Arab liberal thought in the modern age

Meir Hatina

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781526142931
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Conservatism & Liberalism
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The book provides in-depth analysis of Arab liberalism, which, although lacking public appeal and a compelling political underpinning, still sustained viability over time and remained a constant part of the Arab landscape. The study focuses on the second half of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century, a period that witnessed continuity as well as change in liberal thinking. Post-1967 liberals, as their predecessors, confronted old dilemmas, socio-economic upheavals, political instability and cultural disorientation, but also demonstrated ideological rejuvenation and provided liberal thought with new emphases and visions. Arab liberals' ongoing debates over freedom of religion, secularism, individualism, democracy and human rights were aimed at formulating of a comprehensive liberal project seeking to enact an Arab Enlightenment.

1

Historical endurance, ideological fervor

Israel’s military defeat of the Arabs in June 1967 opened a new chapter in the history of modern Arab thought. It set off a round of moral stocktaking in the Arab world, and sent Arab intellectuals searching for the underlying causes of what became known as the Naksa (setback). The crushing defeat to Israel became a wake-up call for political vision and concrete action. Nasserism and Arab nationalism, the ideological and political doctrines that had guided the Arabs on the eve of the 1967 war, were deemed the main culprits. As these doctrines largely exited the stage, competing narratives began to fill the void.

On the left, socialist thinkers turned the defeat into a sharp indictment of the legacy of the past with its sectarian biases. They claimed that the revolutionary regimes, rather than dismantling this legacy, had used it to advance their political goals. Their solution was a complete break with history and the past, and a revolt against Islamic tradition, as a prerequisite for a new culture based on secular principles.¹ At the other end of the spectrum, Islamist thinkers used the defeat as a lever for their demand for a return to authentic Islam. This was the sole path to victory, they declared, especially when facing a Zionist entity that drew its rationale and raison d’être from Jewish religion. ²

Yet another narrative was that of the Arab liberals, who ruefully admitted that they had succumbed to the attraction of revolutionary rhetoric and let their intellectual guard down. One of the main exponents of Arab liberalism, the Egyptian Tawfiq al-Hakim (d. 1987), confessed that the liberal admiration for Nasserism was tantamount to “intellectual suicide.”³

While liberal thinkers did not abandon their critical stance entirely, it was moderate and non-polarizing. Compared to Islamist revolutionaries—Sayyid Qutb in Egypt and Marwan Hadid in Syria come to mind—or avowed Marxist-socialists such as Ahmad Hamrush, Ismaiʿl Sabri ʿAbd Allah in Egypt, Khalid Baktash, Riyad al-Turk in Syria, or Khayr al-Din Hasib in Iraq, the language of Arab liberalism was restrained. Liberals did not reject the value system of Arab societies outright, but offered constructive, at times even blunt, criticism. Some emphasized their national affiliation—Egyptian, Sudanese, Syrian, Lebanese—and promoted a local agenda of social change and reform (islah) under the auspices of universal values, such as freedom, tolerance, citizenship, and democracy.⁴

In this respect, Arab liberals were nationalist liberals. They recognized the legitimacy of the nation-state, but aspired to upgrade its civic features and its tolerance of otherness—of women, religious minorities, and neighboring cultures. They did not demand total dissociation from Islam, as the left did, and refrained from bringing Islam into the political equation, as the Islamists did. In short, Arab liberals did not renounce religion, yet showed no particular sympathy for it.

The call by Arab liberals for restructuring the system of government, while evolutionary in approach, revitalized liberal discourse following a period of exclusion under the revolutionary regimes. To a large extent, liberal voices were able to resurface due to the political repercussions of the defeat in 1967, which led local rulers to adopt a more open, less repressive policy. The window of opportunity for liberal discourse opened even wider in the wake of a whole series of seminal events in both the international and the local arenas—the fall of communism and the Soviet bloc at the end of the 1980s; the World Trade Center attacks in the United States in 2001; and the Second Gulf War in 2003. These events, which triggered a heated debate in the Arab world on the cost of tyranny and religious extremism, provided liberal writers with the ammunition to challenge the legitimacy of their governments, fight for a more democratic polity, and push for better relations with the outside world.⁵

The activism of post-1967 liberal writers sprang from the awareness that while Arab society was in dire need of reform, this should be predicated on its own distinctive historical experience rather than the experience of the West. At the same time, these writers embraced modernity in all its forms—individualism, rationalism, representation, and secularism—as universal values that any society could adopt. In this way, liberal discourse sought to extricate itself from an innate contradiction: adopting Western culture while ignoring its repressive colonialist baggage. Proponents of this approach included Saʿd al-Din Ibrahim, Faraj Fuda, Muhammad Saʿid al-ʿAshmawi, Sayyid al-Qimni, Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd, Amin al-Mahdi, Tariq Hijji, Mahmud Muhammad Taha, Muhammad Shahrur, Nasif Nassar, Abdelmajid Charfi, Mohamed Talbi, Fatima Mernissi, ʿAbd al-Hamid al-Ansari, Ahmad al-Baghdadi, and Turki al-Hamad.

