Ethnicity in the study of nationalism in the Middle East

Ethnic tensions between Arab Egyptians and Ottoman Turks appear consistent with Anthony Smith’s concept of ethnosymbolism, which stresses the importance of myths and traditions in the formation of the nation state.Footnote ² Smith’s thesis, formulated in the late 1990s, situated itself between two other essentially polarised approaches. The first was the primordial approach, with roots laid by nineteenth-century thinkers like Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It held that nations—for example, the Greeks, Jews, Armenians, and Persians—are ancient constructs and that the modern period was merely a waystation along their historical continua. The second was the modernist approach, which emerged after the Second World War. It placed special emphasis on the political characteristics of nationalism, ascribing its advent to intellectual, industrial–technological, economic, and cultural changes that had occurred in the modern era. The modernist paradigm defined the terms ‘nation’ or ‘nationality’ as a largely artificial construction effected by the industrialised state—with its monopoly of power, legitimate violence, and public education systems.Footnote ³ Among this perception’s prominent figures were Elie Kedourie, Ernest Gellner, Benedict Anderson, and Eric Hobsbawm. According to Gellner, the most radical proponent of the modernist theory, ‘nationalism emerges only in milieux in which the existence of the state is already very much taken for granted’, and its main purpose is to entrench and legitimise political centralised units.Footnote ⁴

Smith’s intermediate ethnosymbolism defies both the modernist perception that nations are purely new entities and the primordial idea that nations are ancient. It asserts that the historical process by which ethnic groups in the Middle Ages, and perhaps even earlier, have evolved is important to help clarify their modern nature as nationalist movements. These groups developed collective consciousnesses based on linguistic, religious, and cultural grounds from which nationalist movements drew their ethnic boundaries and their cultural and symbolic infrastructures. In other words, Smith held that the nationalist idea is inherently modern, but at the same time it evolved from premodern forms of identity. This might also explain its ongoing robustness as a popular force and as a focus of allegiance for so many people.Footnote ⁵

Smith, and even more firmly Adrian Hastings, perceived religion and its institutions as central agents in the establishment of ethnic identity and collective consciousness. Both Smith and Hastings stressed the importance of religion as a code of communication and as an institutional system in premodern societies. They noted that religious figures mingled with simple merchants and artisans in villages and cities, thus disseminating religious culture beyond governmental and administrative circles. They also pointed to the importance of religious institutions in preserving ethnic codes and norms and ancient rituals with which subsequent generations could identify, and hence in the formation of collective solidarity.Footnote ⁶ Both scholars focused on medieval European Christianity in countries like England, Germany, Italy, France, and Spain, making only superficial references to the Islamic world. Hastings went so far as to state explicitly that while Christianity fostered diversity in nations, customs, and languages, partly by virtue of vernacular translations of sacred texts, Islam upheld the political model of a faith-based empire in which the Arabic-language Qurʾan was the authoritative sacred text. Islam, declared Hastings, is in essence antinationalist.Footnote ⁷

Notwithstanding its negligible reference to Islam and an essentialist perception of Muslim civilisation as monolithic—despite its internal heterogeneity (extending across the entire Arab, Turkish, Indian, East Asian, and African realms)—the ethnosymbolic premise can be constructive in tracing early ethnic and cultural manifestations of national identity in the Middle East.Footnote ⁸ It could be bolstered by another methodological theme—‘popular proto-nationalism’—referring to forms of solidarity that prevailed in the Middle Ages, when the main factor in their formation was religion as well as affiliation with stable, enduring political entities.Footnote ⁹

Both ethnosymbolism and popular proto-nationalism offer theoretical and analytical scaffolding for our observations vis-à-vis Ottoman Egypt. In other words, the formation of an Egyptian identity became evident in the seventeen and eighteenth centuries, with religion as one of its important foundations. This was facilitated by two Islamic institutions: al-Azhar and the Sufi orders. An in-depth historical investigation based on a wide array of sources, including chronicles, biographical dictionaries, fatwas, and Sharia court registers, shows that these two institutions were profoundly involved in the lives of the Nile Valley population and served as a barometer for public opinion in Cairo and its surroundings. They were closer to the masses than they were to those in power, providing leadership and protection to disadvantaged social groups. It was not unusual, in both rural and urban settings, for ulema and Sufi shaykhs to lead protests and insurrections against fiscal exploitation by and corruption of governors and administrative functionaries. They wielded power particularly during times of political instability and struggles for dominance between Mamluk emirs and Ottoman governors. Al-Azhar, in particular, earned a reputation as a beacon of light in religious jurisprudence and an educational centre for young clergymen from various parts of the Muslim world, including North Africa, India, and Asia. This clearly highlighted al-Azhar’s prestigious status as an eminent Egyptian institution.Footnote ¹⁰

When one moves beyond Egypt to a broader Middle East, it becomes clear that the cultural world of ulema was a heterogenous and recognised territorial pluralism within a unifying universal faith. This development was also affected by historical circumstances. As the caliphate’s status waned, from the tenth century onwards, the reality of pluralistic geographical divisions and multiple centres of power continued to prevail in the Muslim world. This decentralised reality gained the approval of renowned sages in the Middle Ages, such as al-Ghazālī (d. 1111) and Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), who stressed that the Muslim nation was faith-based and not a political construct. Hence, there was no deterrent to the coexistence of several political entities within the House of Islam (dār al-Islām)—as long as they observed the Sharia.Footnote ¹¹

