In his “Note about the Term Effendiyya in the History of the Middle East” (International Journal of Middle East Studies 41 [2009]: 535–39), Michael Eppel clarifies his own use of effendiyya in an article he wrote for IJMES in 1998. In the 1998 article, Eppel emphasized the value of studying the effendiyya, or what he called the “Westernized middle stratum,” and its dominance in political life to better understand Hashimite Iraq (1921–58). Members of this group, he argued, benefited from modern education and donned Western dress. They were young state employees (officials, teachers, health workers, engineers, and, later, military officers) who adopted Arab nationalism and Pan-Arab ideology as a means to cope with their socioeconomic and political discontent. From the 1930s, Eppel noted, the effendiyya created the radical political atmosphere that lent backing to the “militant-authoritarian trends” that led to the pro-German Rashid ʿAli coup and the war with Britain in 1941. After World War II, they joined with other nationalist forces to lead the 1948 Wathba (uprising) against prolonging the Anglo–Iraqi treaty. In 1958, the army officers among them overthrew the monarchy. This “middle stratum” differed from the Western concept of the “new middle class,” and the indigenous Arabic term effendiyya, as employed by Eppel, endeavored to grasp the essence of this difference. It reflected a common experience that was the result of its members’ similar education, culture, and concerns rather than their economic status, social origins, and type of employment.

Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd was one of the most renowned Arab Muslim scholars of the last two decades. The main focal points of the scholarly work that established his brilliant reputation worldwide were a valiant hermeneutical approach to the Qurʾan, a radical critique of the highly politicized religious discourse in Egypt and other Arab countries, and a penetrating view of Islamic culture.