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Orientalists And Orientalism in the Writings of Muhammad Kurd ʿAli

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Joseph H. Escovitz
Joseph H. Escovitz
Affiliation:
Institute of Islamic Studies, McGill University
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Extract

An increased awareness of the activities of Orientalists has occurred in recent years due to the publication of Edward Said's Orientalism. However, as most students and scholars who study the East know, Said's work is only one of the more recent discussions of this subject. Others who have critiqued Orientalists and Orientalism include A. L. Tibawi and Abdallah Laroui, and, at an earlier time, Jamāl al-Dīn “al-Afghānī” and Muḥammad Abduh. Western Orientalists have even been engaged in evaluating the work of other Orientalists, and even critiquing the critics; for example, J.-J. Waardenburg, D. P. Little, and the participants in the recent Giorgio Levi Della Vida Biennal Conference.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , February 1983 , pp. 95 - 109
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1983

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References

NOTES

Author's Note: A shortened version of this article was presented at the Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Middle East Studies Association, Seattle, Washington, November 4–7, 1981. Research on this topic was carried out during my term as an Andrew W. Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Southern California (1981–82).

1 Edward, W. Said, Orientalism (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

2 Tibawi, A. L., “English-Speaking Orientalists: A Critique of Their Approach to Islam and Arab Nationalism,” The Muslim World, 53 (1963), 185–204;CrossRefGoogle Scholar “Second Critique of English-Speaking Orientalists and Their Approach to Islam and the Arabs,” The Islamic Quarterly, 22 (1979), 3–54.Google ScholarLaroui, Abdallah, The Crisis of the Arab intellectual, tr. Cammell, Diarmid, (Berkeley, Calif., 1976),Google Scholar esp. chap. 3. Jamāl, al-Dīn “al-Afghānī,” al-Radd ⊃alā al-Dahriyyīn (Cairo, 1903):Google Scholar see also the discussion in Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (Oxford, 1970);Google Scholar in particular, “al-Afghānī's” critique of Renan, , pp. 120–123.Google Scholar For a brief summary of ⊂Abduh's arguments with Western writers on Islam, ibid., pp. 143, 148, 150.

3 Jean-Jacques, Waardenburg, L'Islam dans le miroir de l'Occident (Paris, 1963).Google ScholarDonald, P. Little, “Three Arab Critiques of Orientalism,” The Muslim World, 69 (1979), 110–131.Google ScholarTibawi's, reply to Little's article (“On the Orientalists Again,” The Muslim World, 70 [1980], 56–61)CrossRefGoogle Scholar allows us to see aspects of the discussion concerning Orientalist writings today which lie below the surface, including professional conflict among contemporaries and especially politics (i.e., the Arab-Israeli conflict). Kerr, M. H., ed., Islamic Studies: A Tradition and Its Problems (Malibu, Calif., 1981).Google Scholar

4 Two vols., Cairo, 1950. Hereafter cited as Islam. All references are to volume I.

5 Islam, p. i.Google Scholar

6 Sharabi, Hisham, Arab Intellectuals and the West: The Formative Years, 1875–1914 (Baltimore, 1970), pp. 122–123.Google Scholar

7 Two vols., Cairo, 1923. The contribution by Brockelmann, is to be found in vol. 2, pp. 280–282.Google Scholar

8 “Al-Mustashriqūn wa-l Mu⊂tamarhum.” This article can also be found in a collection of his writings, Al-Qadīm wa-al-Ḥadīth (Cairo, 1925), pp. 290–296.Google Scholar

9 “Muslim Studies in Europe,” Proceedings of the 17th international Congress of Orientalists. Oxford. 1928 (London, 1929), p. 83.Google Scholar The paper itself is not reproduced here, only its English title. Kurd ⊃Alī may well have presented it in Arabic, but since titles of papers are given only in European languages, we cannot be certain of this. However, if it had been presented in French, the title most likely would have been given in that language. The paper is to be found in its Arabic version under the title “Fī Mu⊃tamar al-Mustashriqīn al-Duwalī,” Majallat al-Majma⊂ al-⊂Ilmī al-⊂Arabī (Dimashq), 8 (1921), 680–685. This journal will hereafter be cited as Majalla.Google Scholar

10 For example, a history of Orientalism in Holland by Houtsma, , Majalla, 4 (1924). 64–70;Google Scholar Denmark by Pedersen, ibid., 170–176; Italy by Cabatin, M. Antoine, Majalla, 6, 207–210.Google Scholar