Relying on lexicographical, literary, and historical sources, both in the medieval Latin West and the Islamic East, Ulrich Haarmann pointed out that two sets of concepts, with quite similar meanings, had developed. The first set, patria and waṭan, signifies a place where a person is born, where they live, and which they long for when they are far away; added to this is the administrative–legal meaning of a piece of land that must be protected against external enemies. The second set, natio and umma, reflects feelings of belonging to a group, based on shared features such as language, origin, symbols, and patterns of behaviour. The term umma is not necessarily defined in relation to religion (religious community), but it is synonymous with the concept of ethnic community, as for example in describing Islamic groups: Arabs, Persians, and Turks, or non-Islamic groups such as Byzantines and Indians. Haarmann emphasises that both in the Latin West and in the Islamic orbit, the two concepts were used as labels to mark a territorial and ethnic division, amongst others, due to the increased economic and cultural encounters between large religious communities. These encounters sharpened the foundations of the self vis-à-vis the Other and reflected the ability of Christians and, to a large extent, of Muslims to integrate the ethnic diversity of their communities within the lofty vision of a unified community of believers.Footnote ¹²

The pluralistic and integrated reality was reinforced under the Ottoman empire (beginning in the fifteenth century), which allowed for a large measure of local administrative autonomy in return for the maintenance of public order and the transfer of taxes to Istanbul. As historians like James Piscatori, Sami Zubaida, and Haim Gerber have pointed out, the ‘Asiatic’ or ‘oriental’ model of political unity and centralised government portrayed by Western scholars is inconsistent with historical record. In fact, the political structure of the Muslim Middle East was segmented, and direct control of the Ottoman ruling dynasty did not extend far beyond the capital Istanbul and adjacent areas. Beyond these areas, political influence was exercised through networks of patronage and alliances with local power bases and nobles (military officers, ulema, Sufi shaykhs, merchants, guild heads and tribal leaders) guided by a divide-and-rule strategy. In essence, imperial Muslim rule remained external to the social and communal structures of the provinces.Footnote ¹³ This reality was depicted by Albert Hourani in 1968 as ‘politics of notables’.Footnote ¹⁴

Hourani’s thesis was debated and revised in the early 1990s by a new approach centred on Ottoman history in the Arab-speaking provinces between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. This interpretation rehabilitated the Ottomans’ record as rulers and cultural agents in the Middle East (and North Africa), despite European colonialism and the rise of nationalism. While the revised scholarship highlighted the endurance of Ottoman political culture in these regions, it did not relinquish or dismantle the prominent role that notables or dignitaries, including ulema, played in shaping the local socio-political landscape.Footnote ¹⁵ The Ottoman empire, as Bruce Masters pointed out in 2013, maintained its position, not through the use of force or the threat of force, but through the integration and assimilation of the Arab elites into the local administrative institutions. Notably, national regimes emerged from these Arab elites at the beginning of the twentieth century, as in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia.Footnote ¹⁶

Moreover, the legitimacy of the imperial authority rested in large part on a social covenant between ruler and ruled. In return for obedience and political loyalty, the ruler was bound to be both just and benevolent.Footnote ¹⁷ Though ordinary people (al-ʿāmmah) were not considered citizens who had rights, their lives, livelihood, and possessions were nevertheless protected by a number of legal mechanisms: including Sharia courts, the ḥisba institution (responsible for public morality and fair market trade), and the petition scheme (particularly in the Ottoman period). Another contributing factor was the bayʿah (oath of allegiance), which took the form of a social contract between the ruler and his subjects. The fact that this social contract was maintained in part by religious figures who also led urban protests against economic grievances caused the population to turn to them in times of distress—from Salonika in the Balkans to Gaza-Jaffa in Palestine—thus fortifying the geographical localisation of Islamic worldviews.Footnote ¹⁸

Some of the Arab provinces in the Ottoman empire, for example in the Fertile Crescent, were designated in chronicles and biographical dictionaries by Arab writers as lands or countries (pl. buldān, arāḍin; sin. bilād, arḍ). Geography, too, played a differentiating role, for example in the form of desert buffers between Syria, Iraq, and Egypt prior to the existence of modern communication and transport routes.Footnote ¹⁹ Of these three countries, Egypt stood out as a semi-autonomous province within the Ottoman empire, which gave it a well-defined local identity. However, in Greater Syria (bilād al-Shām, which encompasses Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestine) one can also trace the roots of a dynamic Arab identity. This can be inferred from Arabic literature, as well as from praise literature, which lauded the virtues of Syria and Damascus (faḍāiʾl al-Shām wa-Dimashq), even referring to Damascus as part of the Holy Land.Footnote ²⁰ Gerber went a step further in arguing for a Palestinian collective identity whose roots he traced back to the Middle Ages from local historical documents about Palestine and the sanctity of Jerusalem (faḍāiʾl Bayt al-Maqdis), and even further back to the eleventh-century Crusades, a traumatic episode for the inhabitants of the country. Thus, according to Gerber, Palestinian identity already existed prior to the First World War and the British Mandate of 1920, while the confrontation with the Zionist movement only sharpened it further and turned it into political nationalism.Footnote ²¹

A comparative perspective to medieval Iran also indicates a strong cultural identity based on territory, language (Farsi), literature, and the Shiʿi creed. This was most evident with the ascendence of the Safavid Dynasty at the beginning of the sixteenth century, which shored up Iran’s political independence and made Shiʿa the state religion. The unique ethnic-territorial nature of the Iranian polity grew stronger in light of frequent wars between the Safavids and the Ottomans over control of the border regions, particularly Mesopotamia (Iraq) and Western Caucasus. The eighteenth century witnessed the empowerment of Shiʿi ulema with the victory of the Uṣūlīs, or mujtahids—who stressed the use of reason as a source of law—over the Akhbārīs, or followers of traditions transmitted by infallible imams (whose line began with ʿAlī, the Prophet’s cousin and son in law). As a result, the mujtahids were given considerable legal authority in the interpretation of the law. This development enhanced the harmony between indigenous and religious identities.

