This paper intends to analyze the responses of two notable early Islamist writers of the Ottoman Empire to a cultural aggression directed against Islamic civilization by the French Orientalist Ernest Renan. Namik Kemal's "Renan Mudafaanamesi" and Jamaluddin Afghan's "Reponse a Renan" and "al-Islam wa al-Ilm" are particularly interesting because they give an insight into their perceptions of Imperialism's cultural menace to Islam and their attempts to give a new rational image of religion.
Original Title
Al-Afghānī and Namık Kemal’s Replies to Ernest Renan
This paper intends to analyze the responses of two notable early Islamist writers of the Ottoman Empire to a cultural aggression directed against Islamic civilization by the French Orientalist Ernest Renan. Namik Kemal's "Renan Mudafaanamesi" and Jamaluddin Afghan's "Reponse a Renan" and "al-Islam wa al-Ilm" are particularly interesting because they give an insight into their perceptions of Imperialism's cultural menace to Islam and their attempts to give a new rational image of religion.
This paper intends to analyze the responses of two notable early Islamist writers of the Ottoman Empire to a cultural aggression directed against Islamic civilization by the French Orientalist Ernest Renan. Namik Kemal's "Renan Mudafaanamesi" and Jamaluddin Afghan's "Reponse a Renan" and "al-Islam wa al-Ilm" are particularly interesting because they give an insight into their perceptions of Imperialism's cultural menace to Islam and their attempts to give a new rational image of religion.
Michelangelo Guida Fatih University, mguida@fatih.edu.tr. Al-Afghn and Namk Kemals Replies to Ernest Renan: Two Anti-Westernist Works in the Formative Stage of Islamist Tought 1 Abstract In the nineteenth-century, intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire were deeply infuenced by West- ern political thought and technology. Tat said, the West represented not only a military threat, but also a cultural menace for Ottoman intellectuals. Imperialism was indeed advancing in Mus- lim lands, carrying with it and legitimizing itself by a strong belief in its civilizations supremacy. Ottoman plans to acquire military technology and reform its administration proved insufcient in countering Western claims of genetic and cultural superiority. Tis European attitude generated anti-Westernist reactions in the Ottoman Empire as well as in many other non-European socie- ties, such as that in Japan. In the Muslim world, however, anti-Westernist reactions and attempts to rewrite a glorious Muslim history were at the base of Islamist thought. Tis paper intends to analyze the responses of two notable early Islamist writers of the Ottoman Empire to a cultural aggression directed against Islamic civilization by the French Orientalist Ernest Renan. Namk Kemals Renan Mdafaanamesi and Jaml al-Dn al-Afghns Rponse Renan and al-Islm wa al-Ilm are particularly interesting because they give an insight into their perceptions of Impe- rialisms cultural menace to Islam and their attempts to give a new rational image of religion. Fear of European cultural/military threats and a rational image of Islam were the frst component of the ideology that, later, would constitute the backbones of Muslim political ideas in the twentieth- century and of Islamism. Keywords Namk Kemal, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Islamism, Renan. 1 An early draft of this paper was presented at the 5th International Conference of the Asiatic Philosophical Association in Fukuoka, Japan, on 7 December 2011. I would like to thank Fatih University Research fund (pro- ject P51151002), which partially financed this research. 58 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 Introduction After 9/11, a wide feld of literature emerged out of the necessity to explain the reasons behind Muslim resentment against the democratic and afuent West. 1
However, this literature fails to provide ad- equate explanations because its writers do not understand the huge impact of Western Imperialism and all the forms it assumed in the twentieth and twenty-frst centuries on non-Western political intellectuals. Marc Ferros Resentment in history and Le choc de lIslam, though, helps us in refecting on the impact of Western policies through history and the reactions that they created in non- European societies. Anti-Westernism, in- deed, is not something peculiar to Muslim societies. In nearly the same years of the emergence of Islamism in the Ottoman Em- pire, from the Meiji period to World War II, Japan saw similar intellectual currents that adopted very similar symbols and method- ologies against the West (See Aydn 2007). Obviously, it must be considered a fact that there were special difculties in the long en- counter between Islam and Christendom, which were not present in the encounter be- tween Europe and the geographically remot- er civilizations of Asia (Lewis 2002, 36-7). In this paper, I will argue that it was anti- Westernism as a reaction to the evolution of Imperialism and the onset of Western domi- nation in the Middle East and North Africa that sparked the emergence of Islamism. Moreover, I will argue that al-Afghn and Namk Kemal were the two leading fgures to launch this ideology into the core of the Ottoman Empire and that their answers to Renan are actually the starting point of Is- 2 Te most notorious one is Bernard Lewiss What Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response and Te Roots of Muslim Rage (Te Atlantic, September 1990), which was published well before 9/11 though. lamist