11 He mentioned his meeting with Goldziher in a lecture he delivered to the Arab Club in Damascus in 1919, which was subsequently printed in al-Muqtabas (n.d.), and is also to be found in al-Qadīm wa-al-Ḥadīth, p. 26.Google Scholar He was a guest of Prince Caetani in 1913; see Memoirs of Muḥanimad Kurd ⊂Alī tr. Totah, Khalil (Washington, D.C., 1954), p. 68.Google Scholar His friendship with Massignon is mentioned in Kurd ⊂Alī's Memoirs, as quoted in Dahan, Sami, “Muḥammad Kurd ⊂Alī; Notice biographique,” Melanges Louis Massingnon 1 (Damascus, 1956), 379, 391.Google Scholar

12 Totah, K., tr., Memoirs, pp. 99–100.Google Scholar

13 Kurd ⊂Aīl said in his Memoirs that he had considered writing a book on Islam in French and English, but these plans were never realized. As quoted in Sāmī, Dhahān, “Ḥayat Muḥammad Kurd ⊂Alī wa-Athārunu,” Majalla, 30 (1955), p. 245,Google Scholar n. 5. Cf., Little, “Three Critiques,” p. 110 concerning the tendency of literature on Orientalism and Orientalists to be written in Arabic or other Islamic languages.Google Scholar

14 See, for example, Islam, pp. 45, 67–68.Google Scholar

15 Cairo, 1946.Google Scholar

16 Cf., Islam, p. 45; also, “al-Qawl fī-Tārīkhina” in his Aqwāluna wa-Af⊂āluna, p. 233.Google Scholar This is apparently a common theme in the developing world, and echoes the remarks of Dr. K. O. Dike, the principal of University College, Ibadan, who said in 1957, “Every nation builds its future on its past; so the African must not only instinctively have faith in his own existence, but must also satisfy himself by scientific inquiry that it exists” (quoted by David, C. Gordon, Self-Determination and History in she Third World [Princeton, 1971], p. 34).Google Scholar

17 Islam, p. 45.Google Scholar

18 Ibid., p. 62; also al-Qadīm wa-al-Ḥadīth, pp. 25–26;Google ScholarTotah, , tr., Memoirs, p. 75.Google Scholar

19 At one point he states categorically that the Arabs are the most important nationality in Islamic civilization (Islam, p. 54).Google Scholar Although he recognizes the contributions of other peoples to Islamic civilization, he is always quick to emphasize the importance of the Arab element; see his discussion of Carra, de Vaux, Les Penseurs de l'Islam (Islam, pp. 50–51).Google Scholar At another point he seems to use the terms Muslims and Arabs interchangeably (Islam, p. 57).Google Scholar

20 Ibid., pp. 3–4.

21 Ibid., p. 5.

22 These comments are quotations from LeBon, Gustave, La Civilization des Arabes (Islam, pp. 8–10). Obviously, Kurd ⊂Alī is in total agreement with them.Google Scholar

23 Ibid., p. 12.

24 Ibid., p. 10.

25 Ibid., pp. 30–34.

26 Ibid., pp. 35, 46–49. Kurd ⊂Alī had dealt with this theme before in his article, “al-Shu⊂ūbiyya,” which appeared in al-Mu qiabas and is reproduced in al-Qadīm wa-al-Ḥadīth, pp. 6–20.Google Scholar This theme has been used by other writers; see the general discussion of this term and its use in Sami, A. Hanna and George, H. Gardner, “al-Shu⊂ūbiyyah Up-Dated: A Study of the 20th Century Revival of an Eighth Century Concept,” Middle East Journal, 20 (1966), 335–352:Google Scholar Kurd ⊂Alī is not mentioned in this article. Our discussion will not deal with the eastern Shu⊂ubīs. A rebuttal of some of their remarks by Kurd, ⊂Alī can be found in Islam, pp. 45–49.Google Scholar

27 See, for example, Islam, pp. 39 ff.Google Scholar for Kurd ⊂Alī's defense of Islam's treatment of Christians and Jews; concerning the destruction of the library at Alexandria, see Islam, pp. 20–23.Google Scholar Kurd ⊂Alī's colleague at the Arab Academy of Damascus, ⊂Abd al-Qādir al-Maghrabī, also dealt with this latter question; see Majalla. 4 (1924), 464–467.Google Scholar Concerning the weaknesses of Arab Muslim states, see Islam, p. 59.Google Scholar

