Performing the nahda [Science and Progress in the Nineteenth Century Muqtataf], 2008

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AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT

PERFORMING THENAHDA: SCIENCE AND PROGRESS IN

THE NINETEENTH CENTURYMUQTATAF

by

NADIA WALID BOU ALI

A thesis

submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements

for the degree of Master of Arts

to the Department of Anthropology

of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences

at the American University of Beirut

Beirut, Lebanon

February 2008


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AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF BEIRUT

THESIS RELEASE FORM

I, Nadia Walid Bou Ali

authorize the American University of Beirut to supply copies of my thesis to

libraries or individuals upon request.

do not authorize the American University of Beirut to supply copies of my thesisto libraries or individuals for a period of two years starting with the date of the

thesis defense.

___________________

Signature

___________________

Date


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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my committee for their guidance and support, especiallyDr. Kirsten Scheid for making me realize that academia is deeply rooted in everyday

life and that the past and present do exist outside the "black box."

I would like to thank Dr. Tarif Khalidi for leading me to theMuqtatafand

allowing me to debrief endlessly about the articles and texts I came across.

I also want to thank Dr. Samir Khalaf for showing me that difference is

productive. Endless thanks to Mahmoud Natout for listening to me for hours on end

and encouraging me to express my thoughts.

v


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ABSTRACT

AN ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS OF

Nadia Walid Bou Ali for Master of Art

Major: Anthropology

Title: Performing the nahda: Science and Progress in the Nineteenth Century

Muqtataf

The nineteenth century has been referred to as the age ofal-nahda, the Arab

revival. Yet this paradigm of "revival" assumes a schism between tradition and

modernity, which intellectuals within the period did not actually express. Analysis of180 articles, written between 1876 and 1896 in the Arabic-language journal al-

Muqtataf, provides rich insights into nineteenth century concepts of modernity,

science, language and progress.

Using performance theory as my methodological tool, I explore the

formulation of these concepts through written language. Performance theory views

literary interaction as that between a performer and an audience. It has been used to

analyze verbal art, memory, and philosophical works. Yet rarelyif everhasperformance theory been used to study historical documents like al-Muqtataf. In

addition, within Arab literature, al-Muqtatafrepresents a marginalized genre, an

archive yet to be visited. Its texts challenge common understandings of the nineteenthcentury Arab world.

Intellectuals writing in al-Muqtatafduring the late nineteenth century were

preoccupied with bringing science into language, and simultaneously tatwir

(developing) the latter to become a language of science. Although al-Muqtataf's

ostensible discourse is that ofal-taqaddum (progress), it is locally rooted, invoking a

number of regionally indigenous ideas about women's rights, governance, politics,

mental health, hygiene, housekeeping, history and science. Taken together, these

combine to challenge not only conventional views of the period in which al-Muqtataf

was published, but also conventional views of the intellectuals and ideas publishedwithin it.


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Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ............................................................................................. vABSTRACT .................................................................................................................. viCHAPTER I ................................................................................................................... 1

Introduction and literature review .............................................................................. 1Inventing the Muqtataf ............................................................................................... 8Muqtataf form and content....................................................................................... 13The historical context of theMuqtataf..................................................................... 15Journalism in the 19th century Near East ................................................................. 20

CHAPTER II ................................................................................................................ 25Revisiting common paradigms: words on methodology ......................................... 25The Darwin controversy at the SPC......................................................................... 29Destinations not origins ........................................................................................... 37Archiving the Muqtataf: agency, subjects, and objects ........................................... 40

TheMuqtataflaboratory ...................................................................................... 43The social production of language ....................................................................... 46

al-ilm w al-alam: science and the world ................................................................. 52CHAPTER III .............................................................................................................. 55

The text as performance ........................................................................................... 55Reading theMuqtataf............................................................................................... 55

Muqtatafaudience and performers .......................................................................... 61Organic universals ................................................................................................... 66The ironies of nationalism ....................................................................................... 70

CHAPTER IV .............................................................................................................. 73Al-taqaddum fi al-sharq w al-gharb ......................................................................... 73East and West: The production of genealogies ........................................................ 76Independence and dependence ................................................................................. 86The object-ness of progress ..................................................................................... 8919th century civilization and progress ...................................................................... 94

The vices and virtues of civilization .................................................................... 96The destiny of civilization ..................................................................................... 101

CHAPTER V ............................................................................................................. 108Science, Language, and Education ........................................................................ 108Science as a disclaimer of performance ................................................................. 109The science and profession of education: ilmwasinat al-talim ...................... 114

In the household ................................................................................................. 116


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In the school ....................................................................................................... 118Action is far more important than words ............................................................... 120Reform, our greatest need ...................................................................................... 124Self-help revisited .................................................................................................. 130

CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 134BIBLIOGRAPHY ...................................................................................................... 143


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CHAPTER I

Introduction and literature review

The Arabic periodicals from the nineteenth century are an archive, first-hand

sources, and historical documents. An investigation of this archive allows for

archivingit; bringing it into consciousness as Jacques Derrida would say.

Consequently a rereading of the past becomes possible. Conventional understandings

of the "impact" between East and West offer little to contemporary scholarship

concerning questions about identity since they presume the existence of "East" and

"West" as unique separate entities thereby making the separation real.

This study in its small way seeks to contribute to the fields of history,

anthropology, discourse analysis, and critical theory through its revisiting early usages

of the categories of science, education, progress, modernization, civilization, Arabs,

andIfranja. By analyzing the "West"- and other categories- in the nineteenth century

Muqtatafas productive, un-bounded discourse, this study hopes to further complicate

the assumed categorical identities of the past and present.

The discourse on education, progress, and science in these nineteenth-century

texts emerges with East/ West as "part of action in society" (Kirsten Scheid 2005:470)

and not theorizing about it. Science and education are not discussed inMuqtatafto

prove the inferiority of the "us" or its regression. Rather they offer new horizons for

progress and engage in creating possibilities for the transformation of reality instead

of accepting the colonizers' claims about the "backwardness" of the Easterners and

Arabs.


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While the reality of the nineteenth-century "contact" between East and West

seems to now be concluded by many scholars, it was certainly understood by those

writing and reading in theMuqtatafas unfinished. The following study hopes to

broaden the horizons of the debates on "Arab" identity, mind, and body by allowing

theMuqtataftexts from the period of 1876-1896 to speak with themselves (their

readers and writers) and with present scholarship.

As I wrote this thesis I realized that my interest in theMuqtatafwas provoked

by the irksome need to locate the Arab nahda (revival) and understand its assumed

"failure." I came across theMuqtatafarchive as I was looking for sources on

nineteenth century perceptions of mental health, and as I read through the journals I

was struck by my feeling a sense of inexplicable pride. I wanted to carry the archive

out of the library basement and into society, and I unassumingly did. At every chance

I had I would jump to say, "Did you know that Arab nineteenth-century intellectuals

were involved in so and so?" Peoples' reactions were rewarding. It was as though I

were telling them something about themselves that they didnt know.

I realized that along with the friends and colleagues I had shared with stories

about theMuqtataf, I had also been brought up with an inherent sense of inexplicable

failure. We had all been told at some point that the East has never come out of its

slumber because it moved from an age of Ottoman despotic rule into Western

colonialism and today remains under the grip of its imperialism. We had been taught

to understand the Arab East as a subject on which power and knowledge have been

exercised. Moreover we indulged in the categories of East and West unreflexively.

Even when I mentioned the "nahda" in my conversations with people, it was received

sarcastically; "was there ever such a thing?" I wondered about the sources of such


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reactions and became more adamant about showing that the "East" is neither a 'victim'

nor a 'mimic' of others. Reading theMuqtatafhas strengthened this belief.

