal culture of Islam disposes of several means to further the adjustment to the local cultures. Of those, the most characteristically Islamic is the iima*. . . . It has often been shown how significant elements of local and popular piety were allowed to enter the orthodox norm. . . . The existence of a merely local iima<‘ is r e c o g n i z e d . ^3

Suffice it to say that the iima* institution constitutesthe largest and most influential Muslim-Arab league that

^2von Grunebaum, "The Problem: Unity kn. Diversity, Unity and Variety in Muslim Civilization, p. 31.

33ibid.

85ever existed in the world of Islam. It was the Shafi^I school that revolutionized the Sunnah by adopting the iima* .

A less characteristically Islamic means of synthetr sizing and leveling was the great Arabic tradition of his­toriography. This tradition was initiated within the orthodox tradition by the biographer, Ibn Ishaq. It was developed by Arab historians elaborating on the concept of unilinear history, providing a universal, though ad­justable, frame, and referring to the common destiny ofall Muslims whose life could be rendered great best by

34following the straight path. In the meantime, the(other), little (historiographical) traditions continuedto provide their particular colors. "Yet, seen in itsentirety, historiography has proved itself an exception-

35ally powerful instrument of universalization." In face of a common danger, such as that of the Isma*ili insurrec­tion, compromises among competing traditions were made not only by the political and the religious, but also by the historian; al-Mas*udi (d. 956), for example, tried to reach a reconciliatory approach to the pro-Abbasid and pro-^Alawi

•^Ibid. , p. 32.

8636factions. Also the possibility that historiography, like

orthodoxy,was influenced by challenges from rationalism- which prompted such writers as al-Baladhuri, al-Tabari,ad-Dinawri, and al-Yacqubi to maintain the basis of the

. . . . 37great synthetical tradition of historiography, _ is toostubborn to rule out. That this great tradition of his­toriography was Sunni oriented is further proved by its use of identical tools of research, primarily the Sunnr transmission.

Of all the universal and leveling means (including the Sunnah and historiography) the Arab idea symbolized in the Arabic language was the most influential. Of all the tools the use of Arabic, though completely voluntary, was supranational. Of relevant interest is the fact that those little traditions which competed over interpreting Islam did so in the Arabic language, almost unanimously. Even the Shu^ublvah movement in Baghdad, North Africa, and Spain, was carried on in Arabic. Even those dhimmls who could not call themselves Muslims gradually considered themselves Arabs. The Arabic language had its own little traditions;

36Petersen, op. cit.. pp. 134-35.37Ibid., p. 135.

87for example, the Kufah versus the Basrah schools of gram­mar which competed, for long, for its mastery. It was the Arab idea that synthesized a possible rupture. The fact remains that, while the Sunnah was practically an Arab field, those who excelled in the wide sea of Arab culture were largely from the Arabized. True, some articulation persisted during the Umayyad period, on being Arab, but that came to an end with the establishment of the Abbasid regime. Then the articulation shifted largely from Arabism to other areas. Unfortunately the synthetical power of the Arabic language suffered a setback. With the fragmentation of the Arab-populated areas into separate entities, Arabic came to be spoken in some five different dialects. But thanks to the great Arabic traditions of historiography, Arabic culture, and especially the Sunnah, the Arabic lan- guage that once came from Arabia with Islam xn one form xs still much alive and synthetical. Its unanimous acceptance by those little traditions that (otherwise) quarreled over the Islamic ideal, inasmuch as it influenced government and politics, shows us that their quarrels actually touched on very few issues other than those influencing economy, fame, and power. In other words, the Arabized actually sustained both Islamic universalism and the Arab idea for

88

self-identification, but utilized his objective traditions for maximizing his egocentric values.

Thus it could be said that the follower of such a double standard was naturally an egocentricist who was aware of the realities of power politics and was willing to conform with whatever was desired by the ruler.

In contrast, the average Arab (including the uni­versally oriented among the Arabized) was ordinarily un­willing to articulate. When government and politics detached themselves from the Arabo-Islamic fundamentalism, the average Arab tried to supersede rule rather than to submit to its profane demands.

In trying to supersede rule the Arabs had two dis­tinctive careers. One, there were those who retired back to the desert, far from the reach of the increasingly pro­fane urban hypocricies. Those were largely soldierly tribes whose services were no longer fit for the urban environment. Admittedly among those there were sectarian pockets. Whether this movement was synthetical or anti­thetical is controversial. There is the opinion that those Arabs "went back to the life that they had led before the Prophet, the pastoral life alternating with the life of

38plunder, common to all nomads." Accordingly the move­ment was antithetical. Yet there is also the assumption that returning to the desert was their only means of estab lishing themselves once more, as a self-fulfilled, indepen dent, and restraining force whose effort could be exerted, in the name of fundamental Islam, against the profane realities of power politics in metropolitan areas. Thus their plunders, now on the side of rule, and now against it, were more or less holy wars, at least in theory. Accordingly the movement could be universally conceived. Two, Arabs who continued to live in urban and rural com­munities were the principal media of the Islamic univer­sal tradition, that superseded rule in politically articu­lated environments. There the orthodox leadership claimed exclusive interpretation of the Shari6 ah. Only the ortho­dox system could not be fully communicated to the common. It is true the Arab masses were under the umbrella of orthodox universalism, but the need was gradually felt for a new, simple, and synthetical principle, not neces­sarily opposed to orthodoxy, which could reflect the instinct of the average pious individual and his reaction

■*8Bakhsh, pp. cit.. p. 118.

90to the mounting profane problems.

Progressively rule became helplessly subject to• v

the ambitions of the adventurous seekers of wealth, power, and fame. Decentralization led to the spread of localism. Under the dominance of vassalage the traditional monetary economy gave way to feudalism which, after having existed for generations, came to threaten the orthodox system.There was also the rising threat of the Crusades. Ortho­doxy did not have all the answers.

Besides orthodoxy, other answers to such urgent problems were in the making. A good many were found in the Sufi (mystic) movement. Completely wrapped in the vision of the hereafter and utterly submerged in the love of God, the movement was a timely and leveling force which in the dark hours of political fragmentation and economic oppor­tunism, contributed valuelessly to enlarging that univer­sal foundation of Arabism and Islam. It was a melting pot in which not only the Arab and the non-Arab were amal­gamated, but also the union with God evaporated the idio­syncrasies of man. The need for the movement is recognized by Carleton S. Coon:

Outside Arabia itself Islamic society was highly seg­mented and each segment needed its own set of symbols,

91its own organization, and its own procedure, to supplement the over-all structure. It needed a weft as well as a warp, and the religious brotherhoods arose to fill this need.2^

In his following lines this authority mentions that those were the Sufis. Apparently Arabia itself, with its tribal structure, contributed to the movement no more than the universal experience.

The movement sprang from among the ascetics of al-Kufah during the eighth century A . D . 4 ^ It came at a time when the orthodox system "did not in any respect represent the practical religious beliefs of the people."^ The move­ment was looked at with suspicion by both the traditionalist and the sectarian. The Sufis1 pantheist view of God and man came to register great popularity. In spite of its synthet­ical quality and popular appeal this view was rejected by orthodoxy as unorthodox. Orthodox hostility was due to the fear that the Sufi extra-curricular activity could result in rivaling or even supplanting the mosque as the center of religious l i f e . 42 movement created a popular rival to

39Carleton S. Coon, Caravan: The Story of the MiddleEast (London: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1952), p. 129.

40 41Ibid. Gibb, Mohammedanlsm. p. 128.42Ibid.. p. 136.

92

orthodoxy. Further it has drifted to a degree from funda­mental Islam by its introduction of saint-worship. Ortho­dox hostility, however, was of no avail. On the contrary the more the orthodox persisted in opposing the Sufi doc­trine, the more the religious-minded was driven into the

43ranks of mystics. Nor was persecution by governmental authority of much use:

Repression proved futile. The Sufi movement was, for one thing, too firmly based on the Koran and the moral teachings of Islam to be easily put down.Despite the views of some advanced leaders, despite a tendency towards neglect of the ritual prescrip­tions of Islam, despite even the outside influences which ran counter to the traditional outlook of Islam, its strength lay in the satisfaction which it gave to the religious instincts of the people, instincts which were to some extent chilled and starved by the abstract and impersonal teachings of the orthodox and found relief in the more directly personal and emotional religious approach of the Sufis.44

Faced with such an overwhelming appeal, the orthodox had no alternative but to seek a compromise. Acceptance of al-tasawuf (Sufism) was unavoidable. Al-Qushayrl^as well as others,thought that Sufism was not in conflict with orthodoxy. But it was al-Ghazall (d. 1111) whose career bears a striking analogy to that of al-Ash*arI, that brought

43Ibid., p. 139. 44Ibid.. p. 135.

about the final admission of Sufism to orthodoxy. He had a strong desire for consolidating Islam. Besides, he had the courage, willingness, and prestige to work out a synthe­sis between the vulnerable Sufism and the formidable ortho­doxy. It was quite a synthetical achievement. As a result Sufism became vulnerable no longer, at least in theory. In practice the synthesis which al-Ghazalx brought about be­came a license of validating unorthodox innovation. Al- Ghazall brought about a great reconciliation. But after him Sufism did disintegrate so much so that Ibn Taymxyah, three centuries later, came to condemn Sufism. shoot and branch. The khalaf (those who followed) became Taymxyan, like Muhammad Ibn sAbd al-Wahhab, or Ghazalian like Jamal al-Dxn al-Afgh5nx. The modern Islamic reformers have tried to bring about a synthesis between the Ghazalian and the Taymxyan factions.

II. IMPACT OF THE CONQUESTS

In the dawn of Islam executive, judiciary, and leg­islative powers were invested in the ruler whose first concern was over piety and justice. The precedents in which the most insignificant citizen was the equal of his chief executive before the law, and when a king was punished

for offending an ordinary citizen are very few in human history. In the dawn of Islam such precedents character­ized the sharpness and simplicity of justice. The execu­tive powers of the Rashidun Caliphs were utilized primar­ily in the cause of justice. In the period to follow the Islamic administration had to adjust itself to changes.For example, from now on the Caliphs had to lose their role as legislators to the ^ulama**. Unlike the dawn of Islam, the Umayyad period was characterized by aggrandize­ment of the executive (at the expense of legislative) powers, conquest, feudalist practices, and the revival of *asabivah. This does not mean that the Umayyads' religious and political practices were not in unison. Admittedly, the regime was not a little negligent of the Islamic ideal. This may be justified on the grounds thatbecause the Umayyads had to follow a career of conquestthey could not avoid strengthening and aggrandizing the executive branch for strategic and administrative reasons. However, their egoism was manifested in their transforma­tion of the simple elective Caliphal office of Abu Bakr,

C C < —Umar, Uthman, and Air into a grandiose hereditary mon­archy, their promotion of tribal and racial *asabtyah (clannishness), and endorsement of feudalist practices.

The concept of a strong executive branch passed to the Abbasids, and since then has remained an aspect of Arab administration. The chief executive, usually invested with wide and undefined powers, has been sur­rounded by assistants whose altruistic or opportunistic attitudes have generally been nourished by his motives and administrative ability. Often an altruistic, but weak, chief was isolated on the top by his opportunis­tic assistants. The system of hereditary monarchy which passed from the Umayyads to the Abbasids has remained an aspect of Arab rule. In spite of the fact that the Abbasids were elected (buyi*u) to the Caliphal office they ran, and succeeded tc that office largely as mon- archs. Like the Umayyads, the early Abbasids were in­vested with great powers and had to cope with many a bit' ter social and political conflict, but unlike them they discouraged *asabiyah. relatively aggrandised the judi­ciary and legislative branches, and promoted the arts and sciences on a large scale.

The early Abbasid period is often considered the golden age of Islam and the zenith of Islamic civiliza­tion. Yet there is the belief that "with all its adven­titious colouring* the Abbaside redgn pales before the

96glory of the Omeyyad, which by its conquests laid broad

45the foundations of Islam in the East and xn the West."These periods of the glorious past are often compared inrelation to Arabism and Islam; the Umayyad being (emper-ial) Arab, and the Abbasid (universal) Islamic. Thus, if

46the Abbasid period was the golden age of Arab empxre, the one has its glory mainly in equalitarianism and achievements in the arts and sciences, the other in fuffihat (conquests). They may also be compared in relation tosecularism and Islamic fundamentalism, the Umayyads being

47 48secular-minded and the Abbasids fundamentalists inspite of attributes of Persian despotism in their govern-

49ment.Insofar as it elaborates on the present the

glorious past is significant to us in several senses.

45William Muir, The Caliphate: Its Rise. Decline. and Fall (Oxford: Horace Hart, 1891), p. 591.

ACLFrancesco Gabrieli, The Arab Revival. Trans.,L. F. Edwards (London: Jarold and Sons, Ltd., 1961), p. 12.

47 . . .Peter Partner, A Short Political Guide to theArab World (New York: Praeger, 1961), p. 11.

48This is so only in a broad sense.49Partner, op>. cit., p. 11.

97One, having detached themselves, to some extent, from the Islamic ideal, and "being entirely absorbed in the admin­istration of mundane m a t t e r s " 50 the Umayyads, like some

modern governments, had to rely on established Western (Byzantine) and Eastern (Persian) institutions. Conse­quently the interests of zealot Muslims clashed with those of their rulers. Two, in the glorious past, as now, while the adoption of non-Islamic institutions antagonized zealot Muslims, it did not quite secure the favor of non-Muslims. Three, the way rulers succeeded to the Caliphal office and their transformation of. it into a mundane monarchy gave rise to petty divisions still unfolding in the modern world of Islam. Four, feudalism, which constitutes a departure from the Islamic ideal and sets an obstacle to social justice, at present, has its seeds in the rulers' partial practices, especially toward the military elite. Five, the Umayyads were often divided among themselves over civil and military posts; the Arab tribes having to enter fratricidal wars in favor and/or

50Muhammad Ali Tabataba, Al-Fakhri, on the System of Government and the Moslem Dynasties, tran-.. C.E.J. Whitting (London: Luzac, 1947), p. 105. Tabataba was a Shx^x whose judgment was often objective.

disfavor of conflicting Umayyad candidates. This tradi­tion of struggle over leadership has become an aspect of Arab administration, and today constitutes the most diffi­cult obstacle in the way of Arab unity. Six, because the Arabs were a minority in a vast empire, in order to increase their number they entered such polygamous practices that in a few generations the Arab population became remarkably different from its origin in the Peninsula; conquest al­lowed all sorts of racial elements to enter the Arab genes through intermarriage. Arab fathers with scores of chil­dren were frequent. Now, unlike then, racial differences make little or no problem. Also, unlike then, today the tradition of rearing large families creates severe popu­lation problems in certain spots. Seven, and finally, in their practice of racial policies, based on Arab ^asablvah. the Umayyad rulers provoked anarchic demands of religious reorganization which brought about the fall of the regime in the hands of the Abbasid reformers. 1

99

III. IMPACT OF THE EARLY CONTROVERSIES

Throughout the phases of their history, the Arabs have never differed among themselves as strongly on any issue as on holding the reins of power. The period in which they agreed on this issue ended with the rule of Caliph *Umar, and was short lived. When Caliph *Uthman succeeded *Umar his popularity was so great that order and prosperity were well established for a few years. However, towards the end of his Caliphate his popularity merged with the hatred which his Umayyad rela­tives aroused in the provinces, as if a sugar cube was submerged in a body of stagnated water. When cUthman fell victim to the follies of his governors, these agents were already too well established to be got rid of easily, if at all.

As soon as Caliph*Alx succeeded Stfthman, he started reestablishing the Apostolic ideal in the manner Abu Bakr and Umar had followed. He was able only to remove a few important, but secondary, Umayyad officials, the head of which Mu‘awiyah, the governor of Syria, remained not only a powerful opponent, but a competitor to the very title of*A1I himself. Muff3wiyah was wise enough to realize

100

that *A111s prestige was too tall to be dwarfed by his.It was after li's death that Mu*awiyah had a chance.

Mu6awiyah's ambition cost the community of believers the heavy price of factionalism; political and religious strife the impact of which is still unfolding to this day. The struggle between *All and Mu^awiyah resulted in the emergence of the first divergent party, the Khawarij (seceders), originally the followers of CAlx. It was they who pushed *Ali, during the Siffin battle, into an arbi­tration to settle his differences with Mu*awiyah, and when the result of the arbitration was contrary to what they expected, they deserted him, because by merely acceptingan arbitration he had already compromised his religious

51office. Since then they became his bitter opponents.AftercAll's assassination, by a Khawariji. the

Ansar supported the 6AlawI-s* (Alids) rights to the Caliphate. The Umayyads in Syria coveted it on grounds related to their aristocratic prestige in the Jahillvah period.

Cunning was the device used by Mu<awiyah to achieve his ambition. It is true Mu*awiyah's ambition material­ized as he had wished, but that happened in a manner of a

51al-Shahrastani, op. cit.. p. 197.

101

present-day secular como-tragedy in which the medium is tricks, tricksters, and tricked. Mu*awiyah's opportunis­tic ambition corrupted an atmosphere in which religious fervor was unfolding and companions of the Prophet were still alive.

Nevertheless, under the Umayyad Caliphate the Islamic state reached its maximum expansion. Urbaniza­tion and intellectual activities were developing. The central government in Damascus was respected in the most distant provinces, and representatives of the central authority were feared everywhere. Actually, the Umayyads ruled the vast empire remarkably efficiently, without ready experience, by utilizing indigenous traditions, and as soon as practicable, Greek, Coptic, and Persian were replaced by Arabic in government. An authority even believes that thedynasty was able to unite the Arabs under the banner of

52Islam into a single, though distinctive, organism.Very much more blame than praise was leveled against

the dynasty whose Islam was questioned as follows:

C O Francesco Gabrieli, The Arabs« tran., S. Attanasio, (New York: Hawthorne Books, Inc., 1954), pp. 71-72. The validity of this opinion is applicable only insofar as unity in face of a foreign danger was concerned; inter­nally they were divided.

102

Islam was under the supremacy of a ruling class of Arabs whose heads were turned by their sudden acces­sion to vast wealth and political power, and who, for the most part, were not sincere, or at least, not very earnest M u s l i m s . ^3

One wonders whether this accusation is not true, today, of a great many contemporary non-practising Muslims. Such Umayyad worldliness resulted, in the context of current events, into two divergent movements. The first was " . . . associated with those Arabs who were discontented with the secular­ization of Islam . . . and craved for the older condi-

54txons which prevailed under the first four Khalifs."This group constituted the pietist leadership (MadanT ^ulama*) who believed the Caliphate should have remained in the house of the Prophet. The concern over the rights of ^Ali's descendants was, for a moment, a common denomina­tor between this group and the second group, the Sh 1 *~ah, who formed their own divergent party and "who never ceased to defend the rights of the descendants of Mohammed and

55continued to look upon the Ummayyad dynasty as usurpers."

O'Leary, op. cit.. p. 9.^Ibid.. p. 1 0 .55Dominique Sourdel, Islam. Tran.,., Douglas Scott

(New York: Walker and Co., 1964), p. 22.

103Since then the struggle over leadership has become a solid institution. Despite the agitations caused by these rebels, the first few Umayyad Caliphs were well in con­trol. Yazld was able to keep order at the high cost of having the descendants of 6A1i killed wholesale. In com­parison with Yazld, Mu*awiyah was a saint in spite of his egoism. To Yazld the ends justified the means. Thus, within a generation from*Umar the Caliphate became an ugly thing. As soon as al-WalTd died social anarchy prevailed. The police force itself (the Arab tribes) engaged in everlasting and bitter rivalries— southerners against northerners. Amidst this anarchic situation the Abbasid rivals staged a strong uprising in Khurasan around which almost all the rebellious movements rallied, and under which the Umayyads succumbed in 750 A.D.

The Abbasid revolution came with a leveling force which succeeded in revitalizing the Islamic tradition yet failed in its shattering of the Islamic domain into Umayyad, surviving in Spain, and Abbasid in Baghdad.From the beginning, the Abbasid regime was a coalition of dissenting groups. Seemingly, the hostilities of the Umayyad period were bridged under the Abbasids; realis­tically, hostilities took new channels. Having no taste

104for the patriarchal Arab regime which they had destroyed,instead the Abbasids gradually built an absolute statealong Persian Sasanid tradition. In spite of the factthat they were Arabs, the Abbasids "relied heavily onthe Persians, who came to play the principal role in ad-

56 57ministration." O'Leary calls the Abbasid period, thePersian period in which not only Persian members andofficials replaced Arabs, and the court was predominantlyPersian, but also, Arab birth exposed a man to freely-expressed hostility and ridicule, and also, a movementknown as Shu*~ublyah grew up and produced a considerableamount of literature devoted to the anti-Arab propa-

58ganda. This is not supposed to be taken so literally as to mean that Arab birth was realistically looked down on; not so, because the Abbasid Caliphs themselves were Arabs. The Shucublyah movement was rather directed against the remnants of the traditional Arab racial pride. Apparently the status of the Arab tribes had to

5 6Ibid., p. 23.57 58O'Leary, op. cit.. p. 15. Ibid., p. 16.

105suffer a whole scale of change— from glory under theUmayyads to relative insignificance under the Abbasids.A new and largely universal basis of identification wasadamantly in the making:

The antinomy between a national affirmation and a universalistic faith, from which the former never­theless drew its legitimacy, had been a thorny issue in the Omayyad period and was resolved in the Abbasid era by the prevalence of the second element. In fact it established peace between the primordial people of Islam . . . making them all equal in the political sphere as subjects of an absolute power.^

This apparent restoration of the traditional Islamic ideal, that was more or less missing under the Umayyads became at least theoretically the basis of the new order. In comparison the modern Arab world has inherited two com­mon denominators: the Umayyad nationalist and the Abba­sid Islamic, besides shades of absolutism, and patriarchy.

The theory has been propagated that in the Islamicstate "nothing abides firm. Whatever curls up into aform remains all the while transparent, and in that very

60instant glides away."

59Gabrieli, The Arabs, p. 99.60Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History.

Trans., J. Sibree (New York: Willey Book Co., 1900), p. 358.

106

Take for example the efforts made by Caliph al- Mansur toward "assimilating the foundation of the caliphal authority with the orthodox majority and the leading

61social groups in the eastern provinces of the Empire."These efforts implied a break away from the anti-Orthodox Shi*ah that paved the dynasty's way to power. The initial harmony was very short-lived. The Khawarij which partici­pated in the initial coalition were "gradually relegated

62to the outer provinces of the caliphate" with an in­significant role to influence the main current events.

From al-Mansur to al-Amln, attempts were made at making the Caliphal authority the common denominator between the peoples of Islam. Such were attempts at com­promise, by enforcing a modified ideology the center of which should be the Caliphal authority, and the framework the orthodox tradition. Sectarianism was an impediment to such planning. Consequently Caliph al-M^mun, in his determination to rally all groups around his central author­ity, tried to replace Islamic orthodoxy (a tradition of wide allegiance) by the rationalist principle of the Mugtazilah. This principle promoted the points of view

61Petersen, op. cit.. p. 116. 6 2Ibid.. p. 117.

107of the Abbasids for significant reasons. First, it was anti-Umayyad in orientation.Second, its exclusive character justified the dejection of orthodoxy, hence validated the claim of the central authority of being above the law. Three, it was "characterized by its rationalism and severe criticism of the tradition-bound orthodoxy."®4 Four, it looked at history as "no empirical science but dealt with widely diffused individual data that did not lend themselves to re«examination by rational m e a n s F i v e , "it rejected the stricter doctrine of determinism in Islam."6® Six, in spite of its revolu­tionary character, it was "within the borders of the Sunni community. 1,67 In short, it was religion in service of the state; no ideological or national ideal could accordingly supervise the behavior of the state. Since then, religious articulation has never quite ceased to justify the behavior of the ruler.

6 3Ibid., p. 129. 64 Ibid., pp. 121-22.

6 5Ibid., p. 1 2 2.

O'Leary, op. cit., p. 17.

®7Ibid., p. 16.

108Caliph al-Ma*mun was an ardent adherent of the

Mu*tazili principle. Those who criticized the principle68were exposed to his persecution. It met with severe

opposition from the adherents of orthodoxy whose persecu-69tion won them the status of martyrs and saints.

The successor of al-M^mun, Caliph al-Mu*tasim(833-42), faced such a strong opposition that he wascompelled to move the capital to Samarra*, and whenthe situation worsened al-Mutawakkil had to abolish theMu*tazili principle as an official doctrine of the state,

70and gradually accept the principles of orthodoxy. Theimpact of this development is so significant that anauthority comments on it as follows:

. . . an event of the greatest scope as a manifesta­tion of the fact that the caliphal power had to aban­don the assertion that its capacity of Imam entitled it to fix Islam's official religio.*—political line. After this time Islam's orthodox framework is estab- lished by communal precepts (iima* al-umma). . . .

During the late Abbasid period sectarian and scho­lastic interpolation of Islam gave rise to as much social discord as the favoritist policy of the Umayyads.

68Ibid.. p. 17. 6 9Ibid.70Petersen, pp. cit.. p. 134.71Ibid.

109

IV. RACIAL UNITY VERSUS RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION

The racial policy of the Umayyads constitutes a departure from the Islamic ideal. This departure, how­ever, is of a degree rather than of a kind. It is fair to state that despite their marginal adoption of the Islamic ideal, the Umayyads' administrative practices remained more or less within the Islamic framework. It is true grave accusations may be leveled against their secular, favoritist, and racial practices. Nevertheless, such practices were largely matters of necessity, rather than choice. For example, their retention of secular Byzantine and Persian administrative system and skill was unavoidable because the Islamic tradition did not offer an immediate alternative. The accusation is, also, made that the "attempt at levelling and equalising failed; the brotherhood of all believers was jeopardised; racial dif­ferences, trible \sic.1 distinction and even discriminationbetween the old and new converts entered the scheme of

72things." We shall see that necessity prevented much integration.

7 0 S.A.Q. Husaini, Arab Administration (Lahore: SH. Muhammad Ashraf, 1956), p. 64.

110

Of primary interest, in this connection, is the fact that economy came to play the disintegrative villain among the believers. In other words, the Umayyads may be accused, also, of practising favoritism in matters of income. This accusation, as well as others, may be blunted on the grounds that for strategic and administrative fac­tors, not necessarily in violation of the Islamic ideal; only members of the Arab tribes could hold the lead in civil and military operations, and hardly any other signi­ficant number of personnel could receive regular pensions

73from the state; "all that was physically possible wasto ensure bread and vinegar for the entire Arab race and

74the early foreign converts." Thus, it seems that the Umayyads did not have much choice. However, some of their policies, such as the personal practice and endorsement of feudalism may be difficult, though not altogether impos­sible, to fit into the traditional ideal. It is the re­proach, leveled against them by followers of the tradi­tional ideal, maintaining that these leaders transformed the holy Caliphal office into a worldly monarchy, that may paint them as violators of the Islamic tradition. But

^Lewis, 030. cit. , p. 70. 7^Husaini, 0£. cit.. p. 64.

Illeven this may find an implied justification according to an authority who believes that "the main factors of the

7 RIslamic religion continued unaltered under the Umayyads," and that:

It is a lack of historical sense that makes critics consider Islam a sudden jump in the historical evolu­tion of Arabia and the Umayyad period as a recoiling

after that sudden jump.

It is true that the thesis and antithesis in pre- Islamic Arabia found a synthesis under Islam, that under the Umayyads, this synthesis developed into a thesis and antithesis for which the new synthesis was found under the *Abbasids, which again, in its turn, got resolved into a thesis and a n t i t h e s i s . 76

Of course, one should question such dialectical interpre­tations despite their convenience. Anyway, because "reli-

77gious dogmas still remained elastic" in this early stage of Islam, the Umayyads- mulk (monarchy) may fit into the traditional ideal. In other words, the Umayyads may be accredited "right" for doing something"wrong" because they did it for the first time. Subsequently their feudal­ism and monarchy may be idealized. And if they do, what else does not? Hardly anything does, except the Umayyads' abuse of *Ali and their massacre of his house.

In the Umayyad period social unrest developed among those elements round which the fundamental character of

75Ibid., p. 93. 76Ibid. 77Ibid.

112

Islam centered. Such pietist elements not only withdrew their support from the government but came gradually to act against it openly. Thenceforth sectarian activity had a fertile soil. The pietist tradition was touched by the first sparks of disaffection because of its concern over the‘Alawl complex. By resenting the*Alawx dilemma the Arabo-Mawali pietist tradition raised the hostility of the Umayyads against which it reacted ideally by adopting the *Alawi cause, thus exposing itself directly to the favor- tist policies of the ruling class, and since a step leads to another, the pietist tradition found itself identified with its adopted cause. So it had to identify itself with it. And in order to strengthen itself in face of the ruling opponents, it sought the Usablyah issue to disquiet social sentiments which otherwise could have been quiet. Thus, the question becomes one not of compliance with, or departure from the traditional ideal, but of an all-out social complex which is described as racial unity versus religious organization only for convenience.

One should not expect in such a socio-political state of affairs in which the Muslim Arabs and non-Arabs alike were "exposed to the arbitrary and unrestrained

113*78power of the monarch, that the People of the Book

escape such exposure. Generally speaking, all citizens, Muslims and non-Muslims, lived under the same conditions.In the words of G. E. von Grunebaum; "The social order of the Islamic world accommodated non-Muslims as well as Muslims. Both groups lived under the same basic condi­tions, and the eagerness to assert rank and power affected

79the Jew and the Christian as it did the Muslim." This was more or less true of both the Umayyad and early Abbasid periods.

In comparing the Umayyad period with the present, one credits the latter with relative absence of racialism and, to a lesser extent, favoritism. But as to secularism the departure from the Islamic tradition lies heavier on the present than on the past period. However, in both cases the departure is of a degree rather than of a kind.

In comparison with both periods the early Abbasid is vaguely the most conforming with the fundamental tra­dition. An authority elaborates on the spirit of the period as follows:

7®von Grunebaum, Medieval Islam, p. 180.79Ibid., p. 173.

114The tfAbb5sids came to power backed by a strong

movement for the revival of the pure and impartial State of the early Muslims, a revolution which demanded that a Quarayshi and Salman of Fars, a noble Arab and the Negro Bilal, an ordinary subject and a prince like Jabalah should once more be treated as equals, a revolt against the discrimination made against the non-Arab Muslims, a mighty protest against the worldliness of the Umayyads.

Nowadays equalitarianism, especially between Muslims andnon-Muslims, reaches greater heights than any time in theglorious past. But regardless of its feudal practices,and bearing in mind the contemporary wave of secularism,and the racial practices of the Umayyads, the Abbasidperiod exceeds both in conforming to the traditional ideal.Also the Abbasid period's excellence in arts and sciencesfar exceeds past and present periods.

The three periods may be compared in relation to their reaction to the forces at work in society. The Umayyad regime died of slow response to the demands of the age. An authority gives the following account:

The Umayyad period's attempts to meet the beginning islamization of the social system and to set up norms satisfying Islam's fundamental principles were to all appearances too tardy to ward off the effects of the latent ill will in Iraq and Persia against the reign­ing rulers.

80Husaini, op. cit.. p. 150.8XPetersen, op. cit,, p. 67.

115In comparison, the Abbasid regime, after having laid a fundamental foundation for progress, so much changed it according to the private preferences of many a Caliph so that it lost its character and ultimately collapsed. As to the present, the most revealing symptom is the exist­ence in one and the same body politic of two opposite pulls, the pull to the past and the one away from the past, which is a dangerous symptom indeed.