thought. Before proceeding any further it may be appropriate to defne the term Islamism, used in the title and in the text. Tis term is widely used, but because it is semanti- cally imperfect, it lacks an unequivocal meaning in the literature. By Islamism we intend a political ideology (not a religious or theological construct) that emerged in the second half of the nineteenth-century Muslim world and continuously evolved until present times in diferent geographi- cal and social contexts. Islamist intellectu- als advocate the islamization of all aspects of life and promote a reinterpretation of Islam itselfwhich was allegedly misinter- preted by previous generations. Tis ideol- ogy appeared as a reaction to the arrival of Imperialism in Muslim lands. In the second half of the nineteenth-century, the West not only started to represent a military threat menacing territory, identity, and political institutions; the West was threatened the Muslim identity and religion with its ma- terialism and scientism, and it threatened Muslim societies with the imposition of its dominant ethnicity, far from creating a peaceful world order guided by ascetic and all-inclusive human rationalism (Moallem 2003, 200). Moreover, imperialism dem- onstrated the economic, technological, and military inability to confront the West and the inadequacy of the political and cultural institutions of the Muslim world. Finally, imperialism encouraged the emergence of Westernized elites that upheld the civilizing mission among Muslim societies. In Tur- key as in other Middle Eastern countries, Westernized elitesperceived as alien to the local social fabricgained power and imposed authoritarian regimes that mar- ginalized those deviating from the project of Westernization and modernization, trigger- ing even more resentment. Tus, even if the Ottoman Empire and Turkey did not know 59 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 direct foreign rule, the presence of Western- ized elites as well as the continuous threat (real or perceived) of foreign occupation, Cold War, neo-imperialism, the state of Is- rael, and the unequal international division of labour, maintained the necessary stress that fed Islamism to the present. However, it is far from the case that Is- lamism is an anti-modern movement or simply a kind of protectionist counter- movement of Polanyi. Te emergence of Is- lamism was possible only because of a new education system and the spread of new media, which were useful in propagating its ideas: at frst journals, then cassettes, satel- lite TV, and the internet. Islamists dream of a return to pristine Islam (the Asr- Saadet, the happy era when the Prophet and his followers were alive or to a glorious era of Muslim history such as the Ayyubid or Ot- toman eras) is a modern reinterpretation of the pastvery frequently idealized and not linked to historical evidences. Te return to the past was needed for the building of a methodology necessary for the shaping of a new Islamic identity which would ft in the contemporary world. Tere is not even an Occidentalism imprinted in the Islamist DNA; Indeed, the West remains one of the main sources of Islamist thought, yet since its inception, there is a genuine fght against political and economic Western discriminat- ing hegemony. Mussulmans are Temselves the First Victims of Islam 2 Te French Orientalist Joseph Ernest 2 Renan [1883] 2000, 215. All English translations of Ernest Renans conference LIslamisme et la Science are taken from Renan, E. 1896. Te Poetry of the Celtic Races and Other Studies, 84-108, London: Water Scott reproduced in Orientalism: Early Sources; Readings in Orientalism, edited by Bryan Turner, 199-217, London- New York: Routledge, 199-217. Renan (1823-1892) spent most of his aca- demic career attempting to show how posi- tive science was in confict with religion, particularly with Roman Catholicism. Re- nan thought that science would eventually supplant religion in developed societies and he understood religion as an enquiry that exhibits a comparative, sceptical, and non- judgmental attitude toward its subject. Dur- ing a trip to Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece in 1864, he composed Prire sur lAcropole, which expressed what he called his religious revelation that the perfection promised by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam actually existed in the Greek civilization that cre- ated art, science, and philosophy. However, Renans historical sense was not always the best, and he clearly preferred to draw his conclusions from what he thought were psy- chological patterns of the races and religions he studied (Resh 1987, 334). An evidence is the letter of the qd of Mosul to Sir Henry Layard used in Renans conference as evi- dence of lack of the scientifc spirit, super- stition and dogmatism (Renan [1883] 2000, 211) among Muslim religious authorities. Namk Kemal already doubted its genuine- ness (Namk Kemal 1962, 61). Massignon defned it as a work edited by Renan himself with un humour si dlicieusement sarcas- tique (Massignon 1927, 301). Al-Afghn did not spend many words to confute the weak historical knowledge of the French au- thor whereas Namk Kemal went through a lengthy critique of the episodes mentioned by Renan, yet missing the real challenge posed by the lecture, as we will see. Edward Said even indicated Renan as a model of how the private man interferes with the schol- ar: their [Renan and Louis Massignons] personal, in some instances their intimate problems, concerns, and predilections are very much a