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Ahmad Amin: creating an Islamic identity

Veronica H. Dyck
Institute of Islamic Studies
McGill University, Montreal

A thesis submitted to the


Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research
in partial fulfi1lment of the
requirements for the degree of
Masters of Arts

S Veronica H. Dyck
1988
ABSTRACT

Author: Veronica Helen Dyck

Title: A~mad Amin: creating an Islamic identity

Department: Institute of Islamic Studies


McGill University

Degree: Masters of Arts

This thesis is a study of the 20th century Egyptian intel-

lectual A~mad Amin (1886-1954). Amin lived and workcd in ~

time of critical political, social and cultural change. He

witnessed the struggle for independence, the experiment wi th

parliament, and the 1930s and 40s when alternative groups ex-

posed the failure of the politicians. The graduaI shift from

a traditional out1ook ta a more Westernized orientation reflec-

ted in his life is perhaps a portrait of the transitions maqy

Egyptians have made in this century. The thesis looks at thv

- historical events during Amin' s life, tracing sorne of the socLll

and cultural trends and those events which seemed to influence'

him. It outlines Amin's biography, relating the experience~

which shaped his world view and surveys sorne themes and topic~

found in Ahmad Amin's writings. These reflect his ethical

and moral concerns as a social critic and advocate of retoflll

as he brought traditional and modern elements together in [Ill

authentic Islamic identity.

-
,
RESUME

Auteure: Veronica Helen Dyck

Titre: A~mad Amin: l'mergence d'une identit islamique

Dpartement: Institut des tudes islamiques


Universit McGill

Diplme: Matrise s Arts


-- - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - -- -- - - - - - - - --- - - -- - - - - - ---- - --- --- ---- - - - - -
Cette thse porte sur l'oeuvre et la vie d'Ahmad Amin

(1886-1954). un intellectuel gyptien du XX e sicle. Amin

vcut et travailla donc durant une poque de bouleversements

politiques. sociaux et culturels. Il fut tmoin de la lutte

pour l'indpendance, de l'exprience parlementaire et de la

priode agite des annes trente et quarante au cours de la-

quelle les groupes d'opposants au rgime critiqurent vivement

les politiciens. Sa pense glissa graduellement d'une orienta-

( tion traditionnelle vers une perspective plus occidentale-

et ceci correspond peut-tre l'volution vcue par beaucoup

d'autres gyptien-ne-s au XX e sicle. La thse prsente un

aperu historique des principaux vnements qui eurent lieu

pendant la vie d'Amin; il cerne les tendances sociales et

culturelles ainsi que les forces qui semblent l'avoir influ-

enc. Elle consiste en une biographie d'Amin. axe surtout

sur les expriences qui ont marqu sa vision du monde et examine

quelques-uns des thmes et sujets traits dans les crits

d'Ahmad Amin. Ces crits rvlent les proccupations thiques



et morales d'une critique clairvo7~nte de la socit gyptienne

et d'un promoteur de rformes qui sut fusionner tradition et

modernit en une identit islamique authentique.


-

for my parents
TABLE OF CONTENTS

(.

Preface i
Table of Transliteration iv

Introduction 1

Chapter One 6

Chapter Two 34

Chapter Three 56

Conclusion 87

( Blbliography 91

(
i

PREFACE

Thi~ Etudy of A~mad Amin is an effort to ex~mine the life

and thought of an intellectual who lived through a critical time

of political, social and cultural change. His pi1grimage from

a traditional, conservative out1ook to a more ~esternized ori-

entation, while at the same time remaining committed to main-

taining an authentil: Is1amic identity, is perhaps a parlldi~lI\

of the journey Many Egyptian Muslims have made in this centurv.

Although Amin is not as we1l known as sorne of his co11eagues

(eg. lh ~usayn, a1- C Aqqad, Lufi al-Sayyid), there have been

a few articles and monographs concerning A~mad Amin, most no-

ta b 1 Y Will i am S hep a r cl Th e Fa i h of a 11 0 der 11 Hus I l ni III tell e ct LW l

( New De h 1 i, 1 9 8 2 ), A. M. H. Ma z y ad, Afi ni il d A 111 i Il ( C ,11 r o I 8 8 Il -

1954): Advocate of Socl.al and Ll.terary Reform (Leiden, 1963).

and "Al;1mad Amin and Lajnat al-ta'lif wa al-t/lrj/lI1l11h WD cll-

nashr," (unpub1ished PhD dissertation, Hartford, 1955) by Ken-

neth Crose. Shepard's work is more properly an inte11ectual-

spi r i t ua l bi 0 g r a ph y, wh i leM a z y ad s t r e s ses the con tri but i 0 Il ';

of Amin to modern Arabie literature and not a critical eX,IIIl!-

nation of his thought. Crose has a bronder picture in mi 1111

as he a 1 s o t r ace s the r e n ais san c e a fAr ab i c l i t p r il t Il re i Il I~ . -

neral, aspects of education in Egypt <lnd the contribution Il!

the Committee for Authorship, Translation and Publication If)

the cultural renaissance. This study examines an intellectu,t1

while remaining sensitive to factors such as Amin's social

origins, political influences and the cultural milieu in whidl


ii

{ he lived and wrote. Because Amin reflects the changes experi-

enced by his generation in Egypt during an important period

while he at the same time tried to maintain an authentic Islamie

identity, he merits more study than he had reeeived until now

by scholars.

Transliteration of Arabie words, names and places in this

thesis follows guidelines of the Institute of Islamie Studies,

McGill University, with the exception of a clrcumflex used in

place of a straight bar to indicate long vowels. An effort at

consistency has been made but sorne commonly anglicised words

sueh as Baghdad, sufi and Islam are printed without diaerities

exeept whpre an Arabie title or direct quotation is eited. A

copy of the transliteration table follows this preface.

l wish to acknowledge and thank those people who helped

me in the undertaking of this study. First, l want to express

my appreciation to the Institute of Islamic Studies for their

financial and other support. Thanks also goes to my advisor,

Dr. Charles J Adams, for his encouragement and suggestions.

This study would have been impossible without the invaluable

help of the library staff of the Islamic Studies Library, espe-

cially with "ill-fated" inter-library loans. Salah Hassan

kindly translated my abstract into French. l also wish ta

acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of those per-

sans who read this study in its original seminal' paper form.