So far we have referred to the nature of the issues in the glorious past. Now it is useful to elaborate on some details of those past issues which to a critical mind may reflect on our own time. To do this one can start from any point in time or place.

The role of the Abbasids as rescuers of the Islamic tradition was generally a failure, despite some apparent compliance with orthodoxy. The Apostolic Traditions empha­sized organization at the center, iima? through Shur^h (consensus through council), simple government by consent, monetary economy, surrender to the Sunnah. balance between life on earth and the hereafter, and utter equality of all before the Shari9ah (law). The Umayyads were accused of violating such original principles, especially by the Abba­sids whose aim was to restore the fundamental character

116of Islam and who actually made a good start during the second half of the eighth century A.D.

Eventually the Abbasid state became marked by slow but increasing departure from the traditional Islamic ideal. It is true the greatest achievements of humanity in arts and sciences materialized, in that era, in the Muslim world which became for centuries the house of light, the rest of the world being the house of darkness. Yet in spite of marvels in arts and sciences the regime was sick. It was due to the Abbasid state's departure from the Islamic traditional ideal that corruption in govern­ment and economy was hatched. Bernard Lewis enlightens us on the situation in the following remarks:

One of the primary causes of economic decline was undoubtedly the extravagance and lack of organisation at the centre. The lavish expenditure of the court and the inflated bureaucracy— at times maintained in duplicate in the trains of contenders for power— were not met by any great technological progress or greater development of resources. Soon the shortage of ready money forced rulers to pay senior officials and generals by farming out state revenues to them. Before long, provincial governors were appointed as tax-farmers for the areas they administered, with the duty of maintaining the local forces and offi­cials and remitting an agreed sum to the central treasury. These governors soon became the virtually independent rulers of their provinces, rendering purely legal homage to the Caliph, whose function was reduced to giving formal, and to an increasing ex­tent post facto, authorisation to their tenure

117of authority."®^

Here we find a trend towards decentralization with lack of organization at the center. Apparently the Caliphal court was submerged in profane power struggles between Caliphal candidates and among court officials. In these circum­stances the Caliphal voice became too submerged in the court's noise to be distinguished in the outside. As a result regional governors and military commanders had the chance either to declare their independence or bid the Caliph little more than legal allegiance. In the meantime the high cost of the ever-increasing bureaucracy had to be met by the delegation of the Caliphal power in the form of estates, for income. Consequently, the traditional monetary economy had to give way to feudal economy.

This miscalculated departure from the Islamic tradi­tional ideal actually created something like an ideological vacuum in the Abbasid system. In other words, after having departed from the principles of Umayyad Arabism, the Abbasid system departed also from fundamental Islam. One should mention here that either way the departure was of

Lewis, op. cit.. pp. 144-45.

118a degree, and never really derogated on Arabism or the fundamentalism of Islam culture-wise until the fall of Baghdad. The Arabo-Islamic culture provided the closest substitute to an ideology which during the decline of Arabism and traditional Islam, during the Ottoman period, filled the ideological vacuum in the Arabic populated areas.

The fact remains that the Caliphs realized that decentralization of the Caliphal power in a feudal form had a very disintegrative impact on the structure of the Islamic state. Yet the delegation of power to regional vassals resulted in the transfer of allegiance to the Caliph from his central authority in Baghdad to the local governors and military commanders. The question is that since Caliph al-Ma,mun, allegiance to the Caliphate became the basis of Islamic unity prior to al-Ma^mun allegiance was to the Sunnah. Evidently the delegation of the powers of later Caliphs contributed to the eclipse of the Islamic state along a thorny road the landmarks of which were the spread of localism, the rise of feudalism, the end of political independence, and the stagnation of culture.

CHAPTER III

THE BACKGROUND: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

While the Islamic tradition, as a guiding criterion, commanded allegiance, during the early Abbasid period, government and politics, by the end of the ninth century A.D., became fundamental only in name. By then the powers of the Caliphs were reduced to actual subsistence. Grad­ually they became exposed to adventurism. "At best, they exercised a feeble hold over semi-independent provinces; at worst, they were mere tools in the hands of strong Turkish generals who wielded the real power."1 The end of the ninth century marked the evolution of a decentralized stage in the Islamic state which lasted, according to an authority, approximately until the end of the fifteenth century when another stage— one of fragmentation— followedand came to endure until the evolution of the modern nation-

2al stage immediately after World War I. Decentralization followed, without a dividing line, by fragmentation were

1Sayyid Fayyaz Mahmud, A Short History of Islam (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 135.

oMajid Khadduri, "The Islamic Theory of Interna­tional Relations," Islam and International Relations.J. Harris Proctor (ed.) (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 30.

120frameworks containing the bleak pictures, i.e., stages, of disintegration.

The decentralization stage is characterized by its lack of discipline and organization, the Roman-like strug­gle for power, wealth, and fame, confusion and fragmenta­tion of loyalty and identification, and the consequent drawfing of the Arabo-Islamic civilization by that of the West. Decentralization reflects on such issues because originally Islamic institutions did not visualize such innovations as multiple Caliphate, Sultanate, Emirate, vertical separatism (i.e. feudalism in both its agricul­tural and urban forms), and horizontal separatism (i.e. local patriotism and regional nationalism), and the gradual stagnation and resulting fragmentation.

The fact remains, however, that Islam marvelously survived both the decentralization and fragmentation stages. Similarly Arabism, after having passed through bleak and exhausting experiences, came out very much alive. Yet, unlike their identical status during the Abbasid Caliphate, both Arabism and Islam (with exceptions here and there) survived the eclipse in separate identities.How Islam and Arabism survived the eclipse is the subject

of a discussion below. At this point a brief evaluation

121of certain factors, related to the focus of this study, that contributed to the eclipse in general and led to the spread of localism in particular, is relevant.

I. THE SPREAD OP LOCALISM

The landmarks of the spread of localism should be sought in the factors that led to the disintegration of the Arabo-Islamic states.

To begin with a great many of the promises made by the leaders of the Abbasid revolt were not fulfilled.The Abbasids were able to abolish the Umayyad order only partially. This had disintegrative influence on Arab and Islamic cohesion. For, in other words, the Pan- Islamic Abbasids actually shattered the world of Islam into three parts: theirs, independent Umayyad Spain, andindependent North Africa. In their part of the world of Islam the new order amounted to little more than lowering the traditional social esteem of the Arab tribes that, from now on, became reserve with no key role to play, and raising that of the Persians, the Kurasanis, and, later on, the Turks. As a result traditional Arabism survived only in the Pan-Arab Spain where the old patriarchal order con­tinued. The polarization of UPan-Arabism”and^an-Island-sm*

122characterized the relations between the Abbasids and the Umayyads. Caught in the middle, North Africa became a hunting ground for all sorts of ideologies among which traditional Arabism had one chance out of many.

Arabism came to mean different things in different contexts. Generally speaking*Arab*and^Muslim"tended to be synonymous in the Abbasid state. The non-Arab Muslim was no longer Mawla (client) in the Umayyad sense. Registra­tion by non-Arabs in Arab tribes was discontinued. How­ever, some types of anti-Arab fanatics scorned the word "Arab" and its derivatives. There was some socio-political articulation against emphasizing Arabism. The infiltration of the Abbasid hierarchy by Persian and Turks effected this articulation. The synthetical term "Muslim" was preferred. Yet "Muslim" was less synthetical than "Saracen," generally used by outsiders. "Saracen" accommodated both Muslim and non-Muslim. The term was most often used during the Cru­sades. Then it was gradually deserted. There was a time,

qhowever, when it was conterminous with the Arab idea.J Unlike "Muslim" and "Saracen" the word "Arab" gained shades of differences from one place to another. This is

^"Arab" did not accommodate "Persian," "Muslim" did not accommodate "dhimmi ," "Saracen" accommodated all. All shared, alike in the Arab idea.

123attributed to the structural difference among the Arab societies.

Under the Abbasids the checked Arabism found refuge in Islam by identifying itself with the Sunnah. In compar­ison ShT^ism gave vent to Persian national pride. A leader like Ahmad Ibn Hanbal was not only a great theologian but also a national hero. It was not in favor of the Abbasid rulers that Arabism identified itself with the Sunnah because it was then that the Caliphate intended to place itself above the law. There were two reasons. One, by elevating non-Arab elements to positions of power the Abbasids exposed the Arab conscience to the awkward dilemma of disfavoring the new order. Two, one of the influences of the new order was its exposure of Arabism to the anti-Arab Shu*ubryah movement; for derisive and supercilious stereotypes attacking pretensions of the Arabs in every department of life, were coined by thenewly favored elements, especially the Persianswho were

4protagonists of the Sasanid tradition. The phenomenon of Shu6ubiyah, however, existed everywhere in the world of Islam.

^Hamilton Gibb. Arabic Literature (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 55.

124The extensive employment of Persian elements

resulted in turning the new order into a Sasanid-like absolutist system which was to linger' in Islamic govern­ment to this day. Under the influence of the Persians the ruler of the people became no longer their servant, but their coercer; the Caliphate lost its original demo­cratic character. Arab conscience, being used to democratic- patriarchal rule, suffered a great disappointment in the new value system and managed to supersede it.

Of special interest is that also the newly favored non-Arab elements tried, gradually, and managed finally to supersede the Caliphate. To the disappointment of the Abbasid rulers, they exploited the system as a means of individual and national self-expansion. Caliphs who tried to quell their appetite for power, with any suc­cess at all, were able only to replace Persians with Per­sians, as Harun al-Rashld did, or Persians with Turks, as al-Mu*tasim did; the Arab element remaining largely ex­cluded. Gradually the rising influence of non-Arab ele­ments came to surpass that of the Caliphs themselvesi With the death of al-Wathiq (842), the glory of the Abba­sids began to fade and the Caliphs gradually ceased to

1255to have much authority.

Attempts at consolidating the main tendencies, transcending possible distractions among the dissenting parties, and strengthening the Caliphate were frequently made. The doctors of law concentrated on universalizing the Sunnah. In government, Caliph al-Ma’mun made the most ambitious reform plan according to which the Caliphate, not the Sunnah, was to be the center of loyalty. In reli­gion Muslims were to recognize only the rationalist Mu*tazili principle. The Caliphate simply set itself above the law. Orthodox elements were startled. Finding the court still predominantly Persian populated, and urged by their traditional abhorrence of free-thinking, doubted the fundamentality of al-Ma^mun's plan. And despite the extreme pressure the Caliph exerted in en­forcing his plan it resulted in little more than estab­lishing the Mu*tazill principle, for the time being, as a medium of free-thinking, the greatest achievements of which were the introduction of the rationalist Greek thought to the world of Islam on an unprecedented scale,

5Mahmud, op. cit-.. p. 136.

126and paving the way for scientific investigation. The plan stumbled over such a strong clash of loyalties among con­flicting parties that al-Mu*tasim (833-842), the immediate successor of al-Ma,mun, made another reform plan accord­ing to which the Caliphate remained above the law, the Murtazill principle was no longer obligatory, the head­quarters of the Caliphate moved from the dissenting Baghdad to Sammara*, and the intriguing Persian bod^f-fuard was replaced by Turks (who were very strict Sunnis). Al-Mu*tasim apparently intended to create a balance between the downtrodden Arab, and the overbearing Persian parties. However, though loyal to al-Mu*tasim, this Turkish party came to coerce on later— Shadows-of-God-on-Earth— Caliphs.

Obviously the Abbasid Caliphate was not legitimately qualified to set itself above the Sunnah, for good reasons. Unlike the Sunnah; the Abbasid Caliphate was, actually, neither universal, nor total. The universality of the Caliphate was shattered in Spain and North Africa. The universality of the Sunnah is derived from the transcendent SharT*ah which is the embodiment of God's will. The Svrtah came to be the interpretation of the Shari*ah by the orthodox doctors of law. Consequently the Sunnah is

127total because God is total. Because God is the Creator ofeverything, the Sunnah rules supremely over everythingincluding the Caliphate. True the authority of the Caliphsstemmed from God through His Prophet. But it was not theonly authority. Two lines of authority are recognized:

. . . the caliphs, who were his successors as execu­tive head of the community, but who possessed neither the prophetic role nor, in principle, any legislative power, since the Law had been laid down forever; and the ulema, the doctors of the Law, who had the skill to interpret it and whose consensus is binding on the community.^

Hence the attempt at enforcing the Caliphate as the new supreme center of loyalty of the ummah, together with a new rationalist ideology, was rejected by the *ulama» who looked at the innovation as contradictory to the will of God and the unity of His Shari*ah.

Unawares, the Caliphate committed the mistake that the Sunnah has always avoided; namely the creation of a central authority empowered to validate socio-religious standards which whoever challenged them was exposed to persecution and excommunication. It is true the Sunnah

^Albert Hourani, "Arabic Culture," Perspective of the Arab World, an Atlantic Monthly Supplement (1956),6.

128also set such standards, but it set no authority to perse­cute or excommunicate digressors who committed no crimeagainst others. The Shari6ah transcends both orthodox and

—cnon-orthodox interpretations, provided ijma (consensus) is— £arrived at by the ummah. In other words, while the Shari ah

is more or less tolerant of all sects, the Caliphate under al-Ma*mun was tolerant of the Mu6tazilah only. Later on, under al-Mutawakkil (847-861) the tide turned against the Mu6tazilah and the Shi6 ah. and once more orthodoxy occu­pied the center.

Apparently the domestic decision-making operation of the Abbasids (which applied also to the Spanish and North African Caliphs and Emirs) was neither long-range, nor directed towards definite Islamic goals. On the one hand, because of the tendency to break away from the old order, issues were seldom considered in a context of natural growth from the past to the present and towards the future. On the other hand, because of the will to self-glorification, whenever decisions were not imposed on the rulers by their aids, generally, every Caliph, Emir, or governor followed a policy that he could call his, regardless of its priority on the scale of usefulness.

Further, in the conduct of the external relationsamong the Islamic states the decision-making operationsoften sacrificed "Pan-Arabism" and "Pan-Islamism" for powerpolitics. The fragments of the former empire of theUmayyads maintained conflicting interests. The Abbasidfragment was the largest and the most powerful. Actuallythe Abbasid state was, for centuries, the greatest world-power. The Umayyad fragment in Spain, though smaller, wasthe rival of the Abbasid state, and at times its equal in

>

patronizing the arts and sciences. Antagonism character­ized the relations between these two. The North African fragment was a buffer state between the Abbasids and the Umayyads. Generally speaking North Africa was potentially no match for either side, but its Emirs and governors maintained independence by remaining primarily neutral and by portending a possible alliance with Spain against any Abbasid threat of annexation, and conversely. However it constituted an ideological vacuum which was (for a while) filled by the persecuted Shi*i principle that gave rise to the hardy Fatimxyah (Fatimid) Caliphate which progres­sively wrested Egypt and Syria from the central authority of Baghdad.

130

The relations among the Islamic states were largely entwined with the diplomacy of two major non-Muslim powers; namely the Kingdom of the Franks in Europe, and Byzantium in Asia Minor. There was a cold war system which resembles,to some extent, the system of today. As the East (Par al­ls lam) split into Abbasids versus Umayyads, it sought sup­port in the West (Par al-parb) which also split into Franks versus Byzantines. This recalls most the modern system of Moscow versus Peking, and Washington versus Paris, which has resulted in the disintegration of the cold war, and the creation of a frigid harmony between East andWest. The old system was criticized as follows:

It was an irony of fate that the Umayyad Spanish Amirs were allying themselves with the Byzantine Emperors — the deadliest foes of the Abbasids; and the latter in their turn were wooing the alliance of the Franish [sic.] kings who were on perpetual war with the Moors in Spain.?

True a frigid harmony, or peaceful coexistence, between the Spanish Umayyads and Byzantium, or between the Abbasid Caliphate and the Kingdom of the Franks was feasible within

7Amir Hassan Siddiqi, "Pisintegratxon of the Islamxc State," The Voice of Islam. IV (September 1961), 607.

131the Islamic tradition, but a cold war alliance between the Abbasids and the Franks against the Spanish Umayyads, or the other way around, was incontrovertibly censurable according to fundamental Islamic institutions. Undoubtedly such alliances had their confusing impact on the (already ambiguous) courses of "Pan-Arab" and "Pan-Islamic” loyal­ties and identification. Inconsistencies in foreign affairs, and ambiguities in domestic affairs brought factional im­pulses of the politico-religious movements, in the long run, to a state of explosion, all over the world of Islam.

So long as the central authority (i.e., Caliphate or Emirate) was strong, factional impulses were compro­mised; under pressure if necessary. As the center of loyalty (i.e., central authority) grew weaker, factional impulses grew stronger especially among the Shi*ah.

The legitimist Shi* ah movement was theoretically universal in doctrine, yet irreconcilable in behavior. It aimed at no less than taking over the world of Islam, abolishing the existing orders, returning the Caliphate to the *Alawiyin (Alids), and subjecting the orthodox doctors of law. Well, in the tenth century the Shi*ah came within an imaginable reach of achieving their aim. Sir Hamilton Gibb comments in these words:

132As *Abbasid control weakened, powerful new states were carved out of its former territories, and new dynasties were eager to enhance their reputation by bestowing their patronage on writers and poets. The event which more than any other symbolized this trans­formation of the political and cultural life of the Islamic Empire was the occupation of Baghdad in 945 by the Persian house of Buwaih and the reduction of the city of the caliphs to a' provincial capital. The Buwaihids were Shi*ites, although they retained the *Abb£sid caliphate under their control, and in their territories, . . . the tendencies repressed by the orthodox enjoyed almost untrammelled freedom. Shi*ism,indeed, was triumphant during the whole of this cen­tury from north Africa to the borders of eastern Persia. . . .®

What did arrest the Shi* ah from hitting their ultimate aim? The Shi*1 Princes and self-appointed Caliphs and Sultans belonged to different houses, Shi*ism existed in many splits, and there was no central system to harmonize exist­ing dissentions. Also i.the restraining strength of the rival Sunni Turks was rising in Asia. Thus despite the existence of a rival Shi*i Caliphate in Egypt, the Abbasid Caliphate was saved because there was no practicable alter­native.

The Shi * ah and the Khawarii (seceders) inspired rebellions which burgeoned with the Zanj (Negro) uprising (869-883). It was "inspired by the doctrines of Kharijite

8Gibb, op. cit.. pp. 86-7.

133grepublicanism," strikingly "caused the utmost alarm and

anxiety to the Caliphate, and boomed with the Qarmati

(Qarmatian)*'communist’uprising which made its initial attacks in support of the Zanj, then in 900 won a battle against the Caliph's armies.^ The Qarmatian rebels "suc­ceeded in founding a State independent of the Abbasid

1 9Caliphate."x Moreover their bustles, for over a hundred years "indirectly encouraged ambitious governors to raise the standard of revolt,* and thus, in no small measure, contributed to the downfall of the Baghdad Government."-*-3

In spite of the victories of the Shi6ah their frequent coups and counter-coups proved to the world of Islam in general, and the Shi*ah in particular, that the movement's universality laid largely in the realm of ideas; its chance of achieving its original aim was visionary. True, the

g Anthony Nutting, The Arabs (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1965), p. 139.

■^Amir Hassan Siddiqi, op. cit., p. 608.11Nutting, op. cit., p. 158.12Amir Hassan Siddiqi, op. cit., p. 608.13Ibid., p. 608-9.

134Shi**ah started as a protest movement in support of Islamic universalism against Umayyad particularism. True also, despite its internal splits which materialized largely as a result of persecutions and circumventions by outside forces, Islamic universalism was high, for centuries, on its list of priorities. But it was equally true that the nearer the Shi* ah was to their imaginable aim, the more particular they became; as the Shi*ah grew stronger, espe­cially during the tenth century, it gravitated gradually away from universalism, to Persian localism and egocen- tricism. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the Shi*ah was in a gradual state of territorial retrogres­sion, before the resuscitated forces of Sunni Islam, pro­pelled, this time, by Turks. An authority comments:

The life-cycle followed by the Buwayhid state did not differ in essence from that of its predecessors. Incompetency and discord among Adud's successors made their domain fall piecemeal to Turks— Ghaznawids, and Saljuqs. The stage was then set for a new ethnic group,, the Turkish, to play the leading role in the political drama of Islam.^

Such developments were also typical of the situation inEgypt and North Africa under the F&tirrayln (Fatimids).

14Philip K. Hitti, The Near East in History (New Jersey: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., 1961), p. 294.

135For over a century before its destruction by the Ayubxyxn ^j^yubids), the Fatimid Caliphate was in a manifest decay. This was due partially to the defective policy of estab­lishing bodyguards of Turkish and other elements that got out of hand, began to dismiss and appoint rulers as theypleased, and eventually divided the Fatimid Empire into

15small kingdoms among themselves. The decay was due also to the fact that the regime did not grow naturally on the native soil.

Fragmentation was the order of the age. With it the rise of the feudal economy went hand in hand.

II. THE RISE OF THE FEUDAL ECONOMY

In pre-Islamic Arabia, property was owned commonly by all members of a tribe. It was the blood-tie, not an ideology, that supported the tribal web. A tribe's Shaykh (chieftain) was normally the equal of members of his tribe and his authority was limited to arbitration. In earlier Islam, the blood-tie was superseded by a universal brother hood. The traditional chieftaincy was enlarged into a universal council, called Shurah. of pious dignitaries who were the equals of fellow Muslims; its authority was

15Mahmud, op. cit., p. 214.

136mainly consultative. Later the Umayyads reigned througha council of Shaykhs, with both consultative and executive

16authorities, which developed along both tribal and Islamic practices. The economic basis of the Umayyad system was monetary; government by salaried personnel.

Everywhere outside pre-Islamic Arabia, feudalism was developed or developing. Byzantium, in general, and Persia, in particular, were feudally structured. Because of its equalitarian quality Islam spread in feudal terri­tories. Towards the end of the seventh century, Mediter­ranean Europe was entering rapidly its feudal stage. That coincided with the rise of Islamic equalitarianism and actually paved the way for its penetration.

Under the influence of Byzantine and Persian insti­tutions the Umayyads endorsed some practice of granting

17lands or qata*i* to Arab dignitaries. This is not to «

say that the number of wealthy Arab landlords was soincreasingly frequent as to alter the monetary basis of the

18economy. The Umayyads also made some feudal concessions to an influential Persian feudal party in order to retain

16Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1960), p. 65.

17Ibid. . p. 68. 18Ibid.. p. 69.

137its support. Caliph<Umar II managed to trim the extremi­ties of feudal practices and establish a new system accord­ing to which landowning was placed under central supervi­sion and land, not the landowner, owed tax. That system put the Arab administration back near what it was under the Orthodox Caliphs.

The Abbasid system was so strong at the beginning that it could rule rather than reign without having to depend on Arab support. Unfortunately that initial strength did not last long. It was an ominous practice, however, that the central government appointed its aides and lieutenants from among the non-Arabs. The Persians were inheritors of the ancient Persian feudal tradition; besides, they were largely lacking in both the fundamental outlook and the democracy of the Arabs. To them, serving the Caliphate had to lead to an end; i.e., primarily, promoting their egoist (largely feudal) interests along lines of their inherited tradition. Nevertheless, they had roots in Islamic universalism to which they contributed for long. Subsequently, their approach was dualist; i.e., they were universo-regionalists. In comparison, the Turkish newcomers had no such roots. Like the Roman Prae­torians, they desired no less than dominance of rule, and

acquired it. It was under their egoist pressure that the central government was reduced into a disabled organism. Weakened and encumbered by Turkish coercion and lavish­ness, the central power was willingly delegated, helpless­ly usurped, and practically ignored though theoretically acknowledged. Rivals, provincial rulers, and generals were busy making themselves rich, powerful and lavish. Provincial rulers had their own bodyguards who were often rootless imports of the praetorian type. Like the central bodyguards, their dominance of regional rule was the prob­lem. Like their counterparts at the center they were busy making themselves rich, powerful and lavish. Land leases, granted everywhere not only to maintain the support of the soldierly but also to pacify the adventurer and the opponent, resulted in the decline of the traditional money as the basis of the economy, and the creation of feudal aristocratic classes that were largely foreign in origin.In Egypt, Syria, and North Africa the aristocratic classes were Turks, Berbers, Armenians, and Negroes; in Spain, they were Berbers and Slavs. Only in the eastern provinces were these largely indigenous; Persian and Khurasani whose feudal classes were never really destroyed had a huge feudal caste among which those of foreign origin did not

139

form an aristocratic majority. The Arab element in the rising feudal structure was low, i-f^not the lowest. A true Arab was not normally a feudal lord.

The culmination of feudalism into a system coin­cided with the orthodox deliberate rejection of causality. Thus, orthodox dogmatism created, unawares, a favorablecondition in which the freer social and economic life was

19giving way to a static feudalism.Before its final establishment everywhere, the

feudal economy had its growing stage in its favoriteenvironment, in Persia, where the Persian minister, Nizamal-Mulk, "developed and systematised the trend towardsfeudalism that was already inherent in the tax-farming

20practices of the immediately preceding period." Unlike the Umayyad practice of administration by salaried per­sonnel, that of the late Abbasids was based on land instead of money. The latter resembled European feudal practice according to which land was usurped by or granted to vas­sals in return of military personnel. Nothing could be farther from fundamental Islam.

19Ibid., p. 143.20Ibid., p. 147.

During the early Abbasid period the exploitation of the masses by the rising feudal classes resulted in the creation among the common an instinctive and supranational, often extra-religious, sense of identification. Though orthodoxy provided the only organized resistance to feudalism, it could not stem its tide. The masses did not find an answer to the immediate problems of the age in orthodox channels. It was Suflsm that provided a bril­liant (though negative) answer. The Sufi vision of the hereafter superseded economic exploitation. Generally, it succeeded where orthodoxy failed. It reduced the num­ber of the sectarian. It exchanged principle and prac­tice with eastern Christian mysticism. In a way, Sufism promoted citizenship rather than sectarianism. Its vivid vision of the hereafter drew the enthusiastic Sufi to stir up the population to resist the Crusaders; such was therole played by the great Sufi leader, Ahmad al-Badawi

21(d. 1276). It ironed out lingering tribal, and national differences among these peoples, cultures, and faiths that cohabited long enough to give birth to a common (Arabic)

21Hamilton A.R. Gibb, Mohammed a m sm: An Historical Survey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 156.

141civilization. Besides, it re-introduced Islam to the masses in a simple form.

Nevertheless, some accusations may be fairly leveled against Sufism in relation to feudalism. Sufi preoccupa­tion with the divine led the movement toward a general reluctance to engage effectively in such anti-feudalist activity as trade and business. The Sufi leaders lived normally on gifts; and their followers worked, in great many cases, just to keep body and soul together. Thus, Sfifism was able to supersede feudalism simply by getting interested in something else. But, that was not all. By the time of Ibn Taymlyah (d. 1328), Sufism had lost a great deal of the dignity the great theologian al-Ghazall had allotted to it. Ibn Taymlyah condemned all Sufi prac­tices. An authority mentions that the contemporary Sufis and ulama* of Ibn Taymlyah were so dependent on the stipends of the state that they became oblivious and neglectful of their religion and were not in the leastsensitive to its extreme violations by the (feudal)

22rulers. More, saint-worship which came to assume unor­thodox extremities and superstitions flooded stem and

22S. Abul A'la Maududi, A Short History of the Revivalist Movement in Islam (Lahore: Islamic Publica­tions, 1963), p. 63.

142branch. Farther, STafi withdrawal from competitive life drove the movement to rely increasingly on the goodwill of the rich urban and rural classes for necessary income. Feudal lords found it to their advantage to support the Sufi movement, because it was successful in diverting the attention of the masses from feudal in justices on earth to intuitive otherworldliness. Moreover, it was to the advantage of feudal lords to cover their secular public images with a religious taint by meddling in SufT- activity. Sufis have been accused of promoting fatalism, which is correct. The interests of feudalism and Sufism met on accepting the worldly status quo, though from dif­ferent angles; that of Sflfism was fatalistic indeed.

Nevertheless, Sufism was apparently a gap-filler among classes. It filled the heart of the poor with love of the divine instead of possible hatred for the rich.Thus, Sufism became a great synthetical force. Its altru­ism raised the sympathy of the rich towards the poor instead of possible contempt. That is why there was no class struggle, in the modern sense of the word, until the rise of bureaucracy in the contemporary period. Struggle existed, among the political pressure groups. Like the falasifah the Sufis were not reformers. Both falasifah

143and Sufis were Utopians: the former visualized an imprac­ticable paradise on earth, and the latter built a dream world in heaven. Both tried to bypass corruption and dogmatism; instead they were bypassed by them.

The destruction of Baghdad by a foreign power, the gradual retrogression and final expulsion of the Arabs from Europe, the persistence of decentralization and political fragmentation, and especially, the rise of the Ottomans as spokesmen of Islam and the Arabs, created very favorable conditions for feudalism at disintegrative consequences. The peoples of Islam became definitively Arabs (meaning Arabic-speaking) and non-Arabs. The Arab idea, however, survived in the conscience of all Muslims. The loyalty of the individual was gradually transferred not only to the regional ruler but often to the local feudal lord. Feudalism culminated under the Ottoman Empire. Besides Persian influence, the Ottomans inherited the Byzantine feudal tradition during a feudal era. No wonder land ownership became, under the Ottomans, almost entirely a state function. Not only the culama* and the Sufis, but also the historians, the poets, and udaba* (scholars) became increasingly feudal stipend!-

144

aries. The philosophical tradition of free investigation choked. Arab historiography, originally a universal tradi­tion, broke into a number of local traditions; regional and local histories greatly exceeded universal ones. The vision of Islam as a world state suffered definite retro­gression in the face of internal unorthodox developments and external threat of the Crusades. Orthodoxy, originally a powerful universal tradition, not only froze its activity by ending the iitihad but became largely a state and feudal beneficiary.

The general practices of the Ottoman government constituted an Islamic crisis. In theory "the Islamic conception of the role of government," said an authority, "may be said to be the establishment of the optimum condi­tions under which the Muslim, acting in his capacity as amember of the Islamic community, may serve and glorify

23God " * in practice, "the government of the Ottoman Empire24. . . had strayed from this ideal." The feudal prac­

tices of the Ottomans were largely un-Islamic. Office and

*JHerbert L. Bodman, Jr., Political Factions in Aleppo (Vol. XLV of The James Sprunt Studies in History and Political Science. Chapel Hill: University of NorthCarolina Press, 1963), p. 140.

145influence from those of the grand vizir (prime minister)to those of the lesser multazims were sold. An iltizSmwas a restricted assignment of state land to an official

25m return of revenue. Iltizam developed from the older feudal practice of land lease in exchange for mili­tary service. Gradually, the rivalry over the purchase of office and the intrigues involving the seizure of office and influence unconditionally, speeded up political frag­mentation and confused regional loyalty. Nothing could be farther from the Islamic fundamental tradition. The holders of land, office and influence were normally Turks. Some of these were driven by self-interest to organize movements of independence in the Arab areas. The most ambitious among these was Muhammad *Ali Pasha who came within reach of controlling the Ottoman Empire from his headquarters in Cairo.

During the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire became no longer viable. Miraculously, the balance of power in Europe allowed the disabled Empire to limp along towards its ultimate death after World War I. The weak­ness of the Ottoman center and the Western occupation of

Bernard Lewis, The Arabs in History, p. 161.

146Arab areas resulted in the replacement of iltizam by hereditary possession of land. Feudalism, itself, has lingered in Arab lands to our own day. The revival of the monetary economy in the Arab areas came under Western influence.

In theory the Ottoman State was a universal Islamic power which preserved the independence of the Arab people. In practice the Ottoman Empire encroached upon this very independence.