These empirical historical findings from various parts of the Middle East, based on the ethnosymbolic exploration of the inner lives of local communities, challenge the modernist paradigm that still prevail in the scholarship with regard to the advent of nationalism in the region. This paradigm holds that nationalism emerged in the Middle East only in the late nineteenth century, following its intensive encounter with Europe, assimilation into the global economy, and the creation of a collective, ethnic-territorial consciousness, from top to bottom, from the state to society.Footnote ²²

Nineteenth-century ulema and the national idea

Scholarship on the impact of modernisation on Arab-Muslim society from the nineteenth century onwards provides two complementary explanations for the decline in public status of the arbiters of Islam—the ulema. One stresses the power of the modern state, which rendered the ulema a mere administrative branch. The other stresses the formidable challenge posed by new social and intellectual forces as a result of interaction with Western culture. Urbanisation, rising education, and the emergence of a vibrant public space further contributed to this outcome. According to the scholarly narrative, political modernisation and the rise of the new intellectuals, defined by Anthony Smith as the ‘new priests’,Footnote ²³ took a serious toll on the ulema. Islam continued to provide a wealth of symbols of protest, identity, and legitimacy, but in terms of influence its traditional gatekeepers—the ulema—were left behind, deprived of economic privileges and disenfranchised from the religious and educational functions they had previously fulfilled. They were portrayed by scholars as rubber stamps for regime policies or, alternatively, as a leverage in political rivalries. If one adds to this the prevailing perception in the research regarding their continued adherence to religious conservatism, then the picture reflected in the scholarship becomes that of a withdrawn and defensive group.

Two exceptions to this syndrome of atrophy and recession that beset the ulema at the time were Shiʿi Islam (primarily in Iran) and tribal Islam. The Shiʿi ulema had at their disposal two assets that ensured relative independence from central government and served as a conduit to political activism. The first was doctrinal power embodied in positioning them as the de facto agents of the Twelfth (Hidden) Imam for regulating the affairs of the community. The second was material power in the form of control over commercial and economic resources and the management of endowments. Shiʿi ulema became the authentic spokespeople of the population during political and economic upheavals.Footnote ²⁴ The other exception to the decline of ulema in modern times were ulema in tribal societies, like those of the Arabian Peninsula, Persian Gulf, or North Africa, who had more influence because of the geographic distance from the urban centres and the religious and the judicial services they provided for the tribes, including Islamic guidance, mediation, and conflict resolution.Footnote ²⁵ The research perception of Sunni Islam in urban centres was different, and it was often presented as homogenous and largely compliant, insular, and apologetic. Historians and social scientists did not perceive the ulema as men of action or intellectual innovators but as traditional players incapable of contending with the upheavals and dilemmas of the modern era.Footnote ²⁶

On the whole, Sunni ulema were bruised by the encounter with modernity. Nevertheless, while they lost their status as ‘heirs of the prophets’, they did not lose their intellectual vitality and continued to maintain a public presence.Footnote ²⁷ Confronted with Western and local claims that Islam prevented Muslims from playing a role in the modern global community, members of the ulema, most of whom belonged to the middle ranks of the religious scholarship community, sought to formulate a new Islamic theology that would make Islam an upholder of progress and humanism. They also sought to sharpen the distinction between faith and rituals (ʿibādāt), which are immutable, and mundane matters (muʿāmalāt), which are mutable and presided over by state authorities. They aired their ideas in the public arena by means of a well-developed print culture,Footnote ²⁸ or what Sāmī al-Kayyālī, the editor of the Syrian newspaper al-Ḥadīth, called, ‘wondering schools’ (al-madāris as-sayyāra).Footnote ²⁹ In that sense, one may identify them as a new breed of Muslim scholars or intellectuals, as Reinhard Schulze pointed out. Most of them did not teach and preach in official institutions such as madrasas and mosques, or serve as qadis in Sharia courts, but became modern print intellectuals.Footnote ³⁰ Some of them even taught in state-run modern schools, such as Dār al-ʿUlūm in Cairo, or al-Amīriyyah and al-Rušdiyyah in Damascus and Beirut.Footnote ³¹ By virtue of their occupations as writers, editors, and publishers, they turned the press into a highly influential vehicle for disseminating ‘worthy civic attributes’, as well as instigating a lively debate over social and political issues.

The new Muslim intellectuals thus turned the traditional ʿalim into a looser category that, along with Western-minded professionals (bureaucrats, lawyers, teachers, physicists, etc.), ignited the fragmentation of religious authority in Sunnism. They were part and parcel of the Arab awakening (Nahḍah), which promoted a civic culture that sought to grant citizens a broader involvement in shaping state policies; that is, greater self-governance. Under the aegis of the Nahḍah, key concepts in Arab and Islamic tradition such as nation (umma), homeland (waṭan), freedom (ḥurriyyah), justice (ʿadl), and tolerance (tasāmuḥ), were politicised and positioned as pillars of a thriving and civilised society. This nourished the nascent idea of nationhood in the region.Footnote ³²

Ulema, mainly reformists, also facilitated the emergence of national identities in the Arab Middle East in the nineteenth century. In the Egyptian and Syrian contexts, these national identities, as we will see below, formed a basic foundation of political nationalism. Still, they lacked the vision and programme necessary to create full congruence between a political entity that is sovereign and has a monopoly on power and the cultural ethnic community that resides within it and is conscious of itself. Another required condition for the growth of political nationalism, which was largely absent in the nineteenth century, is a fully-fledged notion of citizenship (muwāṭanah) that goes beyond equal shared rights and duties and includes active and social participation by most people.Footnote ³³