A personal thank-you goes ta Dr. William L. Cleveland of Simon

( rraser University whose encouragement and the enthusiasm in


iii

Middle East studies which he inspired mean more than he knows.

Last, but certainly not least, l want to thank my family fot"

their patience, encouragement and support.


iv

( TRANSLITERATION TABLE

Instltute of Islamic Studies


McGill University

Consonants: initial: unexpressed; medial and final:

b d ,:) s f h
<....1
(Jo <J ~

t dh ~ d (.itJ q w
(...!}

th 0 r
J .b
t k ~ Y V'"

!o ~
j z z 1
Co )

.
h
~
s l..J-
c
f.., m
r
kh l, sh v:-:. gh
. n G
L

Vowels. diphthon&s, etc.


>
short: - a; ;- i ; - u.

long: ', <...9 ; ..


,-".

alif maq~rah:
,
<..J . diphthongs: y,/ay; /aw .
",.1
~
long with tashdid'
..
<-J-
",
iya; u.:J wa.

t' mdrbcah. t ah, in idfah: at.

(
1

Introduction

Our unde rs tanding 0 f the h 15 to ry 0 f particular time per lods

or social, political and cultural trends and movements can be

effectively enhanced by studying the historical contexts, live,;;

and thought of individuals who were actively involved in th0

subject under study. Most 0 ft e n pol i tic i ans, mil i ta r y 5 t r ,\ -

tegists and intellectuals are singled out. The increased em-

phasis in contemporary historiograp~y on social history, which

would include cultural and intellectual history, has made this

type of study of individual men and women more common. For

unexplainable reasons, Middle East and Islamic Studies hve

b e en s 1 0 we r th a n s 0 me 0 the r fie 1 d s 0 f hi s t 0 r y i n ma k in g li ~, l'

of th i s k i n d 0 f w r i t i n g . l I n e x ami n i n g the roI e 0 f the l cl (~ .1 "

-- of intellectuals as they affect development in the Middle Ea~t,

W. Cantwell Smith has defined the intellectul as f011ows'

"The intellectual i5 one who uses his mind to see


the world as it truly is. He is not <1ctionless;
and even more, the society which honors and follows
him is far from quiescent. Only, action is subor-
dinate to truth as best one sees it His raIe in
the contemporary Near East is surely crucial In
that region today what is there more important than
to see things clearly, and to know what the problems
and the goals really are? The ability an the will
to do are essential, but first is to kno", what should
bedone.,,2

lExamples from the last two decades coul include I..J. L


Cleveland, The Ha k i n g of a n A ra. b Nat i 0 Tl a I l st, (P r i ne e t 0 Il, l') 1 1 )
on Sti C al-Husr, and C. D. Smith Islam and the Search Lor
Sociai Order, (S.U.N.Y., 1983) on M. I:jusayn Haykal.

2 Wi 1 f r e de. S mit h, " The l n tel 1 e c t u il l s i n the ri 0 der Il D p -


velopment of the Islamic World," SocLal Forces in che HLdd}o
East, ed. Syd.1ey N. Fisher, (Ithaca' Cornell University Pu,','"
2

One of the men who should be included among such intellectuals

in Egypt of the 20th century is A~mad Amln.

.
Ahmad Amin, as a social critic, advocate of reform and

intellectual, is an individual whose life and writings illus-

trate the twentieth century quest to fuse traditional ideas

wi th modern sc iences and ideo' ogies to crt'ate an authentic

Islamic identity. The period in which he lived was important

in the development of Egypt and the Middle East as a whole.

Amin was born four years after the British occupation and died

two years after the Free Officers' coup of 1952. During that

period major changes occurred in polltical and social patterns;

education institutions on western models were established and

Egypt "experimented" with secular liberal parliamentary govern-


( ment. lt was also a period of upheaval and crisis. Soon after

the struggle for independence had been won it became apparent

that the needed social and economic reforms were not being

adequately applied. Some volces had aIl along protested the

adoption of western methods and ideologies, and when the govern-

ment continued to move from crisis to crisis in the 1930s and

1940s, alternative groups calling for radical conservatism in

politics and religion became increasingly active. Many formed

paramilitary wings which by the late 1940s could almost paralyze

government action by threats of violence and assassination.

Amin, along with other intellectuals, reflected these changes

and trends in his writings as he analyzed their causes


(
1955), pp. 203-204.
3
, '
4'
~
;
and called for reform as their solutions.

During his lifetime, A~mad Amin moved from the traditional

world-view of his father and the al-Azhar milieu to a western-

ized outlook that utilized secular, liberal ideologies. He

realized the wide gulf between these two traditions of learning

and the values and principles which supported their respective

views. His own life and writings reflects the effort to bring

them together into an integrated whole which takes the best

of both sides. His essays cite the image of "pruning and grnft-

ing"; he calls for scholars who will create the "missing link"

between traditional sciences and modern knowledge. Unlikl'

some of his better known colleagues (eg. !h ~usayn, M. ~usayn

Haykal, CAli cAbd al-R_iq), Amin never studied in the Wes t,

and he was more restrained in his embrace of the new ideas

For this reason he perhaps mirrors more accurately the kind of

intellectual pilgrimage made by most Egyptian Muslims in the

first ha1f of this century. Creating the " m issing link" irl

Amin's 1ife meant moving from his traditional background to d

more westernized orientation while remaining committed ta cre-

ating and maintaining an authentic Islamie identity.

Amin made contributions to writing the cultural hi~tory

of Islam, to literary criticism, and ta education. He was <t

social critic and an advocate of reform more than an innOVdlor

or architect of specifie politieal policies of reform. H per-

c e ive d the cri 5 i s 0 f hi s t i mes a 5 p r i ma r i 1 Y a rn 0 raI 0 ne. l! L (~

views on social and economic problems, politicnl institution~


4
( and his general cultural orientation were shaped by his convic-

tion that by allowing ijtihid the lslamic world could become

at least equal to the West and provide the needed moral leader-

ship of the world. He did not care if his simple clear style

made others debate whether to call him a scholar or a man of

letters.