III. THE END OF POLITICAL INDEPENDENCE

The Abbasid Caliphate managed admist many a dis­sension to wrest out some kind of social equilibrium among all citizens. The Arab leadership consisted primarily of Caliphs, theologian-jurists, judges, and tribal chief­tains. The Persian leadership consisted primarily of wazirs (ministers), generals, and governors. The Turkish leadership was more or less similar to that of the Per­sians. In the meantime, there existed Arab generals, Turkish theologians, and Persian judges; poets, scholars and scientists came from all directions. Among the people of Islam the Arabs were the most, if not the only, mis­sionary in their attitude. In other words, the assumption

147was that a Persian or a Turk, for example, could be Arabized, but not the other way around. The assumption was derived from the excellence of the Arab idea versus other ideas.

The social ladder was not restricted to any par­ticular group. Members of the lower and middle classes who engaged in common occupations could, theoretically, depending on their capability, climb the social ladder up to the rank of leadership. Only the Caliph must be an Abbasid. All the peoples of Islam intermarried freely. Apart from a dogmatic exception, Muslims and non-Muslims intermarried on a large scale. The Shu*ublvah movement consisted of a set of stereotypes that were hinted at but not meant. Vithin that social structure the non- Muslim population was not only tolerated but in many cases respected better than some of the Muslim sects. Besides their own religious leadership, non-Muslims pro­duced great contributors to the arts and sciences. Stereo­types did exist in the relations of Muslims and non- Muslims, but that was in the same manner these existed in the relations among Muslims.

As the Caliphate grew weaker, localism grew stronger to the extent that local government became either dynastic,

148hereditary, or by usurpation. The growing weakness of the Caliphate resulted in restrictions on climbing the social ladder. Social institutions tended to be static on the upper level. Growing heterogeneity characterized the relations among the local leaderships which were largely non-Arab in origin. In defiance of the Arab Caliphate their patronage of the arts and sciences was channeled majorly toward the promotion of their inherited tradi­tions. Beneath that system, which tended to form a heterogeneous cast, the middle classes and the masses were homogeneous. A relevant point is that there were no restrictions on the movement, residence, or migra­tion of the intellectual or the common anywhere in the world of Islam except for certain persona non grata, pri­marily from among the extreme sectarian or the ruling ranks. So long as the Caliphate survived in Baghdad, it symbolized and sustained not only the uneasy unity of the world of Islam but also the freedom of the Arab popula­tion. An observer mentions that until its destruction

26the Abbasid Caliphate was still respected by Muslims.

26 » — — — —Mustafa Taha Badr, Mihnat al-Islam al-Kubra(Cairo: Matba6 at al-Maktab al-Thaqafi, 1947), p. 32.

149That equilibrium came to an end when, in the

thirteenth century A.D., the world of Islam became sub­ject to definitive blows from several directions. A devastating blow came from the Chinese Hulaku, who, in 1258, destroyed the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. It was the Mamluks of Egypt that stopped the march of the Chinese in the Levant. In the West the Arabo-Islamic civilization was being hammered out of the Iberian Peninsula and a few Mediterranean islands. Moreover, the Christian Crusaders were threatening the world of Islam from both east and west. As soon as the Caliphate in Baghdad succumbed, all extra and contra-Arab tendencies crystalized. Ultimate destruction was threatening Arabic culture.

Had Egypt crumbled under foreign attacks, Arabicculture would have been annihilated. For it was in Egyptthat everything Arabic had a final chance of survival.^7But it was a survival on the terms of the Mamluk rulers.The Mamluks were not Arabs. Nowhere except in theArabian Peninsula did the Arabs and the Arabic-speaking

28peoples retain much independence. Only the Arab tribes,

^Shafxq Jabrx, "Al-Qawmxyah fx *Ahd al-Ayubxyih," Majallat al-Azhar (July 1959), 52-53.

^®Lewis, ojd. cit. , p. 160.

150whose freedom was a basic factor of life, could retain their traditional independence from outside control. Yaman and the rulers of Makkah and Hijaz had to recognize non-Arab control for relatively short periods. As the Mamluk Empire fell under the Ottoman yoke, the rest of the Arabic­speaking areas came to follow suit except in Arabia where the intermittent Turkish control was practically nominal, in the mountain areas of Lebanon where Ottoman control was not efficient, and in distant Morocco.

The nearer to Constantinople, the heavier was an area's control. Ottoman political control was heaviest in Syria especially in the northern wilavah (province) of Aleppo, the closest to the capital. Syria was divided into four wilavahs. Damascus, Tripoli, Saida and Aleppo; all were organized along feudal lines. The situation in Aleppo was indicative of Turkish imperial practices in the Arab areas. There were three main parties in Aleppo; the Janissaries, the ashraf, and the administration that was imported from Constantinople. Corruption character­ized the activity of the administration. The Janissaries and the ashraf maintained conflicting interests, because each aspired at greater expansion at the expense of the

151other. The administration arbitrated between these two primarily for self-interest. Besides these, there were other parties. There were the non-Muslim minoritieswhose interests were conflicting, possibly to the self-

29interest of the administration. Some of these kept in touch with foreign consuls for securing their protection and for exchanging favors.

The orthodox rulama*were in a position to urge the government to promote the Islamic ideal. But, the time had been so long in which politics were permeated by ego­ism that the*ulama*could aspire at fundamentalism in government no longer. As to the Sufi orders, their interests had been too increasingly unorthodox to effect any fundamental change. "In fact, the teachings of the ulema and the sufis served rather to reinforce the gov-

onernment however much it departed from the Islamic ideal.I,JUDistinguished Arab parties existed among the ashraf

(descendants of the Prophet), the *u lam a* and the Sufis. Their influence was related to their religious character;

29Bodman, o£. cit., p. ix. 30Ibid., p. 141.

152in other words, their role was distinctively spiritual.It was such religious groups who represented the lowerranks of the population who, otherwise, had no influencewhatsoever in the formulation of state affairs.

Arab membership in the a*van (notables) group wastoo infrequent to produce much Arab political influence.The afcyan were local notables who were identified withthe administration, bound to the intrigues of the purchase

31of offices and divorced from local interests.The farther from Constantinople the lighter was an

Arab area's control. In Egypt, the Ottomans could onlysuperimpose a pasha and a garrison on the basis of the

32Mamluk order. The Ottoman feudal organization was looser in Egypt than in Syria, and it tended to fade away fast in North Africa, and fastest in the Arabian Pen­insula.

The desert tribes were practically independent.It was from Arabia that the strongest threat to Ottoman corruption and repression arose in the middle of the eighteenth century. The Wahhabi movement was indeed the

3-*-Ibid. . p. 142.32Lewis, op. cit., p. 161.

153first true Arab stirring for independence since the Middle Ages.

IV. THE SURVIVAL OF ARABIC CULTURE

Let us begin by making the following assumption.Had Egypt succumbed under the multiple foreign attacks,

Arabic culture probably would have perished and Islam would have receded. Now, how far is this correct? Itwould have been doubtful that the Turks alone could carrythe banner of Islam efficiently in face of the Crusaders. Undoubtedly, the successive regimes, especially that of the Ayubiyin (Ayubids) in Egypt and Syria rendered great services to Islam, and saved Arabic culture from possible devastation.

For about two and a half centuries after the destruction of Baghdad, Arabic culture was patronized by the Mamluk Sultans who also re-established the Abbasid Caliphate in Cairo. Many wonder, today, why an alien element, such as the Mamluks, should promote Arabic culture. An opinion implies that they were so worldly and ignorant that, in order to achieve any piety and scholarship at all, they could not help but promote them

154among other parties.^ That was probably so to some extent. But, actually, the real reason could be that the Mamluks were imports from different nationalities who were cut off from their cultures of origin, and whose interests could be promoted best by promoting the popular culture of their subjects which was already too well estab­lished to be easily superseded by an alternative import anyway. Why then didn't the Persians and the Ottoman Turks promote Arabic culture? These were not cut off from their culture of origin, the promotion of which they selected. Under Persian influence, patronage of the arts and sciences promoted extra and contra-Arabic especially Sasanid tendencies. Similar developments occurred under Turkish and Mongol influences.

An authority mentions that the subjection of the Arabs to foreign rule began under al-Mu*tasim.^ Whether right or wrong, the latter opinion is indicative of the assumption that nowhere (except in Arabia proper) for a long time, were the Arabs and the Arabic-speaking people

*3 3_ ShiKatah *Isa Ibrahim, al-Qahirah (Cairo: Dar al-Hilal, [n.d.] ), p. 154.

34Lewis, ojd. cit. , p. 161.

155enabled to govern themselves. Subsequently, subject toforeign bias, Arabic culture had to suffer seriousrestrictions. Bernard Lewis describes the developments.

The Persian and Turkish-speaking rulers who inherited the thrones of the Arabs patronised poets who could praise them in their own languages, according to their own tastes and traditions. First the Persians then the Turks developed independent Muslim culture languages of their own, and, with the political leadership, assumed the cultural leadership of Islam.. . . Both Persian and Turkish literatures, while strongly coloured by the Arab-Islamic tradition, branched out on independent and significant lines.After Suljuq times the literary use of Arabic was confined to the Arabic-speaking countries, except for a limited output of theological and scientific works. The movement of the centre of gravity of the Arab world westwards gave greater importance to Syria, and still more to Egypt, which now became the main centres of Arabic culture.35

Of relevant interest is that Arabic culture survived most of the great Arabo-Islamic traditions. For centuries it was the most universally adopted. It left its ever­lasting imprint where it was most vehemently challenged.Its cohabitation with other cultures resulted in births predominantly bearing its features. During the ages it became increasingly effective in transcending race, nation­ality, religion and culture. Its linguistic aspect receded only where the Arabs1 loss of independence was accompanied

35Ibid., p. 159.

156by the advance of a challenging native culture, e.g., Per­sian. It was devastated in places where the threat was no less than when the Arabsx-. loss of independence was ac­companied by the advance of a challenging native culture and a missionary alien faith; e.g., Spain. Only when the Arabs' loss of independence was accompanied by the advance of an adjacent native culture, but not by a missionary alien faith, did Arabic culture stagnate; e.g., the Ottoman period. Its dignity was manifested in its abil­ity to absorb principle and practice from a penetrating alien culture without changing its basic character; e.g., the period of Western control. Its vitality was mani­fested in its ability to revive once derogatory condi­tions were removed; e.g., the modern period. Unlike any other culture, its linguistic aspect has remained prac­tically the same for fourteen centuries.

One wonders whether Arabic culture would have retained its basic character had it been subject to a com­bination of the aforesaid derogatory conditions for a considerably longer period. There is no sound answer here. But one may mention in this connection that, because of the Arabic Qur* an, . . Arabic culture possesses an unusual factor of viability. Arabic culture faced its darkest

157stage during the Ottoman occupation of Egypt and Syria. However, that occupation was relatively short. The appear ance of Muhammad 111 in Egypt recalled the Mamluk period in which . Arabic . culture was patronized. Only Muhammad eAlI was a Turkish-speaking Albanian. It is interesting that Muhammad *AlI should engage in revital­izing Arabic culture instead of.his culture of origin. The assumption was that he had dynastic ambitions which could be promoted least by making Egypt a cultural satel­lite of Constantinople. Thus, those who try to trace the birth of Arab nationalism back to the period of Muhammad *Ali are erroneous. The condition of Arabic culture under the Muhammad ffAlT dynasty, during the nineteenth century, recalled its condition under the Mamluks.

The Mamluk period, however, was somewhat more Arabic-oriented, for the Mamluks reestablished the Abba- sid Caliphate until its final destruction by the Ottomans in 1520. Besides, the Mamluk state was especially sig­nificant in the life history of ' Arabic culture:

. . . this last independent Arab state had held an irreplaceable function: that of keeping the tradi­tions of Arab culture, both in material and spiritual aspects, which had dried up in the East, and storing

i

158it for the future. This alone makes the Mamluke regime worthy of our attention.36

Unlike the Mamluks, the Ottomans were jealous of the Arabiccultural excellence. Being the new spokesmen of Islam,they tried to make Turkish rather than Arabic a universalmedium. Thanks to the Arabic orthodox tradition, theArabic language was indispensable in all matters religious.As a result, only the linguistic aspect of Arabic culturehad to be retained; other aspects of Arabic culture wereput to sleep. The Arab heritage had its great pasttreasures which, thanks to the survival of its linguisticaspect, were exploited as soon as the Turkish yoke fadedaway.

Turkish suppression of the traditions of Arabic culture, originally evoked by Arabic cultural excellence, versus that of the Turkish, came gradually to surmise supremacy of things Turkish over ones Arabic; Arabic cul­ture came to be suppressed because of its surmised de­merits. Correlative to that development was the surmise that the Arabs themselves were too inferior to the Turks

3 Francesco Gabrieli, The Arab Revival. Trans.,L. F. Edwards (London: Jarold and Sons, 1961), p. 25.

.159to share with them any key transaction in state affairs.The brotherhood of Islam failed, on the part of the Turks, to credit the Arabs with much of the fundamental attributes which the latter were the first to promote in the name of the universal F&ith. Like no time before, the Arabs became increasingly conscious of their peoplehood and cultural excellence in the past. It was in the valley between racial pride and Islamic fundamentalism that the world of Islam split into cultural divisions and subdivisions.

V. THE CRUSADES Towards the end of the eleventh century ideological

conflict raged in the world of Islam. The sectarian regime in Egypt stood in sharp opposition to the orthodox regimes in the east and the west. Everywhere Muslims were engaged in exhausting internal conflicts. The differences between Spain and Baghdad were dynastic, between Egypt and the rest of the world of Islam they were ideological; by and large differences were irreconcilable. When the Crusaders arrived in the east, the Levant, in particular, was in achaotic state of political fragmentation:

Few of the Turkish princes recognized either the Sultan or each other, all were rivals and all sought their own increase at the expense of their neighbors;

160Qilij Arslan of Iconium, Karbuqa of Mosul, Ridwan of Aleppo, Duqaq of Damascus, the Fatimid governors of Jerusalem and Ascalon, the Armenians in Cilicia, the Danishmands in Cappadocia and the Urtuqids, who had removed to DiySr-Bakr, were all pulling against each other and were all mutually distrustful. Real cooper­ation among them was impossible; the crusaders needed meet them only one by one.3^

When Pope Urban II appealed to the Christians to wrest the Holy Land from the "wicked race," he had in mind one cohe­sive group, namely the Saracens. Actually, the entity of the world of Islam had been more real to the outside world than to the Muslims themselves. Undoubtedly, the Pope was aware of some differences and divisions among the Saracens; otherwise, a very coherent Islam would be too big a force to challenge. But that the Pope realized, in advance, the grave degree of Islamic dissension is doubt­ful. Amidst that sea of Christian fervor, a much larger expedition than the First Crusade could have been raised to occupy a greater expanse, especially to the south. The impression during the First Crusade was that any signifi­cant expansion outside the Holy Land would have urged Muslims everywhere to arise in one body.

37John L. LaMonte, "Crusade and Jihad," The Arab Heritage. Nabih Amin Faris (ed.) (New York: Russell and Russell, 1963), p. 164.

161Islam failed, during the First Crusade, to mobilize

its followers because of the existence within its domain of conflicting interpretative traditions; disagreements involved matters primarily political. Gigantic efforts had been exerted to synthesize disagreements. Syntheses were reached only by living with political mismanagement as an inevitable evil. Political fragmentation and rival­ry, which characterized the world of Islam before the First Crusade, were not considered sacrilegious; rebellion and government by usurpation were admissible. During the eleventh century the spirit of jihad became dormant. War, in general, came to lose its holiness; it became, increas­ingly, a political institution decided by governments; and religious fervor ceased to take the initiative in warfare. It was then that the Crusades began, with initial success. Ibn Khaldun (d. 1406) made the following observation; "Itis only by religious issue that the Arab is aroused."3® That is to say, only things religious may arouse the Arabs,as one body, in the cause of the Faith, However, the Arabswere not aroused during the First Crusade. Earlier the

38George Kheirallah, Arabia Reborn (Albuquerque; University of New Mexico Press, 1952), p. 51, citing Ibn Khaldun.

162Arab, element was aroused by religious issue, quite a few times, since the great conquests of the Umayyads. In the eleventh century the i ihad spirit came to arouse the Arabs very little, if at all. After all, the jihad had long been a state function in which there was no major assign­ment entrusted to the Arabs. Realistically, the fighting spirit of Islam faltered during the whole Abbasid period when little military expansion was made, apart from the annexation of the island of Sicily. Two basic factors contributed to the abatement of the jihad spirit: one,the large absence of the Arab military; two, political fragmentation and rivalry everywhere. The second factor is emphasized by an observer concerning the Crusades:

All historians of the crusades now agree that one of the chief factors in the success of the First

Crusade was the dissension and inability to cooper­ate in the face of a common danger shown by the Moslem rulers of Syria when the Christian forces arrived in the E a s t . 3 ^

Thus, a bunch of European zealots and adventurers were ableto establish colonies in the heart of the province whichwas once the forbidden residence of the Caliph al-Walxd

3®LaMonte, op. cit.. p. 163.

163

(705-15), when Arab power was firmly established beyondthe Oxus and in Spain besides the whole Middle East andNorth Africa.

For the first time in the history of Islam Europecame to file a claim of superiority; European superiority

40was a contributing factor to the rise of the Crusades.The Crusaders came to discover, upon contact, that this claim was groundless. The immediate factor that contri­buted most to the European crusading spirit should be sought in the political fragmentation which reached a climax in the eleventh century, as a result of the at­tacks and plunders of the conflicting feudal lords against the Christian lower classes whose cause the Church came to adopt. The Church developed the idea of, "Why fight each other, fellow ChristiansI Why not unite, instead, to free the Holy Land from the infidels." The idea had such a wide appeal that European unity became much more of a reality than fiction. The real objective of the Church was much more the curb of the power of royalty, nobility, and aristocracy, and the release of popular

40phSLip K. Hitti, The Arabs: a Short History (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 224.

164liberty than the liberation of the Holy Land. The Church awaited great expectations of powers and prestige for it­self by adopting the popular cause. The Crusades, then, were a means to an end.

The idea of liberating the Holy Land had, besides its religious appeal, a strong romantic fascination; be­sides its religious fervor, the age was also one of chivalry, adventure, poetry and singing. The liberation of the Holy Land anticipated a union of the physical and the sensuous, and the secular and the eternal in which both the zealot and the herodian shared. In the Holy Land, it was the herodian, not the zealot, that found what he had anticipated.

The First Crusade was a success but there was a disappointment and a lesson: "Christendom found the emptySepulchre, but not the union of the Secular and the Eter-

41nal; and so it lost the Holy Land." What the zealot hadaspired at should have been sought 'in subjective con-

42sciousness alone, and in no external object." In other

41Georg Wilhelm F. Hegel, The Philosophy of History. Trans., J. Sibree (New York: Willey Book Co., 1900), p. 393,

42_, .Ibid.

165

words, the union of the secular and the eternal must be43looked for solely within one's self. Consequently, the

nascent Christian unity was doomed. It was obvious during the Second Crusade that the expedition was carried on on the wrong principle. Had the expedition been an imperial force, instead, it might have achieved and preserved its end.

Philip Hitti divides the period of the Crusadesinto phases rather than expeditions: the first phase wasone of conquest ending in 1144; the second was one ofMuslim reaction culminating with Saladin; the third was

44one of civil and petty wars ending in 1291. This divi­sion is more realistic because the wars were, more or less,continuous. Saladin (Salah al-Din) (1169-1192) was the

* •

leader whose name has been most readily connected with the Crusades. In 1169 he managed to displace the Fatfcnids of Egypt and establish an orthodox government under his leadership. Then, he concentrated, quickly, on planning for the restoration of the territories occupied by the Crusaders. The reinstatement of Egypt to orthodoxy was welcomed by Baghdad. Thus, the efforts of Egypt and the

44Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs: Short History (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 221.

166

Abbasid Caliphate were restored to cohesion. ,As a mas-' ter statesman, Saladin (Salah al-Din) at first appealed to the religious sentiment of all Muslims to resort to the traditional -jihad against the Crusaders. The response to his appeal was far and wide; the dormant spirit of jihad was revived. Then he reintegrated the armed forces. That included entrusting the Arab element with roles of importance and dignity. Arab authorities refer to Saladin (Salah al-Din) as an Arab hero and some are so impressed by his Arab policy that they try to trace Arab nationalism back to his time.

In the Levant the Christian camp became increasingly chivalrous, courtly and romantic; religion came to play a secondary role among the Europeans. The idea of the Cru­sades suffered a drastic change, h . G. Wells tells us how:

The idea of the crusades was cheapened by their too frequent and trivial use. Whenever the Pope quarrelled with anyone now, or when he wished to weaken the dangerous power of the emperor by over­seas exertions, he called for a crusade, until theword ceased to mean anything but an attempt to give4*5flavour to an unpalatable war.

45H. G. Wells, The Outline of History (New York: Doubleday and Co., 1956), II, p. 537.

167Hegel tells us that Christendom could be roused

. . 46only by religious issue. In this Christendom is thesame as Arabdom. So long as religious fervor filled the European, he held out for the Arab until the fervor weighed heavier with the latter? then the former could not hold out any longer in both the Holy Land and in North Africa, and, conversely,ttthe AralT lost the Iberian Penin­sula and the Mediterranean islands to the European in the same manner.

During the two centuries of the Crusades, both West and East learned a good deal about each other. Thefact remains, however, _hat greater results must be sought

47in the realm of economy than in that of intellect. Thefact also remains that the Crusades meant much to theWest and little to^the Arabs’ in terms of cultural influ-

48ence. Thus, the concern, here, is actually on the Arabic

46Hegel, op. cit.. pp. 393-94. Hegel argues that religious fervor was a cohesive factor in Christendom's challenge to Islam.

47Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs: .a Short History (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 235.

48Ibid., p. 233.

168influence on Europe. In the realm of the intellect,Europe learned more about the Arabs via Spain than Pales-tine-Syria. Yet it was from the Levant that.Frederick IIintroduced to Europe Arabic translations of Aristotle's

49works. Besides, historiography flourished with Fulcherof Chartres and William of Tyre, and a tradition of law

50was developed by John of Ibelin and Philip of Novara.While Ernest Barker celebrates only Arabic influence onthe flourishing of historiography and the development oflaw, Philip Hitti elaborates on valuable undercurrents:

The legends of the Holy Grail have elements of un­doubted Syrian origin. The Crusaders must have heard stories from the Bidpai fables and the Arabian Nights and carried them back with them. Chaucer's Squieres Tale is an Arabian Nights story. From oral sources Boccacio derived the Oriental tales incorporated in his Decameron. To the Crusaders we may also ascribe European missionary interest in Arabic and other Islamic languages.5^

Frederick von Schlegel, The Philosophy of History, Trans., J. B. Robertson (London: George Bell and Sons, 1893), p. 371.

^Ernest Barker, "The Crusades," The Legacy of Islam. Thomas Arnold and Alfred Guillaume (eds.) (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 56.

5^Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs: A Short History (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), pp. 233-34.

I

169

To Ernest Barker such legendary developments were due tothe fact that "the story of the Crusade rapidly turned

52from history to legend." There is no conflict between Hitti and Barker; only it sounds that the latter picks up the cultural cause while the former displays the cultural effect. Actually, neither legend, nor even the flow of Arabic words into Western languages could be isolated from the main traditions of historiography and law. A joint cause-effect approach to Arabic cultural influences on the West should give a true picture. Admittedly, such influences occurred at a time when Arabic culture in Syria had already lost its heyday; nevertheless the influ­ences, viewed from the unfolding cause-effect approach, were great indeed.

In contrast the Crusaders had little intellectual influence upon the Arabs. Or, was it that the indigenous circles in the Levant were unable to digest whatever the intruding culture could have had offered? Anyway, Arab

53exposure to the Christian cultural influence was little.

^Ernest Barker, "The Crusades," The Legacy of Islam. Thomas Arnold and Afred Guillaume (eds.) (London: Oxford University Press, 1952), p. 66.

53Philip K. Hitti, The Arabs; a. Short History (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 233.

170The Crusaders, themselves, could have been relatively dis­interested in the indigenous culture.

Intellectual activity was only a by-product which stemmed from the original interests underlying the Crusades, namely, the popular religious interest of liberating the Holy Land, and the economic interest involving the develop­ment of new markets and products. Thus, it may be assumed that it was much the lack of interest in intellectual activity on the part of the Crusaders rather than the decadence of . Arabic culture that greater intellectual activity was not exchanged between West and East. That is why economics played a greater role than that of intellect.

New plants, crops and trees from the Levant, aswell as a great deal of raw products and processed goods,became familiar in Western marketsy the most delightful

54of which was sugar.Changes in the relations of East and West were loom­

ing. It is true that the West was forced to leave the Holy Land. .True, also, the East had much more to contrib­ute to the betterment of Western economy and intellect,

54Ibid., pp. 235-36.

171than conversely. Then the Crusades were fought more or less among equals. Unfortunately, this equality was not long-lasting. Trends became increasingly to the disad­vantage of the East and to the advantage of the West.This is what Philip Hitti says:

Throughout this period, the Arab empire was con­tracting and the Moslem mind hardening? but the European man was opening his eyes to a dramatically expanded world. Before the expiration of that em­pire, however, a last attempt at its revival was made by the Syro-Egyptian Mamluk dynasty.55

During the Crusades we have seen religious issue gave wayto material acquisition. It was then that the materialcivilization of the West was born On the European continent.Undoubtedly the Crusades had their influence. We haveseen also that they helped break up the feudal system.Thus, by the end of the Crusades, Europe was powerfullyequipped to enter the Renaissance. In comparison, theEast became definitely Arab and non-Arab. Arabism, afterhaving receded in Persia, and Europe, found its lastrefuge under the Mamluks of Egypt and Syria. The Arabcontinued to be aroused by religious issue, if at all.Except in Arabia proper, feudalism was increasingly the

55Ibid.. p. 237.

172

order of the age. Yet, that last refuge of Arabism,static as it was, came to collapse at the beginning of

56the sixteenth century. Thus, unlike Europe, the Arab world was well prepared for a long stagnation. For a few centuries after the Crusades the East continued to be more or less the equal of Europe. Insofar as the world of the Arabs is concerned, this equality came to an end with the Ottoman occupation of Egypt and Syria.The protagonists became Ottomans versus Europeans. The Arabs simply faded away into oblivion. Ottoman equality with Europe lingered for a while until the latter flatly rejected it by the progressive promotion of the system of capitulations in the Ottoman Empire. Thus, the capit­ulations could be considered the first legal indication of European supremacy over the traditional East.

VI. CAPITULATIONS AND MILLET SYSTEM,-

The capitulations had their origin in the practices of the powerful King Charlemagne of the Franks. Origin­ally they were capitulaires issued by that monarch to

The Ottomans invaded Egypt and destroyed the Mamluk dynasty in 1517.

173express his privileges and preferences in domesticaffairs to be observed in the counties by the feudallords. After his death the capitulaires were codified.Beside the tradition of capitulaires. King Charlemagneintroduced the idea of a French protectorate over the Holy

57Places. French interests in Arabic affairs have been maximum, in comparison with those of any Western nation, since the Arab campaigns in France. The Song of Roland and The Cid are indicative of Franco-Arab contacts since the eighth century. French interests centered around things Christian and span around things economic. Caliph Harun al-Rashid presented King Charlemagne with the keys of the Holy Sepulchre and with the banner of Jerusalem and expressed his willingness to accord to the monarch

58certain privileges concerning local Christian matters.Both monarchs managed to maintain an alliance guaranteeing a balance of power in world affairs against Muslim Spain and the Byzantine Empire.

^Henry D. Sedgwick, France: a Short History (Boston: Little, Brown, and Co., 1930), p. 26.

58 .Ibid.

174Feasibly the domestic capitulaires gradually evolved

with the growing national interest into capitulations in foreign affairs. As early as the time of the Crusades la tradition capitulaire manifested itself in a number of agreements between the Franks and tfthe Arabs* regulating certain privileges and preferences accorded Frankish trav­ellers and traders.

Thus by origin and intention the capitulations arenot formed in the nature of a treaty between equals. Intheory and in practice the capitulations are a sacrificeimposed for the privileges and preferences of a big power,on a presumably smaller power, by necessity. To capitulateis to surrender on terms; for instance take la capitula-

59tion de 11Allemaqne en 1945.The provisions, in the Islamic law, allowing Ahl

al-Kitab to handle the affairs of their personal status, supplied a rich soil for the growth of the secular capit­ulations. According to the Islamic tradition the ruler of the Muslim community may issue unilateral charters granting or revoking regulations affecting the status of

'^"Capituler* and "Capitulation,u Nouveau Petit Larouse Illustre; Dictionnaire Encvclopediaue (Paris: Libraire Larouse, 1952), p. 155.

175his non-Muslim subjects. Caliphs Mu^awiyah and*Umar Ibn *Abd al-Aziz issued such charters. The Muslim ruler may also recognize the interests of a foreign power in a local non-Muslim community, provided that does not jeop­ardize domestic sovereignty. Caliph Harun al-Rashld

/

recognized Frankish interests in the Holy Places and thelocal Christian community. On the basis of such orthodox

60practices the millet system of the Ottomans branched out. Like the Umayyads, the Ottomans came to recognize the need of their non-Muslim communities to be subject, with specific exceptions, to their own canon law. But unlike their Muslim predecessors or contemporaries the Ottomans granted commercial privileges and immunities to European trading colonies on the millet principle. So long as those privileges and immunities were unilateral and revocable, the practice was more or less orthodox. Under French influence such privileges and immunities came to be known as capitulations. Under Sultan Sulayman the Magnificent the practice became bilateral for the first time. In 1535 Sulayman granted France unprecedented

60Millet means a religious sect. The millet system granted autonomy to religious minorities.

176economic privileges and immunities all over the Ottoman Empire. That happened at a time when the Arabs were sub­jects of the Ottomans, after the collapse of the Mamluk regime in Egypt in 1517. Practically all non-Muslim nationals of foreign countries had to be covered by capitulations. Gradually the capitulations came to mean extra-territoriality:

. . . these foreign colonies of merchants (which were confined, till the close of-the eighteenth Chris­tian century, to half a dozen Levantine ports) were granted communal autonomy, on the millet principle, under the presidency of their several ambassadors and consuls.6-1-

These colonies were not subject to the domestic Islamic law; hence consular and mixed courts, with their own juris­diction, had to be established. Nor, after a long practice, were these privileges and communities revocable.

On the millet principle the capitulations were pre­sumably reconcilable with orthodoxy. They were not only respectful of domestic sovereignty but also convenient and necessary:

So long as the indigenous Ottoman institutions remained efficient and the Ottoman Empire therefore remained powerful at home and abroad, these grants of autonomy

61Arnold Toynbee and Kenneth P. Kirkwood, Turkey (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927), pp. 29-30.

177saved the Sultan and his household the trouble of ad­ministering elements which they regarded as necessary but external to the Ottoman body-politic, without en­dangering the mastery of the Sultan in his own house. ^

Unfortunately the capitulations tended to develop, natur­ally from their French origin and intention, into very un­orthodox encroachments. They were used for the promotion of the personal interest of foreign consuls who did sellthese privileges as bara*ahs (licenses) to opportunists from

63anywhere.Gradually the domestic authorities became resent­

ful of the dimensions the capitulations tended to measure. The foreign authorities used the capitulations for smuggling and propaganda, the usurpation, in large measure,of affairs domestic, the promotion of disregarding police

64regulations, and for the personal interest- , besides ,foreign subjects lived, more or less, tax-free, and therestrictions on the Ottomans not to increase customsduties or freely reform the native industry and com-

65merce. Actually the Ottoman economy was contained by all

^ Ibid. , p. 33.63Bodman, op. cit., pp. ix-x .64.Toynbee and Kirkwood, o^. cit.. pp. 138-39.65Ibid., p. 139.