part of their public work and position as Orientalists. Moreover, they grasp Islam, they also lose it (Said 1980, 60 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 60). Namely their personal approach and their beliefs did not allow them to really un- derstand the complexity of Islam. However, his provocative prose helped him in becoming professor of history of reli- gions at the Collge de France twice: in 1862, but he was soon suspended after a lecture on the life of Christ where he doubted Jesus di- vinity, and again in 1879. In 1878, he was elected to the Acadmie Franaise where he delivered his famous lecture LIslamisme et la Science, which sparked so many reactions in the Muslim world. In his lecture delivered on 29 March 1883, 3 organized by LAssociation scientifque de France in the grand amphitheatre of Sor- bonne University, Renan applied to Islam all his main ideas on religion. Initially, he re- called the prejudice common to that period: All those who have been in the East, or in Africa, are struck by the way in which the mind of a true believer is fa- tally limited, by the species of iron circle that surrounds his head, rendering it absolutely closed to knowledge, incapa- ble of either learning anything, or of be- ing open to any new idea (Renan [1883] 2000, 200). Ten, to a period from about the year 775 to nearly the middle of the thirteenth-cen- tury of progress and splendour it followed a long and steady decadence of the Muslim world, the French Orientalist remembered. It might almost be said that, during this period, the Mohammedan world was supe- rior in intellectual culture to the Christian world (Renan [1883] 2000, 201). However, 3 Te conference was delivered on Tursday 29 March 1883 and published on page two and three of the fol- lowing days morning edition of the Journal des dbats politiques et littraires available on the website of Bib- liothque nationale de France: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ ark:/12148/btp6k4621949 (retrieved 19/07/2011). much of their science was produced by the Nestorian Christians that lived in the Sassa- nid lands newly conquered by the Arabs. Te Nestorians and the Iranian elements (the Indo-European elements) soon surrounded caliphs and became chief physicians. Parsis and Christians took the lead- ing part; the administration, the police in particular, was in the hands of the latter. All those caliphs, the contempo- raries of our Carlovingian monarchs, Mansour, Haroun al-Raschid, Mamoun, can scarcely be called Mussulmans (id., 203) Because they were in internal revolt against their own religion, curious, and continuously questioning Indian, Persian and, above all, Greek authors. Moreover, the great intellectuals use of Arabic as a medi- um of communication does not make them Arabic or Muslim intellectuals; the same thing can also be said of the many European intellectuals that wrote in Latin (id., 206). Te stress on language is relevant because Renan, as a dedicated philologist, believed that language determines the spirit of its people. Indo-European languages manifest a capability to change and diferentiate dur- ing the centuries whereas Semitic languages remain fxed and immutable. From here de- rives an intellectualnot racialsuperior- ity of the Aryans (Renan 2005, 11). Renan had in some way imposed on the university circles the pro-Aryan thesis of Arthur de Gobineau of the ineptitude of the Semites in arts and sciences. Starting from about 1275, the Muslim world plunged into the most pitiable intel- lectual decadence whereas Western Europe entered that great highway of the scientifc search for truth (Renan [1883] 2000, 206). Islamism continued to persecute science and philosophy thanks to the advent of Tartar 61 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 and Berber races, which are heavy, brutal, and without intelligence (id., 208). As in the West, when religion dominates civil life, there is no liberty and no curiosity. And in- deed Western theology has not persecuted less than that of Islam; only it has not been successful, it has not crushed out the mod- ern spirit, as Islamism has trodden out the spirit of the lands it has conquered (id., 209). In the West, reason managed to limit the infuence of Christian theology and to create military and industrial superiority. In Muslim lands, though, Islam slew science and became condemned in the world to a complete inferiority. Tis lecture sparked in the Muslim world a series of refutations, the most no- table of which is the one of Jaml al-Dn al-Afghn frst published in Arabic and in French a few days after the publication of the text of Renans lecture. Al-Afghn also received a reply from Renan from the pages of the Journal des Dbats the following day (on 19 May 1883). 