Amin himself did not effect major change in Egypt, but he

provided that much needed "finger on the pulse". He did not

remain in an ivory tower but was extremely active in the schools

where he taught and in the committees and boards on which he

served. His students and his colleagues were touched by his

gentle manner. his commi ttment to truth in scholarship and

his courage to speak out for what he felt was right even at

the risk of his own position. Scholars in the West have not

noted his contribution to the same extent as his Arab

colleagues; Kenneth Cragg. Nadav Safran and Gustav von Grune-

baum are among the few well-known Western scholars who devote

more than a passing reference to Amin in their work. Recent

articles, monographs and translations of some of Amin's work

indicate that the oversight- is being corrected.

This thesis examines the life and writings of Ahmad Amin . .


The first chapter traces the historical events of Egypt, par-

ticularly those political, social and cultural changes which

had an impact on the intellectual community, including A?mad

Amin. The following chapter outlines the biography of Amin,


( showing his formative context and those experiences which seemed
5

to influence him. A major source for this chapter is Amin's

autobiography. The third chapter surveys themes and topies

in Ahmad Amin's writings, concentrating mostly on his essays .



These refleet his ethieal and moral coneerns as a social critic

and an advoeate of reform and his effort to create an authentic

Islamic identity.

The majority of Amin's writing remains untranslated into

Western languages. Wh e n ev e r po s s i b l e I have con sul te d the

original Arabie, but my limited knowledge of this language

has led me to also rely on those items whieh have b~en trans-

lated (noted in the Bibliography) and secondary sources which

made use of extensive translated citations.


Chapter One

The Middle East has never been entirely without contact

with the West. However, the intellectual, political, social

and cultural challenge of European and Western influence took

on a new intensity and urgency beginning very early in the 19th

century and continues into the present. For the Middle East

in general and for Egypt in particular, the event most often

seen as pivotaI in this regard is the invasion of Bonaparte

in 1798. (This is not meant to imply that the only stimulus

for change in this region came from "outside" or from the West

alone.) The ensuing circumstances allowed Muhammad cAli to

consolidate his rule over the country and initiate his reforms.

tI e w pat ter n s 0 f l a n d dis .t r i but ion we r e est a b 1 i s he d , E g Ypte n .

tered the international market through its cotton production,


(
and, most important, the foundations of a modern education

system were established through government schools and student

missions to Europe.

Although modernizing efforts experienced setbacks under

cAli' s successors, they received new lite under Ismcil who

continued agricultural and educational expansion, as weIl as

the famous development of the Suez Canal. There was the curious

development of parallel institutions such as the Mixed Courts

(1875) to adjudicate civil and commercial cases when one or

both parties were foreigners alongside the traditional sharicah

courts, and government schools to teach technical and agricul

tural sciences. Dr al c Ulm (1872) had the purpose of training


(
7

teachers in modern and traditional subjects, alongside the

old kuttAb system and al-Azhar. The new sehool was an important

institution in which there was an attempt to synthesize the

two areas of learning.

Whatever the instigators of these reforms thought, i t

was soon evident that the material changes eould not be divorced

from the ideologieal presuppositions whieh had given rise to

these developments in the West. Among a small group of intel-

lectuals and administrators, these changes were welcome, dncl

there was a strong desire to emulate Europe as an emerging po-

litieal awareness led to experiments in consitutional and re-

presentative government. "The more sustained the adoption of

European methods of administration, finance and legislatiol1

the more preponderant and lasting became the impact of Europv

upon politieal life."l Others were alarmed by the percpiv~d

threat to Islam and the series of defeats suffered by the oncv

powerful Ottoman Empire, defeats that seemed ta confirm what

the cri tics maintained: God had abandoned the Muslims becaUS0

they were unfaithful.

One of the most colorful and controversial figure,> of

the 1 a t ter h a 1 f 0 f the 1 9 the e n t ury w a s J a m l ..d - D i Il .11 - A f g Il d Il 1

(1839-97). He saw European imperialism as a grave thre,1L t 0

the Muslim community. Islam itself was in danger unless MuslilIIs

united and resisted this attack by all means available, inclu-

l P. J. Vat i k i 0 t i s, The His t 0 r y 0 f E g Y pt, 2 n d e d., (Lo n don:


Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1980), p. 125.
8

ding borrowing the necessary science, technology and methods

of organization from the West. The true spirit of Islam, ac-

cording to al-AfghAni, was not inconsistent with scientific

reason. Traditionalism (taq1id) and impure practice of religion

were to blame for the present condition of Muslims. 2 Al-AfghAni

is closely associated with the pan-Islamic ideology which was

dominant at the turn of the century. During his travels he

settled for a time in Egypt and became the teacher of a group

of mostly Azharite young men, including two men who were to

be influential in their own right, .


Muhammad cAbduh and Sacd

Zaghll. 3

Khedive IsmA c ll, despite his failures, did foster a sense

of national pride. He resumed the practice of sending student


( missions abroad, he founded new schools, established a national

library and a national museum. 4 However, the financial mis-

management which occurred during his reign led to a financial

crisis and bankruptcy. His taxation polleies and agrarian

policies forced many peasants, including ~he family of Ahmad



Amin's father, to abandon their land and flee to the cities. 5

2Kenneth Cragg, Counse1s in Contemporary Islam, Islamic


Surveys 3, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1965), p.
35.

3Albert Hourani, Arabie Thought in the Liberal Age 1798-


1939, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), p. 109.

4 Jama l M. Ahmed, The Inte11ectua1 Origins of Egyptian


Nationa1ism, (London: Oxford University Press, 1960), p. 15.

5A~mad Amin, My Lite: The Autobiography of an Egyptian


( Scholar, Writer and Cultural Leader, transl. & intro. Issa
Boullata, (Leiden: E. J. Brill,1978), p. 11.
9

Finally the massive debt to European creditors combined with

the uprising of army officers headed bv .


Ahmad Pasha cUrAbi

provided the excuse for the British occupation of Egypt, further

underlining the apparent weakness of the Islamic community.