TheMuqtataftexts offer discourse that challenges thinking of the nahda as an

ambiguous experience, a "crisis of identity," or "an age of colonialism, self mutilation,

and cultural invasion" (Mounir Shafik 1999). The actions of theMuqtatafdisprove

many such claims about the nahda and Arab identity. The very discourse of the

Muqtatafmobilizes them as claims about the local, the nahnu (us). It observes that

there is a crisis but of a different sort, an economic and political one. It sets up such

discourse not as reflections of disempowerment but rather as the enactment of claims

and productions of power. It is this aspect of theMuqtatafs discourse that the present

study intends to communicate.

The common assumption that "Arab" intellectuals merely translated Western

thought in the nineteenth century will be contested in this study using performance

theory as the guiding methodology. By analyzing the Arabic journal al-Muqtatafas a

"stage"(Bauman 1984), i.e. as a medium for generating a collective performance

between readers (audiences) and writers (performers), this study offers a new

approach for performance theory and for the study of the "nahda" texts themselves.

In analyzing theMuqtatafas a site of performance in which ideas are

communicated, realities generated, and space is defined this study explores the texts,

their audience, and writers as agents of society, as embodied capacities and not as

bounded individuals. By bringing attention to how categories like al-taqaddum,

(progress), al-tamaddun, (civilized), nahnu, (us), and hum, (them) are formed this

study is committed to tracking "emergent meanings" (Bauman 1984) and local

discourse that promise to challenge common paradigms about the Arab East like

"modernity" and the "nahda."


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The significance of this proposed methodology lies in its attention to language,

readership, authorship, and the making of categories in the location of the self and the

other. Translation, importation, Westernization, and similar concepts that make claims

about the origin of thought on progress and science in the nineteenth century will be

questioned by this study. The less that categories are taken for granted, the more

useful they can become; how categories are invoked and why are the driving

questions of this endeavor. This thesis hopes to challenge common assumptions on

power and knowledge in dealing with theMuqtataftexts between 1876 and 1896 by

giving voice to the Arabic-speaking subjects involved in writing and reading the

journal. By tracking the emergence of categories of progress and science, their

discontinuities and continuities, I hope to offer insight on how they emerged locally,

thereby challenging the assumption that they were "western" imports into a fixed and

bounded "Arab" subject.

Although performance has been discussed by scholars as an event involving

direct interaction between a performer and an audience, it is my intention to further

explore the journal as "an interpretive frame within which the messages beings

communicated are to be understood" (Bauman 1984:9). Some scholars (Bauman

1984, Bateson 1972, and Goffman 1974) agree that the "frame" is an interpretive

context that provides directions for differentiating "between different orders of a

message." Any journal can be seen as an object; written, produced, bounded, and its

content evident and pre-fixed. This conventional definition can only take scholarship

thus far.

What I will show is that theMuqtatafjournalistic text offered an outlet of

negotiation and performance that produced categories used in situating the self and

others in the world. In other words, theMuqtataftexts are like a play. They imagine


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audiences, call them forth and reply to their responses. The topics invoked in the

journal are sites of meaning production for both writers and readers. TheMuqtatafis

not a mere reflection of society but an enactment of it.

Kirsten Scheid (2005) questions the treatment of art as a reflection of society

and suggests that this view implies "cultural stasis and holism," a field of theory also

refuted by this study. Journalism can be approached similarly to art because of their

relationship with society. They are both sites formakingmeaning rather than

transmittingit. They are both first-hand documents in the making as much as they are

already made.

Journals are first-hand documents because they are a medium in which human

registration is recorded, their potentiality to produce meaning is stripped when they

are seen as mediums in which one intention is being enacted; as mere receptors. In the

introduction or editorial of the first edition in 1876 Yaqub Sarruf (1852-1927) and

Faris Nimr (1856-1952) say that magazines only become popular "when they are

important and suitable for the times and contexts they are published in" (al-Muqtataf

1876:1) They contend that theMuqtatafwill be published "in confusing times

[nineteenth century] filled with much change," and that that is precisely why the

journal would not deal with the politics that "have preoccupied peoples' thoughts"

(ibid.). The journal thus promises to be useful for the watan (nation) which is in great

need of science, agriculture and industry to progress (al-Muqtataf1876:1).

Performance relies on the agency of both audience and performers in

generating meaning vis--vis each other. If the editors saw their journal as an

interactive space it was because of the many positive responses and articles they

received from their audience when the journal was first advertised. The point of

performance theory is that it requires you to track back and forth between intent,


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response, and reply. It empathetically shifts perspectives by being an exchange of

experience. Looking at social encounters as performance allows one to imagine being

in "another person's shoes."

By looking at performance I become a performer myself. The coming sections

will show that theory and method fuse in this study. A main contention of this thesis

is that theMuqtatafand many other nineteenth century texts need to be re-

contextualized. The contexts they have been placed in like the nahda, modernity, and

colonization are themselves problematic, and the categories that emerge from them

are in fact unfinished categories that remain open to debate in the present.

The first task of reading theMuqtatafbetween 1876 and 1896 is extricating it

from the nahda and its "failure" and setting aside the "symbolic reality" of the nahda

to see the discourses of its making, its categories, inconsistencies, and directions. The

assumption of the nahda's existence as a locatable phase with locatable intellectuals

strips the texts from their potentiality to produce meaning. It assumes directions

instead of allowing them to emerge from the texts. Saying this does not imply to set

up theMuqtatafas a mural of this "modernity"failed or notbut rather aspires to

invoke the categories presented by the texts.

I do not intend to argue that theMuqtatafbecame a symbolic reality for those

reading and writing it, but that it offered a form in which people are drawn to make

meanings for themselves, the journal and its content. In attempting to track these

meanings the boundaries between theory and method are transgressed in this study.

The scope of my proposed study is to analyze understudied "Arab" perspectives on

modernity," "science," and "progress."

As I navigated through the texts between 1876 and 1896, many questions

surfaced concerning the formation of "Arab" and "Eastern" identity through language.


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The debates on reforming the Arabic language and evolving it into a language of

science are profuse in theMuqtataftexts. Much of the discussion locates the matter of

progress in education and public policy. TheMuqtatafjournal itself came to be seen

as the pioneer of progress in the Arabic-speaking East by many of its contemporaries

and successors. In line with performance theory, this study is not only concerned with

"the conditions of possibility" that made the journal possible, but also in what the

texts themselves made possible, and how.

The bulk of this endeavor lies in tracking how, why, and when al-`ilm

(science) became associated with improvement, growth, and the making of the subject

"self" in the language of the texts. To do so, I have chosen the first twenty years of

publication for practical reasons. However, they have proved to include many of the

central debates that theMuqtatafinstigated and took part in like; Darwinism and

evolution, evolving the Arabic language, science and religion, the origins of the

Syrian people, reform, the benefits and disadvantages ofal-tamaddun, (progress) and

al-hadara civilization). From this range of topics I will be focusing on science,

progress, education, and reform. The 180 texts chosen either include the categories of

al-tamaddun,al-taqaddum,al-hadara,al-ilm, al-islah in their titles or narrative. It is

not possible for this study to discuss all of the texts, rather, for practical reasons,

twenty percent of these articles will be chosen that articulate the notions explored

here.

Considering these texts to be foundational to the 'experience of modernity' in

the Arabic East does not necessarily mean that they were regarded as highly important

at the time or in later works, nor that they were widely sold. Rather they are

foundational "because of the language, the discourse, and the episteme that they


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articulate and represent" (Sheehi 2004:14). The content and form merge in a text that

is connected to time and disconnected in space.

Inventing the Muqtataf

Historiographies on Arabic journalism mention a conversation between

Yaqb Sarruf, Faris Nimr, and Cornelius Van Dyck as the setting in which the idea

of theMuqtatafbecame real. Phillipe De Tarazi (1918), Faruq Abu-Zaid (1985), and

others describe this meeting to further illustrate Van Dyck's special role as a

missionary mentor to these "young natives." The Observatory of the Syrian Protestant

College is mentioned as the site in which theMuqtatafwas created to prove that

nineteenth century Arab intellectuals were student carrying out the wishes of the

western missionaries. In narratives like Tarazi's and Abu-Zaid's, Sarrf and Nimr are

shown to have come to Van Dyck's Observatory seeking his approval and advice.