4 Te Ottoman intellec- tual Namk Kemal also prepared a refusal of Renans lecture but it was published only posthumously in 1908. Ernest Renans repu- tation as a prominent secular European in- tellectual, though, cannot alone explain the Muslim response to his ideas. Muslims took these arguments seriously because Renans thesis about the history of Islamic science was seen as a symbol of a larger European justifcation for Europes racial superiority over Semitic and Turkic Muslims as a way to justify its imperialistic civilizing mission in the Muslim world. Moreover, What made Renans ideas diferent from the frequent anti-Muslim writings in the European media was their precise 4 Te English translation of the reply is also reproduced in Orientalism: Early Sources; Readings in Orientalism, edited by Bryan Turner, 199-217, London- New York: Routledge. attack on the historical consciousness of optimistic Muslim modernists, who saw their own history as part of the history of European civilization and progress (Aydn 2007, 48). Muslim reformists believed that if Mus- lims had once achieved a golden age in sci- ence and technology, there was no reason why they could not reach a similar achieve- ment in scientifc progress after the process of modernization. Te Tanzimat reformers, for instance, believed in the capacity of non- European societies to attain the same prog- ress of European civilization. Namk Ke- mal belonged to the Young Ottomans that strongly criticized the Tanzimat reformers for their naive interpretation of modernity. On his side, al-Afghn was a strong critic of Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), Indian modernist and founder of the Aligarh Mus- lim College. Furthermore, Renans lecture came after three major events that strongly infuenced the Muslim intellectual approach to Europe: the Treaty of Berlin and the occupations of Tunis and Egypt. Te Treaty of Berlin (13 July 1878) greatly reduced Ottoman do- mains in the Balkans, thanks to Western powers infuence. Te occupation of Tunis by France in 1881 and of Egypt by England in 1882, marked a radical change in the Im- perialist policies of these two countries and brought them closer to the core of the Mus- lim world and the seat of the Caliphates for- eign domination. Occupation followed the already existent control of Egyptian and Ot- toman state fnances by foreigners. Renan, then, ofered an alternative his- torical explanation for the past achieve- ments in science and progress in Muslim societies between the eighth and thirteenth centuries, arguing that it was due to either Aryans or Christian Arabs, as stated above. 62 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 Te Semitic and Turkic elements were in- capable of recognizing the relevance of the natural sciences and philosophy. Tis implic- itly meant that Muslims needed colonial tu- telage to overcome their backwardness, and any attempt to modernize their societies was destined to fail. We will now concentrate on three distin- guished replies to Renans arguments. Jaml al-Dn al-Afghn Born in Asadabad in northwest Iran in 1838/9, 5 Jaml al-Dn al-Afghn received higher education in the Shiite shrines of Ottoman Iraq in the 1850s. Here he was probably infuenced by rationalist Muslim philosophers. He then travelled to India and he was probably there during the 1857 mutiny. In India, he developed his hatred toward British colonialism and foreign occupation. He moved to Afghanistan but, in 1868, he was expelled and he directed himself toward Istanbul. His intelligence and personality quickly brought him into the Tanzimat circles. On 20 February 1870, al-Afghn participated in the open- ing of the Dr al-Fnn directed by Hoca Tahsin, an Albanian member of the ilmiyye educated in Paris and passionate about the natural sciences. Hoca Tahsin had already attracted the resentment of the conserva- tives among the ilmiyye. During the month of Ramadan (December) of the same year, they held lectures open to the public which abruptly interrupted Hoca Tahsins career and al-Afghn frst sojourn in Istanbul. Apparently the second night of Ramadan 5 Jaml al-Dn later pretended to be of Afghan origin, from that the name al-Afghn, from a village three day walk from Kabul probably to conceal his Shiite background. Tis version was reported by the of- fcial biographies of Abduh and Makhzm (Mahzum Paa 2010, 3-4) but the Iranian origin was proved by Keddie (1972). the lesson was on how oxygen is necessary for life; they also made the experiment of depriving a bird from air. Many among the public found the words of the two intellec- tuals ofending to Islamic religious values and complaints forced authorities to act (Akn, 1998). From 1871 to 1879, al-Afghn lived in Cairo supported by the statesman Riyd Pa- sha. Here he was involved in teaching and in promoting political newspapers. He soon became the guide and unofcial teacher of a group of young men who were to play an im- portant part in Egyptian life: among others, Muhammad Abduh and Sad Zaghll. He taught them, mainly in his home, what he conceived to be the true Islam: theology, ju- risprudence, mysticism, and philosophy. But he taught them also the danger of European intervention, the need for national unity to resist it, the need for a broader unity of the Ummah, and the need for a constitution to limit the rulers power (Hourani 1983, 109). In 1879, because of his anti-British propaganda he was expelled again and took refuge in the Indian state of Hyderabad. Between 1883 and 1885 he was in Paris where he started the publication of the Ara- bic newspaper al-Urwah al-wuthq with his Egyptian pupil Muhammad Abduh. He kept travelling, to Iran and then Rus- sia, until he was invited to Istanbul in 1892 by Sultan Abdlhamid II, who insisted on seeing al-Afghn in the Ottoman capital be- cause of the letter that he wrote to the Sul- tan from London. It suggested some subtle diplomatic ways to achieve the goal of Pan- Islamism by bringing about, at frst, an alli- ance of the Ottoman state with Afghanistan and, then, with Iran realizing a Shii-Sunni unity (zcan 1995, 286). However, his ac- tions were limited very soon by an increasing suspicion of him by Ottoman authorities; 63 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 his relations with Abbas Hilmi, the Khedive of Egypt and with members of the opposi- tion were found to be