The British presence marked a new phase in the response

of Egyptians to the West and its institutions. "The years from

1882 to the first Wor1d War constituted, indeed, a truly form-

ative period in the ideo1ogica1 and historical evolution ol'

modern Egypt." 6 Egypt after the occupation became a refuge

for those students, writers and politicians who were experi-

encing trouble in those Arab lands still under Ottoman rulp

Many important j ournals and newspapers, such as Jurj i Zaydan' <;

al - Hi l 1 in 1 8 9 2, we r e est a}: 1 i s he d bY the s e e mi gr es. Thi~

paper endeavored ta foster popular interest in literature,

sociology, science and history, as well as being a channel of

knowledge from the rest of the world to Egypt. A numbel' of

prominent Egyptians used its pages as a forum for expressing

their new ideas, among them A~mad Amin.

The key figure in this period, indeed in the history oi

the modern Middle East, was Shaykh Mu~ammad cAbduh (1849-190~)

Mul:ammad cAbduh was an early disciple of al-Afghni. When Ile

was sent into exile for his political activity, he spent time

with al-Afghni in Paris where they together published a journal

6Nadav Safran, Egypt in Search of Political Comfllllllily:


An Analysls of the Intellectual and PoLltlcal Evolution 01
Egypt, 1804-1952, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19()1),
p. 54.
10

(. which suggested reasons for the present state of Muslim weakness

under European domination, and argued for a new, true interpre-

tation of Islam which would be the remedy for this state of

affairs. He returned to Egypt and eventually gave up the po1i-

tical activism of his mentor, concentrating rather on re1igious

and cultural reform. This reform he came to believe was the

prerequisite for political change. He perceived that there

was a growing division in society between two spheres, one where

the princip1es of Islam governed, the other where the princip1es

of human reason ruled. Unless these two realms were bridged

toge the r, the moral basis of society was in dange r. cAbduh

worked towards this purpose, not by resisting change or return-

ing to the past, but by "linking that change with the principles

of Islam: by showing that the changes which were taking place

were not only permitted by Islam, but were indeed its necessary

implications if it was rightly understood .... "7 He taught at

al-Azhar and became a member of the Administrative Council,

created in 1895 to improve conditions and reform the curriculum.

He a1so lectured at Dr al-cUlm, and advocated the improvement

of the written Arabie language. He was also a member of the

Legislative Couneil. After he beeame Mufti, he prepared a

report in 1899 suggesting improvement in the training of judges

in the religious courts who were inadequately trained for the

prob1ems faeing Egyptians under these changed conditions.

The laws also needed to be reformed 50 as to be more in tune

( 7Hourani, .1rabic Th-:>uj!ht in che Llberal Age, p. 139.


11

- with the needs of society.8

The next two generations inherited the legacy of Mu~ammad

cAbduh, and among them stood key figures who were to initiate

the Many changes which Egypt underwent. They tended to follow

one of two trends, either the reformist approach of someone

like Ras.hld R1~a, or the rationalist libera1 phi1osophy of

men lik~ A~mad Lutfi al-Sayyid or Sacd Zagh1l. 9 These men were

among those who had benefitted from an exposure to Western-

style education. Now events like the Russo-Japanese war, the

CAqaba incident and the agitation surrounding the shootings

at Dinshawy contributed to the growth of pan-Islamic sentiment

and heightened anti-British sentiments in Egypt. This was

the historical context in which these individua1s began their

active participation in politics. lO

Under the relatively liberal censorship of the British,

newspapers and journals flourished, and contrary to the conven-

tional scenario in which a political party establishes a paper

as its mouthpiece, parties tended to form around the variou5

newspapers. In 1ate 1907 the National Party (al-hizb al-watanl)


8Walid Kazziha, "The Jar1dah-Ummah Group and Egyptian


Politics," l1iddle East Studies XIII, (Octoher 1977), p. 374.
Also: Ahmed, Intellectual Origins, p. 38.

9Safran, Egypt in Search of Politicsl Community, p. 61.

lOThis was true for Ahmad Amin. He relates that the Din-
1

shawy incident, where British soldiers shooting pigeons caused


a confronta t ion wi th sorne Egyp tian vi 11 agers ending in a eontro-
versial trial with the swift public punishment of several
villagers, as a key factor in awakening his politieal conscious-
ness. Amin, l1y Life, p. 61. See below, p. 37.
12

formed around MustafA KAmi1 and his paper al-Liw~', calling



for independence and non-cooperation with the British. KAmi1

was not a systematic writer on the topic of nationalism, but

through his oratorical skills he invoked the symbols of progress

and liberty to stir up Egypt in the struggle against the Bri-

tish. He became a symbol for the hopes of the nation, which

was demonstrated in the outpouring of emotion at his funeral. 1l

The Constitutional Reform party (~izb al-i~la~ calA al-mabddi'

al-dustur1yah) formed around cAli Ysuf and al-HuCayyad. Ysuf

was known for his defence of the Khedive's interests while at

the same time somewhat inconsistently calling for representative

government. l2 His paper was widely read in the Islamic world

even outside Egypt.


(
Th~ group, however, which came to dominate the political

scene after . .
Independence was Lutfi al-Sayyid's hizb al-ummah

(People's Party) with its paper al-Jardah, even though they

were a loosely knit group with only limited influence outside

their ranks at the time. Al- Sayyid encouraged these young

men to use his office as a meeting place to discuss current

affairs and social issues. His personal influence as a teacher

and transmitter of Egyptian modernism after cAbduh's death is

acknowledged in the title he acquired ustAdh al-J11 (teacher

llHourani, Arabie Thought, p. 202-03.

l2Ahmed, Intelleetual Origins. p. 81. Since cAli Ysuf


was deeply rooted in the culture of al-Azhar and spoke with
( authority on matters connected with Islam [Ibid., p. 80] it
ls not surprising that Al}mad Amin found himself a regular reader
of this paper. See below, pg. 37.
13

-
l of the generation). He eventually withdrew from active polities

but through his work on al-Jarida.h he tried to create a politt-

cal conseiousness. He was also associated throughout his later

eareer with the University of Cairo as weIl ~s with effort~

to reform the Arabie language. 13 Among the friends of this

group stood Qsim Amin, Sacd Zaghll, and Al;tmad Amin. The'l

followed cAbduh's footsteps, yet they also promoted libernl.

rationalist and evolutionary views. This move to secularism

"was not marked by an abandonment of the lslamic fdith. il

sirnply forced upon this new leadership the adoption of a prac-

tical conception of reform and politics: that of compromisl

and gradua1ism .... ,,14

To these groups should be added Rashid Ri~~' s paper al-

Manr. It represented the more overtly re1igious reformlst

trend inf1uenced by cAbduh and became the leading opponent al

secu1arism in the 1920s and '30s. This schoo1 of thought Cdmp

to be known as the salafiyah movement.