The Egyptian case

In the nineteenth century, Egyptian nationalism was at a more advanced stage than Arab nationalism in the Fertile Crescent. This development was largely due to the geographical demarcation of Egypt within the borders of the Nile Valley and the creation of a local dynasty led by the house of Muḥammad ʿAlī, which initiated processes of political centralisation and reforms in economic, social, and cultural realms.Footnote ³⁴ The contribution made by reformist, outward-looking ulema in forging a distinctive Egyptian identity should not be underestimated. Among them were Rifāʿa Rāfiʿ at-Ṭahṭāwī (d. 1873), an educator and social reformer who was deeply engaged with Egyptian history and geography. In many of his writings, at-Ṭahṭāwī spoke in praise of Egyptian patriotism (al-waṭaniyya al-miṣriyya), which he saw as a central axis of social order and an important element in the prospering of a healthy and progressive civilisation that contrasts with barbarism.Footnote ³⁵

Another figure was Muḥammad ʿAbduh (d. 1905), one of the architects of Islamic reformism, who remained connected to Egypt by virtue of his family ties and involvement in promoting reform in al-Azhar institutions, despite the fact that he was primarily concerned with determining the causes of the decline of Islamic societies. He made frequent references to the prophetic hadith ‘Love of one’s country is a part of faith’)ḥubb al-waṭan min al-imān), imbuing it with a local patriotism that encompasses more than a simple affinity of people for their dwelling places.Footnote ³⁶ ʿAbduh fulfilled this hadith himself through his active participation in the ʿUrābī revolt (1879–1882), which began as a rebellion incited by embittered military officers under the leadership of Aḥmad ʿUrābī and gradually became a proto-nationalist liberation movement. Its adversaries were not just the Turco-Circassians controlling both the military and the administration but also the Europeans whose growing influence in Egyptian affairs rendered the ruler of Egypt and Sudan, Khedive Tawfīq (d. 1892), helpless. At the time, ʿAbduh was the editor-in-chief of the official gazette al-Waqāʾiʿ al-Miṣriyya (Egyptian Chronicles), which he used as a mouthpiece of rebellion.Footnote ³⁷ Another pro-ʿUrābī shaykh was Ḥusayn al-Marṣafī (d. 1890), a senior lecturer in Arabic language and literature at Dār al-ʿUlūm.Footnote ³⁸ In his ‘Treatise on Eight Words’ (Risālat al-Kalim al-Thamān, 1881), al-Marṣafī, who was very much under the influence of French culture, sought to lay the ideological foundations for a modern, enlightened, Muslim society. In such a society, he argued, ‘fraternal ties prevail among the people […] no one is afraid to express his view, or averse to having it refuted; the goal that everyone can see is the bringing of justice’.Footnote ³⁹ He put forth the idea of a harmonious society by discussing such concepts as nation, homeland, just government, nobility, politics, freedom, and education.Footnote ⁴⁰ He thus posited that the Islamic world could participate in the newly developed universality of the nineteenth century, upholding novel concepts of state and society.

Al-Marṣafī’s essay opened with a discussion of the ideas of nation and homeland, thus marking them as the cornerstone for other ideas about government and society. His definition of nation was broader than the traditional model of pious followers of the Prophet Muḥammad. He defined nation as a group of people connected by language, location, and religion. He discussed each of these, in this order. Shared language (lisan) leads to a sense of community. It fosters social integration, encourages solidarity, and prevents alienation and evil-doing. Al-Marṣafī saw common language as ‘the most fitting identity for a nation’. He defined the second foundation as a place occupied by the nation—a piece of land (arḍ) with four borders and a distinctive name.Footnote ⁴¹ Al-Marṣafī drew an analogy between this land and a private home: ‘The land for the people of the nation should be what a house is for its owner: just as the owner of the house is not willing to allow anyone to enter his house without permission, so no one is allowed to enter the land. If everyone could enter the land and do as they please, then the nation would be in a worse condition than animals.’Footnote ⁴²

The third and final element of al-Marṣafī’s definition of a nation was religion, in this case Islam. According to him, the nation consisted of followers of the Prophet, and different schools of thought and religious interpretations within it should not lead to enmity or civil war. Al-Marṣafī warned that such behaviour would indicate a lack of faith.Footnote ⁴³ As a religious scholar by training, he assigned the ulema the task of guiding the nation towards righteousness and justice. To this end they needed to be pure and possess enlightened thought, deep understanding of good and evil, and flexibility in the face of changing circumstances. However, as a reformist striving to effect religious renewal, al-Marṣafī mounted a fierce assault against establishment ulema. He accused them of ignorance, polemics, and incitement, and of neglecting to safeguard the contentment of the nation—and all of this in exchange for positions, benefits, and luxuries offered by corrupt leaders.

The key to setting the nation on the right path, al-Marṣafī argued, much in line with Muḥammad ʿAbduh and other reformists, such as ʿAbd Allāh al-Nadīm, ʿAbd al-Hādī al-Abyārī, Ḥamzah Fatḥ Allāh, and Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, lay in expanding the circle of freedom and educational reforms. According to al-Marṣafī, the only interpretation of freedom is the right of a person to live a good and secure life while contributing to the common good of the nation, without exceeding one’s rights and usurping those of others. Otherwise, one becomes like a predatory animal that does not distinguish between what is beneficial or harmful so that it must be punished. Al-Marṣafī did not clarify whether this concerned political rights or the limitation of a ruler’s power, but one can assume that this would be his approach in light of his identification with the ʿUrābī revolt against Khedive Tawfīq—a leader perceived as having trampled the rights and dignity of Egyptian society, abandoning it to the mercy of British colonialism. As to the field of education, seen as an imperative on the way to the coalescence of a nation, al-Marṣafī placed it on a list of three markers of modernity: schools that teach useful subjects (i.e., modern sciences); intellectual salons and communal forums for imparting respect for other people’s views; and newspapers that raise public awareness of events that are for the greater good while levelling harsh criticism at unworthy social phenomena.Footnote ⁴⁴