intolerable. In 1896, al-Afghn was held responsible by the Irani- an authorities for the murder of Shah Nasr al-Dn, but Ottoman authorities refused to hand him over but put him under house ar- rest. In 1897, al-Afghn died of cancer and was buried in the Maka cemetery. Ernest Renan had the chance to meet al-Afghn in February or April of 1883, in- troduced by Khall Ghnim (Halil Ganem) (Renan [1883] 2000, 213). Khall Ghnim was a Maronite activist elected as deputy for Beirut in the short-lived Ottoman Parlia- ment. In Paris, he was a collaborator for the Journal des Dbats and published an Arabic journal called al-Basr, which promoted con- stitutionalism and Ottomanism and had been published with ofcial support since April 1881 (Kedourie 1977, 40). Later Khall Ghnim became an activist for the Commit- tee of Union and Progress (Haniolu 1996, 45-6 and Hourani 1983, 264-5). Renan had a very good impression of Jaml al-Dn al- Afghn and considered him an Afghan [sic!], entirely emancipated from the preju- dices of Islam; he belongs to those energetic races of the Upper Iran bordering upon In- dia, in which the Aryan spirit still fourishes so strongly, under the superfcial garb of of- fcial Islamism (Renan [1883] 2000, 213). Renan also appreciated al-Afghns con- demnation of fanaticism and the decline of the Muslim worlds, an opinion shared also by Khall Ghnim who saw the reason be- hind Ottoman decadence in religious fanati- cism and despotism. Moreover, he stressed the authoritarian and exclusive character as well as the attitude toward political intoler- ance and violence of the Turks that emerged from the long fghts with the Christians (Ganem 1902, II, 295-6). Tere is no doubt that Jaml al-Dn al- Afghn was fascinated with modern sci- ence or, rather, the mechanistic side of it. He saw it as the secret of Western strength which Muslims had to acquire in order to fght back. In his view, science ruled the world and the European hegemony, thanks to its scientifc knowledge, was in keeping with a pattern where ancient civilizations were able to afrm themselves over others by beings comparatively more technically advanced (Cortese 2000, 505). Te most well-known response of al- Afghn to Renan was published on the pages of the Journal des dbats on 18 May 1883 (al-Afghn 1883c). According to Lewis Freeman Mott, the author of a biography of Renan published in 1921, the translation of al-Afghns letter to the Journal des dbats (published on 18 May 1883) from Arabic into French was done by Ernest Renan him- self (Cndiolu 1996, 29-31). Mohammad Hamidullah, the well-known Indian scholar, among others, believed that the article pub- lished in the Journal des dbats was translat- ed and forged by Renan . Hamidullah advo- cated that al-Afghn did not know French and sent the Arabic text to the journal a few days after the lecture but was not capable of following the long publishing process. Moreover, his article was never published by the Arabic journal of his pupil Abduh, who followed with care all of his masters work (Hamidullah 1958, 5-7). Keddie, however, believes that, even if al-Afghns written and spoken French was imperfect and he read the lecture in a more or less faithful translation 6 , the French text was genuine and accurate since Afghn soon came to read French quite well, and never made any recorded complaint about the way the An- swer was translated (Keddie 1983, 86). 6 Quotations from the Rponse Renan are taken from the translation of Keddie published in An Islamic Response to Imperialism, pp. 181-187. 64 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 Moreover, the Journal des dbats was widely read among al-Afghns close circles. Abduh knew about the article and in a private corre- spondence with his master he frst expressed interest in translating it. Later, when a draft was ready, he dropped the idea of publishing it, waiting for al-Afghns new elaboration in Arabic (Kedourie 1977, 44-5). Moreover, it appears that Renans Arabic was too poor for him to have translated such an article. Te translator of al-Afghns letter might have been Khall Ghnim, who published another answer to Renan speach in Arabic ffteen days earlier on the pages of his jour- nal. As we will see, the Arabic text was very diferent in style and context, but probably written with completely diferent aims. Te Rponse du Cheik Gemmal Eddine printed on the Journal des dbats was pub- lished in French and intended for a Western audience. As in other writings addressed to a French or British public, al-Afghn could be almost the image of logic, clarity, and ratio- nality, appealing to the liberal sentiments of his audience in a way that would be impossi- ble for a man who did not have a fairly sym- pathetic acquaintance with modern West- ern ideas. When writing a book or articles intended for mass circulation in the Mus- lim world, he was less rational and strongly anti-Westernist, even more anti-British (Keddie 1983, 36). Moreover, in his writings addressed to the Muslim world, what he in- tended by Islam was a desideratumbased on a modernist reinterpretation of religion forgetting tradition. Namk Kemal and all Islamists after him would keep on present- ing an ideal image of Islam. In Rponse, la religion musulmane has a negative conno- tation and what he intends by it is the cor- rupt, unscientifc contemporary Muslim so- cieties (Keddie 1983, 39-40). A translation of the Rponse would have created confu- sion among al-Afghn and Abduhs readers. Later, other Islamist writers had the oppor- tunity, when the ilmiyye lost their grip even further, to