Two important institutions were estab1ished in the fir~r

decade of the 20th century. The first was the Hadras.:lt dl-

Qafj' al-Sharicah opened in ]907 for the training of sharL c ,J11

judges, partly as a resu1t of the suggestions for reform md!\l'

in the report by Mu~ammad cAbduh. lt combined the traditiondl

sciences of fiqh and theo1ogy, 1inguistics and be11eslettre~,

with so-ca11ed modern courses ranging from history, chemi~try

13 Ahme d, pp. 85-112.

14 Vati kiotis, History of Egypt, p 217.


14
( and algebra to Western legal theory. The teachers were drawn

from al-Azhar and D4r al-cUIOm as well as from the ahl! (native)

court judges who wanted to bridge the gap between lslamic and

Western law. "lt was a microcosm of the influences that were

competing for the minds of educated Egyptians at the time."l5

It was establisbed under the minister of education at the time,

Sacd Zaghll, and opposed by Khedive cAbbAs because it took

teachers away from al-Azhar where he still had some measure

of control. .
It is at the Hadrasah that Ahmad Amin spent fif-

teen years, first as a student and then for eleven years as a

teacher, and his experiences during this time proved to be

very influential in the formation of his views on ethics and

reform.
( The other institution, estab1ished in 1908 under the pa-

tronage of Prince Fu'Ad, was the National University. lt was

reorganized in 1925 as the Faculty of Arts within the new state

university (later Fu'd l University and now known as Cairo Uni-

versity).16 "Its chief aim was defined as being to raise the

moral and intellectual level of the inhabitants by the diffusion

of science and the study of literature, and to create a centre

of scientific and philosophical culture in communication with

similar institutions in Europe. Political and religious sub-

l5 Wi lliam Shepard, The Faith of a Hodern Huslim lntellec-


tuaI: the Religious Aspects and Implications of the Writings
of A{tmad Amin, (New Dehli: Vikas Publishing House Ltd., 1982),
p. 16.

( l6Vatikiotis, History, p. 443.


. -, 15

jects were not to be included in the curriculum except at the

academic level. n17 It was seen by les founders as a training

ground for those who could lead Egypt back to the path of as-

cendancy. Until native Egyptians with PhOs were more avail-

able, European orientalists who could lecture in Arabie played

a vital role, ie. until the early 1930s, Since Fu'Ad was an

Italophile, he rired scholars such as Carlo Nallino and David

Santillana, although French scholars such as Louis Massingnon

also taught at the school, and during the interwar period German

orientalists such as G. Bergstrsser, A. Schaade and J. Schacht

also lectured there. Students and professors, among them TAhA .


~usdyn and A~mad Amin, shared an "admiration for orientalist

scholarship, discovering in it not only a new r~search metho-

dology but also new subject matter, old subjects treated in

new ways, and an unfamiliar, and in some ways tempting, alter-

native world view."18

The growing pains which accompanied the many changes and

new ideas were sometimes reflected in various literary works

and the controversies and debates which these initiated. Three

authors found themselves the focus of such controversy at the

beginning of this century. Qsim Amin wrote a small book en-

titled Tahrr al-mar'ah (The Emancipation of Women, 1899) which



gene ra ted more than 30 books and pamph 1 e ts in oppo s i t ion to

17 Ahmed, p. 57.

l8Donald Malcolm Reid, "Cairo University and the Oriental-


ists," International Journal of Middle East Studies, XIX (Feb.
1987), p. 51.
16
( the ideas he presented, and more subt1e, to the imp1ieit wes-

ternizat~on it eontained. 19 The ideas were aetua1Iy quite

mi1d, but in his rep1y to his cri tics (Al-mar'ah al-Jadidah,


The New Woman, 1901), Q4sim AmIn dropped his citations of the

Qur' 4n and Had! th and appea1ed di ree t 1y to secu1ar l iberai

principIes. 20 Jurji Zaydan, one of the Christian emigrs who

came to Egypt from Syria in the Iate 19th eentury, was the

publisher of the famous al-Hil~l raper as weIl as the author

of a multi-volume work on lslamie civilization. 21 Zaydan' s

work was sympathetic to Mu~ammad and the non-derivative nature

of lsiamie civilization, but critics, Rashid Rid4 being one



of the stron&est, took offence at the suggestion that the pre-

lslamic Arabs borrowed ftom the Jews and that non-religious

reasons eontributed ta the success of the early Muslim eon-

quests 22 . In 1910 Muslim-Christian tensions had been revived.


Zaydan suffered the humiliation of reading in the newspaper that

the university had withdrawn its invitation to him to teach

there. Subsequent1y, no non-Muslim taught Islamie history at

the university until 1925. 23 Lastly, Mansr Fahmi had his


19 Ahme d, p. 47.

20Hourani, Arabie Thought:, p. 167.

21 Ke 'nneth Crose, "Al]rnad Amin and Lajnat: al-t:a'lii wa a1-


t:arjamah wa al-nashr: a study of their contribution to the
20th century renaissance of Egypt," (Ph.D. dissertation, Hart-
ford Serninary Foundation, 1955), p. 12.