In this study I argue that it is necessary to point out that Van Dyck was a

controversial figure amongst the missionaries at the time. He left the SPC after Sarrf

and Nimr were expelled during what came to be called the Darwin Affair at the

college which I will be discussing below. Van Dyck spent most of his time on campus

in the "secluded, introverted" (FPDU study 2004) Observatory, away from the

missionaries, and that is where Sarrfand Nimr met him.

Common narratives denote the Observatory as a monument of "Western

science," a structure that resembles Western progress. Through theMuqtatafthe

observatory emerges as more than that. It becomes a movement away from a

multifaceted world to one universe and back to reified "society." If everyone is

subject to the weather through the Observatory, the Muqtataf presents meteorology to

its readers; it involves them in understanding its principles. Faris Nimr moved away


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from preparing reports of the weather for "society" to bringing ilm al-hay'a,

astronomy, into al-hay'a al-ijtimaiya, social form through theMuqtataf.

This study will show how the idea of theMuqtatafnot only moved away from

its origin but also encompassed it. I will argue that ilm al-hay'a, astronomyalong

with other sciences, al-ulm w al-marifwas invoked as part of the discourse on

al-hay'a al-ijtimaiya, social form, from within. Moreover, missionaries like Van

Dyck are invoked as part of a local discourse on progress through local performance

in the medium of the journal. Sarrfand Nimr only ever mention their meeting with

Van Dyck in his eulogy and in articles celebrating theMuqtataf's anniversary and

accomplishments. This study will explore the late nineteenth century through the

different emerging agencies of theMuqtataftexts to challenge narratives that assume

clearly distinguishable agencies, such as missionaries and natives.

This thesis proposes that many intentions were involved in the making of the

journal and many emerged as it was published through the interaction between readers

and writers of the Arabic texts. It is also only natural to imagine that Sarrfand Nimr

had had many conversations with each other before walking to the observatory at the

far end of the Syrian Protestant Collegewhere both men taught the sciences in

Arabicto talk to Van Dyck. During Sarrfand Nimr's visit to Van Dyck in the

observatory they conferred with him about their idea because he was their greatest

mentor, ustdhun al-akbar(al-Muqtataf1895:881). Van Dyck is given that status in

the text by Sarrfand Nimr because he was rajlilm (a man of science) who spoke

and wrote in Arabic.

Despite his involvement in changing the medium of education from Arabic to

English at the SPC, a matter to which Sarrfand Nimr greatly objected. Van Dyck is

praised by al-Muqtataffor using his knowledge to serve public good, for worldly


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matters and not heavenly ones. Nineteenth-century Arabic intellectuals construct an

image of Van Dyck in contrast to other American Protestant missionaries, whom they

rarely praise, like Daniel Bliss and George Post, because he was an authentic man

who appreciated the true culture of the East (ibid.). They consulted with Van Dyck

about the name of their journal and not with another missionary because their journal

was part of the beginning of a struggle with the West that they undertook, a struggle

for both independence and progress. If anyone among the missionaries would approve

of their aim it was assuredly Van Dyck.

In their introduction to the first al-Muqtatafedition, the editors say, "at the

time [1876] we had come to realize that it would be impossible to keep up with the

Western nations in al-ulm w al-marf(science and knowledge) if we only

depended on translated and published books because al-ulm al-haditha (the modern

sciences) are continuously evolving and striving ahead" (al-Muqtataf1895:1). I argue

that the aim of theMuqtatafto pursue progress came from the deep commitment of

both its readers and writers to al-ilm and their recognition of its power. It is

noteworthy that when the journal was first advertised in local papers the editors

received many requests for membership even before the journal commenced

publication.

The editors describe progress as continuous and inevitable; "this year's

published books will be out of date in a year" (al-Muqtataf 1876:1). The aim of the

Muqtatafis thus defined as the production of science instead of the consumption of its

products. Countless writers in theMuqtatafwrite essays and studies about astronomy,

geology, phonetics, linguistics, botany, biology, physics, geography, and other

sciences. I hope to argue in this thesis that the discussion of science in theMuqtataf


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constitutes science itself. Following Latour (1995), the question I ask is not how does

science constitute the texts but how do the texts constitute science.

Scientific knowledge, according to theMuqtataftexts included in this study,

needs to be pursued diligently otherwise "we," the sons of the nation, will miss the

fruits and benefits of scientific production (Muqtataf1895:1). The coming chapters

will show that knowledge and production emerge as necessary for the survival of

society in theMuqtatafdiscourse.

To keep up with this flow of sciences Sarrfand Nimr decided to publish a

journal that "plucks (taqtatf) the fruits of knowledge and scientific investigations"

(al-Muqtataf1876:1) and present them to its Arabic reading audience on a monthly

basis. The metaphor of harvesting and reaping the benefits of science is invoked

repeatedly by the publishers. In reaping knowledge and science, theMuqtatafnot only

observes progress but takes part in it by involving the reader in establishing laws,

truths about the structure and function of the universe, and presenting its audience a

space to locally produce scientific and progressive thought. Most importantly, the

Muqtatafoffered a public "site of production" (Stoler 2002) of knowledge from which

a historical discourse emerges on the self, society, and the other.

The readers are involved starting from the second edition onwards in the

writing of theMuqtataf. Articles on science and literature are welcomed by the

publishers while ones on, al-siyysasa w al-dn (politics and religion) are not (al-

Muqtataf1876:1) because the "fruits" of discussing the latter are little, while

economics, industry, agriculture, mathematics, and the natural sciences are necessary

for the growth and progress of the nation. In fact they are the "spirit of civilization"

(al-Muqtataf1877:1). The metaphor of the tree is invoked to represent human


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civilization, a tree originating from one seed and having different branches of which

"Western civilization" is but one (al-Muqtataf1884).

The explicitaim of theMuqtatafwould be to continuouslyplucksome of the

produced scientific knowledge from the world1. Some of it is presented in Arabic

from past centuries and others from English translated into Arabic. The reader is

constantly told that science cannot be attained without tending to it, harvesting it, and

reaping its fruits. Fruits are to be eaten and digested. They are substance that can be

transformed into force into energy and growth, while scientific knowledge is a fruit in

as much as it is used for the production of other things. Economic progress and local

industrial production are central themes in the journal, many writers ask, how can we

grow to protect ourselves from hegemony?

The coming chapters will offer examples of the discussions around science

and progress to show how observation becomes action. In theMuqtatafwords and

action come together as a force of criticism and resistance to knowledge powers

asserted by the West at the time. The Arabic words that refer to progress are

taqaddum,umran, tatawwur, tamaddun. The reason I invoke the Arabic terms is to

enable attention to how, in theMuqtataf, they draw different historical trajectories of

progress than the term"modernity" does in the discussion of the nineteenth-century

Near East.

I argue that Arabic categories invoked in theMuqtatafare not mere

translations of "modernity" and "progress." They are local expressions; discourses in

which identity, selfhood, and otherness are performed. The following chapters will

expose the rubric of progress presented in al-Muqtatafin an attempt to challenge

common narratives of what happenedin the nineteenth century "Arab World." This

1The world, al-alam, is used to describe a natural universe in theMuqtataf, and it spreads acrosshistory. The universe is presented by theMuqtatafdiscourse as temporal, in the sense of historical, andcan be studied through natural history.


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comes from a personal concern with the constricting nature of the persisting paradigm

of an Arab Revivalism, nahda, and its consecutive failure. And from my refusal of a

constantly redrawn picture of a poor stagnant nineteenth century Easterner awed by an

enlightened powerful West and wallowing in a state of confusion over his identity.

Muqtataf form and content

TheMuqtatafeditions were each twenty four pages long at the beginning in

1876 and by the twentieth year they became sixty to sixty five pages long that include

seven to nine varying topics- many are frequently discussed across editions like "The

manners of Damascenes" or "Darwinism" for instance. A typical edition of the

Muqtatafwould include twelve to thirteen different headlines and many small pieces

of news in the various sections.