178sorts of crippling restrictions. Thus the capitulations

66amounted to a foreign veto over domestic jurisdiction.A few things could be farther from the Islamic tradition.As the capitulations developed into a violent state of international inequality, their abolition became a primary national objective. However in spite of the fact that Turkey repudiated the capitulations in the fall of 1914 their formal abolition was settled, after long and exten­sive negotiations, in the Second Lausanne Conference after World War I. Both the capitulations and the millet system were to linger in the Arab areas for years after their abolition in Turkey.

The ^millet system developed along lines similar to those of the capitulations. Its endorsement by Mahmud II during the fifteenth century was a striking state in reli­gious tolerance. On the basis of traditional Arab prac­tice and the established needs of his non-Muslim communi-

67ties the Sultan came to grant the rights and privileges of the millet system which resembled most those of extra­territoriality of the capitulations. Progressively

66Ibid.67William Yale, The Near East: jX Modern History

(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1958), p. 19.

179the millet system came to depart from what it was intended originally. Like the capitulations the millet system was intended to relieve the Sultan from administering the heterogeneous affairs of his non-Muslim minorities that could not normally fit into the local jurisdiction based on Islamic law, anyway. Nonetheless, like the capitulations, the millet system developed steadily into a source of irk­some heterogeneities, and a channel of promoting foreign ideas and interests. To present it from the point of view of the Muslim majority:

Not only did it run counter to the ideals and aims of Turkification,* it also encouraged the perpetuation of a separate communal life which eventually developed into a longing for an independent national life and gave every opportunity for foreign "nationalisms" to grow up in the midst of the Ottoman peoples.^®

and from that of the millets themselves:. . . sectarian rivalries were of such overweening concern that any gain in the position of one minority was attacked by another to the ultimate detriment of both, for a sectarian squabble could easily be turned to the financial profit of the wali.69

Simply the system pleased no one except outside powers.Generally speaking a few seeds of nationalism (Arab nation-

^®Toynbee and Kirkwood, pp. cit.. p. 144. ^Bodman, op. cit., p. ix.

180

ism included) and Western cultural penetration in the Otto­man Empire, must he sought, in the folds of the millet system. The system provided through the clergy a reservoir of conservative zealotism similar to that of the Muslim culama*.

The objective investigator usually concludes that, like the capitulations, the millet system had accumulated so many abuses that its abolition became a necessity to the Ottomans. The break-up of the system, in Turkey, in­cluded tedious steps involving exchange of population between Turkey and Greece. Yet like the capitulations the millet system has lingered in Arab areas until recently.

As the Arab countries came to achieve their inde­pendence during the last decades, both the capitulations and the millet system gradually faded away. However some Courts of Personal Status, inherited from the millet system, are still lagging in a few Arab countries.

Both the capitulations and the millet system were not without advantages to the Ottoman Empire; the former contributed well to the commercial development of the Empire, at least in the earlier stage, and the latter brought the French legal code to the attention of the modern jurisdictional reformer, and both made one of the

181

earliest channels of the modern European cultural pene­

tration.

VII. EUROPEAN CULTURAL PENETRATION

We have seen that the Crusades had little cultural influence on the Arabs. Actually as late as the four­teenth century, Arab knowledge of the West was still lack­ing. The following remark by Ibn-Khaldun is self-evident:

We have heard of late that in the lands of the Franks, that is, the country of Rome and its dependencies on the northern shore of the Mediterranean, the philo­sophic sciences flourish . . . and their students are plentiful. But God knows best what goes on in thoseparts.70

Apparently Arab lack of the knowledge of Western culture cannot he a measure of Western cultural progress. The Arabs, and actually all the peoples of Islam, have traditionally mistrusted European cultural developments. Because Arabic culture is normally intertwined with things Islamic, its digestion of the secular European developments has been slow and superficial.

Not until the sixteenth century were there signifi­cant traces of European cultural penetration. It was then

70Lewis, op. cit.. p. 165, citing Ibn Khaldun.

182that the capitulations and the millet system came to infil­trate European legal and economic secular influences into the Islamic body politic.

By the sixteenth century the world of Islam became already subject to some European secular influences which it did not deign to admit. Islam was confident of its in­herited superiority. The West was also confident not only of its present superiority, but also of its rising expec­tations. Western influence effected also a great deal of conservatism which directed its slow infiltration, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mainly in the activities of the various Christian missions, especially those in the Levant. Islam continued to capitalize on the treasures of its cultural heritage. Not until the French invasion of Egypt in 1798 did the Arabs reconsider their unchallengeable superiority. Arab exposure to Western culture was forestalled for centuries by the patched umbrella of Ottoman conservatism. The impact of the French expedition to Egypt and Palestine is usually thought of as revolutionary. It may be so only in the sense that, unlike earlier impacts, since the Crusades, this one acquired definite and impregnable grounds. That was because Arabic culture had been for a long time

183in a state of lethargy. Apart from the Azhar and a few smaller cultural oases, here and there, the Arabic cul­tural environment was little more than a virtual desola­tion. However, it was those cultural oases that released their conservative fervor in opposition to the French secular innovations. It was in vain for those conserva­tives to deprecate seriously such overwhelming innovations as the printing press, and archeology.

The Napoleonic invasion brought the area into the focus of international rivalry. The ambitious expedition raised British hostility. A resulting Franco-British clash of interests brought the French enterprise to an end in 1801. Although short-lived, the displaced regime had been able to lay the foundation for future Western in­fluence. It was on that foundation that Muhammad *All erected layers of Western-oriented democracy, technology, education, and commerce, not only for the consumption of Egypt, but also for the Levant and Turkey. Ibrahim Pasha carried the reform northward. On the same foundation, the feudal order of the Mamluks was destroyed. As a result the new system of government was manned by salaried per­sonnel, financed by taxes, and centralized. However, the degree of the European cultural penetration under Muhammad

184

*Ali was greater in kind than in volume. An early nine­teenth century observer tells us that the innovationswere exaggerated, but that greater changes were forthcoming.

71Our authority, William Edward Lane, whose views are reviewed in this paragraph, was a European eyewitness who observed that the European cultural offensive did not spread as yet among the Egyptians. Its spread, however, was definitely forthcoming, in spite of the fact that to many the traditional state of the society seemed almost immutable. The authority complimented himself on having become acquainted with a traditional society just before its passing. Most of the reform, the witness came to see, was introduced by Muhammad *Ali for the ultimate purpose of building an empire. The Egyptian reform, military in the main, had an echo in Constantinople, where for a long time the Turks had been unwilling to respond to a hasty change.It was the Turkish higher (military) class that came first to adopt the European principles. Imitating Europe in its luxuries, including the habit of drinking wine, indicated a remarkable indifference to religion. The observer

^Hjilliam Edward Lane, The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1860), pp. 562-63.

185predicted that the lower class would respond slowly to the principles of the dominant class that had begun to under­mine the foundations of Islam. The lower class seemed as yet traditional in its outlook, but the guess of our au­thority was that the time would come, probably soon, when the inferior members of the community would respond to the European cultural offensive. Consequently, the overthrow of the whole fabric might be reasonably a matter of time.

The views of our witness should surprise the many who believe that the European cultural offensive was whole­sale during the early nineteenth century Egypt. That the Egyptian reform evoked a substantial cultural response in Turkey, not in Egypt, should be also surprising.Equally surprising is the prediction that the whole social fabric might be overthrown. Generally speaking the Arabs were less receptive of European innovations than the Turks. That was due primarily to the fact that the size of the higher class was largest among the Turks. For it was among the higher class that European secular principles found their way and, through the higher class, those prin­ciples tended to spread, not necessarily among the lower classes as such, but, by the phenomenal growth of the higher class from within and through an influx from

186without; besides the natural growth of the higher class, members of the lower class came to climb the social ladder, especially through the growing Western-oriented education. The lower classes that had no access to Western education remained traditional in their outlook.

The opposition to the European cultural offensive has stemmed mainly among the lower classes from their ad­herence to the principles of the Islamic tradition as interpreted to them by their traditional leaders, the <ulama>and the Sufis. One should add that the lower classes belong to the soil more than the higher class which has been formed since Caliph al-Mu*ta^im from elements which have no roots in the native soil. Besides the poli­cies which have led to the gradual formation of the higher class in question have been secular in character. No won­der, as European secular principles began to infiltrate, they found response among members of that class. Thus, the European secular influence came to build on a basis already existent.

In this connection, the West has been normally thought of as the exporter of secularism. Pew things could be as false, for the West has also exported a great deal of conservatism to the East, especially in the activities

187of the Christian missions. Thus, Western influence hasbeen contradictory; being "herodian" on the one hand, and"zealot" on the other. The higher class has respondedto Western secularism, the lower Christian class hasresponded to Western conservatism, and the lower Muslimclass has rejected both as containers of innovations. Inthe nineteenth century, the interests of the Western powerscentered on the protection of holy places and Christian

. . 72minorities. Christian missions were very active m73the Levant. There, Western zealotism was second to none.

In the meantime, the Arab masses have been increasinglyexposed to the European secular influence.

Because of his traditional orientations, the Christ­ian could not support the Pan-Islamic movement. Nor could he support the Pan-Arab movement wholeheartedly because of its Islamic coloring. But because of many an attachment and a. common aspiration resulting from living together for centuries, transcending religious differences and creating unprecedented identification between the Muslim and the Christian, the latter came to oppose Western imperialism. The overview is that the Christian Arab has been half zealot and half herodian; he has been torn between two pulls, his traditional Western orientations and his secular inter-Arab identification.

72 73Lewis, ojo. cit. , p. 172. Ibid.

188Incontrovertibly European culture has not only pre­

sented itself in contradictory details but it offers contro­versial conclusions. Its total impact amounted to<.virtual confusion; until recently basic problems had no definite answers and loyalties were far from certain.

As the Pan-Arab movement became overwhelmingly secular it won mounting Christian support. Proponents of the rising secular nationalism, Christians and Muslims alike, have sub­scribed to the popularized Ean-Arab movement with general agreement on some conclusions, which had been reached with no integrative program of action. Yet, under the Western "conservative" influence, many a Christian Arab has been too attached to his traditional orientations to give the Pan-Arab movement little more than lip service. Besides, Pan-Arabism is given less than wholehearted support by those Christians whose attitude has been partly traditionalist though majorly secular Pan-Arabist.

Like the Christian Arab nationalist, the Muslim counter-74part has been partly zealot and partly herodian; he prays,

gives charity, etc., and popularizes secular Pah—Arabism, rather than Pan-Islamism. Yet, there are those nationalists who seek in the secular nationalist movement primarily an egoist or re- gionalist interest. As Arab nationalists became overwhelmingly

74.This is so in a very broad sense.

189Pan-Arabist, the Muslim Pan-Arabist came to realize that his views are not shared by the other members of his com­munity whose traditionalist view of religion and state could, in theory, support Islamic unity rather than Arab unity. Thus, he too is pulled between two opposite forces.

Fortunately there arose amidst that far-reaching socio-political confusion a growing synthetical force; namely, the metropolitan pragmatists. That force has grown rapidly since World War II. So, in the Middle East today, there is in every major city a middle-of-the-road "reformist" class with no ideas a priori, whose philosophy seems to be "considering all ideas, ideals, and ideologies, what can best be done that is good?" Unfortunately, in spite of its growing importance, that class is not pre­pared to take the initiative. Jury-like, its role starts only after the crime has been committed.

Therefore, the confusing impact of the European cul­tural penetration is not without checks. Nevertheless, its range is still tall and broad. There have been"horizontal* influences. The Western disregard for religious ties has created horizontal fragmentations among the Arabs and the Turks who could possibly stay together on the basis of re­ligion alone, and among the Arabs themselves by promoting

economic nationalism and regionalism. The channels through which the Western cultural influence was conservative ef­fected an intensification in the dogmatic divergence be­tween the Islamic tradition and the Christian tradition.The immediate influence of such intensification manifests itself in the tendency of conservative religious groups to live apart horizontally. Furthermore, there have been

w "vertxcal changes. Western secular influence brought about widening gaps in social communication and social status.The herodian and the zealot have grown mentally apart; they don't seem to digest each other's values. The concern over the personal status, a Western innovation, has cut deeply through the social fabric. In Europe a teacher in a col­lege, for example, refrains from associating with a teacher in a secondary school; the concern is over the professional personal status. Likewise, a European banker does not normally associate with a launderer; the concern is over the economic personal status. Concerns of such nature, under European cultural influence, have infiltrated the fabric of the Arab and Muslim societies. The examples have been many in the Middle East when a promotion, a graduation, an appointment, a marriage, an acquaintance, an inheritance, a publication, an election, a prize, or

191even a gamble has severed many an old association because of the concern over the personal status. Here, the disci­ple has surpassed the practice of the master. This fever­ish concern over the personal status has given rise to a large and competitive class of Western-like status seekers. Under the influence of Western secularism, the average herodian, usually having no great expectations in the hereafter, has drawn ambitious plans to be fulfilled here on earth and has always been discontented.

Strangely enough, in such a social web, the most contented class has been the one with the lowest income, the least education, and the scantiest opportunity; namely, the conservative lower class everywhere. Here, the strong belief in the great expectations of the hereafter has transcended many a possible concern and a depravity.

As a result of the European cultural penetration, the framework of the traditional order has been disjointed. Unfortunately, the West has been unable to provide a solid integrative alternative to the old order. In the mean­time, the return to the old order is unthinkable to many.A few situations could be as confusing. The primary and magnanimous task in the modern Arab and Muslim countries is one of experimenting with the ultimate view of discovering

192a new integrative system on the basis of past experience but competent for picking up the pieces and safely putting them back together. The role of the metropolitan prag­matic class, in the discovery of such a system, is indis­pensable.

Today one hears of parliaments, elections, parties, and ideologies that are Western only in name. For the first time, in ages, the character of the reform tends to fit into the social reality,, especially in Egypt, and Syria where Arab nationalism was^born* Iraq is following suit rapidly. Other countries are following suit in vary­ing rates. The experimenting is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. The ultimate readjustment is still guesswork^. Bernard Lewis has visualized a few alternatives of which the following, in this observer's judgment, is the one which the Arabs will finally select:

. . . they may succeed in renewing their society from within, meeting the West on terms of equal co-operation, absorbing something of both its science and humanism, not only in shadow but in substance, in a harmonious balance with their inherited t r a d i t i o n . ^5

Yet this observer doubts Arnold Toynbee's prediction that,". . . for the majority of the Muslims, the inevitable,

7SLewis, op, cit,, p. 178.

193though undesired, outcome of nationalism will he submer­gence in the cosmopolitan proletariat of the Western

76world," which is unlikely as an alternative. One al­ternative this observer is certain will not happen is readjustment to a system along the exclusive experience of either the Umayyads, the Abbasids, or, particularly, the Ottomans. There are reasons to this effect, in the relations among God, state, and individual the mood of our time is not God-centered. The Abbasid State was God- centered. Nor is the mood of our time completely state- centered or individual-centered. The Arab patriarchal system was individual-centered, and the Ottoman system was state-centered. In the past one center managed to occupy the foregound, through a synthesis. Today religion, state, and individual have been trying, in vain, to sub­ject one another. Each is pulled between two opposite forces.

The overview is that the dissolution of the Caliphal system in any of its forms is almost final.

76Arnold Toynbee, Civilization on Trial and the World and the West (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958),p. 186.

194

VIII. THE DISSOLUTION OF THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Insofar as the Arab world is concerned the disso­lution of the Ottoman Empire is significant, among other things, in its relation to the abolition of the Caliphate. It was from among the Turks that the largest higher (mili­tary) class flourished, in the nineteenth century Middle East. That class was the most exposed to the Western cul­ture and the most responsive to its advance. It became particularly conscious of the French revolutionary, legal, and democratic ideas. Also the idea of the love of coun­try, as popularized by the Italian Mazzini, naturally entered the Turkish sensitive conscience. The reforms of Muhammad eAli in Egypt, and the Crimean War, in which the Ottoman Empire was defeated, proved to the Turks the material superiority of the West. No wonder the luxuries of the West, and its secular practices, became widely spread among that large and growing class. Mistrust cameto characterize the relations between this class and the

77backward-looking Sultan-Calxph. In contrast the lower

77This mistrust resulted in the long run in the extermination of the Janissaries in 1826 by Sultan Mahmud, after the fashion introduced by Muhammad fcAli* in extermin­ating his Mamluks in 1811.

. 195

(peasant, poor, and illiterate) class was predominantly traditional in its outlook. Its exposure to the Western secular ideas was little. The loyalty of the Turkish peasants was to the Sultan-Caliph, the symbol of Islam's temporal integrity, and to Shaykh al-Islam, the symbol of Islam's spiritual entity. They took the despotic rule of the Sultan-Caliph for granted and listened to their religious leaders for spiritual guidance. Trust charac­terized the relations between the peasants and their tem­poral and religious leaders. Between the peasant and the military there existed a grave intellectual cleavage. Apparently the forces at work among the Turks were inno­vation versus tradition.

The availability of the Western devices, and educa­tion, coinciding with the break-up of the Turkish feudal order, resulted in the gradual exposure of members of the peasantry and craftsmen to the Western cultural principles and practices. Thus the higher class was able to widen its foundation by a constant influx of social climbers. Gradu­ally the force of progress came to challenge the traditional. Change was happening in* .greater rate in Turkey than any­where in the Arab areas. Towards the end of the nineteenth century Turkey was drifting"away from the old order toward

196

Europeanization. That trend was contradictory to the in­terests of the Sultan-Caliph whose office had stemmed from an old established tradition which would normally respond to change that could comply with the Islamic tradition.Yet the tide of change, that culminated by the revolution of the Young Turks (1908-9), was too strong to be stemmed by any means. The most that traditional leadership could do was in the nature of reluctant response and procras­tination.

As Turkey became increasingly Europeanized, there arose the problem of identification. The secular Turk found it unlikely to identify himself with the tradition­alist Arab, the Indian, the Persian, and the Chinese. Nor was it crystal clear for this Turk to identify himself with the (Christian) European. Turkification on a secu­lar basis came to be singled out as a recognized national objective for an influential group. The Sultan-Caliph became obliged to respond to the overwhelming spirit of reform in an intriguing situation. His very difficult role became one of preserving the awkward equilibrium between the urgent spirit of reform and the Islamic tradi­tion. Proponents of drastic changes became his per­sonal enemies whom he punished mercilessly. The proponents

197

of Turkification saw in the Sultan-Caliph's Islamic pol­icy a striking case of self-abnegation; the Europeanized Turks could not progress properly merely because of their ties with such people as the Arabs whose progress was lagging far behind. Nor was such Islamic policy acceptable to the Arab nationalists themselves, a separatist element, whom the Sultan-Caliph came to persecute. Only the lower classes remained largely loyal to the Sultan-Caliph and the Islamic tradition.

Anti-Turkish feeling prevailed in the Arab secular­ist circles and likewise anti-Arab feeling prevailed among the Turkish secularists. The tide of Europeanization kept mounting. Efforts of the Sultan-Caliph to propagate Pan- Islamism were exerted. The secular tide however became increasingly stronger than the religious tide.

During World War I the Arabs fought on the side of the West against the Ottoman Sultan-Caliph. The defeat of the Turks in World War I resulted in the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. It was the secular leadership that preserved Turkish independence. The crux of our interest in this respect is the abolition of the Ottoman Caliphate by the Turkish secular authorities and its impact.

198For decades the Turks had been looking at them­

selves afresh. They reached the conclusion that a whole series of abolitions must take place. After the World War the capitulations, the millet system, and the Sultanate (1922) were done away with, not to mention the abolition of the Arabic alphabet. The Caliphate was separated from the Sultanate, as a spiritual force, and saved by the Turkish National Assembly for fifteen months, then it was also abolished in 1924. An authority states that the Cali­phate which was saved by the National Assembly was "an institution unknown to Islamic tradition and indeed incom­patible with the nature of the office as it had actually

78existed during a long history." It simply went out ofbusiness because the Turkish regime left it without anytemporal power and, unlike the Papacy, it had no authorityto interpret religious dogma. The Kamalists could notaccord the puppet Caliphate the prestige the Muslims atlarge wanted to accord it; they had a hard choice;

. . . the real alternative lay between accepting the Caliphate in the terms in which the Islamic world understood it or else abolishing it altogether; and since they had no intention of accepting it on such terms, they ultimately took the alternative course.79

78Toynbee and Kirkwood, op. cit.. p. 164.79 .Ibid.. pp. 164-65.

199After having looked at themselves afresh the Turks

were prepared to destroy anything that might hinder the progress of their secular revolution. Their attitude dif­fered fundamentally from that of the Arabs and other Mus­lims in relation to modernization. Wilfred Cantwell Smith elaborates on the difference as follows:

While other Muslims, suffering from the domineering of Europe, insisted that something was wrong with Europeans, the Turks devoted their attention to find­ing out what was wrong with themselves."'One of their judgments was that a major obstacle

not only to progress but to the very continuance of their life as a nation was the form into which they had been building Islam. That form, then,must be undone.®0

So the Caliphate was abolished, and so Turkey has been offi­cially secularized. Ironically Turkey today in an attempt to save its soul has been returning back to orthodoxy during the last few years. The election of the Justice Party in late 1965 is an indication of the revival of religious Turkey.

The abolition of the Caliphate was welcomed by the Arab secularists. Other Muslims were "distressed by such

Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Islam in Modern History (New York: The New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1959), p. 176.

20081highhanded treatment of a historic Muslim institution."

Indian Muslims were particularly regretful. Yet there werethose Muslims who thought that, after all, the Caliphate

82was neither useful, nor necessarily orthodox. As a mat­ter of fact some thought that its abolition was useful be­cause for the first time in history the Sunnr and Shi 4iT historic differences which centered around the eligibility to the Caliphate might be feasibly synthesized. In a sense its abolition is thought to have created an implied sense of Islamic solidarity.

A modified title was picked up by the Sharif Husayn of Makkah, a direct descendant of the Prophet, who declared himself''King of the Arabs'! The European imperial ambitions killed his ambition in the bud, and soon Husayn’s kingdom itself fell in the hands of the rival Saudi family. At­tempts at reviving the Caliphate continued. A Caliphate Conference was held in Cairo in 1926 for examining the possibilities of reviving the classical institution.-"Any­one who examines the records of this conference will carry

81Toynbee, Civilization on Trial (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 186.

82 tThis is the crux of Abd al-RSziq’s argument inhis book, Al-Islam wa Usui al-Hukm.

201away the conviction that the Caliphate is dead, and that

83this is so because Pan-Islamism is dormant." Today,however, strong sentiments for Pan-Islamism exist in theworld of Islam, especially in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.The Saudi King Faisal, who is not a direct descendant ofthe Prophet, may be interested in reviving a Caliphate ofsome sort. Already King Faisal has been acting as aspokesman of the peoples of Islam. Of special interestis that Arabia, the homeland of Arabism, is greatly Pan-Islamic. That could be easily drawn from the fact thatduring the season of the Hajj the average Arabian bedouincould see no basic distinction between a Moroccan Muslim,

84a Persian Muslim, and an Egyptian Muslim.But Saudi Arabia is an exception. It has been pur­

ist in its outlook since the rise of the Wahhabi movement in the eighteenth century. Pakistan is also an exception because it owes its independence directly to Islam. Apart from these two exceptions, one should agree with Arnold Toynbee that "nationalism, and not Pan-Islamism, is the

83Toynbee, civilization on Trial (New York: Oxford University press, 1958), p. 186.

^ A personal observation.

202formation into which the Islamic peoples are falling.

85. . . _ but one should add that the outcome of nation­alism and Pan-Islamism is still largely guesswork. That the Caliphate may arise once more, in one form or another, somewhere, is not entirely impossible. The last people to promote such Caliphal revival would be, of course, the Turks.

IX. THE BIRTH OF ARAB NATIONALISM

Among other things, nationalism is a dynamic medium of integration between past experience and present national popular aspirations. Like a warp, past experience is a precondition with which the present national popular as­pirations, like filling threads, are progressively woven. Both past experience and popular national aspirations are preconditions of nationalism. Both national aspirations and nationalism are subject to continuous changes, often very rapidly. Ideologically speaking, nationalism is lim­ited; it lacks comprehension. In contrast, past experience is seldom changeable. Nevertheless, it may be reinterpreted

8 5Toynbee, Civilization on Trial (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 186.

20386or even cut off. Nationalism and national aspirations

survive, normally, within the living memory of an indi­vidual generation; then, they expire, gradually, in the stream of past experience. Today, the aspirations and methods of the American Civil War period are actually past experience to the present American generation. Also, today, American nationalism and national aspirations, ad­mittedly different from those of the Civil War, interact with American past experience to nourish the ever-changing American national reality.

At times, certain nations may have identical ideo­logical approaches and popular national aspirations, yet they remain definitely different nations because of their different past experiences. Also, at times, nations with identical past experience may have varying, or different aspirations and national approaches. Further, nations may also exist with the vaguest sense of nationalism and national aspirations. Furthermore within one and the same nation divergent conditions of both national aspirations and ideological approaches may be a source of dissension rather than cohesion.

86Turkey's abolition of the Arabic alphabet consti­tutes a termination of a past experience.

204One's guideline to the understanding of nationalism

in the Arab world is to trace popular movements with a national program of reform, a technique of action, and substantial synthetical credit of contribution to the recognized national stream. Movements interrupting or defying such stream are extra-nationalist. In the Arab world there are those wordy nationalists whose orations are terribly moving, but whose achievements are depressing. The reference here is not to the genuine critics of na­tionalism. It is rather to the opportunist groups and petty leaderships whose credit of achievement is negli­gible, beside the point, or in defiance of the synthetical stream.

The whole Arab nationalist movement falls almost all within our living memory. However, the origin of the movement is quite controversial. For instance, should its origin be sought in the Wahhabi purist movement which is still an unfolding force in Saudi Arabia? After all, it was Arabia that first desired reform in open defiance of Constantinople. Most critics of Arab nationalism decline to trace the origin of the Arab nationalist movement back to the Wahhabi movement, or any movement of similar dimen­sions, simply because of the purist and Pan-Islamic elements in the career of such a movement. Thus, we are led to

205think that Pan-Islamism and Pan-Arabism are polarized. Synthetically speaking, they should be different threads in an identical nationalist tissue. Pan-Islamism is the main by-product of past experience. It can never be iso­lated. Polarization of Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism stems largely from the fear of religious intolerance.

Such intolerance exists no longer in the Arab world. Besides, areas with large Christian population could always be decentralized and given some sort of local sovereignty, guaranteed by solid constitutional measures in any Pan- Arab or Pan-Islamic union. Even though chances of an Is­lamic union in the foreseeable future are slim anyway, it is essential for the total nationalist movement not to be polarized into Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic. A synthetical approach could be: "Let us all concentrate on the imme­diate objectives of Pan-Arabism, first, and once they materialize, we could always see what other steps to take."

Not only are the Wahhabi and other Islamic reform movements excluded from the Arab nationalist stream but also almost all movements in which the protagonists havebeen dynasts. Almost all critics disqualify the policy

87of Ibrahim Pasha (who was affected by the Arab idea ),

on°'Lewis, pp. cit.. p. 167.

206as nationalist, and not all register much nationalist activity for the Sharif Husayn of Makkah. The Mahda. is forgotten. The revolt of*Abd al-Qadir against the French in North Africa is considered local. Nor are such patri­otic movements as that of Zaghlul or General*UrabI (Arabi) considered Arab because of their purely Egyptian character. In short, there was a revolt in almost every corner of the Arab Middle East and a majority is disqualified as nation­alist. The idea that each of these movements, and others, contributed at least a thread to the trend of events that came to shape up in a common struggle against foreign dom­ination, and for national defragmentation is not communi­cated.

So, the area in which the^birth* of Arab nationalism should be sought is narrowed by our critics to the Levant where Western influence was greatest.

The idea that Arab nationalism has had its origin in Western-oriented circles is challenged by Soviet writers:

Soviet writers have disputed the suggestion that the Arabs adopted ideas on nationalism from Europe. They prefer to regard the Arab movement for inde­pendence as an internal process . . . , representing

207a protest against Western colonial policy. Emphasis is laid also on the inevitability of the historical proecess, [sic. ]

Apparently, this view is also erroneous concerning the course of the historical process.

As if it were a human being, nationalism had to start its life in one place. It is true the Maronite minority was the first group in the Arab world to absorb the Western concept of nationalism. So the birth of Arab nationalism is generally sought in no other place than the late nineteenth century Lebanon. It is true also that this minority resented the Ottoman yoke because it felt itself a small Christian isle in a Muslim ocean.-

Lebanon was too-Western-oriented, then to repre­sent the stream of Arab national consciousness. What the Maronites actually wanted was local independence, although they spoke of decentralization and equality. When the Maronite movement was persecuted by the Ottoman authori­ties, many of its spokesmen found refuge in Egypt where the ruling regime was tolerant of such patriotic movements.

A. R. C. Bolton, Soviet Middle East Studies; An Analysis and Bibliography. Part II. Arabs and the Arab World. Chatham House Memoranda, Royal Institute of Inter­national Affairs (distributed by Oxford University Press), June, 1959, p. ii.

208

Undoubtedly, the Levantine immigrants in Egypt and theMaronite scholars in Beirut made great contributions tothe Arabic cultural development. However, their activitywas anti-Turkish and ran along Western cultural norms.This ran counter to the general Arab mood of the time:

. . . the Muslim leaders at the time were warning the Arabs to prepare themselves against the encroachments of the West rather than encouraging them to overthrow the Turkish regime. Leading Muslims, as well as the vast majority of the inhabitants of the Arab Near East, remained loyal to the Ottoman Government.

Pan-Islamism was really the mood of the time. Apparently,there was little harmony of interests between the Lebanesemovement and that of the majority of the Arab Middle East.

Besides, the Lebanese movement was religious, at least in cause. Farther, the impact of the movement, on the whole, is exaggerated. As to the greatly propagated idea that Arab nationalism had its birth in Lebanon, evi­dence is largely lacking.

Two assertions are, however, unsupported by any serious historical evidence, namely: (a) that asmall group of "enlightened elite ," through their secret society in Beirut, spread the seeds of Arab

89Zeine N. Zeine. Arab-Turkish Relatxons and the Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Beirut: Khayat, 1958), p. 58.

209nationalism, and (b) that "the first organized effort in the Arab national movement" can be traced back to the activities of that group.^0

Consequently, the Arab nationalist movement did not actu­ally have its birth in one specific place. Threads of different colors, from all over the Arab Middle East, con­tributed to the nationalist tissue. That is not to say that the Maronite movement was not at all nationalist- oriented. For though the movement was sectarian-separatist in cause, it came to be synthetical-nationalist in effect, in the long run. It contributed a thread.

At first there was something missing in the harmony of interests between the Muslim and the Christian under the Ottoman Empire. Europe was interested in the protec­tion of the Christian minorities of the Empire. It was European influence that the average Muslim feared. Euro­pean imperialism was mounting in North Africa, Egypt, and Southwest Asia, where it was met with fierce struggles everywhere. Then, fear of European imperialism came to be felt, also, by the average Christian. It was then that the interests of the Muslim and the Christian became har-

^monious. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire resulted

Ibid., p. 56; citing George Antonius, The Arab Awakening (New York: C.P. Putnam's Sons, 1946), p. 56.