22Dona1d M. Reid, "Cairo University and the Orientalists,"


I.J.H.E.S., p. 63.
(
23 Ibid ., pp. 63, 64.
17

professoria1 appointment cancelled in 1913 when his Sorbonne

doctoral dissertation on the condition of women 1n Islam was

considered denigrating to Islam. He had great admiration for

Qsim Amin, and although he used traditional sources, he also

used the methods and analyses of orientalists, as well as sug-

gesting that Mu~ammad shaped the divine message for his own pur-

poses. 24 Fahmi survived the crisis and even~ually was quietly

hired by the university to teach western and Arab philosophy.25

The outbreak of World War l was accompanied by factors

which tended ta push the activities and orientation of the

emerging Egyptian leadership further towards a secular liberal

orientation. Egypt's relationship ta Britain was finally de-

fined and she found herself formally at war with the Ottomdn

Empire. The paper al-Jaridah was forced to cease publication

in 1915. Many were bitter when they witnessed Britain's aid

to the Hijz revoIt in exchat.ge for its indepenrience while nt

the sarte time they became suspicious of Britain's sincerity

with regard to the future of their own country. The agitation

surrounding the establishment and despatch of an official d~-

legation to the Peace Conference by an ad-hoc group of Egyptinn

leaders began as early as September 1918. They insisted thdl

they lead the delegation, as well as control any negotiation~

24 Ibid ., pp. 65,60.

25A~mad Amin mentions Fahmi aS one of the mcmbers of hi&


French-influenced friends (Amin, Hy Life, p. 119. See belo'"
pp. 42-43). Fahmi was also one of the member5 of the Cornlllitt(!(!
of Authorship, Translation and Publication (Cro~e, p. 312).
18

(,. with the British. 26 The apparent1y unified efforts of diverse

population groups, including rich and poor, educated and il-

literate, Muslim and Copt, surprised and alarmed the British

who tried to frustrate the Wafd's (Delegation's) efforts by

exiling its leaders. 27 Many had been alienated and angered

by British wart,ime abuses, severe inflation and shortages of

staple goods. Although the educated e1ite and early spokes-

persons for nationalism "had had extended contacts with the

British, notably in legislative and judicial circles,


but to a lesser extent in business, British persis-
tence in taking final decisions and in preventing
ab le Egyp tians from ris ing to meaningful policy -making
positions had forced these men . . . to demand freedom
for Egypt . . . . This elite became the leadership for the
po1itica1 organization- -the Wafd- -which was to be
the most powerful political force in Egypt over the
next three decades."28

After "three years of vain maneuvering" the British discarded

the bul k 0 f the i r plans for Egyp t and de clare d her i ndependence

in February 1922. 29

Expectations were high at the beginning of an era which

has been named Egypt's "liberal experiment". One of the first

acts of the nationalists after independence was the drafting

26Vatikiotis, p. 261.

27 Amn was recruited ta prepare reports on the conditions


of Egypt which were smuggled ta the leaders in exile. No one
suspected the quiet shaykh teaching at the Judicial School.
Amin, Hy Life, p.133.

28 J anice J. Terry, The Wafd: 1919-1952: Cornerstone of


Egyptian Polltical Power, (London: Third World Centre, 1982),
p. 71.

( 29 Sa fran, Egypt in Search, p. 101.


19

- and proclamation of a constitution, using the Be1gian Consti-

tution as its basis; lslam was, however, officially declared

the religion of the State. 30 Various ideologies competed for

the al1egiance of opinion-leaders and politicians. Pan-Islamism

was overtaken by Egyptian national ism, and now in te 11ec tuaI s

such as ~usayn Haykal "not only deve10ped modernist critiques

of late Muslim traditionalism ... but also articu1ated neo-Pha-

raonic national ist themes and promoted mode rniz i ng pan - Arab

community in the 1920s."31 Even though Egypt had contributed

to the Arab cultural reviv~l, there was no significant interest

in pan-Arabism as a political ideology until the 1930s and more

especially after the 1952 revolution. 32

On the political seene, however, the precedent set by

British-Egyptian negotiations between 1920-22, together with

the volatile issue of the Four Reserved Points 33 , "inaugurated

a period of uninterrupted crisis in domestie Egyptian polities,

which in part prevented parliamentary government and its insti-

tutions from taking root in the politieal life of the eoun-

30 Sa fran, pp. 109-110.

31Dennis Walker, "Modernists, Partieularism and the Cry-


stallization of Pan-Arabism in Egypt in the 19205," Islamic
Cul tu r e LX , ( A P r i l 1 9 8 6 ), p. 5 9 .

32Anwar G. Chejne, "Egyptian Attitudes towards Pan-Arab-


ism," The Middle East: Journal XI, (1957), pp. 256- 57.

33"These were: the security of Imperial communications


in Egypt; the defence of Egypt against all foreign aggression;
the protection of foreign interests and minorities in Egypt;
and the Sudan." Vatikiotis, p. 270.
20

try. "34 The perceived alternative to the Nationalist Party

and the Liberal Constitution Party (which had the reputation

of excessive cooperation with the British) was the Wafd. How-

ever, old family leadership continued to dominate in rural

Egyp t. "The eontinued power of the traditional families is

elear evidenee that Egyptian politieal parties were not group-

ings of different soeial-eeonomie strata joined under a mutual

ideology for the purpose of getting and keeping politieal power,

but were, in faet, still personality or family oriented affi-

liations in western garb."35

In the years that followed, the Wafd dominated the poli-

tieal seene, either by winning a majority in the e1eetions or

forming coalitions like the April 1926 united front with the

Liberal Constitution Party. Many factors eombined to frus-

trate the sueeess of Egypt' s parliamentary government: the

Interference of the monarehy on behalf of its own interests,

the wide scope of power retained by the British High Commis-

sioner, the politieal behaviour of the Wafd such as resorting

to i ts old pro te s t me thod, the soc ia1 and economic changes

whieh Egypt was experieneing at the time, and the perception

of the government and the opposition of its leaders, ie. issues

tended to be seen on personal as opposed to party levels. 36

The charismatie appeal of Zaghll until his death in 1927 seemed

34 I bid., p. 27l.

35Terry, The Wafd, p. 157.


( 36 Vat iklotis, p. 277.
21

to go a long way tcwards minimizing criticism of the lack of

effective domestic programs under his leadership. lt was ironie

that throughout this period the nationalists denounced Any

perceived cooperation with the British; yet aIl the parties re-

sorted to British aid when it suited their immediate goals.