In theMuqtatafof 1892, for example, the articles published are in this order:

"The Secret of Birth and Growth"; "The Emperor of Brazil"; "The New Medicine";

"The Panama Canal and Its Future"; "Influenza Cure"; "Trade Routes by Mr.Flayer";

"Creation"; "Dog and Bird Language." These precede the set sections of the journal:

Agriculture Section ("Shami Corn" for example); Industry Section ("Solenoid," "The

Effect of Oils on Metals, "and so on); Mathematics Section (up to eighteen different

algebra and geometry problems); Questions and Answers (readers questions about

almost anything ranging from horse breeding to dying textiles and the movement of

the planets); News, Discoveries and Inventions ("A Cannon Under Water," "Caring

for Ostrich Eggs"); and lastly the "Correspondence and Debate Section." By 1896, the

journal had introduced the following sections: Medicine, Natural Science at Home,

Scientists' Opinions, and News of the Days. The editors constantly reminded the

readers to collect the ten to twelve editions of the Muqtatafper year and bind them in

hard cover in order to preserve the knowledge and science in them.


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The journal was printed at the American Press of the SPC until 1882 when it

moved to Egypt where the editors established theMuqtatafPress2 and contracted a

European company to create printing templates for the symbols of the Arabic letters.

The introduction of illustrations in black and white into the journal happened in Egypt

in 1884. TheMuqtatafwas printed on small sized paper, two pages of which would

be equal to an A4 paper. Issues were printed in black ink with the text on each page

surrounded by a black frame and articles are separated by a space or a line. Articles

vary in length from a page and a half to twelve pages. Pieces of news are arranged in

columns after each other in one section. Punctuations are rarely printed in the early

years of the journal, by the twentieth year they increase considerably.

Much effort is given to printing sounds for letters and to creating images of

letters that can be easily printed. In one edition, the editors discuss the effort put in

unifying the printed Arabic letter to one symbol such that they can work with a

smaller number of templates in printing Arabic. The practical tools for making the

journal were invoked as it grew.

Membership in the journal was possible through different local agents who

circulated to collect the payments. The editors constantly urge their readers to pay on

time for the continuance of the journal. A year's membership in Europe and Egypt

cost one English pound. The journal was circulated in Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and

Egypt as evident from the correspondence sections.

TheMuqtatafwas indexed by edition, and year. The index of the journal is

designed to be used as a navigation tool and theMuqtatafis shaped, according to its

editors and many of its avid readers, to be an encyclopedia of science (al-Muqtataf

1891:719). This is because it offers knowledge through scientific facts and serves as a

2I will not be dealing with this move here , it has been discussed by scholars like Faruq Abu-Zaid andothers who have written about the history of Arabic journalism.


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manual for thought and action. An index was later created for all its one hundred and

nineteen editions under the supervision of Fu'ad Sarrf(Yaqb Sarrf's son) by the

year 1967.

The articles until 1888 were rarely signed unless they were sent by readers

whose names and location were mentioned at the end of the text. During this time

both Sarrfand Nimr wrote together only differentiating between each other when the

article was a published speech or talk by one of them. After 1888 Nimr became fully

involved in editing al-Muqattam, a daily newspaper he and Sarrfestablished in

Egypt in 1888. The unsigned articles between 1888 and 1927 are consequently

attributed to Sarrf.

I will not be dealing with theMuqtatafedition as the unit of analysis in this

study because every edition calls upon a certain reader and responds to another one; it

is "metacommunication" (Bateson 1968), communication about communication. Thus

all the editions across the years are connected. The discourse in them is interrelated

because it is a give and take between different readers and writers. The medium of the

journal offers a unitary space for diverse issues to be discussed and read by an Arabic

reading audience.

The historical context of the Muqtataf

In 1860, a 'Civil War' raged in the Lebanese Mountains from which emerged

tensions between the British, French and Ottoman rule in Syria and Lebanon. It is of

course usually categorized as a religious feud between the Druze and the Christians

just as the 1975 Lebanese Civil War is characterized primarily by its sectarian nature.

This earlier war had a profound impact on intellectuals like Butrus al-Bustani, Faris

Nimr, and Yaqub Sarrfin the late nineteenth century because it was seen as harmful


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to the proposed organic body of society. It also revealed to them the European

colonial and Ottoman power politics at the time.

Ussama Makdisi (2002) discusses the Ottoman reactions to this war. However,

he does not elaborate on the involvement of Syrian and Arab community leaders in

the 1860 war other than through their conflicting reactions to the TanzimatReforms.

Makdisi (2002) contends that the reasons behind the 1860 wars in the cebel-i-duruz

(modern day Mount Lebanon) lay in the tensions caused by Ottoman modernization

through the Tanzimatreforms beginning in 1839 on one hand and European

intervention in support of Christians in Syria and Mount Lebanon on the other.

The Ottoman Tanzimatreform according to Makdisi and others (Kendall

2001, Fawaz and Bayly 2001) brought about increased participation from local

notables in the governance of the provinces. It is also said to have offered non-

Muslim subjects in the Empire more protection (Makdisi 2002, Akarli 2002) and

inclusion in the governance of society. Makdisi (2002) asserts that the Ottoman

project was characterized by both reform and violence under the slogan of inducing

growth and stability in the Empire. The Ottoman Empire sought to become "an equal

player" in the "world stage of civilization." This reform "generated its discursive

opposite"the premodernthat was involved in "a crisis of representation" between

feuding leaders in the 1860 war.

Writing nearly fifty years after the events but very much in their wake, Yaqub

Sarrfoffers a different depiction of the 1860 war in his historical novel, The Prince

of Lebanon (1907). Sarrf's book serves as a historical document of the 1860 war

from within. By writing a historical novel, Sarrfuses a different medium from the

Muqtatafjournal to communicate his ideas. I have chosen to mention Sarrf's


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historical novel to further illustrate the uniqueness of theMuqtatafjournal as literary

production.

In it he offers a metaphorical perception of the events intertwined with views

on the individual, society, and governancesiysa. 3Sarrfportrays the war as a staged

event, one that involved different political actors and in which power was performed

(1907:55). In it he connects the political events leading to the war and the interplay of

world powers to "native" and English characters' life stories. By connecting the global

to the local Sarrfpositions the self in the world and brings attention to reasons for

regression. He suggests that the regression brought about by the 1860 war is a lesson

to be learned from. It is further proof for the great need of society for scientific,

journalistic, and literary work that can expose local and foreign malicious intentions

and counter them. TheMuqtatafjournal emerges from this need. It not only offered a

space forSarrfand Nimr to voice their ideas but also a space in which writers and

readers could exchange roles and engage in a productive performance that promises to

bring about progress and scientific knowledge in society.

Sarrfsubtly proposes in his book that in the sequence of events of the 1860

war, the Prince of Lebanon was not really from Lebanon. He was an English Knight,

Sir Henry Piedmont, who captured the heart of the most beautiful Shihabi female,

Princess Salma. Salma was desired by Prince Ahmad Arslan (a prominent educated

young Druze leader) and two feuding Bedouin Princes (Umar al Fadl, and Hasan Bani

3Timothy Mitchell demonstrates that the term siysa was used by Rifa'a al-Tahtawi and Butrus al-

Bustani in the 1860's. He argues that before this time, Siyasa meant "the exercise of authority or

power," and that it came to signify a "body that governs" (1988:102). Mitchell argues that the use of a"long-established word [...] caused an apparent continuity with the past" (1988:103) in a process of

policing society by colonizers and native intellectuals who internalized these ideas and took part in the

production of order and rule. Mitchell adopts a Foucauldian perspective of governance and argues that

the notion of a society as separate from an individual was itself a novelty and that its existence

necessitated discipline through education. In coming chapters, there will be a discussion of parallelisms

with Muqtataftexts dealing with education of individuals for the progress of society. The emphasis of

this work is more on progress than on governmentality, driven by the nagging question, with what werethe 19

thcenturyMuqtatafreaders and writers preoccupied? What were their lived priorities?