210

in the occupation of Arab lands by European countries and their division into spheres of influence. It was during the struggle against European imperialism, by both Mus­lims and Christians, that the nationalist tissue took a full shape.

X. THE NATIONALIST STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM

The Arab national consciousness is attributed to four main causes, namely the past experience based on the Arabo-Islamic tradition, modern Arab national aspira­tions, the concept of nationalism as borrowed from the West, and the reaction against European imperialism.

After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, Great Britain and France came to occupy most of the unoccupied Arab territories of that Empire and dividedall to spheres of influence. The plan was according to

91secret agreements between the allies in 1915-17. Under European control Arab lands were fragmented into separ­ate units. Under the Ottomans the Arabs were theore­tically .more united than during any time to follow.

91Pierre Rondot, The Changing Patterns of the Mid­dle East (New York: Praeger, 1965), p. 76.

211Unlike that of Europe, Ottoman rule of the Arabs was not a foreign occupation.

Under European occupation, the popular aspirations of any Arab area suffered severe limitations. In their occupation of Arab territories European authorities saw to it that Arab decisions were always subordinate to Western interests. A majority of Arab politicians and rulers were brought up in that tradition. Notwithstand­ing, popular national movements and leaderships arose everywhere to protest against the limitations placed on national aspirations. Methodologically speaking, the nationalist movement could only take first things first. That is to say it sought the removal of pro-imperialist politicians and rulers and the termination of imperialism itself. At first. it was too immature for the popular forces to propagate the idea of national de-fragmentation. Nor was it mature enough, at first, to propagate a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs or even engage in any substantial program of industrialization or military re­form. This does not mean, of course, that such objectives were not existent in the Arab national consciousness. On the contrary, the idea of national de-fragmentation never departed the Arab national reality for any length of time.

We have seen how political de-fragmentations since the Abbasids were superseded by the Islamic tradition. It is true that the ideological method of national de-fragmen­tation became subject to modern changes arising from the nationalist fervor. Generally speaking nationalism, asacriterion, is both limited and unlimited, and exclu­sive and comprehensive. It is both secular and religious. It is a dogma, an axiom, a stereotype, and a hypothesis at the same time. It means different things to different people. It is regional, national, and international. In spite of its unlimited potential, it may be stemmed en­tirely. It is something in the West and something else

' in the Arab world. It is both hell and salvation. Like a fundamental law, nationalism lends itself very easily to the recognized ends; almost everyone aspires at the endeared end of unity. Yet it lends itself little, if at all, to the means; when it comes to how to achieve unity, nationalism is a labyrinth. It is so intriguing that it could be a source of national dissension rather than unity. In its extreme form it may lead to war or even the destruction of humanity. That is why it is hated in one place and loved in another. Why is it so maze-like? Because it is the embodiment of the conscience of each

213individual nation. As a field of study, it is so unex­plored that it needs many a scholarly brains, for long, to regulate it.

A majority of Arab politicians and rulers worked with European interests. They believed that they were nationalists just like anyone else. Accordingly, Arab economy went along European systems, and Arab foreign tradewas mainly with the West. Actually Britain, France, and

92Italy enjoyed a period of relative tranquility in the Arab areas after World War I. It is true that there were anti-imperialist uprisings but these were more or less under control. With a few exceptions, here and there, Arab nationalism was hardly inflamed. In a situa­tion where the spokesmen of foreign interests were fre­quently local authorities, the anti-imperialist movement could hardly escape confusion. National aspirations looked, for some time, to many, much more of a myth than reality. Even after independence in the late nineteen forties, the concept of spheres of influence was still so strong that the principle of neutralism was unthinkable. The national aspiration of substantial military reform

Italy in the case of Libya.

214

was unworkable under the assumption thatEurope could always defend the Arab areas against possible outside attacks. The aspiration of national industrialization was foiled since the West could sell the Arabs whatever goods they might need. Occasionally, however, there arose from among the politicians and the rulers a pro­gressive government which pushed the struggle for inde­pendence boldly ahead. The new nationalism accommodated both the pro-Western and the progressive. At times the leadership of the popular struggle forced their way to the seat of government. It was from the folds of the popular struggle and against it that political parties arose. Some of these were appointees of imperialism, some were opportunists,and some were ardent nationalists. All, however, claimed the umbrella of nationalism equally. It was the popular struggle, especially in Egypt, the Levant, and Iraq, that made the stay for imperialism both difficult and expensive. The popular struggle ™as a^le to usurp the nationalist umbrella simply because its credit of achievement became the most recognized. Under its pressure, types of conditional, nominal, and full inde­pendence were gradually granted in some areas. Other

215areas remained occupied either because the popular strug­gle was not strong enough, or because the imperialist authority had come originally to stay permanently. Yet other areas were either lost, in the case of Alexandretta, or doomed, in the case of Palestine, to be the scene of one of the most difficult disputes of recent history. It was in the folds of the Palestine dispute that Arab na­tionalism became tough, anti-Western, and distinctively Arab. It was, also, in its developments that the old politician-ruler-opportunist alliance was progressively exposed and discredited.

The coming of independence gave rise to a very striking phenomenon; after having achieved some indepen­dence and expected more to come, Arab opinion tended until the early fifties toward forgetting past resentments with imperialism and cooperating equally with the West. During the forties there was still a good deal of faith in Western ability and willingness to satisfy the Arab na­tional aspirations, not only by granting independence without much bloodshed, but also by contributing to nation­al industrialization, military reform and especially by discovering a possibly favorable solution to the Palestine

216question. That phenomenon was partially the outcome of the fact that in spite of past resentments against Western imperialism, Arabs were still Arabs; they had not been assimilated. The assimilative policy of France in Algeria was still a large source of resentment, but many Arabs did not really believe that France could be serious in claim­ing that the Algerians were French. A contributing factor to that phenomenon was the widely spread fear and mistrust of communist infiltration as an alternative. For a moment, the West had a golden chance of establishing excellent relations with the Arabs. This Arab generation bears wit­ness to a time, prior to the early fifties, when such terms as communism, Russia, and Bolshevic had their worst meanings in their history. The West did not take advan­tage of that phenomenon. Neither was the West willing to deal with the Arabs equally, nor was it willing to partici­pate in the national development without strings, nor was it able to withdraw without lakes of bloodshed. Nor was it able to forge a workable solution for the Palestine deadlock. The West was still obsessed with its supremacy, and old myths. The most destructive Western axiom in rela­tion to its interests in the Arab world was that the Arabs could not seriously defy the West at any time. A damaging

attitude to Western interests was that the West did not grant equality even to its most devoted Arab emissaries.As a result, there arose a general turning-of-back-on- the-West movement even by those traditional go-between Arabs who shared the religious tie with the West. Thus, the phenomenon of forgetting past resentments against the West had to lose its adherents. The popular struggle revitalized instead the previously unthinkable principle of neutralism between East and West. At first, the princi­ple of neutralism was a tactic more wondered about and spoken of than meant. During the decade following World War II, neutralism entered the popular struggle as a hazy principle. At first, Western reaction to the principle was in the area of the negligible. Western reaction be­came different when, after the Bandung Conference of 1955, Arab neutralism proved to be a powerful force. The popular struggle against imperialism reflected two trends: (1) ad­herence to the old order based on the Islamic tradition; and (2) desire for modernization, also based on past exper­ience, but with strong secular orientation. These two trends, which stemmed from a synthetical origin, tended to conflict over the predominance of the popular struggle.As a result, their ideological methods readjusted during

218the conflict to an inevitable state of polarization. Both trends, however, hold recognized claims in the general na­tional consciousness, and their chance of synthesis is feasible. Trends lacking in popular support, achievement, and synthetical existence within the recognized national stream have introduced their distracting influence.

The popular struggle against imperialism culminated in the developments of the Egyptian revolution of 1952, and the eight-year Algerian war which broke out in Novem­ber 1954. While the Algerians did the fighting, the rest of the Arabs did a great deal of maneuvering and financing. Algerian aspirations resulted in the straining of the re­lations between each Arab state and France. Besides, the conflict in Algeria was a major factor in the French attack on Egypt during the Suez crisis and the French military assistance to Israel. It was an Arab war. In Egypt the revolutionary regime registered rapid popular local sup­port and a large following in almost all Arab areas.

Led by the revolutionary, the popular struggle did discover that there is a difference between independence and real independence which became a fundamental objec­tive. In other words, the objective was established that an

independent Arab entity must not remain within the sphere of influence of any outside power. In the meantime, the revolution planned and pushed ahead all sorts of reform. From the beginning, the revolution not only served as a model for the Arabs everywhere, but also spoke always in their name. Although comprehension and synthesis were among its initial approaches, it discovered that the nationalist movement had been invested with too many dis­tracting trends to be able to achieve the recognized na­tional ends. The separation of the synthetical and the comprehensive from the distracting became inevitable. As a result, the backbone of the pre-revolutionary order was gradually replaced. A whole new ideological methodology was in the making. In the folds of the new changes, uncon­trollable tributaries of the stream leading to the revival of the Islamic tradition as a basis of political life was also stemmed.

Under the influence of the revolutionary regime in Egypt agreement has been reached for the first time in a modern Arab country on both national means and national ends. In contrast, almost everywhere else in the Arab world, while there has been an agreement on the national ends, the means have been a source of dissension. Further

220economic and provincial nationalist sentiments have been highly distracting factors in the nationalist movement, especially in Syria, Lebanon, and Tunisia. Moreover, varying degrees of pre-independence methods, remnants of the Muhammad *Ali legacy, seem to be still lingering in the decision-making processes in a number of states. Fur­thermore, the trend of reviving the Islamic traditional order, which, in the case of Saudi Arabia, is the leading national ideology, is in sharp conflict with the Pan-Arab concept in Syria; the conflict arises from the fact that while the traditional wing draws its strength from being static, the Pan-Arab wing is too accelerating, besides the existence of many a distracting trend within its ranks. As to the distracting trends in general, their existence is a major phenomenon outside Egypt, except probably in Libya where the ideological movement is relatively dormant.

It is well known that the present political frag­mentation in the Arab world is largely a result of foreign occupation. It is a distracting phenomenon indeed that some groups turn to be loyal to conditions that were im­posed on them originally by outside powers. A great source of distraction in the Arab national movement has been the

221extreme attachment of some groups to their present poli­tical entities. During the experience of the Syro-Egyptian unity, for example, there were those who were proud of the emerging unity hut who reacted to their new partners as if they were strangers. Many a Syrian used to blame any decrease in his income on the Egyptians. Even the lack of adequate rainfall which caused some agricultural damage in Syria was a source of anti-unity feeling. In Egypt there was some resentment among businessmen of the popu­larity of the Syrian goods and the existence of a handful of Egyptian teachers and experts in Syria was even more resented. Undoubtedly the loyalty of certain groups was still clearly dualist; i.e., partly national and partly regional. Further there were those whose loyalty was exclusively regional. These distractions are still char­acteristic of the situation in most Arab areas. Fortun­ately the majority of Arab opinion tends to transcend such attitudes. Nevertheless, the existence of such distrac­tions is an indication that the Arab national conscious­ness has not reached its full growth so far.

The growth of national consciousness has been great­est in things international. For when it comes to an issue involving an Arab interest versus a foreign interest, the

Arab national consciousness appears in its heights. The phenomenon has been observed that, in the struggle for independence and the conduct of foreign policy, distract­ing trends have been minimum. That is why the Arab world looks more cohesive from outside than from inside. The phenomenon stems from the old Arab tradition of compro­mising family quarrels once an outside concern arises.We have seen how in a jihad almost all dissenting sects cooperated. Nowadays, we have seen Arab summit confer­ences held, regardless of domestic differences to re­organize Arab strength, and determination toward an Arab settlement of the Jordan River question. The Arab League, in this respect, is more the embodiment of Arab desire for independence and distinctive "peoplehood" than that of internal cohesion. Unlike domestic policy, Arab for­eign policy is integrative. The desire for real inde­pendence and distinctive "peoplehood" has effected the principle of neutrality in foreign affairs.

One of the basic national aims of the 1952 Egyptian revolution was achieving real independence, which came quickly to be a common denominator of Arab foreign policy. The old-fashioned generation of rulers and politicians was brought up in the tradition of complying with the

223

interests of certain foreign powers in making national decisions. The new progressive regime in Egypt, which was not brought up in that tradition, was the first to register a showdown with the West on many fronts, par­ticularly the sphere of influence principle, and to commit the main street of Arab foreign policy to neutrality. The tendency of some governments to communicate with the inde­pendent Arabs through Paris and London was especially re­sented. Also the Western attempt to keep a balance of power between the Arab world and Israel ran counter to Arab interests.

In spite of leading Arab opposition to any partici­pation in Western defense organizations, the West went ahead and formed the Baghdad Pact of 1955. By then the Algerian war had already started, and in reply to the Arab support of the Algerian rebels, France shipped arms to Israel. The Baghdad Pact constituted, from the Arab view, not only a falsification of the principle of Arab neutrality, but also a threat to Arab unity, and French shipment of arms to Israel disturbed the so-called balance of power in favor of Israel.

Arab nationalism was faced with a great challenge. The Arab aspiration of preserving national independence

224required the purchase of arms, and the aspiration of pro­moting neutrality between East and West demanded the aboli­tion of the Baghdad Pact.

The concept of neutralism is concerned with world peace and the prevalence of international law. In compar­ison Arab neutrality is also concerned with world peace and the rule of law, but it is further concerned with equality, independence, dismantling spheres of influence, and even socialism. Actually Arab neutrality is too dis­tinctively Arab to be separable from Arab nationalism.

Today the national aspiration at unity is caught between two forces, the one of traditionalism and that of modernism. In the Arab world the force of tradition is religion-centered. Although Arab unity is not religion- centered, it is not without religious orientation. Gen­erally speaking the nationalist movement aims at the happiness of the individual which may be attained best by the establishment of national unity. The national aspiration at unity brings traditionalism face to face with modernism. Islamic unity is religion-centered, and Arab unity is ideally individual-centered. Unlike Islamic unity, Arab unity lacks both precedence and workable

225definition. Until Arab unity lends itself to definite materialization it will effect the frustration of the individual rather than his happiness. This frustration is added to by ideological divergence and distraction. Being in a transitional stage, Arab unity becomes an end in itself. Then as soon as it materializes it will resolve itself into a means towards the happiness of the individual.

The critical analysis of the background of the problem of this study, given in this chapter, has projected the need in the modern Arab world, in the light of past experience, for a guiding and comprehensive principle, an ideological umbrella, above the Arab society as a whole. The problem itself is more fully discussed in Chapter IV and especially Chapter V, in a modern perspective.

CHAPTER IV

TRADITIONALISM, TRANSITIONALISM AND IDEOLOGICAL TRENDS

In the Arab world, as almost everywhere else, there are two rival forces, traditionalism versus modernism. Of course, there are those critics who recognize modernism as "progress,thus giving us the impression that tradi­tion is synonymous to retrogression, which it is not, for as conceived by a careful observer tradition is ideally readjustable to modern demands;

There is a natural shift of emphasis from age to age corresponding to the changing needs of the time* absorbing the traditiop. History is not all progress, and the spirit in which every age approaches the heri­tage tradition offers it is as different as the situa­tion and capacity of man at various periods of his life.^

Practically, however, tradition manifests itself in a set of preconceived patterns which rarely lend themselves to

' ^"Pierre Rondot, The Changing Patterns of the Middle East (New York; Praeger, 1961), p. 57.

2Werner Jaeger, "The Future of Tradition," Our Emer­gent Civilization. Ruth Nanda Anshen (ed.) (Science of Cul­ture Series, Vol. IV. New York; Harper and Brothers, 1947), p. 180.

227modern developments. The difference between the theory of tradition and its practice comes from the differing outlooks of the intelligentsia which is divided into traditionalists and modernists.

As traditionalists, they tend to interpret tradi­tion in terms of their fears and aspirations. Their fear of the unknown drives them to aspire at preserving the familiar in the present, and reconstructing the familiar in the past. Hence comes their preference, often, of an accumulated corruption to a useful innovation. And as modernists they often prefer modernism not because it has the answers to the problems involved but because they have been exposed and used to it. Further, one must admit that the many prefer modernism because they do not really know what tradition is.

I. ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS

Traditionalism in Islam is the adhesion to the Sun- nah. In a radical sense the Sunnah stems strictly from the Our*an and the Traditions of the Prophet. The radi­cals of Islam are the Khawarii whose teaching has hardly any bearing on this century's climate. In a purist sense the Sunnah stems further from the interpretation of the

228Qur>an and the Traditions by the four Orthodox Caliphs. Purist movements have recurred since the seventh century A.D. to quell the tide of interpolations from flooding Islam. One movement which attracted more than local fol­lowing was authored by the Maghrib! Ibn Tumart (1078- 1130) whose ultimate aim "was to denounce the schismic innovations, to admonish against current evils, and tocall for a return to the Sunna (practice) of the Prophet

3and the Right-Guiding Caliphs." Although the movement was linked to the Sufi movement, its determination was

4

4purist. The purist stream has been almost incessant. Another purist movement, with substantial influence on Arab Islam since the fourteenth century A.D., was that of Ibn Taymlyah (d. 1328), a Hanball who condemned Sufi prac- tices especially its saint-worship. His advocation of the return to the simplicity of original Islam continued to win converts until it reached an overwhelming climax, during the eighteenth century with the Wahhabi movement, which has influenced the climate of our own time.

George Kheirallah, Arabia Reborn (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1952), p. 54.

4 _Sufism is frequently opposed to purrsm.

229Muhammad Ibn*Abd al-Wahhab (1703-1791) was a native

of Najd. Like Ibn Taymiyah he studied the strict Hanbali principle. He traveled and sojourned rather lengthily in

•s.

the Middle East. To his utter consternation he found notonly an abundance of the old interpolations of superstitionsand heresies which Ibn Taymiyah had condemned, but alsocorruption in the city life even among the *ulama* them-

5selves. By mid-eighteenth century the Ottoman Empirehad already adopted some European customs especially inits metropolitan areas. The tide of Europeanization had

6been greatest among the Ottomans in whose willingness to purify Islam, *Abd al-Wahhab had no confidence.

*Abd al-Wahhab intended to popularize puritanism, and needing the support of some influential authority for that, he found a powerful ally in the person of Prince Muhammad Ibn Saud. Under their combined efforts the move­ment achieved initial impressive successes followed by increasing expansion in the Arabian Peninsula. At the

5 " - -JSmal al-Dln al-Shayyal, Al-Harakat al-Islahiyahwa Marakiz al-thaaafah fi al-Maghrib (Cairo: Jami*at al- Duwal al-^Arabiyah, 1957), p. 60.

6Christina P. Harris, Nationalism and Revolution in Egypt (The Hague: the Houver Institute, 1954), p. 112.

230

beginning of the nineteenth century the Saudis registered attacks on areas to the north. Faced with the Wahhabi mounting influence, the Ottomans sought the help of Mu­hammad *A1I, in Egypt, to arrest the dangerous tide. As a result of the military measures taken by Muhammad *kli, by 1818 the movement was physically weakened, though not spiritu­ally. It was then that the movement became very anti- Ottoman. Its potential power has developed later to effect the establishment of the present state of Saudi Arabia.Its unfolding spiritual significance is elucidated by Sir Hamilton Gibb:

. . . the Wahhabi outbreak was only the extreme expres­sion of a tendency which can be traced in many parts of Islam in the course of the eighteenth century. . . .This movement, combined with a reaction against Sufi infiltrations, grew steadily throughout the nineteenth century and has come to constitute, now in one form, now in another, one of the outstanding features of Modern Islam.^

So Wahhabism has lived as an answer to universal Islamic sentiments. So it has sown the first seeds of reform in the Arab world. Its religious impact has been recognized by all critics. Yet the movement has in addition an Arab national impact which is hardly recognized.

^Sir Hamilton Gibb, Mohammedanism: An Historical Survey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1962), pp. 167-68.

231Sir Hamilton Gibb has observed that, unlike post-

Ghazalian religious forces which had weakened the pre­dominance of the Arab idea in Islam, the Wahhabi movement

8was the first to reassert that idea. Its significancein the Arab awakening is thus established.

In comparison, the contemporary reform movementof Muhammad ‘All’, in Egypt, was predominantly modernist.Had the two movements reconciled and cooperated, the Arab

9world would have progressed extensively. 'Either on the basis of the Wahhabi movement or di­

rectly under its forefather Ibn Taymiyah, the purist move- ment flourished far and wide especially in North Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and India. In Yaman, al-shawkani

•0

(1758-1834) led a successful campaign against innovations. It is not certain whether al-Shawkani was influenced by Wahhabism, but his analysis of Ibn Taymiyah's book,Muntaga al-Akhb5r. shows that he was a Taymiyan like CAbd al-Wahhab. It is also uncertain whether Afrmad Ibn Idris (d. 1837) who accomplished a purist movement in

Slfcid., p. 168.9 —al-Shayyal, op. cit., p. 65.

232Makkah with a considerable following, was influenced by *Abd al-Wahhab. However, like a typical purist he advo­cated the Our9an and the Traditions as the acceptable source of the Sunnah.

Yet it is certain that a Wahhabi state was estab­lished in India, at the beginning of the nineteenth cen­tury. Its founder was Sayyid Ahmad Ibn^Irfan. The Wahhabi movement, also, found an echo in the Maghrib where Sayyid Muhammad al-Sariussi (d. 1859) preached in Cyrenaica, the return to the simplicity of the Faith. However, unlike the Wahhabi movement, al-Sanussiyah, and actually almost all purist movements in North Africa since Ibn Tumart, were linked with the Sufi movements. They were purist only in a modified sense. Al-Sariussi had a large follow­ing in North Africa, Egypt, the Sudan and the Arabian

• 10Peninsula. Like the Wahhabis, the Sanussis were anti- Ottoman. Their reassertion of the Arab idea could be - • observed not only from the resemblance between their prac­tices and those of the Wahhabis but also, from their resort to the -jihad in defense of the Faith. They fought the French in Equatorial Africa, the Italians in Libya, and

l0Ibid.. p. 70.

the British in Egypt.The Wahhabi purist movement still finds echoes in

distant places, to our own day. The contemporary puristmovement which al-Dakkali initiated in Fez, and whichcame to spread far and wide in North Africa, has had its

12inspiration from Wahhabism. Likewise the movement which*Abd al-Aziz al-Tha*alibi founded in Algeria, and that ofIbn Badis in Tunisia also bear witness to the influence

13of Wahhabism, not only on the current of traditionalism but also, though indirectly, on the Arab consciousness.

The most serious criticism leveled against Wahhabism is that the movement could possibly see one view; its own. In a nationalist situation, appealing for comprehension before any other factor, the movement could hardly qualify for a leading role.

In comparison the *ulama* of the mosque and the coll eg e — mosque are not enthusiastic nationalists even though their influence on the nationalist movement is significant.

•^Gibb, op. cit., p. 172.12Kheirallah, pp. cit., p. 52.13_. . ,Ibid.

234

II. TRADITION IN TRANSITION

In a synthetical sense the Sunnah stems not only from the Our9an and the Traditions of the Prophet as in­terpreted by the four Orthodox Caliphs, but farther from the iitihad of the orthodox jurist-theologian doctors, up to the fourth century of Islam. This is the Sunnah of the main stream. We have seen the Sunnah of the radicals and the purists has developed mainly in the battle field. We have seen also the Sunnah of the Sufis, or the leftwing, has developed around the tombs of the saints and in

14the dhikr circles. Unlike either, the Sunnah of the middle has developed in the mosque-college milieus. Its proponents have been mainly the orthodox Arab ^ulama^ on whose shoulders not only traditional Islam, but also the Arab idea have had their most enduring support.

The Sunnah of the main stream has been subject to all sorts of attacks from within and from without. It has endured attacks from among its own ranks on the right and

14■ Dhikr is the name of God recited m a specific ritual context. Members of the order start by swinging the bust, while standing up, repeating a verbal ritual. Each order usually has a different context, but a fairly common practice is the repetition of * La IlahS ilia Allah"

235on the left. And from without, it has survived the attacks of the sectarian, the modernist and the secular.Its genius lies in its persistent transcendental capacity. Sometimes it strikes back, but it never disowns. That is why the Sunnah of the middle is comprehensive of its right and left wings.

True, the Sunnah is a rule-making mechanism, yet the application of the rules is partly a state function and partly an individual encumbrance. The state is re­sponsible for applying the rules regulating the relations between the individual and the community. The relations between the individual and Allah are regulated by the Sunnah. but rule-application in this respect is nobody else's responsibility except the individual's. Well, suppose a Muslim does not abide by the Sunnah. So long as no rule is violated between a Muslim and others in the community, neither the Sunnah nor the state has anything to say; it becomes a matter of conscience. Thus, the Sunnah allows no clergy, nor does it allow excommunication.

(there is no God, but Allah) over and over again, accompan­ied by a singer's repeated appeal to a saint for compas­sion, such as Madad Ya Rifa*!. and interrupted by the recitation of some verses from the Our * an.

23615As a result the official *ulama* are not a clergy.

True, they "claimed (and were generally recognized) torepresent the community in all matters relating to faithand law, more particularly against the authority of the

16State," but their long experience with misgovernment had taught them to recognize government by coup and usurpa­tion, and bad government. The assumption became one of:"bad government was better than no government or anarchy."Often they made a concession to a ruler with secular ambi-

17tions simply because there was no alternative.The power of the *ulama+ is limited to interpretation,

advice, and teaching. Generally speaking their traditional role has been something like a combination of Congress, Supreme Court, trade union, church, and university, but with no powers of enforcement or intervention whatsoever.In case the state did not comply with the Sunnah, the best

1 RHowever, Sir Hamilton Gibb conceives of an Islamic clergy because the *ulama?"acquired precisely the same kind of social and religious authority and prestige as the clergy in the Christian communities." Gibb, pp. cit.. p. 95.

16Ibid., p. 96.17 ,Ijt was through the concession of the *ulama7 that

Muhammad AlaT acquired the governorship of Egypt.

237the fculama^ could do was to call the community for a

18strike. Because of their popularity and prestige, the state managed frequently in the past to observe the Sunnah, at least marginally.

In spite of their popularity and prestige, the *ulama? have been the group most in touch with the people, especially the lower classes. They taught them, led them in prayer, enlightened them on religious matters, and represented them. During the darkest age of the Arabs, it was in the mosque- college that the *ulama* taught the Arabic language, his­tory and literature. There came a time when such mosque- college institutions as al-Azhar in Egypt, al-Zaitunahin Tunisia, and al-QarawIyin in Fez were the only cultural oases in the Arab lands. During the Mamluk period Syria, and especially Egypt, had the lead, in the Arab lands, in the number of such educational institutions. Cairo alone had more than seventy educational institutions, towardsthe end of the eighteenth century, besides many mosques

19which maintained study circles. The teaching was carried

18The popular stirrings of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal in Bagh­dad in the ninth century A.D. are representative here.

19Bayard Dodge, Al-Azhar: a Millennium of Muslim Learning (Washington, D.C.: the Middle East Institute, 1961), p. 91.

238on normally by the *ulama* in Arabic. It was thus that Arabic culture was preserved.

Among the institutions of traditional learning al-Azhar has been the most important to this day. During the rule of Muhammad Alx, the emphasis became one of secu­lar e d u c a t i o n 2 ® that was largely at the expense of tradi­tional scholarship. William Lane gives us an account of the status of the average Azharx during this period.

The condition of a man of this profession is now so fallen, that it is with difficulty he can obtain a scanty subsistence, unless possessed of extraordinary talent.21

Muhammad *Alx apparently had revoked a good deal of the privileges of the gulama?

Nevertheless al-Azhar remained influential as always. A new system of schooling was in the making. The dawn of cultural awakening began. "Side by side with the Quaranic system of learning, there was a new program of secular edu­cation destined to compete with the religious studies fos­tered by al-Azhar."22 It was in the activities of the hew

2 0Ibid.. p. 113.

^^William Edward Lane, The Manners and Customs of The Modern Egyptians (New York: E. P. Dutton and Co.,I860), p. 219.

22Bayard Dodge, op. cit., p. 114.

239educational system in Egypt and Syria, the missionary schools in the Levant, and the French educational activity in Algeria that secularism burgeoned. And it was because of the existence side by side of the traditional and the modern that the tendency to polarize things religious and things nationalist materialized.

It is significant that the channel which preserved the heritage of the Arab nation in its darkest hour is either scorned, ignored, or entirely isolated by some extremist proponents of the modern nationalist movement. Actually the modern attitude of polarizing things religious and things national is groundless. The religious under­currents of the Arab nationalist movement are too powerful to be segregated. In the meantime there are those culama* who dream of the revival of the Caliphate as a preliminary step. To them distant Indonesia, for example, is as essen­tial in the Pan-Islamic drive as Syria or Algeria. They look at the secular Pan-Arab movement as an interpolation with no origin in the Islamic tradition. Fortunately the main nationalist stream and the main traditional stream are transcendental in their attitude. Only the reorganiza­tion of all nationalist sentiments toward a nationalist

240comprehension is lacking. In other words, there is an apparent need for a comprehensive ideology.

Comprehension was missing in the reforms of Muhammad *Ali. Likewise it was missing in the Wahhabi movement. The traditionalist *ulama* were as far from comprehension as possible. Each was wrapped in an egocentric dream. An authority says in this respect that Muhammad^ll "was super­ficial in his understanding of the west; he was even more

23so in his understanding of Islam." He did not hesitate to crush the Wahhabi uprising. If both had cooperated instead, they would have reached the heights of the glori­ous past on a modern basis. In their obsession with ego­centric dreams both Muhammad *A1I and the Wahhabis weakened0

each other. They also weakened the status of the officialfculama* . The Wahhabis attacked the lima?* (consensus) of the6ulama*. And, under Muhammad^AlI, "Azharite study haddegenerated into lifeless traditionalism, where free specu-

24lation was forbidden." It was then that the seeds, not only of polarization but also opportunism, were sown. The

23Desmond Steward, Young Egypt (London; Allan Win­gate Publisher, 1958), pp. 42-43.

^Ibid., p. 43.

241vision of a vast empire made Muhammad *A1I a super- Machiavellian. These are his own words:

It is clear that Machiavelli studied long, and learnt only this little about human nature. I knew all that he writes when I was yet a young man, and have learnt far more since.2^

Perhaps those who tend to separate religion andmodernism nowadays are not aware that they have inheriteda Muhammad *Ali legacy. This may be drawn from the followingself-revealing account:

. . . instead of seeing that Islam, reformed, could be once more an enlivening rather than a deadening force in society . . . Muhammad Ali did all that he could toseparate rather than combine the traditional and the modern. He discouraged the Azhar, by cutting its en­dowments; he sent students to study in the lay atmos­phere of post-Revolutionary France. He fathered a schism which was to last, between those Egyptians who were educated in the traditional manner (and a tradi­tional manner kept as sterile as possible), and those who had gone to Europe or America, to fill their suit­cases with foreign knowledge.

The Muhammad *AlI legacy had continued to unfold in Arabpolitics until 1952 when the dynasty was finally destroyedby the Egyptian revolution.