Through expatriates, among them Wafaʾ Sultan, Shakir al-Nabulsi, Hazim Saghiya, Jurj Tarabishi, and al-ʿAfif al-Akhdar, the Arab liberal cause reached Western audiences. Did authors living in the Arab world interpret liberal values differently and couch their views in language more in line with local traditions and norms than those living in the open, civic climate of the West? It is hard to say, although the expatriates do seem more frank and outspoken on religious and political matters. One way or another, it was a group that cut across geographical borders. In terms of academic and public profile, Saʿd al-Din Ibrahim in Egypt and Mohamed Talbi in Tunisia were no less notable than Shakir al-Nabulsi and Wafaʾ Sultan in the United States. All were sought-after speakers at conferences in Europe, North America, and Latin America, taught at universities there, and were active in international human rights organizations. Their writings were translated into other languages and discussed in academic frameworks, and all responded to the challenges of the time, striving together to find solutions to the problems at hand.⁶

Among the post-1967 liberal writers were veteran intellectuals from the interwar and post-war periods, along with newcomers who burst onto the scene in the early 1980s. They were joined by writers from other ideological streams (mostly older people), such as former pan-Arabists, but mainly former members of the Arab left. So it is difficult to speak of a “historical generation” in Karl Mannheim’s sense of the term, that is, a generation that has shared formative, dramatic experiences in a specific timeframe and a similar environment, such as colonialism, world wars, or national struggles for independence.⁷

The liberals’ social background was also diverse: they hailed from wealthy and middle-class families, but also from the lower class, which makes defining Arab liberalism even more complex. As their educational-professional profile was high, an empirical and rational approach was a given, especially on religious matters. Shared fate was yet another component: surrounded by religious extremism and authoritarian politics, with the Arab–Israeli conflict and anti-globalism hovering in the background, Arab liberals shared a sense of urgency and a drive to tackle issues head-on. They formed a discourse community that can be defined as a specific interest group, not linked by religious creed, class, birth, or inherent characteristics, but rather by shared ideas and goals, which also distinguish its members from other groups.

Arab liberalism in comparative perspective

Any study of the post-1967 era would be incomplete without a comparative analysis of Arab liberal discourse that looks closely at the evolution of its human quotient, geographical span, media and civic institutions, ideological themes, and intellectual standing.

Human profile

Formative liberalism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the purview of educated professionals—mainly lawyers, journalists, newspaper editors, and scholars. Most Arab liberals were from elite families, especially landowners and the upper middle class. A few belonged to the effendiyya, an urbanized middle class partly comprised of rural families who had migrated to the city.⁸ This core group of free professionals remained steady over time, but it was gradually joined by university graduates in the fields of history, political science, and the exact sciences—evidence of the spread of higher education. The newcomers were now mostly from the middle class rather than the elite, as social mobility increased and the landowning class began to lose political and economic power under regimes that set their sights on modernization.

This academic orientation, along with proficiency in languages such as French and English, sometimes reinforced by doctoral studies or guest lectureships at foreign universities, led to the adoption of scientific methodology and concepts from the world of historical research, political philosophy, sociology, and political science. For Arab liberals, this cultural capital became a stepping stone to public activism, heralding the intersection of scholarship and sociopolitical activism in the Arab world.

During the formative period, that is, the early twentieth century, liberal writers included establishment or semi-establishment figures as well as independents. Some viewed their intellectual endeavors as a vocation; for others it was more of a hobby. Some specialized in religious interpretation, politics, or economic issues; others were broader in their interests. A number of them wrote novels or literary criticism, which provided them with an additional platform for social and political criticism, and a vehicle for promoting their civil agenda.

From its earliest days, the liberal camp included both Muslim and Christian writers. Moreover, the number of women writers increased in the post-1967 era, reflecting their growing public presence—a development sometimes referred to as the “quiet revolution.” After 1967, the male voice was no longer the prominent one in Arab liberal discourse: women became active participants and ceased to rely on men to give voice to their emancipatory agenda.⁹ They radiated vision, determination, courage, and strength. They dealt not only with “women’s issues,” but also with other issues on the public agenda.

Geography

Geographically, the cradle of early liberalism was Egypt, with its vibrant public sphere, developed print culture, and British influence. The Syrian and Lebanese territories were also important: Their substantial Christian populations served as cultural brokers through their affinity with Western, in this case mainly French, culture.¹⁰ Later, liberal thought extended its geographical range to North Africa and the Persian Gulf, and eventually the Arab diasporas of Europe and North America. Early hubs of liberal discourse, such as Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, and Beirut, were joined by Khartoum, Tunis, Rabat, Riyadh, London, Paris, New York, and Toronto. The geographical span, going beyond the Egyptian-Levantine orbit, also indicated a denser and more global liberal thought.

Media and civic institutions

Early liberalism relied primarily on print culture—books, newspapers, and periodicals—to disseminate its i...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• A note on transliteration
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: debating Arab liberalism
• 1 Historical endurance, ideological fervor
• 2 Revisiting Islam: toward an ethical vision
• 3 Arab politics: oriental despotism
• 4 The West and Israel: an inspiring model
• 5 The 2011 revolutions
• Conclusion
• Select bibliography
• Index