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Sakhr), all of whom lost her to Sir Henry Piedmont. If we consider Salma to represent

the authentic beauty of the East, how can she be reclaimed?

In describing different parts of Lebanon and Syria, from Khalde to the Druze

Mountains, the author observes the same habits and traditions to be shared by people

of different religions. He represents them as unified by certain habits, values and

manners. TheMuqtatafjournal soon became a space for expressing and performing

both conventions and innovations. Being a public medium that involved its audience

in its writing, theMuqtatafjournal came with a different force of criticism from

Sarrf's obscure novel. It allowed readers to pick up ideas selectively and debate

them.

Sarrfbegins the story with the character of Prince Ahmad Arslan who has

been summoned by the English consul Colonel Rose. Rose tells him that the French

are supporting the Maronites and warns him from being dragged into a war under an

Ottoman promise of protection. The Colonel, who along with Sir Henry represents the

English in the story is depicted as being concerned about the country's interest from

"foreign" intervention and control (in reference to the French). Moreover, Piedmont

and Rose come out as appreciators of the aesthetic beauty of Lebanon while the

Bedouin and other natives are not. In one scene they stand on a hill overlooking the

coast line and discuss the beauty of the landscape that is empty of people. They

discuss the beauty of Lebanese land, and express their concern for it; for the land and

not the people. While they remain safe from the violence and destruction, the rest of

society is observed by Sarrfto regress in this war, he warns from the sectarian seed

of evil that has been planted in his land.

Man becomes savage in religious wars and blind with revenge,

thats what the Jews have done to the Christians, the Christians to


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the Jews, the Shi'a to the Sunnah, and the Sunnah to the Shi'a,

these atrocious acts still take place in the Mashreq (East) today

while in the West they are long gone, one stands confused

between the advantages of religion and its disadvantages for

mankind, rather not religion itself but its fanatics (pp.77-78).

We cannot underestimate the effect this war had on the public and intellectuals

in the years to come. As evident from Sarrf's novel, theMuqtatafeditors set

this war up as a landmark of regression because it was fought under the guise

of religion for 'other' interests. Uncovering narratives, claims, and facts is a

mission that theMuqtatafundertook very seriously. When Sarrfand Nimr

asked their readers to overlook the political matters that are useless for society

and they refused to publish such topics, the audience responded. One article

after another on science, history, civilization, and society were sent in by

readers. The texts in theMuqtatafconstitute al-ilm "science" as a real

discourse, as the real source of power for societies. Religious feuds divert

attention from true reform in science and economics.

Sarrf's novel shows that these 1860 events and the concern for the well being

ofal-hay'a al-itimaya (social form) were the main motivators behind the

establishment of theMuqtatafand for the use of literature as a public local discourse

for change.

TheMuqtatafmoved away from both observatory and war by indulging in

what emerged as the real path to progress and self-affirmation; science. The coming

chapters will track the emergence ofal-ilm and al-tatawurin theMuqtataftexts

between 1876 and 1896.


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Journalism in the 19th

century Near East

Journalism in the East is recognized by many intellectuals in the nineteenth

and twentieth century as a landmark of progress.4 During the nineteenth century there

was a proliferation of journals5 and magazines which provided sites for endless

debates related to the progress of society through the increase of its scientific

knowledge. The two are proposed as inseparable, taqaddum al-bilad bi taqaddum al-

marif, the progress of the land happens through the progress of knowledge.

Journalism in the East is recognized by many intellectuals in the nineteenth and

4 Philippe De Tarazi presents countless examples and quoted from intellectuals, policymakers, kings,and notables on the role of journalism in society (1913:9-20), most of which glorify it and denote it as a

sign of progress, a profession with great responsibility and indusive of national power.5A few scholars have written about the number of journals (jara'id) , magazines (majallat), andnewspapers (suhuf) published during the nineteenth century. Philippe de Tarazi counts two hundreddifferent Arabic publications from 1799-1893. One of the first printed periodical was Napoleon's "al-

hawadith al-yawmiya" published in 1799, which only lasted until the campaign ended in 1801, afterwhich the first Arabic journal, "al-waqai' al misriyya" was established in 1828 under the sponsorship of

Mohammad Ali Pasha, the Egyptian khedive. This journal was printed in the Bulaq printing press in

both Arabic and Turkish (Tarazi Vol I: 49). Fris al-Shidyq came to work in it from 1828 until 1832(Roper 2003:193). At the time the different missionaries where publishing their own journals, like "al-

mubashir" by the French that was widely circulated, "not only to the province of Algiers but to all

provinces" (al-Mubashir: 15 September 1847). The French colonialists claim that the goal of their

magazine is "to tell you [the natives] more about yourselves" (ibid). The French suggest that they have

all the knowledge of the native readers' country, economy, industry, agriculture, society, and most

importantly they have knowledge (ma'rifa) of "your writers and scientists from ages past; your first

scientists established History, the science of biographies, literature, the science of poetry, astronomy,

fiqh, theology, and other sciences," they continue, "we will remind you of your own books that younow have forgotten" (Tarazi: 53). Tarazi counts nine Arabic publications from 1850 until the 1860

war and from 1860-1869, sixteen new Arabic publications. He says that journals like al-jawa'ib(Frisal-Shidyq), al- jinan and al-janna (Butrus al-Bustani), and other journals had freely discussedTurkey's weaknesses and corruption until Sultan Abdul Hamid II enforced great censorship during his

rule from 1876-1909. During his reign many journalists and writers including Sarruf and Nimr moved

to Egypt where they enjoyed more freedom, this movement to Egypt is also said to have increased by1882 when the British colonized Egypt (Farouq Abou Zaid: 19) perhaps because in Egypt there existed

a network of active intellectuals publishing and writing on many issues, some nationalist (like 'Abduh)

others progressive (like al-Muqtataf). In 1870 alone, Tarazi records the establishment of seven new

journals and magazines in Beirut, from 1871-1876 five new newspapers where published in Beirut in

addition to eight new newspapers between 1877 and1892. Tarazi counts seven journals (majalat)

published in Beirut between 1870 and 1885 out of which theMuqtatafwas one (in 1876). It was

published by the American Press in Beirut until Yaqub Sarruf and Faris Nimr moved to Egypt in 1884where they continued publishing the sixth edition of their ninth year.


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twentieth century as a landmark of progress.6 During the nineteenth century there was

a proliferation of journals7 and magazines which provided sites for endless debates

related to the progress of society through the increase of its scientific knowledge.

"Arab" intellectuals in the nineteenth century beginning with Fres al-

Shidyq's al-Jaw'ib in 1861 and Butrus al-Bustani's "al- Jinan" magazine in 1870

were deeply involved in journalism. Elizabeth Kendall (2001: 330) contends that

"unlike Europe, where the book had nearly two centuries to take root before the

journal emerged, in the Ottoman Empire, the journal quickly became the main reading

material for intellectuals." She contends that the journal in the late nineteenth century

had become "an important forum for political, social, and cultural ideas"(ibid).