Bearing in mind that many a socio-political attitude may have deeper roots in the past, reactions to the legacy

Ibid., pp. 39-40, citing Muhammad*A1I.26Ibid., p. 43.

which Muhammad *Ali came to inaugurate have been unfolding in various forms of varying echoes almost all over the Arab world for no less than a century and a half. There has been the traditional reaction which emerged from among the official ^ulama*, and reached a climax in the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood. Traditionalism has been the common opponent of almost all other reactions. There has been the antithetical secularist reaction which has infiltrated the ranks of the Arab intelligentsia, especially those en­gaged in realpolitik. There has been the patriotic-region- alist reaction, a., la mode francaise. of the European edu­cated elite, versus the Arab nationalist reaction. Be­sides, the tide of kingship, which found an encouraging example in the Egyptian dynasty, came to be resented under the influence of the ideas of the French Revolution, by republican preferences. As to the standard of living and literacy which persistently deteriorated, the reformist- modernist reaction has arisen, to enhance socio-economic development. Further, there was the armed revolt against dynastic-aristocratic corruption and exploitation. Also the point may be added that these and others functioned either in exclusion of or opposition to each other. Dissension

243which has characterized the social order for long in­creased 'during the three decades following World War I. Rupert Emerson provides us with a simplified typical analysis of such a situation:

While the fruits of a higher standard of living and of enhanced national power, to mention only two aspects, are generally desired, serious resistance is likely to be met when it comes to reckoning of the costs in terms of a threat to established cultures, religions, and communities. Inertia and conserva­tism often have strong champions among the older elites, the religious leaders, and other beneficiar­ies of the existing order. Aspirants to political leadership, becoming aware of the new situation, may well succeed in rousing popular passions by ap­peals to the traditionally minded among the rural and urban masses to thwart those who would destroy the national heritage by alien innovation. One ver­sion of the national goals and values, derived from the past, would thus come to be sharply opposed to another version, aimed at a different style of fu­ture. 27

For obvious reasons, traditionalism has fought inno­vation at all times. But, whenever the traditionalist *ulama9 became beneficiaries of a political regime, they usually gave it their approval. They gave it to adven­turers and usurpers including Muhammad *All. This seems to be their greatest weakness, but it is understandable.

27Rupert Emerson, From Empire to Nation (Massa­chusetts: Harvard University Press, 1960), p. 367. It is apparent from the discussion that follows that the author has the Arab world in mind in making his point.

Ever since the *ulamgp became in the habit of taking reli­gion for a full-time career, especially as civil servants, their silence, if not approval, concerning political abuses was usually granted. Their justifying assumption was that politics became too practical an art to be idealized. Yet, when they were in the habit of rejecting state positions, especially during the early Abbasid period, they were too militant to see political abuses and stay silent. The Wahhabi movement has been critical of the official <ulama‘> because of their negative attitude towards innovation.There arose a movement, in the middle-of-the-road between that of the Wahhabis and the *u lam a*, namely the Muslim Brotherhood. All however fall within the confinement of traditionalism, bid allegiance to Pan-Islamism, and lack in comprehension in varying degrees.

The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in Isma*illyah in Egypt, in late 1928 by Hassan al-Bannah (1906-1949), an Egyptian secondary school teacher. Between 1928 and 1934 the movement looked like a purist movement of the North African type. It adopted a middle-of-the-road attitude between Wahhabism, Sufism, and Azharism. Its leadership came from the traditionalist milieus of Dar al-^Ulum and

245

the Azhar. For a moment it looked like an offshoot of Azharism.

From the beginning it drew its support directlyfrom voluntary efforts outside the civil service circles.Thus it came to acquire relative independence in makingits decisions. In its formative years it concentratedon preaching against apostacy and moral laxity. It wasunaware of its future nature, and raised little suspicionin the political circles in Cairo. By 1934 when it movedto Cairo, it had registered a rapid popularity. For adecade or so it adopted a missionary attitude. In otherwords, it tended to expand at the expense of other move-

28ments and organizations. By winning converts from political parties it placed itself amidst political jealou sies. Then, from the late forties onwards, it acted like a political party.

The Brotherhood was born amidst an "ideological" vacuum ; none of the nationalist parties had a recognized "ideology." Also Islamic traditionalist movements of the Wahhabis, the Sanussis, the Idrisis, the Mahdis, the Sufis

2ftChristina P. Harris, pp. cit.. p. 158.

246

and in a way al-Salaflyah were either dormant, dead, or localized. The Muslim Brotherhood found itself in a unique position to lead the Pan-Islamic sentiment. All it needed for such leadership was a program of action which it gradually effected. In Cairo the movement became conscious of its tremendous potentiality.

Roughly speaking the intelligentsia may be divided, during the life time'of the Brotherhood, into tradition­alists and nationalists. The traditionalists may be sub­divided into purist and consensual. The purist tradi­tionalist aims at reconstructing the past of the dawn of Islam. The consensual traditionalist aims at subjecting both past and present to the ultimate authority of the i-jma4. The Wahhabis represent the purist traditionalist, and the official *ulama? of the mosque-college represent the consensual. The nationalists may be sub-divided into "old nationalist" and "progressive nationalist ." Such political parties as the Wafd, in Egypt and the Syrian National Party, represent the "old nationalist ." "Pro­gressive nationalism" remained largely a state of mind with­out cohesive organization, until the growth of the Ba4th in the Levant and Iraq, and especially Nasserism all over the Arab world. It was these two nationalist movements

247that have been able to transcend the Arab political boun­daries. Of these only the purist traditionalist could conceive of Islam as a religion and a state, inseparably.In this web the Muslim Brotherhood represented an entirely complex phenomenon. The organization came to be "progressive traditionalist."

Unlike the purist traditionalists the Brethren admit­ted a good deal of innovations, especially science and tech­nology. In the meantime (like a typical traditionalist group), the organization blamed Western institutions for almost any deficiency in the political system, or laxity in social ethics. Like the purist traditionalists, the movement advocated the literal interpretation of the Qur*an and the Traditions as the source of law, and adopted the iihad in its militant sense. In the manner of the "progres­sive nationalist" it accused the traditionalists of narrow­mindedness, and in the manner of traditionalists it de­nounced the nationalists as heretics, status-seekers, and greedy for power.

The Brotherhood was most ideally fit for its initial purpose. Its initial members "were humble Egyptians: thelowest workers, the poor, peasants, impoverished students -

248.rthe undernourished and the under-privileged of all classes.

Combatting illiteracy, and superstition among these classes in the rural areas, and protecting them from apostacy and moral laxity in urban areas constituted its initial program. And what a magnanimous task it was; the overwhelming major­ity of the rural areas were illiterate and superstitious, and corruption was growing steadily in urban life. Such a task could have exhausted the total efforts of an organ­ization many folds the size of the Brotherhood at its zen­ith. Only the Brotherhood did not carry on its initial purpose. After having achieved some initial success, it started dividing its efforts on greater fronts especially that of the intriguing realpolitik. An authority confirms the new development by reporting the following impression from a Brotherhood's 1943-1944 publication:

. . . the Muslim Brothers seem convinced beyond the shadow ofadoubt that they possess the right program, an all-inclusive one, and that they have faithful workers and resolute leaders to achieve their aims - in short all the ingredients of success. . . . They call for a united Muslim front to cope with all social and economic problems, the intellectual heresies, the psychological weaknesses, the corrupting influences that endanger the substructure of I s l a m . ^0

29Ibid.. pp. 174-175.

249

It was then that the Muslim Brotherhood became increas­ingly detached from its initial purpose of making the masses well-behaved.

After a few years of fundamental success, the Bro­therhood began to waste its energy in the cause of rule, giving only lip service to its fundamental initial duty. And leaving Egypt with no more than a thin layer of puri- tanism, it tried to puritanize the Arab world, and before it was successful in puritanizing the latter it had stretched its thin efforts, in the world of Islam pre­maturely. Outside Egypt it acted like a political party from the beginning, especially in Syria. Besides, its efforts tended to portray the non-Muslim Arab as a guest rather than a member of the family, and its stand on Arab nationalism was vague.

Size, not value, came to haunt the movement. In order to grow persistently faster it admitted the idle,the modernized, the reactionary, and even the subversive

3iamong its ranks, hoping that such elements would even­tually conform. The hope was largely in vain. But that was not all.

31Anwar el-Sadat, Revolt on the Nile (New York: John Day Co., 1957), p. 30.

250During its later years its aspiration at rule

became a state of mind. But the road to power was costly in terms of the Islamic principle. Two unorthodox al­ternatives were used by the movement. One, it engaged in realpolitik32 which the official ‘ulama? had managed to avoid. Two, it embraced the jihad to enforce its will.As used by the extremists of the movement the jihad justi-

33fied assassination, and setting a city aflame. Thus the fundamental jihad was reduced to subversion. This is not traditionalist Islam. Nor is it Reformist Islam. Nor is it nationalism either. One can hardly define the behavi­or of the movement in its later years.

That impulsiveness came to characterize the move­ment's activity is qualified by an observer:

Unfortunately, for some of the members of the Ikhwan and even more for many of their sympathizers and fel- low-travelers the reaffirmation is not a constructive programme based on cogent plans and known objectives, or even felt ideals; but is rather an outlet for emo­tion. It is the expression of the hatred, frustra­tion, vanity, and destructive frenzy of a people who for long have been the prey of poverty, impotence, and fear.^

32Manfred Halpern, The Politics of Social Chance in the Middle East and North Africa (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 139.

33The reference is to the Cairo fire.34Wilfred C. Smith, Islam in Modern History (New York: the New American Library of World Literature, Inc., 1959), p.

163.

Dissatisfaction had transformed the movement from an ini­tial state of duty to a state of emotion. One may assume that dissatisfaction and the resulting impulsiveness stemmed partly from unpreparedness.

The Brotherhood did not actually know all the35answers to the politico-social problems of the age.

Else the burning of foreign business in Cairo (November 25, 1951) should not have happened. By then the Egyptian treas­ury was empty. Specialized economists had always recom­mended the encouragement of foreign investment. True the existent foreign business could have contributed betterto the Egyptian economy but in no way was it dispensable;

36at least not all of a sudden. The burning of Cairo resulted in the impoverishment of the country's treasury (several million pounds had to be paid by the Egyptian government for compensation), and the Brethern had no answer to the politico-social problems of the aftermath of the burning.

Further,-the burning was done in a conspiratorial 37atmosphere. The common belief is that compacting between

•^Ibid. , p. 162. ^ Ibid. . p. 163.37Manfred Halpern, op. cit.. p. 149.

252the Brotherhood and King Farouk against the Wafd govern­ment was behind the blaze. Thus, besides unpreparedness, the movement cast on its faltering lights the dark mantle of accomplicity.

Apart from its compactness, now with the King, and now with another party, for egoist interests, the movementwas opposed to almost every reality other than its own, in

38varying degrees. It was anti-nationalist. It was opposedto modernism. It contributed to the disintegration of traditionalism.3^ It repudiated the negative aspects ofSufism.49 It criticized the *ulama*.43~ Even the

t 42reformism of Muhammad Abduh it did disqualify. It alsoeffected the relegation of the ijma*to a secondary role.43

However, dissension was the symptom of the time.Still the Brotherhood could have continued to grow in spite of all the oppositions. But there came the fatal error.The movement became in the habit of destroying its oppo­nents. It continued to do so until it was first banned (December, 1948), and then finally suppressed (October,

3 8Ibid., p. 147. 3 9Ibid., p. 146. 4 0 Ibid., p. 138.4^Christina P. Harris, op. cit., p. 170.42Ibid., p. 161; Halpern, The politics of Social

Change, p. 138.43Halpern, op. cit., p. 147.

253

1954).

On the one hand the question may be asked, howcould "a combination of idealism and violence, of piety

44and terror" go hand in hand? If pious and ideal aspira­tions are frustrated, as in the case of the Brotherhood, the problem becomes, according to Bernard Lewis, one of:

. . . inability to confront the realities of the modern world, to examine its problems on the level of modern thought, and to devise solutions within the range of possible accomplishment. As all too often, ignorance and anger have found an outlet in pointless and destructive violence— the expression of a state of mind, rather than of a purpose.

On the other hand does such a state of mind reflect also, an erratic organizational structure, besides the frus trated aspirations? Certainly. Infiltration among theranks of the Brethern by status-seekers and fearers of

46the left ; the desire for a vast growth allowed such in­filtration. There was also the infiltration at the top."To spare itself further internecine struggle and toescape continued repression, the Brotherhood finally ac-

47cepted King Parouk's candidate as Supreme Guide." No

44Bernard Lewis, The Middle East and the West (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), p. 112.

4 ^Ibid. , p. 1 1 2 .46Manfred Halpern, op. cit.. pp. 139-140.47Ibid., p. 149.

254

harmful developments would ensue from such infiltration, had the hierarchy been consultative and open. Absolutism and secrecy, accompanied by noble motivation and blind obedience often result in great success. Otherwise abso­lutism and secrecy may promote bad motivation. Besides, blind obedience and secrecy may help splits remain covered. It is in the light of such deficient hierarchial and motivational structure that the Muslim Brotherhood be­came inconsistent.

In Syria the Brotherhood is still relatively strong. The Syrian organization has been more precise and less inconsistent. It has acted since its foundation in the late thirties, more or less, like a political party. Its stand on Arabism has been clearer. Its leadership has pro­pagated the idea that he who speaks Arabic is an Arab, and emphasized Arab unity within Islamic unity. Today the Syrian Brotherhood is the strongest. The Egyptian Brotherhood is probably the weakest. Besides the movement still exists in varying degrees of strength in the Sudan, Jordan, and Iraq. However all have been practically banned from political life. The main reason is that the Brother­hood (versus other groups) was not synthetical in the least.

255

Even if the movement has not been banned, it would have lost the greater number of its adherents by now. The rise of the progressive nationalist movements would have naturally brought about the same results. The more com­prehensive groups have fought imperialism, pushed all sorts of reform ahead, and, in specific cases, promoted the Pan- Islamic sentiment. Doing so by the Muslim Brotherhood would have been rapt in the vision of reconstructing the past literally. This vision lacks in appealing to the predominant majority everywhere. Most of its adherents were dissatisfied with imperialism and corruption. The emerging synthetic groups have fought such sources of dis- s atisfaction almost ideally. The Brotherhood would have been left with two, or a combination of two, alternatives. It would have specialized in reconstructing the past, or it would have returned to its initial duty of making the masses well-behaved, or a combination of both. But be­cause it had lost interest in its initial duty, it would have capitalized on reconstructing the past, and thus would have lost most of its adherents to the more comprehensive progressive movements.

Thus traditionalism,in general, and the Muslim Brotherhood in particular, could not offer all the answers

256

to the aspirations of the dissatisfied millions. Tradi­tionalism arose as a protest force against Western infil­tration. It has not yet said its last word, but it may not have much to say because of the success the progressive movements have achieved.

In comparison reformism arose as a reaction to the dualist impact of the mixed blessing of Western civiliza­tion. The West has always introduced both useful and re­sentful objects. It has also introduced the ideological

48means of expressing the objects of resentment. Unlike traditionalism, modernism still has much to say. It hassaid much so far. Often Islamic reform is discussed under

49 ."modernism." Actually a reference contains the viewsof Shaykh Muhammad bduh, on Islamic reform, and those ofPresident Bourguiba of Tunisia, on fasting, under one cate-

50 < . .gory. Ideally, they should not. Abduh's views sub3ectmodern phenomena to the Islamic principle. They are notmodernist. But because they do not aim at reconstructingthe past literally they are not traditionalist either.

48Lewis, o p . cit.. p. 110.49Benjamin Rivlin and Joseph S. Szyliowicz (eds.),

The Contemporary Middle East (New York: Random House,1965), pp. 157-96.

^ Ibid. , pp. 161-73.

257Those of Bourguiba subject the Islamic principle to modern phenomena. They are modernist. Thus one may draw the line between Islamic reform and modernism.

III. ISLAMIC REFORM

Islamic reform is a middle ground tradition. It is concerned with readjusting the traditional in Islam to the modern in life. In a way it is a career of arbitration.In other words it provides a buffer condition between ex­tremes of conservatism and liberalism. In this sense Is­lamic reform is a synthetical tradition. The core of its methodology is the application of reason as a criterion. Nevertheless, it is not rationalist. Because it moves within the boundaries of the Sunnah it is unwilling to com­promise principle. Thus while essentially synthetical it may not transcend all shades of difference between tradi­tionalism and modernism. In this sense it is not a com­prehensive tradition, although it may influence such is­sues as nationalism and politics.

Islamic reform has found its greatest response in the moderate traditional circles. That is to say it has influenced the official *ulama* more than the purists or the Sufis . Yet its modification of purism and Sufism

258has been remarkable. Actually a synthesis betweenGhazalian and Taymlyan versions of traditionalism hasbeen in the making.

Traditionalism reformed is traditionalism no longer.In this sense Islamic reform is "modernist." GraduallyIslamic reform has become the first representative of theIslamic tradition. This has placed it face to face withsecularism and Westernization. This confrontation came tooccupy a very important ground:

Duex grands courants nouveau se sont dessinds, dont la divergence n'a pas tarde a peser sur l'avenir spirituel et materiel de l'orthodoxie islamique: celui des reformistes, et celui des modernistes.

Thus the Islamic reformer, in order to be influential, mustacquire two different sets of weapons, one for fighting inthe traditional front and another for the secularists. Andbeing in the middle he can hardly claim identification witheither front.

The leaders of Islamic reform in the Arab world are (roughly) Jamal al-Din al-rAfghanl, Muhammad *Abduh, Rashid Rida, Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi and .11 Abd al-Raziq.

^Raymond Charles, L'ame m.usulmane (Paris: Flammarion, 1958), p. 279.

259

Rida is the "conservative" wing of the school, Abd al- Raziq the "liberal" wing, and al-Afghanl-^bduh-al-Kawakibr the middle. *Abd al-Raziq can hardly belong to the same school with Rashid Rida. So let us consider him an off­shoot .

Al-Afghanl's views on religion are synthetical. According to him Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are basically the same. Within Islam, the differences between the Sunnah and the Shi * ah are baseless. It is his view on the iitihad that represents him most as an Islamic reformer. The door to the iitihad should not have been closed. Its closure after the first four centuries of Islam was groundless. The iitihad is indispensable for readjusting the traditional to the modern. Here al-Afghani departs from traditionalism. Further, the man believed in Sufism. Thus al-AfghSnl (1839-1897) may be considered Ghazalian rather than Taymiyan.

Al-Afghani was not without traces of traditionalism. Like a typical Wahhabi he fought apostacy and foreign domination, and propagated Pan-Islamism. Yet there is no inconsistency in his views. The existence of the tra­ditional and the modern, the social and the political, the

260synthetical and the antithetical, in his body of ideas,emerges from an attempt at comprehension. Probably therehas been no greater comprehensive reformer in Islam sinceal-Ghazall. His disciple Muhammad*Abduh carried on the

52non-political side of his message.Al-Afghanl came to observe that there was something

wrong with the East. After years of analyzing he came to the conclusion that its worst illness stemmed from divi­sion of its people, and divergence of their opinions;

53their dissension on union, and agreement on dissension.Unfortunately this is still the case in the East

today. The old struggle for power has not abated in the,, least. Rulers and contenders for power have usually acted

in disregard of the popular will. Al-Afghani urged the people not to submit to the whims of their despotic rulers. Few things were as hateful to al-Afghani as a ruler who repressed his fellow citizens. How many rulers today arewilling to place the fulfillment of the popular aspiration

/

to unity above their egoist interests? Very few indeed. What matters is who rules. Contenders for power have often

52 _ gA imad Amin, Zu * am5* al-Islah fi al-Asr al-Hadith(Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahdah al-Mi§riyah, 1948), p. 107.

^ Ibid.. p. 106.

261failed to recognize the leader whom the people every­where prefer. Al-AfghSrii, however, did not insist onone ruler, for the world of Islam, because it would prob-

54ably be difficult. Thus al-AfghSni is not without traces of pragmatism insofar as things political are concerned. In things religious he advocated the Sunnah including the iitihad. His propagation of Pan-Islamism won him the mixed blessing of popular love and govern­mental persecution.

Although essentially a Pan-Islamist, al-Afgh3ni55was influenced by the Arab idea. He conceived that

only by language could a nation be distinguished from 56another. Accordingly the Arabs are one nation. It

seems that his concept of Pan-Islamism is ideally based on the Arab idea. This is to say, he ideally aspired at a pre-Turkish kind of Islamic unity. However, the Arab idea can never be divorced from Islam anyway. By realizing

^ Ibid., p. 84. This view stems probably from a synthetical attempt at reconciling the views of the Shi* ah and the Sunnah over the Caliphate.

55Ibid., p. 91.Ibid. Synthetically speaking his concept of

Arabism accommodates the Muslim and the non-Muslim alike.

262

this, and being a pragmatist he aimed at enlighteningone (Arab) Islamic state so it may "blaze a trail for

57the rest of the Muslim world to follow." In the mean­time, under the influence of the Arab idea, he left no chance to urge the Arabs to live up to their past glories. Both he and al-Kawakibx represent a shift, in reconstruct­ing Muslim unity, from Turkish to Arab initiative.

Like al-Afghani,6Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibx (1849- 1903), a Syrian, resented the despotism of such rulers as the Sultan tfAbd al-Hamxd whose love of power had resulted in the suppression of public opinion and the expulsion of religion from things governmental. His book, Taba1 i6 al-Istibdad was consecrated to the fight of despotism.

In comparison with al-Alfghanx and Muhammad bduh, insofar as religion is concerned, he was more conserva­tive than both. But he was more liberal than Rashid Rida•who was also a Syrian. The most liberal of all was*Abd al-Raziq. All, however, propagated the iitihad, in one form or another. Thus the Syrian side was more conserva­tive than the Egyptian. The Syrian side was generally

I, .C7Nasrollah S. Fatxmx, "The Roots of Arab Natxonal-

ism," The Contemporary Middle East, Benjamin Rivlin and Joseph S. Szyliowicz (eds.) (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 231.

263anti-Sufi . Rashid Rida, in particular, was almost a Taymiyan in this respect. Both Kawakibi and Rida con­demned the Sufi-inspired innovation. This does not mean they were anti-Ghazalian. Only that Sufism had deteri­orated a great deal since al-Ghazali.

Al-Kawakibi's views on the Caliphate were definite. He wanted a democratic Arab Caliphate in Makkah. He was more influenced by the Arab idea than the rest. His gen­eral concept of the Caliphate was apparently traditional, but his concept of democratic government was influenced more by Western ideas than by the patriarchal Arab con­cept. In this sense he was a modernist. His concept of Pan-Islamism was not pragmatic in the least. His resent- ment of Abd al-Hamid drove him to propagate the very thing that the latter feared most; an Arab Caliphate. The idea of Pan-Arabism had no popularity at that time.But al-Kawakibi was a full-fledged Arab nationalist in disguise. Probably no one has given as many reasons as al-Kawakibi why the Arabs, their language, and their land should be the center of gravity in the world of Islam.

5$Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Urn al-Qurfi (Aleppo:al-Matba * ah al-^Asriyah, 1959) , pp. 218-221. Here al-

264In this group al-Kaw&kibi was the Arab. However, hisviews on Islam resembled those of Rida more than Vbduh.

0

And all were less comprehensive than al-Afghani.Like al-Afgharit, Muhammad bduh conceived of reli­

gion generally synthetically. He clarified the idea that’ political corruption which affects the Muslim and thenon-Muslim alike, is often misunderstood for religious

€ 59 intolerance^ Abduh propagated religious tolerance andsaw no fundamental basis for disunity between the Sunnah and the Shi*ah. But unlike his master and friend, the Shaykh had little interest in politics. Nevertheless he was specialized and more systematic. The interests of al- Afghani were "encyclopedic." Those of Muhammad Abduh were precise. His mission centered on moral reform. Such mission may touch on almost every aspect of life, but re­mains compact. For instance, the Shaykh's views touched on Islamic unity but he was not a Pan-Islamist in the sense

Kawakibi describes things Arab in an epic-like (prose) poem of twenty-six lines. Since al-Kawakibl no one except probably Sati4 al-Husri has described the Arabs so devoted ly.

59Osman Amm, "Muhammad Abduh— Islamic Modernist," The Contemporary Middle East, Benjamin Rivlin and Joseph S. Szyliowicz (eds.) (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 166.

265that al-Afghani was. *Abduh's mission may be summarized in three words, i.e., islSh hal al-Muslimln (reforming the condition of Muslims).

The tool of his reform is the iitihad. and his method is philosophy of history. *Abduh saw little moral­ity in the taqlld (imitation). The iitihad is the most ideally fit for moral reform as ideally conceived by the Islamic tradition. He adopted the iitihad under the in­fluence of al-Afghani. Actually both Shaykhs unlocked a door which had been deserted for almost a millennium.

In his desire of readjusting traditionalism to the modern developments of the age, CAbduh criticized the *ulama*. He disapproved of making religion a full-time profession, especially when there was no iitihad to do. Such religious absorption would distract the <ulama? from the high interests of their countries. He urged the 6ulama* to resume the iitihad. and participate fully in everyday life. The^hard-liners’among the 6 ulama* saw in ^Vbduh's preaching something like heresy., But his reli­ance on reason within the boundaries of the Sunnah won him great response among the "liberals."

*Abduh came to observe that both the 4 ulama* and the modernist intellectuals had always relied on some .

other authority to do things for them. The 4ulama? had relied on the efforts of the earlier *ulama*, of the first four centuries of Islam, for the interpretation of religion. As to the intellectuals, they too had relied on the state to do for them whatever was there to be done. Further, originality was missing in the attitudes of both. Under the influence of Ibn Khaldun, *Abduh considered mod­ern phenomena historical developments to be examined, rather than discarded as bad innovation. Ibn Khaldun's philosophy of history was the method ffAbduh used in recon­ciling the past with the present. To his disappointment the intellectuals copied European institutions and the *ulema* copied the past. MuhammadcAbduh did not say that the past should be forgotten, or that European institu­tions should be discarded. He simply told the gulama* to pursue the iitihad and apply reason in their dealing with religious matters. As to the demands of European insti­tutions versus those of Islam, he popularized an integra­tive idea:

It was *Abduh's purpose to prove, by an exposition of the true Islam, that the two demands were not incompatible with each other, and to prove it not

267only in principle but in detail, by a precise con­sideration of the teaching of Islam in regard tosocial morality.60

The adoption of European institutions and scien­tific devices is admissible only insofar as it does not demand a compromise of Islamic principle. Apparently *Abduh's view is typical of the school of thought which he initiated in collaboration with Rida. An observer de­scribes the school:

Les theories reformistes ont eu pour champions les salafiva (Anciens), avec Jamal al din rsicl Afghani, et Abduh te "reformateur du siecle", puis Rida . . . , qui entendaient trouver une reponse adequate aux questions actuelles en rattachant la technique moderne aux principes fondamentaux de 1'Islam. Cette ecole ne veut "ni le conservatisme integral, ni I1adoption aveugle de tout ce que 1 'Europe apporte", mais demeure tres ferme sur le dogme et les principes moraux consideres comme reveles (Abd el Jalil). D'autres orientations sont.. . . Les ecrits de tous ces reformistes sont apolo- getiques et visent surtout a montrer que le Coran contenait deja les concepts — jusqu'ici inapercus correspondant aux principes de regulation qui furent ulterieurement mis en lumiere.

The Islamic tradition, here, is modified by human reasonand the revived iitihad. However, let us not assume that

^Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 161.

6XRaymond Charles, op. cit.. pp. 279-80.

268the Islamic tradition, as such, could accommodate such principles as those of Ataturk, for instance.

In comparison with the other leaders of Islamic reform, Muhammad &bduh was the most pragmatic. He found that moral reform was the most urgent issue of the time, so he concentrated on it. He did not waste much energy on propagating Pan-Islamism or Pan-Arabism simply because he was busy doing something more immediate. A point of interest is that*Abduh's influence on the climate of our time has been greater than those of the rest. This is indicative of a superior mind. But, that it stems from precision, specialization,and thesis is also possible.

*Abduh's disciple, Rashid Rida (d. 1935) had great interests, but no precise program of action. Like al- Kawaklbi, he was a lover of freedom. This is because his home, Syria, had suffered from Turkish oppression probably more than any other Arab territory. His concept of the Islamic state was influenced by*Abduh. He thought that the ideal Islamic state, unlike the Ottoman Empire, was integrative and guided by the Islamic tradition in the conduct of its interests. As a founding member of the Salaflyah school, he resented governmental repression

269and propagated the education of public opinion. Follow­ing tfAbduh's path, heutilized the press, as editor of Al-Manar, for developing an enlightened public opinion. Individuals who had objective judgment were very few. The * ulama* were in a state of inertia, and the intellectuals were largely self-centered and shallow. With such leader­ship little progress could be achieved. He compares Euro­peans with Muslims (the words are Albert Hourani's):

The Europeans are active and successful because they have abandoned their other-worldly religion and re­placed it by the principle of nationality, but Mus­lims can find such a principle of unity and loyalty, in their religion i t s e l f . ^2

Islam is both a church and a state. Muslims must followa positive attitude towards life, and unite (not neces-

, 63sarxly xn a sxngle state but at heart) xn one commun­ity. What he is actually saying is that what is good for Europe is not necessarily good for the Muslims.

So he was of the opinion of reconstructing the past. Here he parts with *Abduh on many points. For ex­ample, for CAbduh, the salaf al-salih (straightforward

62Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), p. 229.

63Ibid., p. 229.

270- 64ancestry) included those from the Prophet to al-Ghazali.

65For Rida the salaf is the first generation alone. His0 1

stand on Sufism was also stricter than that of his master.He thought that "the Sufis were a weakness to society as

66well as a danger to religion." To him the only valid ijma6 was that of the first generation. He fought inno­vation almost in the manner of Ibn Taymiyah and the Wahha­bis. Actually what makes him a reformer is his endorsement of the iitihad.

On unity he shared common views with the Salaflvahschool which stemmed from necessity. Unity in a single

68state is hard to materialize, so unity of hearts becomes the alternative. However after the abolition of the Otto­man Caliphate, he propagated an Arab Caliphate of neces-

69 «r C _ .sity There must be a Caliphate. All Abd al-Raziq didnot think so.

cAbd al-Raziq thought that neither the Caliphate nor unity were necessary. Unity of hearts, rather than political unity, was necessary. Further, there was no

6 4Ibid.. p. 230. 6 5Ibid. 6 6Ibid.. p. 232.6 7Ibid.. p. 230. 6 8Ibid.. p. 229.69 .Ibid., p. 238 ff.

271

special form of Islamic government. What 5\bd al-Raziq says reflects on the realities of Islamic history. Actu- ally apart from the first four Caliphs and Caliph Umar II, the Caliphate was the largest source of dissension among Muslims. *Abd al-Raziq pointed out in his famous work Al-Islam wa Usui al-Hukm (Islam and the Bases of Govern­ment) that with few exceptions the Caliphate had suppressed public opinion and repressed the people. Had CAbd al-Raziq stopped here, he would have not turned the culama* against him. He went further to say that Islam is a religion only, not a state as well. That the message of the Prophet is religious and no power was extended from Him to justify the establishment of a specific form of government such as the Caliphate. Here Abd al-Raziq puts himself outside the body of Islamic thinkers. For Islam is firmly estab­lished as a religion and a state by consensus of scholars.

Rashid Rida attacked the book, saying that "it wasthe latest attempt of the enemies of Islam to weaken and

. . 70 e rdivide it from within." Ali Abd al-Raziq did not attemptto weaken Islam, of course. His aim was most likely to

70Ibid.. p. 189.

272

separate between Islam in theory and Islam in practice.For what he pointed out in his book was largely the pastexperience of Islam.