openly blame the learned class for their backwardness and their incapabil- ity in promoting progress and knowledge throughout the centuries. Al-Afghn, as Keddie believed, was accustomed to adapt- ing his discourse to his audience and also avoiding certain arguments with the wider Muslim public infuenced by a traditional mystic and philosophical background, which particularly stressed speaking diferently to the initiated, and to the masses (Ked- die 1963, 27). Moreover, al-Afghn also hid his Iranian and Shiite background to avoid Sunni blame or mistrust. Adjusting argu- ments and words to the context appears to be something quite normal for a public in- tellectual; he was also sponsored by diferent notables and probably in diferent occasions he refrained from making comments that might have been unwanted by his patron. However, in al-Afghns approach, rather than intellectual unfairness, there is a good dose of elitism and paternalism, common to many Islamist writers before the difusion of public education and the mass media. Tis approach comes from authors like Ibn Rud who believed in people of diverse in- telligence and diferent natural capacities, probably inherited from Greek philosophy. Tis is also an attitude of Shiite Islam and many mystical confraternities, to which al- Afghn was exposed. In the Journal des dbats, al-Afghn summarized Renans speech in two main points: Islam is opposed to the development of science and Arabs by nature do not love metaphysical sciences or philosophy. As for the frst point, al-Afghn believed that, at its origin, no nation is capable of letting it- self be guided by pure reason because it is incapable of rationally tracing back causes or to discerning efects. Tis is certainly a humiliating yoke but it is the frst step to- ward a more advanced civilization. Islam is 65 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 not diferent in this respect from other reli- gions. However, if the Western world has ad- vanced and emancipated itself from religion, Renan noticed, Muslim society has not yet freed itself from the tutelage of religion (Keddie 1972, 183). Muslims, however, have undoubtedly a taste for science, as they demonstrated in the past. As for the second point, the one where Renan showed his belief in racial theories, al-Afghn stated that Greek and Persian contribution to the development of Muslim sciences was immense. At the same time, though, these sciences, which they usurped by right of conquest, they developed, ex- tended, clarifed, perfected, completed and coordinated with a perfect taste and rare precision and exactitude (p. 184-5). Europe- ans learned from the Arabs the philosophy of Aristotle, who had emigrated and become Arab (p. 185). Tis proves the fact that Ar- abs have a natural attachment to philosophy even if they fall into ignorance and into reli- gious fanaticism. However, al-Afghn is very categorical when analysing the reasons of the later fall into darkness of Arab civilizations: Here the responsibility of the Mus- lim religion [la religion musulmane] ap- pears complete. It is clear that wherever it become established, this religion tried to stife the sciences and it was marvel- lously served in its designs by despotism (p. 187). Te frst reply to Renan from al-Afghn, however, was published on the pages of Ghnims journal on 3 May 1883 and titled al-Islm wa al-ilm (al-Afghn 1883b). In- tended for the Ottoman Arabic-speaking public, its theme and aims were political, and Renans lecture was criticized for its op- portunism and not really for its content. Af- ter quoting the verse So learn a lesson, O ye who have eyes! (59, 2), inviting the reader to make a comparison, he called Renans speech disrespectful, but he noticed how illustrious Frenchmen strongly condemned his words. However, the rest of the article was a politi- cal statement quite far from the content of Renans speech. Al-Afghn believed that Re- nans words were inappropriate for a coun- try that ruled over such wide Muslim lands, mainly those of Algeria and Tunisia. More- over France was a country that, in matters of justice and rights, was so diferent from Britain, which ruled over ffty-million Mus- lims in India. Ten the author attacked dis- respectful British rule in the Muslim world and its sponsorship for protestant mission- ary activities. He concluded: So look, O ye who see [al-basr], to the existing diferences among these two nations and do justice. Al-Afghn saw the British government as an enemy of the Muslims not only because of the direct military attack that he feared. He feared the British for their subtler ways of working; they had conquered India by a trick, insinuating themselves into the Mo- gul Empire under the pretext of helping the Moguls. Tey sowed division and weakened the resistance of their victims by weakening their beliefs. It was thus that General Gor- don had brought missionaries from Egypt to spread the idea of Protestant Christianity in Sudan, while in India the false gospel of naturalism was encouraged (Hourani 1983, 113). It is interesting to note the distinction between French and British rule in Mus- lim lands made by al-Afghn. Al-Afghn experienced British colonial rule in India and Egypt and based on these experiences he formed an aversion toward Imperialism, starting to think about its deleterious ef- fects on Muslim culture and identity. When he wrote his article on Ghnims al-Basr, he was in Paris, writing for the 66 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 pages of a journal that was fnanced by the French government, initially