After addressing the concept of nation, al-Marṣafī moved on to the homeland (waṭan) which he saw as analogous to the human body—a vessel for the soul. Inhabitants of the land were obligated to treat it as they would their own private domains, striving for the highest quality and standards of engineering so that the structures would engender comfort and happiness as well as protect them from seasonal weather changes. The inhabitants should invest their intelligence and knowledge in the land so that everyone might benefit. They should defend it and nurture it to guarantee their security, the honour of their women, and their possessions. When every individual contributes to mending bridges, digging canals, or serving in the military, ‘everyone can live a tranquil life’, asserted al-Marṣafī.Footnote ⁴⁵

Discussing the nation and its physical (land) and cultural (language and religion) traits enabled al-Marṣafī to speak of an Egyptian nation, a Ḥijāzī nation, and so forth. Admission to the nation was reserved for those who came of their own volition and for a worthy purpose—to be of assistance, be hosted, or live there, but at the discretion of the local authorities.Footnote ⁴⁶ The fact that every nation was bound by language, land, and unique customs did not amount to separatism or aversion to the surrounding nations, clarified al-Marṣafī. On the contrary, nations often had need of one another; for example, for access to resources like quarries. Because of this dependence, all nations should recognise one another and maintain agreements and accords for maximum benefit to all.Footnote ⁴⁷ Al-Marṣafī’s perception of an international system within which nations were sovereign and independent was influenced not just by the European notion of the nation state but by the Egyptian reality in which he lived. The country was faced with increasing foreign involvement in its internal affairs and appropriation of its resources—the Suez Canal foremost. No wonder then that he endorsed the ʿUrābī revolt and provided intellectual and political ammunition for its struggle against European colonialism.

Further support for the theme of defending the nation and land from foreign intervention was provided by ʿAlī Mubārak (d. 1893), an educator and bureaucrat from a distinguished religious family. Mubārak strove to mediate between the followers of ʿUrābī and Khedive Tawfīq. In the end, however, he remained loyal to the latter and was rewarded with an appointment as the minister of public works. He published a science-fiction novel in 1882, shortly before the British conquest, in which he related the travels of one Azhari shaykh throughout Europe. At one point, the shaykh recorded a meeting with a French intellectual who bemoaned the Egyptian population’s hostility towards French rule in Egypt between 1798 and 1801. This, he complained, despite the French having saved the country from the exploitative Mamluks and instituted reforms for the welfare of the people. The shaykh responded that it is a well-known truth that defending the land is the duty of the collective, and there was no distinction between master and slave, dignitary, and criminal.Footnote ⁴⁸

The ʿUrābī revolt was a key event in the formation of modern Egyptian nationalism. Various constituents of the Egyptian intelligentsia—bureaucrats, lawyers, journalists, students, and ulema—assumed active roles alongside the military. Among the ulema, there were not only reformist-oriented writers, like the above-mentioned ʿAbduh, al-Marṣafī, and ʿAbd Allāh al-Nadīm, but also conservative-minded scholars regarding issues such as reforms in Islamic thought and in the Azhar curriculum, the public role of Sufism, or the status of women and religious minorities. However, the danger of foreign conquest also impelled them to cooperate with their reformist rivals. Among them were muftis, preachers, heads of distinguished families (ashrāf), and heads of Sufi fraternities, who served as religious emissaries in distant regions like Asyut, Damietta, and Port Said. They enlisted material resources at their disposal—mosques, madrasas, zawiyas (Sufi lodges), and charitable societies; as well as spiritual-religious resources—sermons, fatwas in the cause of jihad—and sacrifice in the face of belligerence from Britain and its local allies in the Egyptian government. The slogan, in leaflets and on billboards, ‘Egypt for Egyptians’, was largely congruent with the agenda of leading ulema who supported the revolt and were physically present on the battlefield. They even approved the deposition of Khedive Tawfīq, who appeared as a protégé of foreign powers that had strayed from the path of Islam (māriq). At the same time, they declared ʿUrābī the ‘protector of Egyptian land’ (Ḥāmī al-Diyār al-Miṣriyyah).Footnote ⁴⁹ Defending the religion and defending the homeland were one and the same. Defending the religion against a heretical and destructive aggressor justified the existence of Islam as the ultimate revelation; defending the homeland provided its particularistic identity and was incumbent on all members of the nation, regardless of creed or language.

For Muḥammad al-Qāyātī (d. 1902), who was affiliated with al-Azhar and was leader of the Qāyātiyyah fraternity in the Minya governorate in Upper Egypt, the rallying of the ulema and Sufi shaykhs in defence of the ‘beloved homeland’ was both natural and imperative. This was incumbent on any nation attacked by another.Footnote ⁵⁰ Al-Qāyāti’s senior colleague, Muḥammad ʿIllaysh (d. 1882), who was the Mālikī mufti at al-Azhar, also declared allegiance to the Egyptian entity, denounced Khedive Tawfīq as a traitor, and was among the instigators of the fatwa for his deposition. Notably, in 1840 and following the French incursion into Algeria, ʿIllaysh asserted that it was the duty of all Muslims to emigrate because the land had been conquered by heretics who had a marked military advantage. His rationale, based on historical precedents of Muslim withdrawals from Sicily and Spain, was that emotional ties to a land were not reason enough to stay. Leaving was a religious imperative designed to ensure survival and sanctuary, keeping men from death and women and children from slavery.Footnote ⁵¹ Forty-two years later, in 1882, when the British invaded Egypt, his homeland and birthright, ʿIllaysh did not preach emigration. On the contrary, he called for an uncompromising holy war. Thus, he and other ulema supporters of ʿUrābī played a role in fortifying the distinctive Egyptian ethnic and communal sensibility. They even paid a weighty personal price when the revolt was suppressed by the British. ʿIllaysh was taken from his home, ill, and died in a prison infirmary.Footnote ⁵² Significantly, the British conquest of Egypt resulted in both reformist and conservative ulema incarcerated together behind bars or exiled.