Nonetheless, European ideas and influences which these

leaders admired and promoted continued to make an impact on

Egyptian society. Darwinism, philosophical and social theories

like those of Nietzsche and Marx, the transformation of the

concept of literature, all these were actively debated by the

politicians and literati of the day. Government functions

were expanded, and the recognition of the need for socio-eco-

nomic reform prompted various policies and actions which were

met with uneven degrees of success. Attempts ta reform and

modernize al-Azhar became entangled in a multitude of political

as weIl as religious issues, revolving around a power struggle

among the king, the politicians and the Azharites, who percelved

a threat to their traditional pre-eminent position and role

in society.37 The cause of the emancipation of women did not

go away after the controversies surrounding QAsim Amin. Women

were key players in the organization and agitation of the na-

tionalist revolution. On March 16, 1919 Egyptlan women rallled

and marcher for the cause of independence. 38 They continued

their activities even when their husbands were exiled or lm-

37 I bid., pp. 299-302.

38Terry, p. 103.
22
( prisoned. Women agitated for th reform of personal status

laws and for the further education of women. When women began

entering the university in the 1930s the education of women

became a political issue, but gradually the nuruber of female

students increased. 39 It is true that Most of the women who

were active in the feminist cause were not from the underpri-

vileged classes, but they carried on a massive campaign of

social work estab1ishing hospitals, schools and rehabilltation

centres that were often more successful than government pro-

grams. 40 Publications like al-Sufr 4l and L'Egyptienne advo-

cated liberal ideas such as the emancipation of women.

The events of the 1920s in Turkey were not without their

effect in Egypt. In particular the abolition of the caliphate

provoked much debate about political authority and the sources

of legislation. Rashid RidA was at the forefront of those



who called for a return of sorne kind of caliphate. The caliph

was the supreme muJtahid who with the help of the culamA' would

apply Islamic principles to the problems of society as weIl

as use the necessary borrowed sciences to restore a true Tslamic

39Vatikiotis, p. 309. Al}mad Amin observed the absence


of women at the university when he began teaching (1926) but
was pleased to see the College of Arts attended by more and
more women as time went on. Amin, Hy Life, p. 148.

40 Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt's Liberal Experiment:


1922-1936, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977),
p. 71.

41Attmad Amin was a regular contributor to this paper.


See below p. 43.
(
23

civilization and Bociety.42 This led him vigoroualy to denounc.

the book by cA11 cAbd al-RAziq on the caliphate, AL-IslAm wa

usaI al-hukm (Islam and the Principles of Government).



The book waB published in 1925, a year after Atatrk had

abolished the caliphate, yet the "resentment with whieh con-

servativism greeted it is some test of the nervousness it in-

spired."43 By maintaining that Mu~ammad established a religious

community which had no necessary relationship with Any par-

tieular form of government, and that his funetion was prophetie

and not politieal, al-R4ziq was raising doubts as to the legi-

timacy of the shari c ah 44 , and claiming that the ealiphate was

a seeular institution. 45 The book raised a storm of eontroversy

among some of the shaykhs at al-Azhar, but the intel1ectua1s

sympathetie to western thought and methodology defended the

book on the grounds of freedom of thought. 46

Another and perhaps the best known 1iterary eontroversy

in the 1920s was over T4hA Husayn's work Fi shicr 8l-J~hllL



(On Pre-Islamie Poetry, 1926). ~usayn had used Methodologies

learned from Western scholarship to examine that body of li tera-

42Hourani, Arabic Thought, p. 240.

43Cragg, Counsels in Islam, p. 72.

44Hourani, Arabie Thought, p. 186-87,191.

45 Sa fran, p. 142.

46 Ahmad Am1n also argued for this separation of religion


and stat~ in DuhA al-IslAm, III (Cairo, 1936), pp. 4-5, eited
in Safran, p. '2~O n. 9. For more on a1-R4ziq see also Rotraud
Wielandt Offenbarung und Geschieh te im Denken moderner Husllme,
(Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Ver1ag GMBH, 1971), pp. 95-99.
24

( ture which was important for interpreting the Qur'n and ~adith.

He argued that most of the j~hili poetry was forged after the

advent of Islam, and he questioned the historicity of some of

the events mentioned in the Qur'n. The implications of his

conclusions cast doubt on centuries of Islamic scholarship.

According to the conservative critics ~usayn, together with the

earlier challenge of al-Rziq's book, expressed "the Western

annihilation of the basic principles of Egyptian life ... " by

endor si ng the dangerous me thods and v iews of Wes tern scholars. 4 7

~usayn survived the storm in 1926 because the university stood

firmly behind his right to freedom of expression and because

a coalition government did not allow any one party to champion

the cause of Islam. 48 The book was revised, but in 1932 the

issue was revived as an excuse to remove him from his university

post which he regained only in 1936.

Increasingly it became clear that the experiment in parli-

amentary democraey transplanted from Western soil was not suc-

eessful. This failure should not be blamed on Egypt' s national

character or on Islam. As al-Sayyid-Marsot has noted, specifie

social, eeonomic and politieal factors contributed to this

eventuality. "There cannot have been a monarch, a foreign

oecupatant, and a local government all pulling in different

directions and then claim that the institutions have failed. "49

47 Ahme d, p. 119.

48 Reid , "Cairo University," p. 68.

49al-Sayyid-Marsot, p. 6.
25

- Beginning

the inability
in the

of
1930s

the
and

leaders
through

to
until

deal wieh
the

the
coup of

pressure
1952,

of

population growth, the continued poverty of the masses, the

interference of the king, the continued dominance of personal

and group interests and the lack of effective reform 50 prompted

sorne to turn to radical conservatism politically or religiously.

This trend was underlined by the fact that, with the increasing

success of Fascism and Communism in Europe, events seemed ta

cO:lfirm the failure of democratic institutions in the West

itself. Alternative groups were formed like A~mad ~usayn's

nationalist group, Young Egypt, in 1933, with its paramilitnry

youth movement, the Green Shirts; the Wafd's youth league, the

Blue Shirts; or the Young Men's Muslim Association to counter

Christian missionary activity, as well as to provide adult

education courses and athletic activities. Rashid Ri9a's SJll-

fiyah ideology had become increasingly insistent that the "ori-

ginal Arablslamic society must serve as the guiding 1110 dt> l

for the modern renaissance of Egyptian society and the ide,1l

for i ts future deve lopme nt. ,,51 The most serious competition

for the loyalty of the people came from the Muslim Brotherhood

(alikhwn al-muslimin) , started by Hasan al-Bann' ln IlJ2'J

Initially the Ikhwn concentrated on providing social and cul-

50Shepard, The Faith of a Modern Huslim Intellectual, p.