28 Ibid., pp. 53–55.

29 Ibid., p. 42.

30 Ibid., pp. 24–30.

31 Ibid., pp. 36–38. One of the other Orientialists whom Lammens disparages is Emmanuel Sedillot (ibid., and al-Mashriq, 20 (1922), 965).Google Scholar Both LeBon and Sedillot were popular among Arab Muslim apologists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and were frequently cited; see Hourani, , Arabic Thought, pp. 89, 173.Google Scholar

32 Islam, p. 36.Google Scholar

33 Said, , Orientialism, esp. pp. 130–148;Google ScholarHourani, , Arabic Thought, esp. pp. 120–123, 143, 148, 150.Google Scholar

34 Islam, p. 17.Google Scholar

35 Ibid p. 10.

36 As quoted by Kurd, ⊂Alī in Majalla, 7 (1927), 132,Google Scholar and Islam, p. 33.Google Scholar

37 Islam. p. 33.Google Scholar Also, as quoted by Shafīq, Jabarī, Muḥadarāt ⊂an Muḥammad Kurd ⊂Alī (Cairo, 1957), pp. 40–41.Google Scholar

38 Islam, p. 31.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., pp. 36–38. For a general study of Lammens, see Salibi, K. S., “Islam and Syria in the Writings of Henri Lammens,” in Lewis, B. and Holt, P. M., Eds., Historians of the Middle East (London, 1962), pp. 330–342.Google Scholar The dispute between Kurd ⊂Alī and Lammens seems to have begun with Kurd, ⊂Alī's review (Majalla, 2 (1922), 271–281)Google Scholar of Lammens, , La Syrie, précis historique (2 vol. Beirut, 1921).Google ScholarLammens, replied in an article entitled, “al-lntiqād al-Durūs al-Tārīkhiyya fī Sūriyya,” al-Mashriq, 20 (1922), 964–972.Google Scholar This reply includes a critique of a series of articles which Kurd ⊂Alī published in Majalla, entitled “Ghābir al-Andalus wa-Ḥādiruha (2 [1922], infra). Kurd ⊂Alī, in a attempt to have the last word, responded with another article by the same title as Lammens's, in a subsequent issue of Majalla (5 [1925], 347–350).Google Scholar The next year Kurd⊂Alī wrote a severe criticism of Lammens's, article on Syria in the Encyclopaedia of Islam (Majalla, 6 [1926], 231–246).Google Scholar

40 Islam, pp. 65–69.Google Scholar

41 Ibid., pp. 69–70.

42 Ibid., p. 66.

43 Ibid., p. 65.

44 Ibid., p. 76.

45 Ibid., pp. 74–75.

46 Ibid., p. 73.

47 Ibid., p. 69.

48 Ibid., p. 66.

49 Ibid., p. 71.

50 Ibid., pp. 67–68.

51 Ibid., p. 77. Lammens, criticizes al-Shartūnī for not knowing any European languages al-Mashriq, 20 (1922). 968.Google Scholar

52 Islam, p. 70.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., pp. 78–79.

54 Ibid., pp. 79–81.

55 Ibid., pp. 105–106.

56 Ibid., p. 107.

57 Ibid., pp. 108–109. These ideas are said to be drawn from the writings of Ḥāfiẓ Ṣabrī and “the most eminent Ḥanafī fuqahā⊃ of Damascus.”

58 Ibid., pp. 81–82.

59 Ibid., p. 83.

60 Ibid., p. 84.

61 Ibid., pp. 84–85. This use of European authors to describe the even more outrageous situation in the West is also to be found among North Africanwriters; cf., David Gordon, Women of Algeria (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), pp. 29–34.Google Scholar

62 Islam, pp. 88–89.Google Scholar

63 Ibid., pp. 92–93.

64 Ibid., p. 94.

65 Ibid., pp. 94–95.

66 Ibid., p. 95.

67 Ibid., p. 97.

68 Ibid., pp. 97–98.

69 Ibid., pp. 98–100.

70 Ibid., pp. 101–102.

71 Ibid., pp. 103–104.

72 Ibid.,, pp. 110–111.

73 Ibid., p. 113.

74 Ibid., p. 115.

75 Ibid., p. 59.

76 Ibid.

77 Ibid., pp. 34. 63.

78 Ibid., p. 45. Even Edward Said's Orientalism is ultimately a call to action for Muslim Arabs to be more actively involved in the study of their own heritage and place in the world; see pp. 323–324.

79 Ibid., p. 31.

80 Totah, , tr., Memoirs, p. 74.Google Scholar

81 Islam, pp. 45, 62.Google Scholar These ideas are also to be found in Faris, Nabih, “The Arabs and Their History,” Middle East Journal, 8 (1954), 155–162.Google Scholar