The ʿUrābī episode never matured into a declared nationalist movement that sought explicit and absolute separation from the Ottoman empire. The leaders of the revolt made certain to demonstrate their allegiance to the sovereign authority of Sultan ʿAbdulḥamīd II (1876–1909). They even requested his mediation during the crisis. Partly for fear of foreign intervention in Egypt, the sultan eventually chose to condemn them for rebelling against the legitimate authority of the khedive, his official representative in Egypt.Footnote ⁵³

The Syrian case

The echoes of the Egyptian crisis of 1881–1882 also impacted the situation in Syria. The Ottoman administrator there, headed by Governor Ḥamdī Pasha, expressed a double concern following both the increase in tensions between Muslims and Christians within Syria and the formation of a separative Arab national movement. This concern turned out to be exaggerated since public order in Damascus and other Syrian cities was maintained. Most of the Muslims expressed sympathy with ʿUrābī, yet did not see him as a national leader but as a Muslim leader who waged a holy war against an aggressor Christian force. In their eyes, it was a war against unbelievers.Footnote ⁵⁴

Syria at the time of the ʿUrābī revolt in Egypt reveals a more embryonic stage of pre-nationalism in the sense of self-identity, but it is still worthy of documentation and monitoring of the evolution of Arab national consciousness, which began to mature mainly following the centralised Ottoman policy in the Arabic-speaking provinces of the empire at the end of the nineteenth century. The ideological credo of Sultan ʿAbdulḥamīd II was of religion not only as a driving force for unity and solidarity throughout the empire but also as a basis for obedience and loyalty on the part of his subjects. Unlike the progressive legislation, known as Tanẓīmāt (1839–1876), in which the emphasis was on loyalty to the state, ʿAbdulḥamīd placed maximum emphasis on personal loyalty; that is, loyalty to the sultan. This approach sheds light on his efforts to emphasise his status as divine instrument of salvation in the world, which he used as a means of appealing directly to the religious loyalty of his Muslim subjects. This policy went hand in hand with the tightening of Istanbul’s grip on matters of administration and education in the Arabic-speaking provinces and provoked growing resentment among local circles, especially in Syria. The population questioned ʿAbdulḥamīd’s claim to serve as caliph, given what they defined as his tyrannical and unjust rule. The crushing defeat the Russian army inflicted on the Ottoman military in the winter of 1877–1878 also increased the fears in Arab circles that Syria could also be defeated by foreign forces.Footnote ⁵⁵

These were mainly local Christian Arab intellectuals, who were members of the bourgeois middle class and had, as early as the mid nineteenth century, promoted territorial conceptions of Syria with a secular interpretation of Arab culture that obscured interreligious and ethnic differences.Footnote ⁵⁶ Muslim counterparts did not necessarily uphold a secular view but shared both an emphasis on the self-identity of Syria and the highlighting of the unique status of the Arabs within Islamic history. An important intellectual impetus for Arab identity was provided by ulema, who were depicted as modernist Salafis (those who espoused returning to pristine Islam and its pious predecessors, as-salaf al-ṣāliḥ). They aspired to a synthesis between Islam and modernity, and to the assimilation of values such as rationality, scientific thinking, and freedom, thus aiming to resolve the quandary of how to be both modern and a believer. At the same time, these intellectuals sought the revival of the Arabic language and literature (turāth), as well as political power, granting the Arabs a pioneering role in the creation of Muslim civilisation. A number of them also became actively involved in Arab secret societies that were formed in Syria between 1908 and 1914.Footnote ⁵⁷ Among them were ʿAbd ar-Rāziq al-Bīṭār, Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī, Muḥammad Saʿīd al-Qāsimī, Muḥammad al-Shāṭī, Aḥmad al-Jazāʾirī, Ṭāhir al-Jazā’irī, Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Zahrāwī, and ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī.Footnote ⁵⁸

In his two seminal works, Ṭabāʾiʿ al-Istibdād (The Nature of Tyranny) and Umm al-Qurā (The Mother of Cities: Mecca), al-Kawākibī articulated the ethnic and cultural divide between Turks and Arabs.Footnote ⁵⁹ He accused the Turkish rulers of political oppression of and contempt for the subjects of the empire, while lauding the Arabs for exemplifying the principles of equality and freedom, which he crowned as ‘the most precious thing to a person after his life, when its loss leads to the loss of hopes, the suffocation of human activity and the death of the soul’. He also posited freedom as the cornerstone of a representative-parliamentary government, where every person had the right to express their opinions in accordance with the hadith: ‘Each of you is a shepherd and each of you is responsible for his flock.’ On the other hand, he said, a nation that did not know the value of freedom and the virtue of justice, and did not see itself with a role in life other than subordination to the one who wielded power, became a humiliated nation.Footnote ⁶⁰ He called—and this distinguished him from his colleagues—for the establishment of an Arab caliphate, its spiritual character akin to that of the papacy and the Vatican, and distinguished by discrete and independent political entities. Al-Kawākibī listed some basic principles of the Arab caliphate: the caliph’s rule will apply only to Ḥijāz (clause 2); the caliph will not interfere at all in the political and administrative affairs of the sultanates and the emirates (clause 12); under the command of the caliph there will be no use of military force, and his name will be mentioned in sermons before the names of the sultans, but he will not appear on coins (clause 14).Footnote ⁶¹