6 Philippe De Tarazi presents countless examples and quoted from intellectuals, policymakers, kings,and notables on the role of journalism in society (1913:9-20), most of which glorify it and denote it as a

sign of progress, a profession with great responsibility and indusive of national power.7A few scholars have written about the number of journals (jara'id) , magazines (majalat), andnewspapers (suhuf) published during the nineteenth century. Philippe de Tarazi counts two hundreddifferent Arabic publications from 1799-1893. One of the first printed periodical was Napoleon's "al-

hawadith al-yawmiya" published in 1799, which only lasted until the campaign ended in 1801, afterwhich the first Arabic journal, "al-waqai' al masriyya" was established in 1828 under the sponsorship

of Mohammad Ali Pasha, the Egyptian khedive. This journal was printed in the Bulaq printing press in

both Arabic and Turkish (Tarazi Vol I:49). Fres al-Shidyq came to work in it from 1828 until 1832(Roper 2003:193). At the time the different missionaries where publishing their own journals, like "al-

mubashir" by the French that was widely circulated, "not only to the province of Algiers but to all

provinces" (al-Mubashir: 15 September 1847). The French colonialists claim that the goal of their

magazine is "to tell you [the natives] more about yourselves" (ibid). The French suggest that they have

all the knowledge of the native readers' country, economy, industry, agriculture, society, and most

importantly they have knowledge (ma'rifa) of "your writers and scientists from ages past; your first

scientists established History, the science of biographies, literature, the science of poetry, astronomy,

fiqh, theology, and other sciences," they continue, "we will remind you of your own books that younow have forgotten" (Tarazi: 53). Tarazi counts nine Arabic publications from 1850 until the 1860

war and from 1860-1869, sixteen new Arabic publications. He says that journals like al-jawa'ib(Fresal-Shidyq), al- jinan and al-janna (Butrus al-Bustani), and other journals had freely discussedTurkey's weaknesses and corruption until Sultan Abdul Hamid II enforced great censorship during his

rule from 1876-1909. During his reign many journalists and writers including Sarruf and Nimr moved

to Egypt where they enjoyed some more freedom, this movement to Egypt is also said to haveincreased by 1882 when the British colonized Egypt (Farouq Abou Zaid: 19) perhaps because in Egypt

there existed a network of active intellectuals publishing and writing on many issues, some nationalist

(like 'Abduh) others progressive (like al-Muqtataf). In 1870 alone, Tarazi records the establishment of

seven new journals and magazines in Beirut, from 1871-1876 five new newspapers where published in

Beirut in addition to eight new newspapers between 1877 and1892. Tarazi counts seven journals

(majalat) published in Beirut between 1870 and 1885 out of which theMuqtatafwas one (in 1876). It

was published by the American Press in Beirut until Yaqub Sarruf and Faris Nimr moved to Egypt in1884 where they continued publishing the sixth edition of their ninth year.


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Kendall notes that at the time journals enjoyed less censorship and more

circulation and by the 1860's there was a rise of "an independent press" that was un-

official and not related to State affairs or Missionary and foreign work. These journals

had to deal "with opposition from conservative religious elements within and outside

their own communities" (Sheehi 2004:19). The "independent journals" were mostly

established by intellectuals from areas that were extremely involved in the Tanzimat

like Egypt, Syro-Lebanon, and Tunisia (ibid).

TheMuqtataftexts in addition to a larger archive of journals from the

nineteenth century have been understudied in comparison to the work of al-Tahtawi,

al-Afghani, Muhammad 'Abduh and their likes that have been discussed profusely as

the foundational texts of the nineteenth century. This study will show how the

medium of the journal in nineteenth century Arab East is a primary source for

extracting debates and discourse on the "nahda" and for understanding them in the

public context.

Some efforts have been made in bringing journalism into scholarship about the

nineteenth century near East. In "Fris al-Shidyq (d.1887) and the Transition from

Scribal to Print Culture in the Middle East," Geoffrey Roper (2003:208) argues that

the nineteenth century witnessed great changes in the "cultural, political, and social

worlds" because of the communications revolution created by the printing press. He

also urges scholars and historians to draw their attention to historicizing more about

the printing presses and the nature of their publications in the nineteenth century

because they are essential to the making of Islamic and Middle Eastern culture and

civilization (ibid.). This study responds to his call.

Elizabeth Kendall (2001:333) attributes the "development of the early

printing press" to the presence of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani in Egypt in the 1870s. She


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contends that there was a strong nationalist movement at the time and that "it was

natural [for] writers [to feel] a greater sense of urgency to reach the public" (Kendall

2001:303).

Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh's texts are generally taken to be the

foundational texts of the Arab nahda. Limiting the nahda to their narratives

overshadows the different subjectivities emerging from journals like theMuqtatafand

reduces them into one imagined coherent discourse.8

Chapter two expands on performance theory as the methodological tool in this

study. It explores the social production of space through performance in the context of

language. Out of the conviction that 'modernity" does not squat outside the world

gradually interfering in it but it is performed by people, chapter three will look at how

the categories of progress, al-taqaddum, and civilization, al-tamaddun, emerge from

theMuqtataftexts between 1876 and 1896 texts in the writing of history and the

formation of genealogies. It will discuss the texts' invocation of progressas both

ethical and materialin the construction of the categories of East and West and

explore the category of reform through theMuqtatafdiscourse on dependence and

independence.

Chapter two will discuss the paradigms that I hope to question in my thesis

like the Darwin Crisis, the nahda, and westernization. Chapter three will expand

further on the issue of language and science as it emerges as a public discourse of

reform in theMuqtatafby calling attention to the importance of organicity as an

operational definition of the world. Individual and society will be shown to be

8In the curricula of the American University of Beirut (established in 1866 as the Syrian ProtestantCollege by Protestant American Missionaries) and the Lebanese American University (established in

1924 as the American Junior College for Women by American Presbyterian Missionaries)the twomost prominent historical English speaking universities in Lebanon- the nineteenth century in the

Ottoman Arab East is represented in Civilization Sequence Courses as a decadent East confronting aglorious enlightened West. The Ottoman East is portrayed as space of regression and ignorance, the

Arabs in it oppressed and the Arabic language stagnant and inert; a relic of the past.


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interrelated with body and mind in theMuqtataf; the action of science on the former

two analogous to the action of education on the latter dichotomy.

In chapter four I analyze the emergent category of "reform" in the nineteenth

century through theMuqtataftexts on al-islah. I argue for looking at the local

meanings of social action rather than at general paradigms of Westernization and

modernization and provide suggestions for future research.

Chapter five will explore the discussion ofal-islah, reform, in theMuqtataf.

In it I present theMuqtatafdiscourse on the reform of language and education for the

purpose of showing how language "became a site for establishing a local/ global or

provincial/ cosmopolitan dichotomy" (Briggs and Bauman 2005:300) and to explore

its rule not as a reflection of social structure but as its constituent.

This thesis emphasizes an analysis of theMuqtataftexts as a site of

production of subjects and their representations in spatial-temporal frameworks. From

within the subject of progress of the watan, the nation, emerge many dichotomies; al-

taqaddum/ al-takhaluf(progress/regression); al-tamaddun/ al-tawahush (civilization/

barbarism); al-mashreq/ al-maghreb (East/west), and nahnu/ hm (us/them). Fleshing

out these subject representations in the texts primarily defines the Muqtataftexts as a

space in which identity, the past, present, and future are negotiated through language.

The interpolation of ideas on progress and science in theMuqtatafjournal renders the

journals as subjects in the social sphere through the exchange and debate of ideas

between different readers and writers. The following chapters experiment with the

methodology of performance I have discussed here as a tool of writing "ethnography

of an archive"; the other archive of the local self.


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CHAPTER II

Revisiting common paradigms: words on methodology

The common historical paradigms governing the study of this period are the

nahda, "modernization" and "colonialism." They are found common in academic

discussion and in the work of conservative (Hasan Hanafi, Muhammad Abid al-

Jabiri) and revisionist (Philip Hitti, Keith Watenpaugh) scholars. Across these

paradigms, intellectuals like Sarrfand Nimr are defined as Christian Arab

intellectuals. I hope to argue otherwise in this study. These intellectuals' texts in the

Muqtatafconstantly invoke a universal sense of belonging, one that isnt rooted in

East vs. West, normadhhab masihi vs. madhhab islami but in Darwinism vs.

creationism, science vs. ignorance, progress vs. regression.

The common narrative is that these "Christian Lebanese," Sarrfand Nimr,

were the founders of Arab nationalism (Hitti 1937:755) and involved in inciting the

'Urabi revolution in 1882. Many Arab scholars (al-Jundi 1974, Hanafi 1990) have

accused these intellectuals of having polluted the Arab Islamic identity and exposed

the "self" to foreign impact. I argue that such a reductionist perspective can only

promote a teleological understanding of identity, a perspective not shared by the

Muqtatafreaders and writers. TheMuqtataf, seen as medium and performance arena

rather than a pre-extant identity, projected back, calls into question such categories

like "Arab" and "Christian."