to contrast Italian propaganda in Tunisia with the aim of letting Arabs love France. Ten, after the occupation of Egypt, it assumed an anti- British stand, in line with French foreign policy (Kedourie 1966, 40). Tus, al-Afghn wrote the piece perfectly aligning himself to the editorial policy. Paradoxically, the West- ern powers, Russia and Japan fnanced and supportedgranting asylum and recogni- tionto transnational movements which held and anti-Western and anti-Imperialist agenda until recent times (just remember the emergence of the Taliban and al-Qida). A similar attack on the British hostility toward Islam had already been expressed. In April of 1883, in another letter published in the Journal des dbats, al-Afghn warned Europeans that Muslim Indians were con- vinced that the British campaign in Egypt was only the frst step to the conquest of the Hijaz and Mecca, centres of Islam: they unanimously say that the English already had put their hand on the cradle of Islam, and that they will make a great efort to erase this religion. If that would ever have happened, the reaction of the Muslim popu- lation would have been devastating. Namk Kemal Mehmet Namk Kemal is probably the founder of modern, Islamist political thought in the Turkish speaking area of the Ottoman Empire. Born in December 1840 to a family of bureaucrats, one year after the beginning of the Tanzimat reforms, he started a career, frst in the Translation Bureau of the Customs, and then in the Ottoman Porte (1861-7)Turkeys open window to the West (Lewis 1961, 137), which brought him into contact with West- ern culture, especially through the medium of works in French. In 1865, Namk Ke- mal took over the editing of inasi Efendis Tasvir-i Efkar newspaper, where he started to advocate the introduction of constitu- tional and parliamentary institutions. In 1867, the government became uneasy with his criticism of its conduct of foreign afairs that urged a more forceful defence of Otto- man interests against the European powers. Soon, Namk Kemal was appointed as assis- tant governor of the province of Erzurum, a gentle way of getting rid of him. Instead of accepting the appointment, he left the country for Paris and then London with his friend Ziya Bey, where they began the pub- lication of the newspaper Hrriyet with the fnancial help of a member of the Egyptian royal family, Prince Mustafa Fazl Paa. Hr- riyet was outspokenly critical of the Otto- man government for its lack of direction and its despotism. In 1870, Namk Kemal returned to Istan- bul where he established a more moderate newspaper, bret. Two years later he was ap- pointed to an administrative post in Gallipo- li in order to reduce his powerful opposition. After a short period back in the capital, he was again exiled to Cyprus (1876) and then to the isle of Mytilene in July 1877, this time purportedly for the disturbance created by his play Vatan yahut Silistre (Te Fatherland or Silistre). In the play, written in a clear and simple Turkish able to address the common people, Namk Kemal tried to promote love and attachment for the Ottoman father- land. Te term that he used was the Arabic word watan, which has the original meaning of home, the place where somebody lives (Ibn Manzr 1997, XV, 338). Namk Kemals innovation is his attempt to indicate with the word a place and not just an ideal com- munity, like the more common words umma and milla. A simple translation of the French concept of patrie was very complicated, both because there was (and probably still there 67 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 is) no general understanding of a nation that includes a community within a spe- cifc region and because of the political and cultural circumstances in which the author lived. Te play, in fact, is about the heroic de- fence of Silistre, a city strategically located on the Danube, today northern Bulgaria, with a small Muslim population surrounded by Bulgarian and Romanian speaking non- Muslims. Namk Kemal died in December 1888, again in exile on the isle of Chios. According to his sonAli Ekrem (Bolayr)the reason of death was pneumonia, strongly worsened by the protracted and unfair exile as well as the depression following the censure by the Porte of his Ottoman history book, pub- lished just a few months before his death (Ali Ekrem 1992, 111-113). In June of 1883 in his exile in Mytilene, Namk Kemal with profound emotions start- ed to write his Renan Mdafaanamesi, a task which he consideredas he wrote in a let- ter to his fathera great act of worship. He intended to refute Renans lecture with evi- dences taken from European literature and from Renans own work (Tansel 1955, 89). However, in a letter written on 1 September he wrote that his Renan Mdafaanamesi as he himself called his workwas complet- ed, yet revisions were progressing slowly. Fi- nally, in a letter on 4 November he admitted to be profoundly unsatisfed with his work and that he did not intend to publish it (id., 89-90). His work was published by his son Ali Ekrem in 1908 and presented as one of his greatest success (Ali Ekrem 1992, 56), probably unaware of the correspondence with his grandfather. In fact Renan Mdafaanamesi ap- pears to the reader a weak refutation of Ernest Renans argument. Kemals specifc target was this French thinkers allegation that there existed no philosophy in the true sense of the word in Islam. Renan had relied on an argument similar to the one that has been advanced in this study, namely, that Islam had not been able to achieve so great a distinction in the