Arab identity was also an organic part of the reformist ideas of ʿAbd al-Hamīd al-Zahrāwī (d. 1916). Like al-Kawākibī, he emphasised the noble qualities of the Arabs, but he went further in tracing the existence of an Arab nation even before the appearance of Islam in the seventh century. He opposed the claim that before Islam the Arabs were insignificant. On the contrary, he argued, they were an important regional player, since the Persians, Byzantines, and Jews had been in close contact with them. Unlike other peoples, the Arabs were one nation with one language, one genealogy, and one land. Al-Zahrāwī presented these ideas in his book Ḫadījah Umm al-Muʾminīn (Ḫadījah, Mother of the Believers). Although this was a biography of Ḫadījah, the Prophet’s first wife (d. 619), al-Zahrāwī enlisted it to formulate an early pan-Arab story, claiming that the Arabs did not need Islam to emerge from the darkness of ignorance and to establish a noteworthy civilisation. It was their already advanced culture that led God to entrust them with the responsibility of spreading the new message. Al-Zahrāwī, much like al-Kawākibī, created a strong identification between Arabness and civil society, which he positioned as an antithesis to Turkishness and political tyranny. He glorified the ‘Arab republic’ in Mecca, even prior to Islam, which enjoyed full political freedom; hence, the revival of Arab identity also implied the establishment of a democratic regime in which equality was to prevail among all people, regardless of class distinctions.Footnote ⁶²

Al-Kawākibī, al-Zahrāwī, and other reformist ulema laid the groundwork for a civic politics, mainly by means of print culture. Though they stirred up lively public debates, their influence was limited. Polemics, excommunication, and marginalisation from their rivals in the religious learning community, along with political oppression by the Ottoman authorities, left them at the margins of consensus. This sidelining should not, however, obscure their pioneer contribution to the emergence of a distinct Arab identity. Still, their explicit demand was for cultural and administrative autonomy in the Arabic-speaking provinces, not for detachment from empire and the creation of a separate Arab polity.Footnote ⁶³ In other words, Arab identity, much like Egyptian identity in the second half of the nineteenth century, was what Hobsbawm called ‘pseudo-modern patriotism’, namely a patriotism lacking a political vision or agenda for an independent and sovereign entity with well-defined geographical borders and state strategy.Footnote ⁶⁴ No wonder then that Arabs, like Egyptians, remained loyal subjects of the Ottoman empire.

The emergence of Arab secret societies towards the end of the Ottoman period emboldened Arab identity and lent it organisational and political substance. These societies cultivated local patriotism (amongst others in Syria, Iraq, and Lebanon) alongside eliciting general Arab nationalist sentiment. Their emergence on the Arab scene was a reaction to the ascendence of the Young Turks in Istanbul (1908–1914), which had tightened the central government’s hold on the Arabic-speaking provinces and embarked on the Turkification of language, education, and administration. This policy echoed the strengthening of Turkish nationalist identity (mainly conveyed via its spokesperson Ziya Gökalp) and the resounding defeat the Italians inflicted on the empire in Libya (1911) and in the Balkan Wars (1912–1913).Footnote ⁶⁵

Two leading reformist figures played key roles in the establishment of the Arab secret societies: al-Zahrāwī and Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (d. 1935). Both had journalistic training and held influential positions in the nascent Arab politics. They were among the representatives who brought their demands to the government in Istanbul. Al-Zahrāwī and Riḍā were members, respectively, of the Young Arab Society (al-Fatāh), and the Ottoman Party for Administrative Decentralisation (Ḥizb al-Lāmarkaziyyah al-Iidāriyyah al-ʿUthmānī). Both were persecuted by the Ottoman authorities. Al-Zahrāwī met a bitter end: he was arrested in 1916, accused of grave treason, and executed. Riḍā’s fate was very different. In 1898, he moved to Cairo, where he became renowned as the founder and editor of the Islamic periodical al-Manār (The Lighthouse), a platform for the dissemination of Pan-Arabism. Riḍā supported the Arab revolt of 1916–1917 against the Ottoman empire and participated in negotiations with the British regarding the establishment of an Arab state under the leadership of Sharīf Ḥusayn of Mecca.Footnote ⁶⁶

Rida’s close disciple Muḥibb al-Dīn al-Khaṭīb (d. 1969) edited al-Qiblah (the direction to which Muslims turn in prayer, i.e. towards Mecca), Ḥusayn’s official publication.Footnote ⁶⁷ Al-Qiblah’s first editorial described the Arab revolt as a blessed movement, stating that it aimed to serve the cause of Islam and the Arab nation. Following his teacher, Ṭāhir al-Jazāʾirī (d. 1920), who enthusiastically supported the outbreak of the revolt, al-Khaṭīb declared that every nation had the right to life and that the Arab nation was especially deserving for renewing its social life, as it had done in the past, since this would revive Islamic civilisation and resurrect the entire Islamic East. The Ottoman Arabs thought that it was possible to fulfil their demands for progress and remain Ottomans, al-Khaṭīb stated, but the Ottoman Committee of Union and Progress often accused them of treason and of forcibly oppressing other peoples, such as the Arabs, Albanians, Kurds, Circassians, and others. Al-Khaṭīb made it clear that the hatred of the Turks was not based on ethnicity but developed against the background of corruption, aggression, destruction, and ignorance they had imposed throughout the empire.Footnote ⁶⁸

In the wake of the Arab revolt and on the eve of the Great War, Arab ideology moved from a call for autonomy in the late nineteenth century to the more focused goal of an independent state with a federative government and the protection of minority rights. This shift heralded the transformation of Arabism from an ethnolinguistic entity with no political aspirations to one that called for political rights and national sovereignty.