The common depiction of "impact of the West" is that it distinctly began when

Napoleon invaded Egypt in the 18th century. Hitti observes that at this time, the East

was beginning to "break with its past." He argues that before the French invasion, the


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The people of the Arab world were generally leading a self-

contained, traditional, conventional life achieving no progress

and unmindful of the progress of the world outside. Change didnot interest them (Hitti 1970:745).

Many Western and non-Western scholars describe "Arabs" as having been in a

'medieval slumber'. The intellectual life that bubbled during the nineteenth century is

commonly attributed to Western influence.

Nineteenth century intellectuals in the Near East have been discussed in the

context of modernity through their relationship to the West. The archetype of the

nineteenth century in scholarship is constructed around the discussion of "tradition"

and "modernity." These intellectuals are commonly presented as obsessed with

Western progress. They are also said to have belongedto the nahda, a phase

characterized by questions such as "what did these intellectuals have to accept from

the West? If they did accept these changes would that affect their traditions and

norms? Would they be able to remain Muslims or Arabs?" (Hitti 1970:753). This

study suggests that theMuqtatafposed different questions, that the dichotomies it

generated went in a different direction and had different products. In other words, I

hope to show through theMuqtatafdebates on progress that local identity was not

preformed and coherent rather, continuously made and remade.

Many scholars agree that the nineteenth century presented a "paradox," a

"crisis" of identity because the "Arab peoples" were forced into a paradigm of both

resisting European advancements and adopting "European ideas and techniques"

(Hitti 1970:753). Although there is a general concurrence that Muhammad Ali like

other Turkish Sultans before him began inviting French and European specialists into

Egypt during the nineteenth century and sending native scholars abroad, the Ottoman


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Empire was regarded by the Europeans as the antithesis of the scientifically and

technically progressed West: its premodern.

Moreover, it is taken as common fact that the "Christians" were more

interactive with the "West" than the Muslim intellectuals at the time. In this analytical

context, Yaqb Sarrfand Faris Nimr are blithely classified as "Christian Arab"

intellectuals. Yet, after surveying the texts of theMuqtatafone can safely assert that

they never described themselves as such. In fact theMuqtatafprovides adequate proof

of much difference and conflict between "Christians." For example, theMuqtatafand

its editors moved to Egypt in 1882 because of the expulsion ofSarrfand Nimr, who

were both tutors and "protestant converts" from the Syrian Protestant College in

Beirut- the leading Western Christian missionary institution at the time.

There are two common explanations for their dismissal by the Board of

Trustees of the Syrian Protestant College; that they were proponents of the Darwinian

theory of evolution or that they were part of a secret society, the Freemasons9, who

are characterized by their anti-clerical beliefs and secular-universal ideas.

9Recent studies have argued that Sarruf, Nimr and many other writers in the Muqtatafbelonged to Freemasonry, a secret anticlerical society that came to be very prominent in the Near East

during the nineteenth century. This study is committed to emerging identities and not preset ones, thus

the mention of Freemasonry in the discussion of the discourse on science in theMuqtatafis meant to

broaden the conditions or possibilities being thought through at the time. Suleiman provides convincing

evidence that they belonged to Freemasonry. It is very possible that these intellectuals were

Freemasons or that they were surrounded by others who were. In fact Shahin Makarius, the director of

theMuqtataffor the first twenty years who was a prominent industrialist and one of the core writers inthe journal has many publications on Freemasonry, its rules, and ethics. According to Makarius in his

book, The Hidden Secrets of the Masonic Society, "Masonry is a literary society that has taken on the

role of serving humanity, and only supprots religion through its ethics of reforming peoples, and

enlightening minds" (1893:8). Makarius, Sarruf and Nimr worked closely together and are said to have

been in the same Masonic societies in Lebanon and Egypt (Suleiman 1993: 26, 29, 115-116,121-123,

147-149). Moreover, the editorials or articles on Masonry in the Muqtatafadopt a positive attitudetowards it. Replying to a reader's inquiry about Freemasonry asking whether it were a religious society

or an atheist one, the editors say; "Masonry is literary society whose aim is cooperation in doing good

[] it does not oppose religious or confessional beliefs" (al-Muqtataf1891:479). Consequently, thisstudy prefers to adopt the writers own explanation of Freemasonry as a network connecting the elite

intellectuals of society in their efforts to better the nation- any nation a Freemason belongs to- and

promote education. The only relevance of Freemasonry to the trajectory of this study is in pointing out

that this notion complicates further the commonly presumed "Arab" or "Arab-Christian" identity.Freemasonry will not be used here as a reason for the ideas proposed in theMuqtatafso as not to turn it

into another natural category like "Arab" or "Arab-Christian."


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The common story is that they were supporters of Edwin Lewis who was

expelled from teaching at the college due to the speech he gave at the commencement

of the class of 1882 entitled, "Science, knowledge, and wisdom," al-ilm, al-marifa w

al-hikma. The speech is said to have instigated what came to be called the "Darwin

Controversy.

"Lewis's speech caused his dismissal from the college and ignited a

controversy that "shook the college and the mission and divided colleagues and

friends even more than the controversy over the change of the medium of instruction"

says A.L. Tibawi (1967). At around the same time, Cornelius Van Dyck also resigned

from his teaching post and from the college due to his difference of opinion with other

missionaries such as Daniel Bliss, and George Post (Tibawi 1967, Jeha 1991).

It becomes clear in theMuqtatafthat a schism was present amongst

"Christians" and that science and Darwinism became sites of identity performance

through which intellectuals like Sarrfand Nimr separated themselves from and

critiqued the missionaries. Even though the discourse on the "lack" of science and

rational thinking in the Arab East gave Western civilizing missions excuses for

invading others, it formed the basis for the production of local discourse on science

and knowledge; a space in which society invoked itself.

The nineteenth century in the near East is indubitably characterized by the journal as an age of conflict,the 1860 wars in Mount Lebanon and their repercussions were a nagging issue that theMuqtataf

addressed. The consistent description of the nineteenth century as an age of conflict invokes a sense of

urgent need for security, stability, and progress. The call for working for the sake of the nation through

science, reform and progress is a unitary call. The reform of science and education emerges as a

potential variable to the "regression of the East," in fact, a necessary change, a change for the better.

Keeping this in mind, Freemasonry can be understood as a sphere of performance of identity, not a

cause (yet another effect), in the sense that it offers a space of action and thought on society; itlegitimizes certain ideas because it serves as a network for intellectuals to produce and debate ideas on

science and society.


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The Darwin controversy at the SPC

Just six years after the conversation between Nimr, Sarrfand Van Dyck in

the Observatory, the SPC was plunged into two controversies. One controversy

revolved around the language of educationwhich was changed by the Board of

Trustees of the College from Arabic to Englishand the other related to Lewis's

speech. Tensions from these two controversies built up. These events shaped to a

large extent the independence of theMuqtataffrom the American Missionaries and

their printing press and exposed missionary intentions to Sarrfand Nimr. They were

sites of contestation and of identity performance. They allowed for the proliferation of

many Arabic articles byMuqtatafwriters who supported Sarrfand Nimr in

promoting the true meaning of science; the unification of society in the quest for

knowledge and progress.

While science was beginning to be taught at the SPC in English, theMuqtataf

writers and readers set out to discuss it in Arabic. The college continued to indolently

teach English after the controversy because of its unwillingness to put the effort in

producing knowledge through Arabic. TheMuqtatafremained to be an Arabic

scientific journal. It continued to prove that contrary to the missionaries' beliefs the

Arabic language can discourse science through local effort, through plucking,

planting, reaping, and producing science. In bringing science into local public

discourse I argue that theMuqtatafactivelyproducedscience in society. I discuss this

idea more below using the work of Bruno Latour (1995) and Laura Ann Stoler (2002).

While science in the SPC was set outside society in secluded introverted

spaces like the observatory, science was invoked in theMuqtatafas a discourse of

local cohesion rather than separation. The language of instruction controversy and the

one related to Darwinism expressed many tensions between the "natives" and Western


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missionaries on issues concerning science, education, religion, and society. These

were made to represent power struggles between East and West through theMuqtataf.

