How did we come to think of the Early Modern period as one of intellectual decline in the Middle East? This Introduction reviews how narratives of the development of the natural sciences have been previously constructed and lays out an alternative history of intellectual vibrancy in Early Modern Morocco in which the natural sciences were considered revealed and divinely sanctioned.

How did we come to think of the Early Modern period as one of intellectual decline in the Middle East? This Introduction reviews how narratives of the development of the natural sciences have been previously constructed and lays out an alternative history of intellectual vibrancy in Early Modern Morocco in which the natural sciences were considered revealed and divinely sanctioned.

This chapter focuses on the theme of dignity as identity and particularly Arab identity. One of the important components in the construction of nationality is consolidating a sense of identity. Karama/dignity – in the sense of being an image of God with inherent worth – has supported for millennia a sense of identity for humans. In the discussion of karama as identity in the slogans of the 2011 Arab Uprisings in Egypt, the chapter shows that there is a widespread understanding of the lack of dignity in Arab contexts, mostly due to oppressive political regimes in a postcolonial setting, which can be seen through various expressions of karama as identity in arts and in the interviews. The chapter also highlights how identity politics are also essential to increasingly globalized societal contexts around the world.

This chapter presents a historical reading of theatre in the Arab world and situates Arab dramatists and playwrights in local and global contexts. It points to the significance of Lebanese dramatist Marun Al-Naqqash in Beirut and Syrian playwright Ahmad al-Qabbani in Damascus and Cairo at the time of the Arab nahda, the so-called Arab Awakening, which had its beginnings in the nineteenth century. The chapter then discusses Sa’dallah Wannous’ plays within the context of both Arabic and world drama. It aims to not only highlight Wannous as one of the most important contributors to modern Arabic theatre but to also acknowledge his indispensable influence on the repertoire of world theatre as a whole.

This chapter shows how many of the events and much of the work of the second interim government in Tunisia, the National Constituent Assembly (NCA) and Troika, were directly linked to or produced by the behaviors, traits, and decisions of the TPA. The chapter begins by explaining how – in line with the previous chapter – the TPA was not operating in wide open territory; rather, it faced many constraints by nature of its role as a first interim government. These included pressure to swiftly hand power to an elected government, thus forcing it to work quickly; the need for care as it tried not to overstep its mandate, thus constraining its decision-making ability; and a host of constraints created by the legacies of the outgoing autocracy and inexperience with democratic government, including its own lack of preparation. The chapter then describes the series of events and actions under the TPA's successor, each with its own echoes of what had come before.

This chapter reveals how graduates of Dar al-ʿUlum contributed significantly to the creation of an authentic national culture for Egypt during the first forty years of British occupation (1882–1922). It demonstrates that projects of modernity, nationalism, and the nahda cultural renaissance, were not only advanced by Egypt’s political and intellectual elite, but also by educational experts working within lower and middle levels of state institutions and within grass-roots movements. The resistance of elite nationalists to cultural change under British occupation was selective: they fought education cutbacks and Anglocentric policies, but accepted European critiques of Islamic knowledge and pedagogies. This increased the sociocultural value not only of the civil school capital that many elite nationalists possessed, but also the hybrid civil-religious capital of the darʿamiyya. Reform of al-Azhar was driven in part by the number of talented religious school students trying to leave for Dar al-ʿUlum and its short-lived sister school, the School of Shariʿa Judges (Madrasat al-Qadaʾ al-Sharʿi). Dar al-ʿUlum teachers and graduates contributed significantly to the revival of Arabic literature, the reform of Arabic language and how it was taught, and the rejuvenation of Islamic practice through grass-roots associations (jamʿiyat).