He committed a technical error that cost him thecondemnation of the 6 ulama*. He should have said thatIslam in theory differed from Islam in practice. Thushe could have saved his diploma which al-Azhar came torevoke. Instead, he honestly went on to prove from theOur9 an and the Sunnah that the purpose of the Prophet' smessage "was not to regulate the interests of life in the

71world, but to lead men towards God." This led some of his critics to accuse him of propagating the reason, fan­tasy and passion of the individual, favoring Christian-

72ity, and denying the Shan*ah. Probably the truth isIthat Abd al-Raziq simply reproduced, under Western influ­

ence, the ideas of European thinkers which were common at that time. This urges us to raise a question. Did*Abd al-Raziq imitate Europe blindly? The answer is no. His views have been a striking example of objectivity; the kind of views that one may not like but cannot help but admire.

7lIbid.. p. 187. 72Ibid., pp. 189-92.

273The battle between the modernists and reformists

was looming anyway. Because Abd al-Raziq was m a transi­tional condition between the two he was tempted to set the first spark which grew into a fire of which he himself was the first victim.

After4Ali Abd al-R'aziq's attempt, the stream of modernism was released. The traditionalists and the intellectuals came gradually to speak of identical issues, in similar language. This is not to say that the Islamic reformists surrendered to the modernists, or conversely. That is merely to say that modernism came to be recognized as an important, though resentful, attitude by both tra­ditionalists and Islamic reformists.

Both reformism and modernism are traditions of dif­ferent hues. Reformism may be Islamic or social. The lat­ter is individual-centered, hence secular, and the former is God-centered. In comparison modernism is predominantly secular. It is what traditionalism is not. Traditionalism usually centers on things religious. Modernist interest is multi-central.

When modernism centers on Islam, Islamic reform condescends to it. Oftentimes traditionalism, transi- tionalism, and modernism agree on identical issues, even

274

though they may differ on ideological orientation.Their stand on Pan-Arabism is synthetical.

IV. PAN-ARABISM

The assumption is made, above, that the Arab world is an entity. It follows that "entity" is used here in a correlated and restricted sense; an entity which is not a state yet, analogous to a state. The Arab world is not a state at present, yet because it was united be­fore, it aspires at statehood once more. Thus the pres­ent disunity of the Arab world may sound like an interrup­tion or a transitional stage which has to disappear sooner

46or later so that the region regains its normal unity. In this correlated sense the Arab world is an entity. This sense is emphasized by integrative institutions the most significant among which are the Arab League and Arab na­tionalism.

True, the loose structure of the Arab League and the provincialist elements within Pan-Arab nationalism (a component of Arab nationalism) may disqualify the Arab world as a sovereign state, yet their mere existence qualify it as an entity in the previous sense. In com-

parison Europe, or even Latin America, cannot possibly fit this description because they were not united before and their aspirations at statehood are vague, hence their claim even to a correlated sense of statehood does not materialize at present.

Further, unlike Europe or Latin America, the claim of the Arab world to entity (statehood) is emphasized by the fact that the difference over Pan-Arabism is on the means, not the ends. Thus the Arab world may be defined as a state minus how to form such a state or a state in one's conscience. Moreover in many occasions the Arabs have acted like one people especially in international organizations.

The fact remains that while the analogy between the Arab world and a state is well defined thus, the degree of analogy remains to be established in relation to the issues involved. At first the situation may sound like a split between two different approaches. There is the group, probably a majority, which feel themselves Arab regardless of religious differences and are ambitious and desirous of establishing:prosperity internally and play­ing a great role in world affairs. They believe the

276 »means to such ends is Pan-Arabism. To another groupPan-Islamism is the means to such end's. The two approachesmay sound conflicting, but actually they are not as weshall see below.

Thus, looked at from the view of schools of Pan-Arab theorists Arab unity may sound like a reality whichcommands little respect for present boundaries among theArab states and territories and transcends all barriersincluding the religious. One of the great popularizersof this view is the distinguished Arab nationalist Sati*

73al-Husri. It is mainly from him that one gets the impression that the Arab world is a state in the conscience of every sincere Arab; all obstacles facing such statehood are fleeting and artificial. It is from him also that one gets the impression that Arab unity is around the corner, ready to materialize.

Certainly-* considering the tremendous popular forces behind Pan-Arabism, greatly symbolized in the person of Gamal Abdel Nasser, al-Husri gives an acceptable impres­sion. Yet in order to establish a clear picture of the

7 3L. M. Kenny, "Sati* al-Husri's Views on Arab Nationalism,” The Middle East Journal (Summer 1963), pp. 231-256, passim.

277situation one has to mention that, in addition to the apparent difference between the approaches of Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism to unity, in contemporary Arab politics, on the governments' level. Pan-Arabism is imbued with many an austere regional entanglement. Hence the degree of cohesion is too meagre, by and large, to create a favorable environment for a very near birth of Arab unity. Thus the total degree of cohesion, too little at present to con­stitute an entity (statehood) is mature enough to connote one.

Two senses are implied in Pan-Arabism. One is a sense of totality, meaning the Arab world is a world by itself, having little to do with the world of Islam; a disintegrative sense to Pan-Islamists. The other is a sense of uncertainty; iqeaning the average Pan-Arab nation­alist actually aspires at unity, yet for egocentric reasons has not been able, so far, to do away with some traces of politico-economic regional patriotism which stands in the way of Arab unity. And in spite of his decision to set religion aside for the sake of Arab unity, the (secular) Pan-Arab nationalist has preserved some hidden allegiance for his specific religion which elevates this sense of

278uncertainty especially when he reflects on the Pan- Islamic approach to unity.

The assumption that Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic ap­proaches to unity are conflicting is not final. Let us assume that they are thesis and antithesis which consti­tute no final conflict actually. Like thesis and anti­thesis Pan-Arab and Pan-Islamic views are seemingly diver­gent. Actually almost all the schools of Pan-Arabism are secular; meaning that Islam is no longer thought of as a state. Hence one may come to the conclusion that Pan- Arab and Pan-Islamic views are irreconcilable. Seemingly divergent, the two views interact harmoniously. On theone hand the Pan-Arab view may generate an ethnocentric

00

sense of cohesion among the Arabs whose peoplehood and common destiny are recognized, after centuries of oblivion, as emerging and dynamic force of increasing significance in contempoary international politics. On the other hand while some theorists are not trying to locate common denominators between the two principles, others actually foresee that Arab unity is only a step earlier in time

74than Islamic unity. This is the synthesis of the situation.

74 tSatr al-Husri, "Muslim Unity and Arab Unity," Arab Nationalism:*An Anthology, Sylvia G. Haim (ed. and

279

The significance of this synthetical agreement is that while it is preoccupied with the secular practicali­ties of Pan-Arabism, it also reflects on the probabilities of Pan-Islamism. It is true that the range of accepta­bility of this synthetical agreement among the Arab masses, is supported by no exact data. The general impression, however, is that this agreement represents that of the larger faction within the Pan-Arab view. The minor fac­tion which comprises mainly non-Muslim and secular ele­ments shuns the goals of Pan-Islamism entirely. However since the forces of Pan-Arabism are intertwined with those of Pan-Islamism, we need a definition or more.

Undoubtedly a Muslim is one who says one is so regardless of any other factor; no problem. It is dif­ferent with Arabism, because an Arab is one who says one is so in Arabic. Thus the most popularized definition of an Arab should be something like this. Whoever belongs in the Arab lands and speaks Arabic is an Arab. Seem­ingly this definition is disintegrative because it excludes non-Arabic-speaking minorities, the most important among

trans.) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 147-53. The point is that Arab unity is realizable first whether Muslim unity is realizable or not.

280which are the Kurds, the Berbers, and the Nilotics. But actually the definition leaves the door wide open for these important groups to join the Arab crowd by simply

i

acquiring the Arabic language. The prospect is that theywill; the great spread of (Arabic) education refers tothis direction.'

Arabic is thus the most important feature of' theArab world. It came from Arabia in a solid form with theArab conquerors and has become the speech of a greatnumber of people. Today Arabic exists in two forms,written and spoken. The written language itself existsin two forms; lughat al-sahafdi (language of the press)and lughat al-adab (language of letters). The spokenlanguage exists in five dialects:

In North Africa a north-south line flanking the hills a few miles west of Tunis divides Moroccan- style speech from Egyptian-style. The Sinai penin­sula bounds Egyptian Arabia on the east. Syria and Lebanon form another province; *Iraq a fourth; and Arabia itself, including Jordan, a fifth.^

An authority says that the spoken dialects vary, from coun­try to country, uso much so that the local dialect of a North African Arab is almost incomprehensible to the nomad

^Carleton Coon, Caravan: The Story of the Middle East (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1958), p. 60.

28176of Arabia." This is a little exaggerated because, ac­

cording to a personal experience, if it happens it is the exception, for with some patience and probably resorting to the Classical Arabic, occasionally, or the widely known Egyptian dialect, a Maghrib! Arab and a nomad of Arabia can somehow communicate verbally without resorting to the help of an interpreter, especially after they have associated with each other for a few weeks. Education and mass-media may bridge these linguistic differences reasonably in a few generations.

In spite of these linguistic differences Arabic is able to command tremendous loyalties. Thus Pan-Arabism, unlike Pan-Islamism, has been able to bring the Arab world within a short reach of actual statehood. Thanks to the Arabic language and culture there is much more in common between a Saudi Arabian and a Lebanese Arab, be he Muslim or Christian, than between a Muslim Turk and a Muslim In­donesian. This is one of the reasons why Arab unity is more realizable at present than Islamic unity. Further because the Arab world is more connected with the Our*an

76John S. Badeau, The Lands Between (New Yorks Friendship Press, 1958), p. 26.

282\

and the Prophet, normally there can be no Islamic unity without the center of Islam; the Arab world.

V. PAN-ISLAMISM

According to al^-Afghani any unity in order to ma­terialize must restrain egoism and the only effective means

77td limit it is religion. Like Pan-Arabism, though to a less extent, Pan-Islamism generates its own cohesive power in its own way. But unlike Pan-Arabism, Pan-Islamismholds a better appeal to self-sacrifice. An attempt at

iregulating the relations between the Muslim individual,• i

his immediate homeland, and the Muslim world, with no egoist impulse, is made by Shaykh Rashid Rida:

As for the modern idea of nationalism, It is nothing but union of the inhabitants of a homeland who may be different in religion, who cooperate in the defense of their common homeland and in preserv­ing its independence or in winning it back when it is lost, and in increasing its prosperity. . . .Islam considers that it is the duty of Muslims to defend those of other religions who come under their rule Snd to treat them on a basis of equality, ac­cording to the just rulings of the Shari8 a. . . .The Muslim youth must not forget, while serving

7^Arnold Hottinger, The Arabs: Their History. Cul­ture and Place in the Modern World (Los Angeles: Univer­sity of California Press, 1963), p. 191, citing al- Afghanl.

283his homeland and his people, . . . he is a member of a body bigger than his people, his own personal home­land is only a part of his religious homeland, and he must therefore seek to make the progress of the part a means toward the progress of the whole.

Theoretically, and in the light of this opinion, Pan-Is-lamism is the right way to unity. Practically the Pan-Islamic view, unlike the Pan-Arab view, has been unableto create a sense of entity in the contemporary Muslimlands. True like Pan-Arabism, Pan-Islamism generates,relative cohesion in its domain. But what Pan-Islamismgenerates, at present, is a sense of synonymity amongthe Muslim peoples. In contrast Pan-Arab nationalism hasbrought the Arab world to a connoted entity. Thus theforces of Pan-Arabism are assumed to be greater than thoseof Pan-Islamism. However, traditionally integral partsof the world of Islam and looked at from the view of al-Afghanl, the Arab lands neither connote nor constitute anentity or a totality, separate from the world of Islam inwhich the Arab lands, the birthplace of Islam, are accordedthe honored status of religious leadership. According to

^Rashrd Ri^a, "Islam and the National Idea," Arab Nationalism: An Anthology. Sylvia G. Haim (ed. and tran....) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 76-77.

284an authority, the most influential proponents of Pan-Islamism in the Arab world today are the Wahhabis of

79Saudi Arabia and the Azharites of Egypt; both having considerable popular support. Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut actually places the leaderships of Pan-Islamism in thehands of two men, the king of Saudi Arabia, and the

80Shaykh (Rector) of al-Azhar. Saudi Arabia is the abode of the Muslim holy places and al-Azhar commands great honor in Muslim lands. Actually Pan-Islamism is sym­bolized mainly in the classical pilgrimage to Makkah by faithful Muslims, and the traditional flocking of Muslim students in al-Azhar. To a less extent Pan-Islamism manifests itself in Islamic conferences and congresses sponsored by states, held intermittently in an Islamic capital, to discuss socio-cultural issues in which Islamic unity figures only accidentally. Besides secular impulses in the Pan-Islamic movement, there are political and social reasons why Islamic unity does not command sufficient alleg- giance from present Muslims. First, since there can be no

79Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, Manhai al-Qur>an fi Bina? al-Muitama* (Cairo: Wazarat al-Awqaf, 1956), p. 160.

1

Muslim unity without Arab unity which is apparently secu­lar and because the Arabs have not been able, so far, to unite, Muslim unity is given only a lip service. Second, while the Arabs are predominantly neutral between East and West, the rest of the Muslim states are predominantly aligned with the West? so long as they adopt different approaches to world politics, both Arab Muslims and non- Arab Muslims cannot agree on Muslim unity. Third, Turkey and Persia actually divide the Arab world from the rest of the Muslim world, by following strict secular policies in addition to their commitments to the West. Fourth, neither Muslims in sub-Saharan Africa nor those of the East Indies have historical precedence of unity either with each other or with other Muslims. Fifth, a large Muslim population inside the Soviet Union, China, Outer Mongolia, and other minor places practically have no prospects of Muslim unity, at least in the feasible future. Sixth, any serious attempt of Islamic unity may place Muslims in the favor of the West and disfavor of the East:

Soviet writers associate pan-Islamism with reaction­ary tendencies and with an expansionist policy pur­sued by Western powers. It is said to have been used against the Soviet Union in its early days/ to have been exploited by Germany before the First World War

286and by the Axis powers before the Second World War.. . . Latterly Britain and the United States are said to be trying to use pan-Islamism against the movement for independence in the East. . . .

Muslims, especially Arab Muslims, are unwilling, at leastat present, to take the chance of finally alienating eitherEast or West, influenced in this attitude by some secularnationalist impulses borrowed from Western ideas.

Nevertheless "it would be very rash to assert thatthe secularization of Islamic sentiment has passed the

82point of no return" and regardless of their apparentdeficit, the religious orders, which "express the passionsof the submerged masses of the population. . . . they have

83not yet spoken their last word." A great deal dependson the shape of events, once Arab unity is realized.What is the relation between Arab unity and Muslim unity?

Arab unity is much easier to bring about than Muslim unity, and that this latter is not capable of realiza­tion, assuming that it can be realized, except through Arab unity. . . . If, contrary to fact, the Arab world were more extensive and wider than,the Muslim world,

81A.R.C. Bolton, Soviet Middle East Studies: An Analysis and Bibliography. Part II. Arabs and the Arab World. Chatham House Memoranda, Royal Institute of Inter­national Affairs (distributed by Oxford University Press), June, 1959, p. ix.

®^Lewis, op. cit., p. 96.83Ibid., p. 114.

287it would have been possible to imagine a Muslim union without Arab union, and it would have been permissible to say that Muslim union is easier to realize than Arab union.^4

Thus, there is no serious contradiction between the two unities; only one is more realizable at present than the other. Both movements actually contribute, with differ­ent extents, to a cohesive power in the world of Islam. True the Pan-Islamic movement may deny entity to parts of the world of Islam such as the Arab lands, yet in the meantime it contrives to recognize such entity as unity which may function, sooner or later, as a transition toward the larger Muslim unity.

84Sati'-' al-Husri, "Muslim Unity and Arab Unity," Arab Nationalism: An Anthology, Sylvia G. Haim (ed. ,and trans.) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 148-49.

CHAPTER V

IN SEARCH OF COMPREHENSION

Whether traditionalists or modernists most of the Arab intelligentsia are muqallidun (imitators). Actu­ally the artists among them are few. By artists one means those reformists who have the talent and the courage to seek originality not per se but with a view toward giving answers to all interacting problems in a compre­hensive socio-political context.

Here one is urged to answer this question. May reform center on the Islamic experience and still be comprehensive? Yes, provided the reformist does not imi­tate the ancestry literally, and so long as he believes that modern and traditional institutions are reconcilable. This leads one to another question. Bearing in mind that both traditionalism and reformism in Islam center on religious (past) experience, what is the difference be­tween them? An Islamic reformist such as Muhammad *Abduh is a typical representative of the Islamic tradition.The so-called traditionalism in Islam is divorced from

I

289the theory of tradition. Such traditionalism maintains that familiar (old) things may be tolerated, and that modern things may be accepted only if they are in har­mony with the familiar^ This traditionalism may toler­ate corruption under the assumption that a familiar vice is better than a strange virtue. Take for example the fact that non-practising is taken for granted but inter­est (banking) is resented.

The traditionalist, the reformist, and the mod­ernist aim at supplanting one another. Practically they are polarized. For instance the traditionalist conceives of Islam not only as a religion but also as a state as well, and the modernist, in contrast, claims that Islam is a religion only. In comparison the reformist movement itself is not without heterogeneity. For example the Islamic reformist centers on God, but the social reformist centers on man. Actually the Islamic reformist is tradition-oriented, and the social reformist is innovation- oriented. That is why many an authority divides the forces at work in the Arab world into qadxm (traditional)

■^Morroe Berger, The Arab World Today (New York: Doubleday, 1962), p. 178.

2anc -iadld (modern) . Such division ignores the (infre­quent) role of reform. There are reasons as to why. The traditionalist and the modernist are everyday phenomena. Like the plasterer and the bricklayer, they are quite numerous and unsophisticated. In contrast the reformist appears only once in a while. Like the sculptor, he is not only infrequent but original. In our living memory

tf" —Islamic reformists like Muhammad Abduh and al-Afghanihave been few. Likewise social reformists like Qasim

3Amin have been scarce. However there are those authori­ties that recognize the role of the reformist so much so

4that they ignore the role of traditionalism. What hap­pens actually is that the reformist expands in the terri­tory of traditionalism to the extent that he becomes itsspokesman. Thus the forces at work may be divided into

5"la tradition reformiste et la tradition moderniste."

The role of the reformist in the nationalist move­ment had been modest until recently. Simply the reformists

^Afrmad Amin, Zu^ama* al-Islah fl al- *Asr al-Hadlth (Cairo: Maktabat al-Nahdah al-Misrlyah, 1948) ,' p. 340.

^Ibid., p. 341.4 ARaymond Charles, L* ame itiusulmane (Pans: Flam-

merion, 1958), p. 279.5Ibid.

291had been few and largely disinterested in nationalism. So the nationalist movement has had traditionalists versus modernists for spokesmen for a long time. However, both opponents came to speak of the same thing— unity. Although it was Islamic unity on the one hand and Arab unity on the other, still the center for both was unity. But the cen­ter of Pan-Arabism was apparently secular. Not so according to ■: many a Pan-Islamist who came to think that Arab unity was a prerequisite for Islamic unity. A national­ist synthesis was in the making in spite of the polariza­tion of basic orientations between traditionalism and modernism.

Tradition versus innovation is a very popular topic in Arabic literature. Traditionalists and modernists are quite frequent in all walks of life. Politics and econo­mics are ever -expanding. Social reform, in comparison, is the least emphasized— with exceptions here and there— and social reformists are infrequent.

I. SOCIAL REFORM

The need for social reform arises, in Arab coun­tries today, from the instability of social institutions.In comparison with political and economic factors, social

factors are the least emphasized in spite of their rela­tive gravity.

Two facts must be borne in mind in dealing with social reform in the Arab world. One, insofar as socialinstitutions are concerned, the Arab world constitutes a

6distinctive character. That is to say, one may speak of an Arab society. Two, Arab society is old and exper­ienced. Theoretically the older a society the more stable

7and the less its xnstxtutxons need reform. Actually one may assume that the oldness and experience on the part of the Arab society are responsible for the apparent stabil­ity of its human relations and especially social mobility. Otherwise, the general impression is that instabilitylargely characterizes social institutions in the Arab so-

8cxty.Admittedly some Arab areas are more socially stable

than others. For instance, in Saudi Arabia, where the

Sulayman Huzayin, "Khitat al-I§lah al-Ijtima i," Haig at al-Dirasat al-1 ~i t ima, xy ah (Cairo: Wazarat al- Shu*un al Ijtimaftxyah, 1949), pp. 27-28.

7Hamilton A.R. Gxbb, "Socxal Reform: Factor X,,r Perspective of the Arab World, an Atlantic Monthly Sup­plement (1956), p. 17.

8Ibxd.

293Islamic tradition is very much in control, stability char­acterizes social institutions. The major source of insta­bility, in the Arab society, grows from the exposure of traditional institutions to modern imported institutions in a situation where the cfadxm (old) and the iadld (modern) do not tend always to intermarry happily.

There are two approaches to social readjustment.The first tries to find ready solutions for domestic .social problems in Western systems. The second contrives to sub­ject imported experience to the traditional institutions to which the Arab masses are used. The first approach represents only a state of mind. Actually there is no organized movement in the Arab world which openly propa­gates copying Western experience. Feasibly Arab national pride would be opposed to such a movement. Notwithstand­ing, Western social experience is gaining increasing influ­ence on domestic institutions especially in Lebanon.Simply the tide of the iadld is overwhelming. The second approach represents nationally acceptable and substantially organized social reform movements. These approaches, how­ever, are essentially conflicting, though seemingly comple-

2949mentary. The problem is that the iadid and the CTadlm

tend often to displace one another.The fact that traditional institutions do not

often espouse modern imported institutions, and the fact that social instability results largely from the lack of harmony between the traditional and the modern, should warn against seeking ready solutions for domestic social problems in modern systems. This does not mean that mod­ern institutions may not satisfy the needs for social reform. On the contrary, the modern may embrace the traditional harmoniously, provided it comes as an answer to a desire the traditional manifestly expresses. In other words the new should not come uncalled for, and especially when it comes to displace the traditional. Sulayman Huzayin, an Arab social reformist, says that the study of Arab social and cultural history shows ushow to distinguish in social reform between what is asil»

(native) and what is dakhil (foreign), and the asil may lend itself to change only gently and under specific con­ditions. The web of interpretation as to what is asil

9Ibid.. p. 2 .

"^Huzayin, pp. cit., p. 30.

295and what is dakhll and what to do best to ease the ten­sion in a given situation in relation to the total situa­tion, and also how to design a scale of priorities of the social needs and the means of weighing and controlling social phenomena make social reform in the Arab world a highly complicated field of study.

An authority mentions that because in one and the same society different "generations" live side by side there is a missing consensus, among these generations, in the outlook towards the means and ends of life, the start­ing point in social reform in the Arab world must be the

11taqrxb (approximation) among these generations.Social problems arise not only from the existence

side by side of the traditionalists and the modernists, but also from the apparent unwillingness of the modern­ists to confide in Western institutions absolutely.

II. WESTERNIZATION

In the Arab world today, Westernization is deeply rooted. For instance almost all high school students study English or French or both. In comparison Russian

• Ibid., p. 27.

1

296

and Chinese are hardly used anywhere except in a very few specialized institutions. Arab students abroad go mainly to Western schools. In the major Arab universities, the English and French departments are familiar, the Russian and the Chinese are non-existent. Non-Arabic publications in public libraries, School libraries and bookshops are predominantly English and French. Western, especially American, movies and movie stars are very popular all over the metropolitan areas of the Arab world. Western tele­vision programs have substantial circulation. In compar­ison non-Western cinema and television register littlepopularity. Western technology is very widely spread.

12Often Western products displace local products. CocaCola and Pepsi Cola are probably as popular in Cairo andDamascus as they are in New York, and Los Angeles.

The spread of Westernization in the Arab world hasbeen gradual. At first Western technology found its wayin the Arab traditional society, because it did not con-

13stitute a threat to the existing focal values. It was

12Hans E. Tutsch, Facets of Arab Nationalism (De­troit: Wayne State University, 1965), p. 13-17.

13 .Rafael Patai, "The Dynamics of Westernizationin the Middle East," The Contemporary Middle East. Ben-

297mainly the upper class that could afford enjoying Westerntechnological devices. Technology by itself could notmodernize the traditional outlook of the wealthy upperclass. It was because the admittance of technologysimply opened the door to other elements that serious

14changes in the traditional outlook were nurtured. Even­tually the traditional cultural continuum between the rich and the poor became disturbed. Western products and technology found increasing popularity among the rising middle class. Local products which could not possibly challenge the products of the Western indus­trial revolution suffered at first dullness of market then eventual stagnation. That is to say as the well- to-do classes became increasingly interested in things

15Western, the local arts and crafts suffered a decline. Ownership of high-quality and expensive Western products became a status symbol. As the Western cultural and industrial superiority became increasingly recognized since the industrial revolution, possessing or doing

jamin Rivlin and Joseph S. Szyliowicz (eds.) (New York: Random House, 1965), p. 122.

14Ibid.. p. 122. 15Ibid.. p. 123.

something Western came to be a sign of refinement. Yet the eagerness of some groups and individuals to display their Western effects, as status symbols or signs of refinement, gives rise to a great deal of snobbishness and even arrogance. For instance, an aristocrat who owns an expensive car may refer to it in his conversation as "my Cadillac, or Rolls Royce," not just "car." A mem­ber of the rising middle class who owns an average Western car may keep reminding his associates of it by tossing and catching the set of its keys occasionally. A per­son may address another in this manner., "Bon Jour, mon ami. I saw you walking to work this morning from my Ford's window." A snob may carry around two packets of cigarettes, one Lucky Strike, or Kent, etc., which he keeps for display and one local Bustani. or Watani. etc., that he actually smokes secretly. This author has observed that sometimes snobbishness reaches something in the nature of the following heights: "Oh! Il-taqs chaud jiddan.Comme i 1 arrive ila al-bait I shall turn ijL marwaha il- Westinghouse on, wa ~51khud Coca Cola and tiffaha Amricani min il-frigidaire il-General Electric wa atmaddid fi i1-balcony atsaffah kitab il-sharx a al-Islamrvvah.

299

Alors. I shall feel froid.11 An overdose of snobbish­ness leads to arrogance. For instance the Western edu­cated gentleman who keeps mentioning his Western degree wherever he goes is familiar and snobbish enough. Such snobbishness becomes sheer arrogance when for example, the holder of a Western degree refers to a local equiva­lent as inferior to his, as many do. Here Western insti­tutions have their quasi representatives in the Arab world.

Western and Western-type education has widened the base of Westernization. A degree from a modern localschool, or especially one from a Western school came tobe a good means of climbing up the social ladder. Grad­uates of Western and Western-like schools may acquire deep knowledge of Western institutions. Some try to re­adjust their modern knowledge to what is traditional in Arab society. These constitute a reformist approach to social problems. Others give ready Western answers to indigenous problems either because they are primarily confident of the Western experience or because they know

16Translation: Oh! The weather is very warm. AsI go home I shall turn the Westinghouse fan on, take aCoca Cola and an "American" apple from the General Elec­tric ffigidaire, and relax in the balcony to read the Islamic Law book. Then I shall feel cool.

300little about the traditional background of indigenous problems, or both. These are the Westernized modernists which represent a state of mind rather than a movement with a purpose. That is to say they are not organized.

The growth of nationalism may not allow the West­ernized modernists to register in an organized movement. The traditionalists call a Westernized modernist maftun (infatuated) with the West. In return the modernists accuse a traditionalist of iumud (inaction). Polariza­tion characterizes their relation. The reformists call

r

both what they call each other, and occasionally receivein return the fires of their anger. An overview of the

17situation recognizes a social cleavage. None, however, has all the answers to the questions involved. The situ­ation apparently needs a comprehensive approach. Inso­far as social reform is concerned attempts which gather all the ends are missing. Yet such attempts are more ur­gently so in relation to the Arab nationalist movements. To some extent comprehension and synthesis have been pro­moted by the League of Arab States.

17 — -Shaykh Mahmud Shaltut, Manhai al-Qur?an fi Bina*al-Muitama* (Cairo: Wazarat al-Awqaf, 1956) , p. 160ff.

301

III. THE ARAB LEAGUE

Objectively speaking, the general impression isthat the Arab League is weak because it has no executive

18power whatsoever. Further an authorxty mentions xnevaluating the work of the League, that the failures ex-

19ceed the successes. Nevertheless, an authority says20that the Arab League has fulfxlled important duties.

None of its duties, however, is to be a substitute for Arab unity. That the organization has no direct execu­tive power over its constituent members stems directly from its Pact. As to evaluating the record of the League's work, the guidelines should be the League's main.aim which "is to defend the independence of Arab countries

21and create a single foreign polxcy." Undoubtedly, the League's role in the Arab independence movements has been,

•*-®Arnold Hottinger, The Arabs: Their History, Cul­ture and Place in the Modern World (Los Angeles: Univer­sity of California Press, 1963), p. 254.

19B. Y. Boutros-Ghali, "The Arab League: 1945-55," International Conciliation. No. 498 (May 1954), 442.

20Halford Hoskins, The Middle East (New York: Mac­millan Co., 1958), p. 163.

21A.R.C. Bolton (ed.), Soviet Middle East Studies:An Analysis and Bibliography. Part II: Arabs and Arab World, p. 3.

302

more or less, influential, and that according to an au­thority, a cohesive Arab foreign policy has been more or

22less observed in international organization. Further, Arab foreign relations, in general, are conducted with relative harmony.

Besides its main aim, the League has stressed com­prehension of Arab affairs. It has been interested in re-

23adjusting traditional Islam to Western modernism. With­out neglecting economic, social, and cultural progress, it

24has repudiated the traditional fatalistic outlook. Itis true, the founders of the League were oriented towards

25Pan-Arabism rather than Pan-Islamism, but the policy£of the League, at least under the guidance of Abd al-

Rahman*Azzam, its first Secretary General, was generally26in harmony with the Islamic principle. In spite of many

22Harry N. Howard, "The Arab-Asian States in the United Nations," The Middle East Journal (Summer 1953), 279-292. pa'a-aim.

23B.Y. Boutros-Ghali, op. cit. . p. 442.24Mohamed El-Hadi Afifi, The Arabs and the United

Nations (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., Ltd., 1964), p. 16.

25Hoskins, op. cit.. p. 152.

2§Abd al-Rahman Azzam, "The Arab League and World Unity," Arab Nationalism: An Anthology. Sylvia Haim (ed. and trans.) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), pp. 154-166» passim.

303

an internal dissension and lavish accusation, the Leagueis credited with the progress not only of universalistArabism with its background of Islamism, but also the

27sense of a supra-national Arab entity. Today it sym­bolizes Arab unity.

The League is often accused of manifest failure in the Palestine war of 1948-49, and even inner instability. Such accusations should be blunted on the grounds that it"could never accomplish more than its members allowed it

28to." The League has often transcended the differencesof its members. At least lip service has always beengiven Arab solidarity through its channels, even duringthe period of governmental dissensions of the early

291950's. The overview is that the League has been a suc­cess. Hoskins provides us with such an overview:

If the looseness of the league organization and diver­gent political interests and rivalries among its mem-

27Jacques Berque, The Arabs: Their History and Future (London: Faber and Faber, 1964), p. 250.

^®J.C. Hurewitz, "Regional and International Poli­tics in the Middle East," The United States and the Mid­dle East. Georgiana G. Stevens (ed.) (New Jersey: Pren- tice-Hall, 1964), p. 94.

29Fayez Sayegh, Arab Unity (New York: Devin-Adair Co., 1958), p. 149.