Prospect: ulema and the nation state

In premodern times, the cultural world of the ulema ascribed an important place to local communal identities within the broader framework of a unified Islamic faith. They contributed to the promotion of a shared awareness by bridging the gap between high and low culture, and between the population and political authorities, including by means of public ceremonies and celebrations in the streets of central cities.Footnote ⁶⁹ They were thus an important factor in effecting early ethnic and cultural manifestations of nationalist identity in the Middle East. Some, mainly reformist-oriented ulema, even contributed, in theory and in practice, to the formation of organised national movements with the changing of the guards, that is the fall of the Ottoman empire and the establishment of territorial entities in the early twentieth century. They also cultivated tools from Islamic jurisprudence in serving the agenda of national elites such as ijitihād (legal reasoning) and maṣlaḥah (the common good). According to the Syrian thinker Jamāl al-Dīn al-Qāsimī (d. 1914), the guiding rationale in Islamic law was the understanding that laws were constructed to lead mankind to happiness in this world and the next. A true mujtahid is one who carefully investigates new issues that arise as a result of changing circumstances, examines the evidence, and exercises judgment, without relying on the knowledge and ways of thinking of previous ulema.Footnote ⁷⁰ Such judicial mechanisms as ijtihād and maṣlaḥah encouraged the adaptation of Islamic law to modern conditions and were an important lever for promoting the parliamentary civic legislation needed to advance national policies.

Reformist ulema were exposed to fierce criticism and polemics by colleagues in the scholarly community, colleagues of a more conservative bent regarding marital and social matters. Even the latter, however, did not defy the national order taking shape before their eyes. After all, some of them had been born in semi-autonomous political entities and perceived these as natural and legitimate. According to Anthony Smith, religious visions could be universal, but what determined their true nature was their local features. It is this basis that empowered and formed communities.Footnote ⁷¹

Two main insights underlie the encounter between ulema and nationalism: Firstly, the significance of religion and its spokespersons in the formation of national consciousness in the Middle East—a crucial element that the modernist school of Gellner, Hobsbawm, and Anderson did not pay sufficient attention to because they viewed nations as modern social constructions and hence saw no value in attributing pre-national foundations to them. And secondly, the view of history (taʾrīkh) as a concept that is not rigid and remote but an inseparable part of the present. As such, nostalgia for the past is not necessarily and a priori something fictitious, adapted to political circumstances, but can also be authentic. In the words of Israel Gershoni, ‘Nationalism is simultaneously real and imagined, authentic and invented, concrete and discursive.’Footnote ⁷² Having at its disposal doctrines, texts, liturgy, myths, symbols, ceremonies, rituals, and monuments, religion is part of the sacred properties of a nation and plays a paramount role in nationalist ideology, fostering a self-designated ‘people’ aspiring to political nationhood.Footnote ⁷³

With the birth of organised, political, nationalist movements in the Middle East in the early twentieth century, such as the Wafd Party in Egypt or the National Block in Syria, the role of the ulema in forging national identity became formalised, systematic, and more significant. They did not reach the level of involvement that the Christian clergy did in Poland and Ireland, in the sense of becoming the guardians of the local political community and hence by definition more ethnic and nationalist.Footnote ⁷⁴ Still, a similar evolution did occur in the Middle Eastern context, as religious institutions became nationalised and assimilated, and restructured against a backdrop of the struggle for anti-colonial liberation and state-building.

Still, as Sunni establishments became national institutions, they also set moral boundaries. While most of the ulema did, as had their forerunners throughout history, adhere to political quietism, acknowledging the authority of the regime, they were nevertheless more assertive on issues of public morality. They opposed religious scepticism and what they perceived as immoral behaviour and protected the authority of Sharia in matters of personal status.Footnote ⁷⁵ They were careful to draw a distinction between knowledge (ʿilm), which is universal and aims to promote human well-being, and culture (thaqāfa), which is unique to each and every nation. In the case of the Muslims, Islam is the foundation of their culture and must hence be guarded.Footnote ⁷⁶ In a 1904 essay published by Rector al-Azhar Muḥammad al-Ẓawāhirī (1929–1935) entitled al-ʿIlm wa-l-ʿUlamāʾ (knowledge and the religious scholars), he outlined their social role in the challenging modern reality:

A useful prism for monitoring the straggle of the ulema over public morality in the era of nation states is provided by fatwas or legal opinions from the two discussed cases, Egypt and Syria, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regarding the civic status of religious minorities and women. These two social groups received special emphasis in the national discourse in its quest for an inclusive political community based on the principle of citizenship (muwāṭanah). A study of these fatwas shows that only some of the ulema adopted a civil position and perceived Islam as a social religion, which fosters the spirit of community and concern for the well-being of all people.Footnote ⁷⁸ Most of the fatwas, some of whose authors directly or indirectly served as tools for the formation of a national consciousness, were characterised by defiance against the improvement of the civil status of women and religious minorities, thus revealing internal tensions between acceptance the existence of modern territorial entities and a struggle for their cultural orientation in a way that would be consistent with the commandment of Islam.Footnote ⁷⁹

In retrospect, the ulema’s assertiveness on public morality disclosed a defensive Islamic discourse in the face of state-building and reshaping of a collective identity along national lines. The national ethos sought to position itself at the core of the individual’s identity and loyalty. It claimed sole monopoly of historical memory and cultivated a myth of shared ancestry, striving to create what Michael Herzfeld called ‘cultural intimacy’ between communities and groups in society, based on ethnolinguistic kinship experiences.Footnote ⁸⁰ In this process of state formation and shaping of the ‘national self’ in relation to other nationalities, religion shifted from a sacred cosmic order to being one of several components of collective identity, along with ethnicity, kinship, territory, history, language, culture, and literature. Although religion was not removed from the frame of secular modernity, it was nevertheless subjugated to modern political nationalism and mobilised to advance worldly causes, sanctifying territory and modern institutions, as well as the willingness of citizens to die for the homeland.

However, the fragility of Arab politics in the context of socio-economic upheavals impelled a reliance on heightened state loyalty to Islam as a prime source of legitimacy in offsetting political rivals. Budgets, positions, official iftāʾ bodies, and publications were granted by the state to religious establishments. These assets enabled Sunni ulema to emerge as a pressure group, buoyed by their designation in the Islamic tradition as the ‘heirs of the prophets’ or, in Benedict Anderson’s modern phrase, as a ‘strategic strata in a cosmological hierarchy of which the apex was divine’.Footnote ⁸¹