feld of sci- ence as Europe because it did not have a major tradition of secular thought in- dependent of theology. Namk Kemals defense, even though passionate, was quite weak, for he obviously was unable to understand his adversarys position (Mardin 2000, 324). Te Ottoman author gave, indeed, plenty of evidences that Renan did not have good knowledge of Islamic history, something that, as we have already seen, was also known to the French public. Besides a re- view of the historical evidences brought by Renan, the author of Renan Mdafaanamesi mentions the imperative of Islam to search and investigate, from verses like My Lord! Increase me in knowledge (XX:114) and Are those who know equal with those who know not? (XXXIX:9) or sayings of the Prophet like Seek knowledge from the cradle to the grave. Namk Kemal then asks how it is pos- sible that a religion with so strong a commit- ment to the search for knowledge then act as an obstacle to science. Namk Kemal failed to tackle the main point of Renans thesis, namely the accusation that Islamic societ- ies have failed to develop as fast as those in Europe. We do not know the exact reasons behind the decision of Namk Kemal not to print his latest work, but one hypothesis is the fact that he himself realized the weak- ness of his argument. Tus, while on the one hand Namk Ke- mal defended the thesis that nothing in Is- lam forbade the study of the exact sciences and mathematics, on the other he showed his own inclination in the matter by stat- 68 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 ing that science was not merely an instru- ment to gain control over nature and create wealth. It can never be known, of those who use science for practical goals, if they have been able to attain a higher status [ie. if they have evolved morally] or reached ma- turity (Namk Kemal 1962, 25 translated by Mardin 2000, 324). Namk Kemal makes here an anti-utilitarian and strongly moral- istic-religious comment, which will become the frequent critique of European material- ism. Again, Namk Kemal protested that Re- nan should have equated science with math- ematics and the natural sciences only. If this method were to be adopted, he stated, he would agree that Islamic culture had thwart- ed the growth of science. He, however, did not recognize the fact that the Islamic scho- lastic approach to philosophy was quite bar- ren and that the spirit of hair-splitting was no more part and parcel of European philos- ophy. Namk Kemal did not recognize that Ernest Renan attributed a great part of the progress that had been accomplished in Eu- rope to the gradually widening limits of free- dom of thought, and, in particular, to the rise of the political liberalism that had been associated with two parallel movements: the emancipation of philosophy from religion and the conceptualization of a mechanistic system of nature (Mardin 2000, 324). Nonetheless, the Ottoman author did not fail to strongly criticise the European approach to Islamic culture, something that we would today call Orientalism. On one side, Christian believers intentionally con- trast and censure the investigation of Islam. Secular researchers on the other side, look into Islam with a prejudice believing that, as all religions in Europe, Islam also is the heaviest chain enslaving human thought and the stronger impediment to the prog- ress of knowledge (Namk Kemal 1962, 17). One of the possible reasons of Renan Mdafaanamesis weakness is the fact that its author could not really distinguish the idealized image of Islam (and Christendom) from Muslim societies even though he had been an outspoken critic, not only of the Ottoman regime, but also of society in gen- eral. Tis actually constitutes a very good ex- ample of the attempt to de-historicize Islam and separate it from the various contexts in which it has fourished over the centuries. Tis de-contextualization of religion 7 allows Namk Kemaland all Islamist authors that will follow in his pathin theory to ignore the social, economic, and political milieus within which Muslim societies exist. It provides Islamists a powerful ide- ological tool that they can use to purge Muslim societies of the impurities and accretions that are the inevitable ac- companiments of the historical process, but which they see as the reason for Muslim decline (Ayoob 2004, 1). Conclusion Nevertheless, Namk Kemals work was yet another expression of the early Islamist intellectuals urge to expose the cultural ag- gression coming from the West, making Re- nan Mdafaanamesi a relevant text, probably also because it marks the starting point of Islamism in the Turkish speaking provinces of the Empire. As evident also in al-Afghns texts, Muslim intellectuals were now facing a new challenge from the West. Rather than repre- senting the military, technological, and sci- entifc superiority over the Muslim world, Renan introduced a racial and religious dis- crimination. Tus the gap between the two civilizations could have not been flled by 7 Mainly Islam but it applies also to its image of Christianity. 69 TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol. 2 No. 2 Winter 2011 simply making administrative and political reforms. A total alienation from its culture, traditions, and values was needed maybe al- lowing white colonial authorities to shoul- der the burden of civilization. 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(Utah Series in Turkish and Islamic Stud) Meir Hatina-'Ulama', Politics, and The Public Sphere - An Egyptian Perspective - University of Utah Press (2010)