304

bers contributed to a considerable degree of ineffec­tuality at the time of the emergence of the state of Israel, the genuine strength of the sentiment which gave rise to the organization brought it through trial, tribulation, and defeat intact in composition and capable still of playing a very important part in the international relations of the Middle East.^®

Admittedly the League is capable of playing an influential role in the Arab external relations. Yet in spite of many an internal dissension, among its members, the Arab League has remained an open channel in which the royalists, the republicans, the traditionalists, and the "progressives" have always submerged. In the darkest hours of inter­governmental unrest Arab representatives of different ideo­logical orientations have participated in the sessions of the League. In spite of serious differences among Arab leaders on the war in Yaman the Arab Summit Conference was held, last year, to consolidate Arab efforts concern­ing the Jordan River dispute.

Nevertheless the League has been subject to attacks from all directions. Most of its critics have blamed it for what it has not achieved concerning Arab unity. Ac­cording to an authority such critics are erroneous:

"^Hoskins, pp. cit.. p. 153.

305

. . . the League has been consistently condemned by two types of critics: (1) those within the Arabworld who object that the Arab League is an inade­quate substitute for genuine Arab unity, and (2) those outside the Arab world who maintain that the League has failed because it has failed to achieve Arab unity. Both sets of critics are guilty of the same error. To evaluate the organization in terms of its approach to or withdrawal from Arab unity is to mis­understand the problem or to substitute another prob­lem and other terms of reference.^

Because the League is the embodiment of the common will of its members it could not possibly fulfill what its constituents were not willing to fulfill. Hence the cri­ticism leveled against the League is axiomatic and destruc­tive. Such criticism might lead to the ultimate repudia­tion of the League#as incompatible with its.objectives, without offering a better alternative. The League has lived up to what it was created for, and has promoted Arab unity to the extent its members let it do.

The Arab League is one thing and Arab unity is an­other. True, it stands for a sense of federal unity in

32the Arab world, but this is so only in the broadest

31Robert W. McDonald, The League of Arab States: A Study in the Dynamics of Regional Organization (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 53.

32Berque, op. cit.. p. 249.

306

sense of federal unity. In theory Arab unity may cul­minate into fulfillment through the channels of the Arab League through increasing social, cultural, economic, and political partnership. It may be fulfilled through direct (extra-League) contacts among Arab governments. Practically, however, the chances of a fulfilled and uni­versal Arab state, in the near future, is still guesswork.

IV. ARAB UNITY IN THEORY AND PRACTICE

There is a consensus that Arab nationalism as­pires at Arab unity. Yet there is no consensus as to what form of Arab unity. Of primary interest is that Arab nationalism itself means different things to differ­ent people. Western authors usually discuss.Arab nation­alism as nationalism in the Western sense of the word.The Columbia Encyclopedia gives the following on nation­alism:

political or social philosophy in which the good of the nation is paramount. The word is used loosely and almost always in a derogatory sense to carry the implication of excessive zeal for the national wel­fare and advancement. . . . Since fervent love of the nation implies fear of a rival people, a strong nationalism naturally leans to defensive and even to offensive measures and to continuous hostility toward some other nation or nations. . . . The devel­opment of democratic political theory was closely

307connected with the emergence of nationalism. . . . in the beginning nationalism walked hand in hand with democracy and liberalism. It first emerged into politics in the French Revolution. The revo­lutionaries glorified their nation as well as the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity.. . . Liberal elements had been discarded slowly, and now, from glorifying the traditions of the past, nationalism had turned toward reaction to that past.. . . Though the ideal of the United Nations— like that of the League of Nations— was an end to na­tionalism, nationalistic feelings were still strong in 1950.33

As portrayed, here, nationalism, in general, differsbasically from the concept of Arab nationalism as conceivedby Arab leaders and authors. *Abd Allah^Abd al-Dsfi.m basesideal nationalism— that is Arab nationalism— primarily, onnational independence, national unity, and belonging in

34one nation. This concept of nationalism is apparently.0

concerned with national self-preservation. In comparison,nationalism as portrayed in the Columbia Encyclopediaaims at national self-expansion. *Abd al-Da*im ascertainsthat Arab nationalism is free from discriminatory propensi-

35ties, and that it is equalitarian, liberal, and democratic.

33 .Nationalism," The Columbia Encyclopedia. WilliamBridgewater and Elizabeth J. Sherwood (eds.) (2nd ed.),New York: Columbia University Press, 1950), p. 1360.

^^Abd Allah4Abd-al-Da*im, al-Jil al*Arabl al-Jadld, (Beirut: Dar al-‘llm li al-Mal5yin, 1961), p. 91.

35Ibid., p. 102.

308

But this is the nearest sense to nationalism as under­stood in the West. Yet MichelcAflaq, the ideologue of the Ba‘th Party describes Arab nationalism as follows:

Nationalism, like every kind of love, fills the heart with joy and spreads hope in the soul; he who feels it would wish to share with all people this joy which raises him above narrow egoism, draws him nearer to goodness and perfection. Such a joy is therefore beyond human will and as far removed from hatred as possible, because he who feels its sanc­tity is led at the same time to venerate it in all people. It is, then, the best way to true humanity.There is no fear that nationalism will qlash with religion, for, like religion, it flows from the heart and issues from the will of God; they walk arm in arm, supporting each other. . .

Here the concept of nationalism is entirely different from its equivalent in the West. Nationalism is love I Nation­alism is sanctified'. Nationalism is the will of God!Such attributes of Arab nationalism, expressed by a Chris­tian Arab, and cherished by Muslim and Christian national­ists alike, seem like a call for duty rather than nation­alism. Further, President Nasser used to address the masses in this manner:

Michel Aflaq, "Nationalism and Revolution," Arab Nationalism: An Anthology. Sylvia G. Haim (ed. and trans.) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), p. 242-43.

Brethern! . . . Arab nationalism is you, here, in Damascus, your brethern in Baghdad, your brethern in Cairo, your brethern in Oman, and your brother in Beirut. This is Arab Nationalism. . . .37

Here Arab nationalism means literally the Arab people.That is why it is sanctified in the Arab world. Actuallyto criticize Arab nationalism in the Arab world is tocriticize the Arab themselves. Of relevant interest isthat the Arab masses are largely unaware of the conceptof nationalism in the West. This observer believes thatal-Qawmiyah al-^Arabiyah. the so-called Arab nationalism,is best translated into English as Arab "peoplehood."

One should mention in this connection that the average Arab individual has been reminded through the channels of mass media, for over a decade, that the Arabs from Marrakesh to Baghdad are one people, that Ar^b na­tionalism is the "will of God," and that Arab unity will materialize sooner or later. By now Arab nationalism must be a great force. Arab unity is still a popular topic of conversation and discussion among the Arab in­tellectuals. Works on Arab unity, Arab nationalism, Arab

37 . -Nasser, Maimu*at Khutab wa Tasrxhat wa Bayanat(Cairo: Wazarat al-Isti*lamat* 1960), p. 140.

310history, and the Arabic language are published almost everyday in the Arab world and abroad. In addition, this writer believes that there is hardly any Arab government that would refuse to rule the Arab world, as a single en­tity, should the chance offer itself. In the meantime there is hardly any Arab government, at present, that would agree to step aside so that an extra-territorial Arab government might take over. Subsequently the greatest hindrance of Arab unity is still the love of rule which has fragmented the Arab world for over a millennium. That all of a sudden the love of rule may be abandoned for the sake of unity is beyond the reach of any reliable cal­culation.

Almost all the theorists of Arab nationalism, in the Arab world, propagate the idea that the Arab nation is a reality. Sat'x* al-Husrx, probably the most enthusi­astic among them, bases the concept of a nation on common language which he calls the "soul" of a nation, and common history which he calls a national "memory."3® The Arabs constitute one nation according to him, because they

O O - ^Sa£i al-ijusrx, Mahiya al-Qawmxyah (Beirut: Daral-*Ilm li al-Malayxn, 1959), pp. 251-52.

311possess both a common history and a common language.

Besides, there is a consensus of opinions among these theorists that the Arabs were united politically, once, in their Islamic past. Thus Arab unity may be something to restore rather than to create. Fayez Sayegh disagrees:

Political unity came to be envisioned not as an antecedent condition which should be reestablished, but as a natural, normal, healthy condition, which should be attained for its own sake, regardless of whether or not it had ever existed in the past."^

This observer neither agrees nor disagrees with Sayegh because a technical point is involved. Arab unity in the past was based on the Islamic tradition. Today Sayegh, al-Husrl and others, propagate a secular Arab unity. Here one has a clearer picture as to whether Arab unity is some­thing to create or restore. Here opinions differ. Pan- Islamists usually speak of restoring Islamic unity. In contrast,, secular Pan-Arab theorists, like Sayegh and al-Husrl, usually propagate the creation of a new unity " "for its own sake."

Thus the concept of Arab unity is caught between two sets of theorists, the traditional backward-looking

39Fayez A. Sayegh, Arab Unity (New York: Devin- Adair Co., 1958), p. 69.

312

Pan-Islamists, and the "progressive" Pan-Arabists. Whilethe Pan-Islamists aim at reconstructing past experience,the secular Pan-Arabists look forward:

. . . al-Husri does place great emphasis upon the need of awakening a consciousness of national iden­tity, a faith in the future of one's nation, and thewill to press for the realization of its national Sodestiny.

The first impression is that the two sets of theorists areantithetical. Realistically both groups represent Arabnationalism. "To explain Arab nationalism in terms onlyof Pan-Arabism, to bring all the different forms of Arabnationalism under one hat would distort the picture as it

41develops in reality." In what sense do Pan-Islamistsrepresent Arab nationalism? To answer this question isto explain the synthesis between Pan-Islamism and Pan-Arabism. Such a synthesis is recognized by Hans E.

42Tiitsch. Both Pan-Islamists and Pan-Arabists agree on Arab unity? only the latter look at it from a secular angle and the former's angle is Islamic. "Strictly and

4 ®L. M. Kenney, "Sati** al-Husri's Views on Arab Nationalism," The Middle East Journal, Vol. 17 (Summer, 1963), 237.

41Hans E. Tutsch, op. cit.. p. 67.42Ibid., p. 50.

historically the Pan-Islamists are on orthodox ground when they speak of Arab nationalism in terms of reli­gion."^ That is to say Pan-Arabism and Pan-Islamism are actually synthetical. An authority put this syn­thesis accurately in the following words: "The moderneducated Moslems favored Pan-Arabism; the theologians leaned toward Pan-Islamism; the masses were conscious of no sharp distinction between the two "Pan's." 44

The question why Pan-Islamists are traditional in outlook hardly arises. But why Pan-Arabists are secular in their views is a good question. According to an ob­server the status of non-Muslim Arab nationalists is largely responsible:

Diffidence and ambiguity have kept important sections of the Christian Arabs lukewarm and suspicious, for they fear, with some justification, that Arab nation­alism without a more forthright reorientation along secular lines may be no more than a facade for an Islamic policy, to which they naturally could not subscribe.^5

43H.I. Katibah, The New Spirit in Arab Lands (New York: published by the author, 1940), p. 54.

44Philip K. Hitti, Lebanon in History (London: Macmillan and Co., 1957), p. 480.

45Hazem Zaki Nuseibeh, The Ideas of Arab National­ism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1956), pp. 67-68,

314

Well, suppose the stress of non-Muslims, on secularism was removed or withdrawn, would Pan-Arabism become non­secular? An observer does not think so:

. . . while most Christian nationalists resent at heart the injection of the religious issue in a purely nationalist movement, the cleavage is not correctly between Moslems and Christians. It may be safely said that there are many Christians who are willing to envisage an Arab Moslem hegemony if that will rid Arab lands of Western imperialism, and that there are many Moslem nationalists who ob­ject to a religious Moslem interpretation of Arab nationalism or Pan-Arabism as strongly as most Christian Arab nationalists. Should the Christian objection be completely removed there still would be sufficient opposition among liberal Moslems toPan-Islamism to make a clear distinction between46the two movements. . . .11

>Pan-Arabism is secular by necessity. It is so because ittries to give answers to political and social problems whichare basically secular. That is Pan-Arabism is a child of

47its secular age. The mere fact that it centers on Arab unity rather than Islamic unity makes it "racially - or­iented? even though it repudiates racial propensities.

Because Pan-Arabism is secular it aims at creating a new Arab unity rather than reconstructing the unity of the past. Towards the attainment of Arab unity al-Husrl emphasizes the need of awakening a consciousness of

46Katibah, op. cit.. p. 53-54. ^Kenney, op. cit. , p. 244.

315

national identity as a first step towards the fulfillment 48of Arab unity.

Of special interest is that the lack of such a consciousness on the part of any Arab is not a pre­condition of Arabness, for an Arab "is an Arab whether he wishes to be or not, . . . whether he confesses it or not,. . . whether he be ignorant of it, or careless, or stub-

49born, or traitorous." The Constitution of the Ba*th Party confirms this point by stating that "any differences existing among . . . sons [of the Arab Nation] are acci­dental and unimportant. They will disappear with the

50awakening of the Arab consciousness." Actually there is a theoretical agreement, among Pan-Arab theorists, on projecting the awakening of Arab consciousness and trans­cending Arab differences.

Theoretically speaking Arab unity commands homage 51from all Arab leaders and nationalists. William Sands

^®Sa1;ifc al-Husrl, al-Urubah Awwalan (Beirut: Dar al-Ilm li al-Malayin, 1955), pp. 5-6.

49 . . . .cKenney, op. cit.. p. 243, citing Sati al-Husn.^The Party of the Arab Ba4 th, "Constitution," Arab

Nationalism: An Anthology. Silvia G. Haim (ed. and trans.) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), p. 233.

■ -Tutsch, pp. cit. . p. 77.

t

316recognizes three main categories of Arab unionists? thetraditional nationalists, the federalists, and the advo-

52cates of total unity. The old traditionalists are gen­erally those "to whom the struggle within a larger frame­work is not very attractive," those "whom an ecumenical idea, at least in its current popular form, would probably displace," some minority groups, and those "who once were

Ienthusiastic about the goal but have lost the first flush."Arab unity gets much more lip service from this group,than support. As to the federalists and the advocatesof total unity, they may be categorized, together, asprogressive nationalists, as we have seen above.

The advocates of total unity are, generally, the .followers of Nasser, and the federalists are primarily

54Ba^thists. Sands gives us these enlightening remarksabout the federalists:

They want unity, and want it now. What kind, and governed by whom, and under what principles, they have not decided.It is the opinion of many specialists that they could not win a majority in any election fairly

52 .William Sands, "Middle East Background," The United States and the Middle East. Georgiana G. Stevens (ed.) (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1964), pp. 16-17.

53 54Ibid., p. 16. Ibid.. pp. 16-17.

317described as "free."

And the following about Nasser and his followers:Nasser, as is clear from the origins of the movement, is by no means the father of unity. But he has be­come, by a series of circumstances, its leader and present embodiment. . . . [Nasser's group] wishes to have "complete" unity, . . . which would have a strong central authority, minimize local differences and have a peerless leader at its head. There are some of them who are willing to wait to do this, rather than settle for a little now. If it cannot

be today, then surely it will be tomorrow, and they feel they can afford the lag, since time is with them.^

Nasser and his followers do not hesitate to acceptprogress by evolution? i.e., issues may lead to theirnatural conclusions. Actually evolution is referred to

57in many a Nasser's speech. In this connection Nasserbelieves that time and persistent fruitful efforts areessential for the accomplishment of national and individualaspirations? for without work there would be no productionwhich is necessary for the evolution of both fatherland as

58a whole and individual. It is characteristic of Nasser to speak of objectives and their means. In comparison the

5 5Ibid.. pp. 16-17. 5 6Ibid. . p. 17.57Nasser, pp. cit.. pp. 574-90, passim*K O Ibid., p. 590.

318

Ba^hists are largely devoid of the means to many an objec-59txve. They are non-believers m evolution. Their guide­

line to progress is "the overthrow of the present faultystructure, an overthrow which will include all the sectors

60of intellectual, economic, social and political life."That is to say what is is worthies^ and what should be, as conceived by the Ba^thists, is the sole good. Thus revo­lution per se becomes the only way to progress.

Gradually the Arab nationalist situation came to be in a state of confusion. Nasser drew the following conclusions:

I.: am beginning to feel that political revolutions do not automatically entail a union. Witness the case *Abd al-Karim Qasim, later to be followed by the Ba*th. Deviation, selfishness and spite have been the result of these revolutions. . . . In the past we stated that we would co-operate with all nationalist groups or organizations. But we have now been proved wrong.This kind of multiplicity of nationalist activities seems to lead us to clashes. . . . We must therefore begin to look ahead into the future and draw the proper lesson from these events. The future must be viewed in a new light. While every Arab country boasts a party, union seems utterly impossible. True political opposition would, degenerate into regionalism, with

59 .The Arab Ba*th Party, "Constitution," Arab Nation­alism; An Anthology. Sylvia G. Haim (ed. and trans.) (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964), p. 235.

60. Ibid., pp. 235-36.

\

319

Syria at odds with Egypt, Iraq at odds with Syria, and so forth. For union to emerge, and for all im­moral opportunist obstacles to be overcome, we must launch a unified Arab Nationalist movement which would incorpgjate all the nationalist movements of the Arab world.

Here dissension arises from political and ideological di­versity. Nasser seems to be convinced that the remedy of such a dissenting multiplicity is a unified nationalist movement, i.e., an ideological,harmonioustand cooperative body politic in the Arab world. Such a unified movement has worked well in Egypt. Apparently, according to Nasser without such a movement Arab unity has little chance of fulfillment. Further, regionalism, rather than unity,

i

would result from existing factionalism. Theoretically every nationalist group pays homage to Arab unity. Yet union seems impossible because there is no agreement as

tto the form and the leadership of this unity. Theoretically such an agreement could be reached. For instance, Egyp­tian, Syrian and Iraqi delegations signed a (Syrian-

62Iraqi-Egyptian) union agreement on April 17, 1963,

61Malcolm Kerr, The Arab Cold War: 1958-1964 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 119-20, citing Nasser in Arab Political Documents. 1963 (American Univer­sity of Beirut, Department of Political Studies and Public Administration, 1964), p. 333.

^ Ibid., pp. 89-94.

320

according to which there would be an elected president, a prime minister and a cabinet appointed by the president and responsible to lta house of representatives’! The three regions would be represented in the house according to the number of population. A senate, however, was provided for in which the three regions would be represented equally. There would be three vice-presidents; one from each region. The president would have the right to dissolve the parlia­ment. And there would be a unified political organization. Practically the union agreement could not be put into ef­fect. For one reason the very existence of the Ba^th wasthreatened by the creation of a unified political organ-

63ization. On the surface the union agreement was theore-i1

tically applicable. Below the surface the seeds of diver­gence were already growing.

Under such circumstances an alternative to unity, at present, might be something like a stronger Arab League. This alternative would not contradict political self- preservation or political self-sacrifice in Pan-Arab rela­tions because each member of such a "League" would still maintain relative independence. Strengthening the Arab

^ Ibid., p. 93.

3.2.1League as a substitute for Arab unity is not without •supporters, but admittedly, the idea is not very much attractive. If one excludes such an alternative, one has two divergent views; unified political organization on the part of Nasserists, versus preservation of poli­tical identity on the part of Ba‘thists.

A unified nationalist movement is theoretically ideal for dispersing existing divergence. Practically the establishment of such a movement is probably impossible before the actual fulfillment of Arab unity. However, Nasser's conviction that such a unified movement is a pre­requisite for unity is significant. It throws light on the core of this study; namely the desperate need in the Arab world for a comprehensive ideology; an overview which gathers all ends in the total Arab situation. Apart from the unified nationalist movement in Egypt, Arab na­tionalist movements are characterized by dissension from within and from without.

The assumption was that the "old" nationalists, the so-called al-rajClyin (the reactionaries) and the "progressive" nationalists, the so-called al-taqaddumfv£n. may quarrel with each other. This has not been so recently.

•Now it had been shown that socialists and revolutionaries

322were as capable of quarrelling with each other as they

64were with reactionaries." Thus dissension has become the ordinary and harmony the exceptional among the na­tionalist intelligentsia.

This is so because of the absence of a guiding moral criterion above the society. Traditionally Islam used to supply such a criterion. That is why in the past synthesis rather than divergence characterized the socio­political institutions. However, at the beginning of the nineteenth century the Arab society came to be sua sponte. That is to say the guiding criterion was rele­gated to the background. Society, not religion, has be­come the center of things:

The old system started from the idea that there is some principle which stands above the state and society, guiding and judging the life of society and the actions of governments; it found this principle in the teachings of a revealed religion, Islam. The new system also believed that a principle existed, but it thought it could be found by human reason.

Further, the change has become ceaselessly unfolding:In the Near East . . . men's minds have moved not only from the idea that the principles of social

6 4Ibid.. p. 1 2 0.65Albert Hourani, "Near Eastern Nationalism Yester­

day and Today," Foreign Affairs (October 1963), 123.

323

action are religious to the idea that they are ra­tional, but also from the idea that there are such principles, standing above society, to the idea that society is its own judge and master, that the princi­ples by which it should live are generated within

that its own interest

Once the guiding moral criterion is no longer in control divergence rather than conformity, or uniformity, is the outcome. This is so because social experience, which in­fluences social change, differs from one society to an­other, and even human reasoning, which also has its impact on social change, differs from one group to another. In short among societies, as among interest groups, neither social experience nor human reasoning are ever uniform. However, even though the presence of a guiding criterion above society is never a guarantee of uniformity, under such a criterion synthesis may have a firmer ground. Di­vergence, however, may have great expectations in the ab­sence of su_ch a criterion.

Insofar as the Arab world is concerned one may speak (collectively) of an "Arab society." Nevertheless the social experience of Syria is not exactly the same as

itself, change as it changes, is the suoreme orinciole.

66_. . , Ibid.

that of Algeria, and so on. Nor is the quality of reason­ing of the Lebanese political groups the same as that of those in Morocco. Subsequently without a guiding criter­ion, i.e., in the absence of something like an ideological umbrella judging and guiding the total Arab society, many a group must be acting in an ideological vacuum. As a result divergence rather than uniformity should be the outcome of the total situation. In this respect the Arab League has effected relative uniformity. However, the role of the Arab League has been too limited to function as a substitute of an "ideological umbrella" above the Arab society. The absence of such an "ideological um­brella" or moral ideal is recognized by an authority:

Beneath the surface, . . . there are grave weak­nesses in the Near Eastern bodies politic. The new content of nationalism provides a program of action but not a moral ideal by which actions can be judged.• • •

The need for a guiding and judging principle is apparently major. Now, what are the alternatives of such a princi­ple? One alternative may be sought in the Islamic tradi­tion. Most of the Arabs are Muslims. Besides the only

67Ibid.. p. 135.

325guiding and judging principle that ever stood above the "Arab society" was Islam. Further the Islamic principle still stands above the society in the Arabian Peninsula as a guiding criterion. Could Islam provide such a princi­ple, once more, for the Arab society as a whole? Theview is pessimistic; at least insofar as the foreseeablefuture is concerned. An authority gives us some reasons:

The idea of an Islamic society, . . . seems to have lost its hold on most educated people. They are no longer conscious of a tension between how modernthought says they should live and how the Shari^ a saysthey should live. The hold of the Shari*a over soci­ety has grown weaker. . . . The hold of the Shari*a was confined to matters of personal status.68

Apparently the Islamic tradition, at least at present, is not in a position to supply the so-called "ideological umbrella" to judge actions and consequently effect synthe­ses among the conflicting factions in the Arab society.

Well, is there another alternative, or alternatives?Because nowadays "the universal language is that of nation-

69alism" one may examine its prospects as an alternative.An observer elaborates on nationalism, in general, as fol­lows :

In our present state of knowledge there is no mathe­matical formula for assessing the factors contrib­uting to patriotism and nationalism. The independent

68Ibid., p. 133. 69Ibid.

variables have not been identified, and for those on which there is some high degree of agreement no con­sistent method of weighing exists. In fact, no formula seems applicable to all kinds of nations or to one nation at different stages of its develop­ment.70

Further, in this respect, Albert Hourani says, "National­ism is not by itself a system of principles by which astate or a society can be o r g a n i z e d «it must depend

71on the other ideas it can attract and absorb." An ideology normally provides methods of weighing, control- ing and interpreting. Apparently nationalism cannot qualify for a guiding and judging moral ideal or "ideo­logical umbrella."

Here one must discriminate between an ideology and an idea. For the term "ideology" is often misused in relation to Arab affairs. For example, Morroe Berger con­ceives of such terms as "neutralism," "reformism," and"nationalism" as ideologies, but takes the precaution of

72not deciding whether they are "true" or "false."' Neu­tralism cannot qualify for an ideology simply because it

70Leonard W. Doob, Patriotism and Nationalism; Their Psychological Foundations (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1964), p. 214.

71Albert Hourani, op. cit., p. 133.

327

concentrates on one reality, out of many, in the Arab na­tional consciousness, i.e., it involves that specific sideof the foreign affairs of the Arabs which is mainly con-

73cerned with disengagement m the Cold War. Likewise reformism is only a reality in the Arab consciousness, versus such other realities as traditionalism, and mod­ernism. For if we take reformism for an ideology, we have actually ignored the inclusiveness of the total sense of "ideology" and overlooked the psychological element in its particular sense. In other words, we have reduced "ideolo1 gy" to "idea." Morroe Berger may be influenced by Daniel Bell who says, in this respect:

. . . the rising states of Asia and Africa are fashioning new ideologies with a different appeal for their own people. These are the ideologies of industrialization, modernization, Pan-Arabism, color,and nationalism.74

One wonders why Bell stops at that many; for he could have counted hundreds of such "ideologies" as "women-rightism," "population-controllism, " "anti-aristocratism," "state-

73If neutralism is recognized as an ideology, likewise internationalism, and regionalism, for instance, should be recognized. In this case the term "ideology" may be vul­garized.

74Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology (New York: Collier- Macmillan, 1962), p. 403.

328

centralism," "parliamentarianism," "trade-unionism," and "follow-the-rulerism." Actually such "ideologies" reflect on such Western ideas as Pan-Americanism, New Deal, Kennedy Round, Great Society, Atlantic Community, and War on Poverty. No one believes that ideas of this nature are ideologies. Their resemblances in the Arab world are considered ideologies by mistake.

Bearing this in mind, and following the judgment of Karl Mannheim, one may recognize two types of ideolo­gies, the comprehensive, and the exclusive, or in Mann-

75heim's words the "total" and the "particular." Thisstudy is interested in the "total" concept of ideologywhich Mannheim commends as follows:

It is the awareness that our total outlook as dis- tinguisned from its details may be distorted, which lends to the total conception of ideology a special significance and relevance for the understanding of our social life. Out of this recognition grows the profound disquietude which we feel in our present intellectual situation, but out of it grows also whatever in it is fruitful and stimulating.76

Accordingly, Pan-Arabism is not a total ideology because,in a way, it is exclusive of such a significant and

75Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia, Lours Wirth and Edward Shils (trans.) (New York: Harcourt; Harvest Books, 1936), pp. 55-57.

76 .Ibid. ... p. 70.

329

immediate reality as Pan-Islamism. Nor is Pan-Xslamisma total (comprehensive) ideology because it centers ontraditionalism almost exclusively, and because "humanaffairs cannot be understood by an isolation of their ele-

77ments."In the Arab world today the only ideology which

corresponds to Mannheim's concept of a total ideology is socialism. The strength of socialism in the Arab world may be described but cannot be measured. Besides, in so far as the Arab world as a whole is concerned, it is too early to foretell the fruition of the intermarriage be­tween its theory and practice, harmoniously, into achieve­ment, or the other way around. However, socialism has

*

been gaining momentum in Syria, Iraq, Yaman, Algeria, and especially the United Arab Republic (Egypt). Of immediate

ki

interest is that socialism is not uniform in the Arab world.

Three main groups, or "traditions," have been closely connected with socialism, namely Bacthism, the Algerian F.L.N., and especially Nasserism. As to the application of the socialist principle in practice the

77Mannheim, op. cit., p. 68.

33078

latter has been a -pioneer. This is significant in so far as it justifies the claim of Nasserism to be the “tradition" most closely connected with socialism. Here one may venture to claim that among the socialist tradi­tions in the Arab world, Ba^thism, Algerian P.L.N., and Nasserism, the latter is the "tradition" with compara­tively larger following and greater socialist commitment. Here we have a great socialist "tradition" (Nasserism), and a few little socialist "traditions" (F.L.N., Ba*thism, etc;). All, however, are not only socialist, but also nationalist.

Unexpectedly the socialist "ideological umbrella" has not been able to synthesize dissensions between the socialistatraditions, especially between Nasserism and Ba‘thism. According to the Nasserists the only road to synthesis is through self-abnegation on the part of the other "traditions." In contrast the Ba*thist "tradition" conceives of synthesis through self-preservation on the part of the socialist "traditions" alone. For the time being the situation is frozen. In the meantime all the

78George Lenczowski, "The Objects and Methods of Nasserism," The Arab World: Paths to Modernization. The J. of International Affairs, XIX, No. 1 (1965), p. 75.

331

socialist "traditions" are pushing the socialist process ahead. Undoubtedly major successes or failures on the part of any of these socialist "traditions" in the future would influence its status among the socialist group.

In the past the tradition most closely connected with the Shari* ah was orthodoxy, i.e., the Sunni system.So long as the Shari* ah had a strong hold over the society, syntheses were made mainly in favor of orthodoxy. As the hold of the Shari*ah over the society came to loosen, orthodoxy became less militant; syntheses could be made in favor of non-orthodox traditions.

Today, as yesterday, so long as socialism, and in a way Pan-Arab nationalism, have their hold over the masses, syntheses are expected to effect in favor of the "tradi­tion" most closely connected with, and committed to social­ism and Pan-Arab nationalism, namely Nasserism.

Today socialism and Pan-Arab nationalism are chal­lenged by regionalism and localism which constitute the major distracting forces in the Pan-Arab movement. Of special interest is that regionalism registers little or no popu­larity in Egypt. This was the opposite a few decades ago.An observer draws this interesting comparison:

332Observing Egypt, one could assume that Pan-Arab

nationalism is the final stage of development. In the Asian Arab countries Pan-Arab nationalism has its ups “and downs but holds large parts of the popu­lation in its grip. The idea that Arab national feeling could flow not into one but into several different molds is utterly despicable. . . .^

Would such a distracting national feeling resolvei -

itself eventually into harmony? No, according to Nasser who believes that the salvation of the nationalist move­ment lies in the creation of,a unified nationalist move­ment. Whether all the Arab nationalist groups will regis­ter in such a unified movement or not depends, probably more than any other factor, on the future of socialism in the Arab world as a whole. There are no definite answers as to the prospects. As of now the secular movement hasnot definitely superseded the religious forces. Admitted-

u . t ’ '

ly the majority of authorities on the Arab nationalist movement would say that secular nationalism is more inte­grative. Not so, however, according to some. For instance Zeine N. Zeine says, "The force of Islam is still much

80greater than the force of politico-secular nationalism.•• 1 •And Hans E. Tutsch says, "The most important integrating

7Q ,tTutsch, op. cit.. p. 116.80Zeine N. Zeine,. Arab-Turkish Relations and the

Emergence of Arab Nationalism (Beirut: Khayat's, 1958), p. 118.

333factor in the Arab world is still Islam, which impresses

81its seal on the whole of Arab civilization." Of course such comparisons will always be made between the secular nationalist movement and Islamic principles. But should the secular nationalist movement acquire increasing re­gional and local sentiments such comparisons would be more convincingly in favor of the integrative power of the Islamic tradition.

0 1 # #OJ-Tutsch, op. ext.., p. 110.

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