These two points of conflict constituted sites of identity performance between the

"self" and the "other"; the native and the ifranja, European, Westerner, other.

Before Lewis gave his speech Nimr and Sarrfhad introduced the first edition

of 1882 with an article on Charles Darwin in which they praised his abilities profusely

and listed his accomplishments. They acknowledge that many readers who believe

that Darwinism opposes the religious account of genesis will be upset with their

praise. Yet they continue to argue that Darwin was one of the "greatest scientists of all

time who has opened new horizons of knowledge about the world" (al-Muqtataf

1882:1). They list famous English theologians and religious men who accepted

Darwin's theory of natural selection and disproved its opposition to religion. In fact

the first three editions in 1882 were each introduced by an article on Darwinism (al-

Muqtataf1882:2, 65, 121) and the correspondence section after Lewis's speech was

published was inundated with debates on Darwinian Theory.

At the beginning of the debates theMuqtatafeditors publish an article by a

Mr. James Anis, an American tutor at the college. In it he sets out to prove that

Darwinism "pollutes the minds of young Syrian men" (al-Muqtataf1882:235). They

then publish an answer by Edwin Lewis and continue to argue that Darwinism is a

science that "we" have to understand. They insinuate that the missionaries had wanted

to keep it hidden and unknown to their students because it was true science and they

did not want to put the effort in explaining it so they resorted to false claims and

accusations. By exposing the debate between the different missionaries, theMuqtataf

shows how science is a site of contested knowledge. It requires the reader to be aware,

alert, and able to analyze the politics of education.


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Through the Darwin affair theMuqtatafbegins to distinguish itself from the

"idle- fanatic missionaries" (al-Muqtataf1884) and enters into the grand performance

of identity through science. In between 1882 and1884 Sarrfand Nimr discuss

Darwin profusely in their editorials, defend Edwin Lewis, and publish his

controversial speech (al-Muqtataf1882:2-6, 65-72, 121-27,158-67). They also

published an editorial explaining the events of this controversy and the student protest

that came out of it in the same year (al-Muqtataf1882:371-73).

After their dismissal from the SPC, Sarrfand Nimr begin theMuqtatafwith

an article on "Darwinism" (al-madhhab al-darwini) in which they discuss the

evolution of science that led to Darwin's work. They go through scientific works and

beliefs on creation and evolution of beings and explore at length Lamarck's theory of

evolution and the similarities and differences between it and Darwinism.

In theMuqtatafeditions of that year and those that follow, Sarrfand Nimr

express their disappointment in the College and accuse members of it of carrying out

personal grudges by pretending to defend religion against science ( al-Muqtataf1884:

183, 243-244).They accuse the College of religious al-taassub al-dini (fanaticism)

and of racism because it "sought to impose a particular creed on its pupils" (al-

Muqtataf1884:468-472), and most importantly because it forced on them the English

language.

Two years later, the editors publish an article entitled "The University College

in Beirut". In it they respond to articles published by missionaries like Henry Jessup

in the journal The Foreign Missionary. They contest his claims that after the dismissal

of those involved in the Darwin affair the college "cleansed itself from atheists" and

began providing knowledge better than ever before. The editors argue that contrary to


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Jessup and Bliss's claims, fewer sciences were being taught at the College. They

observe that students were not receiving proper education because;

the policies of the school evolve around the will of one person

[Bliss] who does as he pleases; strengthens in the school what helikes and weakens what he likes as he has previously cancelledthe Science Society at the college [.] and no one mentions itanymore in the courses at the college, it is neglected like othersciences that are mentioned there [in foreign publications by themissionaries] and never taught here (al-Muqtataf1884:634-635).

The distinction between here and there frequently emerges in the discussions of

science in the journal. The writer shows that the aim of the missionaries is not the

production of science here through local capacities but there.

Scholars like George Antonius (1938) have discussed these scientific societies

that were formed by intellectuals like Sarrfand Nimr in nineteenth century as

political movements that aimed to resist Ottoman despotic role. However, other

dimensions of these societies have been overlooked such as their commitment to the

pursuit of science and its local production amidst the obstacles that the Western

missionaries created.

The pursuit of science by nineteenth century intellectuals is attributed by

scholars like George Antonius and Majid Fakhry to their recognition of the

"regression and ignorance of Arab life" (Fakhry 2007:174). The following chapters

will discuss the pursuit of science as the genre that theMuqtatafspecialized in equally

informed by both, us and them, East and West, resistance and subversion. I argue that

these binaries were never really resolved. Ignorance and science, progress and

regression, remained as sites of the generation of meaning. This thesis hopes to show

how they are invoked as productive categories, as strategic points of reference for the

generation of a discourse on identity.

The enforcement of the English language and the decrease of the education of

science at the SPC was seen by theMuqtatafeditors as an attack on the Arabic


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language and thereby the identity of the local self. They criticized the College for

excluding native teachers intentionally by selecting instructors according to religious

competence and not academic credentials. One of theMuqtatafeditorials on this

matter points the finger at

some foreigners who came to spread learning in the Near East"

and had "abandoned the system of teaching through the medium

of its [Near Eastern] languages. For they wanted to save

themselves the effort of study and of writing books, and to

safeguard for themselves, generation after generation, the

teachingpostsas a preliminary to the enhancement of the

prestige of the state for which they desire to establish some moral

influence, since language is a pillar of the state ( Trans.

Tibawi1967:289).

TheMuqtatafwarned thatjaysh al-ilmf ghalab w jaysh el-jahl fi inhzam (the

army of science is victorious while the army of ignorance is defeated) in the East."The

wheel of science [al-'ilm] has begun to turn" slowly but efficiently. Through these

claims theMuqtatafemerges as a representative of "the army of science" while the

missionarieswho were involved in the language of education and Darwin

controversiesare invoked as an "army of ignorance" because of their actions and

intentions exposed in their practices at the college. The editors argue that, "what will

remain of the current generation's [nineteenth century] deeds are only those that

bestow benefits on its successors" (al-Muqtataf1882:1).

TheMuqtatafeditors connect their quest to the progression of time. They tell

the reader that it is the pursuit of science that will make the future better and that

those who get involved in the production of science through the journal will

effectively participate in the making of the futurenot the missionaries. The


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dichotomy of East-West becomes secondary to the present-future through science.

How this happens will be discussed in coming chapters of this study.

Book writing and translation is a central issue for theMuqtataf. The editors

continuously urge readers and students of the nation to write and publish

productively, and to invest in translation and transliteration because if "we" do not

pursue knowledge it will not be offered to "us" free of charge. The missionaries had

come under the guise of providing the natives with science and knowledge than they

were observed to be destroying the local language and knowledge production by

ostracizing educated Arab-speaking educated natives like Sarrfand Nimr.

Scienceaccording to theMuqtataf- needed to be pursued and made possible locally

because it was central to politics (al-Muqtataf1884). Another attack on the

missionaries published in theMuqtatafobserves that;

Young American teachers began to claim credit for themselves

and to restrict the advantages of the College to themselves, their

children and their relatives. The first evidence of the change was

their replacement of Arabic by English on the pretext that there

were more books and studies in the latter. The truth is that the

change was crippling to Arabic authors and a cause for

decreasing the writing in Arabic as well as for not introducing

natives in place of foreigners in the College. But before long

debate gave place to argument among them until it led to the

well-known rift which resulted in the resignation of all the

teachers in the medical school except the one who was the most

active in kindling the fires of war [George Post perhaps?]. And

then matters became even worse when those who remained in the

College proclaimed that it was American root and branch and that

it will continue as such indefinitely. Accordingly they placed a

limit beyond which native teachers cannot advance in the

academic hierarchy. [Tibawi 1967:289-290]

7/28/2019 Performing the nahda [Science and Progress in the Nineteenth Century Muqta

Documents

Performing the nahda [Science and Progress in the Nineteenth Century Muqtataf], 2008