3.

51Israel Gershoni,"Arabization of Islam: the EgYPlidll


Salafiyya and the rise of Arabism in pre-revolutionary Egypt,"
Asian and African Studies, XIII, (Mar. 1979), p. 30 n .16.
26
tural programs for the people. 52 lt was instrumental in pro-

moting Egyptian pan-lslamism as a f'..llly developed doctrine,

ideology and program. 53 As the social and economic crisis

deepened, it too was drawn into the increasingly violent vortex

of the times, establishing an almost paramilitary arm to its

activities. "Ail of these concepts and ideas [advocated by

these religious and para-military groups] derived from the

powerful yearning for redemption. They all sought encourage-

ment, compensation, and consolation for the present anguish,

humiliation, and inferiority in an ideal mythological past

and a messianic, utopian future.,,54 Their ideologies sought

to encompass not only political concerns but a whole world-

view which addressed cultural, social and economic issues as


( we11. 55 Membership in al1 groups multip1ied; tens of thousands

in the Wafd Blue Shirts pledged complete a11egiance to the

party and there was little effort to suppress the violence.

52 Ahmad Amin in his book Yawm al-Islm, written late in


the 1940~, was disappointed with the leadership of al-Azhar
and that of the nationalists at the university. Sorne of the
points of the Mus1im Brotherhood's program appealed to him as
offering an alternative to the decadence and impotence of the
current leadership. Points which he supported included
strengthening of the moral fibre of society, warning against
materia1ism, propagating education, promoting good works and
de fend i ng Islam. Yvollne Haddad, Con temporary l sIam and the
Challenge of History, (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1982), pp. 209-10, n. 4.

53Israel Gershoni, "The Emergence of Pan-Nationalism in


Egypt: Pan-Is1amism and Pan-Arabism in the 1930s," ASlan and
African Studies XVI (March 1982) ,p. 71.

54 Ibid ., p. 41.-

55Gershoni, "Emergence of Pan-Nationalism," A.A.S., p. 64.


... 27

- The condoning of strong-arm tactics only served ta weaken and

compromise the position of the Yafd as the nationalist voice. 56

The turbulent year5 of the 1930s and 19405 have been the

subject of much debate and discussion by scholars who have

attempted to analyze why, after what seemed to be a whole-heart-

ed embrace of liberal ideals by the leading intelleetuals and

politicians, there was a return to overt Islamic themes in

literature and an explosion of agitation by alternative groups

calling for radical eonservatism in religion and polities. Some

have viewed chis period as one of dismay, stating that "the

intellectual climate of the thirties was ... one of despondency

and frustration whieh led to a feeling that ideas of Western

libera'lism were a failure and a sham, and to the rise of variou.s

extremist factions ... all seeking a way out of the moral and

politieal stagnation of the eountry."57 Yet W. C. Smith view.s

the works on the life of the Prophet and Muslim early herop~

by !h ~usayn, Mu~ammad ~usayn Haykal and others as a dynamlc

intellectual expression of a liberalized Islam, giving ".111

indigenous Islamic formulation . . . to the new viewpoint of thi';

group. It related their liberalism ta their Muslim-ness not

merei.y by juxtaposition but as content and form. Surely herl',

it would seem, was a creative synthesis."58 The debate ov(-'r

56Terry, p. 285.

57al-Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt's Liberal Experiment, p 169.

58 Yi lfred C. Smith, Islam in Modern History, (New York:


The New American Library, 1957), p. 69.
28

( the interpretation of this period has been most actively taken

up by Charles D. Smith who challenges Nadav Safran's designation

"crisis of orientation" as the dominant aspect in this period. 59

Safran's ana1ysis sets up the problem confronting Egypt as

the "need to develop a subjective, humanly oriented system of

ideas, values and norms that would serve as a foundation for

a political community under new conditions of life". 60 He

assumes that only a Western-oriented pattern of modernization

Is possible and so the perceived deviation in the 1930s and

, 40s can only be termed a fai 1ure. 61 Smi th counters this thesis

by maintaining that the shift of intel1ectuals was designed

to placate the religious and political opposition by using

Islamic terms to further their original goals, while assuming

( their fellow inte1lectuals would see the two levels of dialogue

59Safran, Egypt in Search, see particularly ch. Il "The


Crisis of Orientation" and ch. 13 "The Reactionary Phase".
Charles D. Smith, "The 'Crisis of Orientation': the shift of
Egyptian Intel'ectuals to Islamic subjects in the 1930's,"
International Journal of Middle East Studies IV, (1973): 382-
410; "The Intellectual and Modernization: Definitions and Recon-
siderations: the Egyptian Experience," Comparative Studies in
Soc i e t yan d His t 0 r y XX 1 1, ( 1 9 80): 5 1 3 - 3 3 . Sm i th' sin ter pre t a -
tion is more thoroughly developed in his biography of Haykal,
Islam and the Search for Social Order in 110dern Egypt:: a Bio-
graphy of l1ul}ammad lfusayn Haykal. (Albany: State University
of New York Press, 1983)

60Safran. p. 179.

6lSafran follows the implications here of Von Grunebaum


in his essay collection Modern Islam: the Search for Cultural
Identity, (Westport: Greenwood Press, Publ., (1962) 1983); in
particular see "The Inte1lectua1 prob1em of Westernization in
the Se1f-view of the Arab Wor1d," pp. 128-179, and "Accultura-
tion as a Theme in Contemporary Arab Literature," pp. 248-288.
(
29

impllcit in their writing. 62 An elitist concept of leadership

was promoted by those who had roots in traditional rural leading

families attempting to retain control over the masses. 63 Israel

Gershoni has made an excellent analysis of this debate in his

review of Smith's book. 64 He notes the inability of Safran's

model to see the developments of the tnterwar period as a con-

tinuation of the modernizing process, not a break or a reversa],

and criticizes Smith for not taking full cognizance of thu

national context and of the places where the "formative vision"

of Haykal is reaffirmed. 65 Safran also indicts Al:mad Amin

for his bitter criticism of the West in Yawm al-Isldm without

taking into account more thoroughly the development in Amin's

writing and his personal circumstances. 66 Islam was a stron~

factor in the early development of these intellectuals, and

l t is perhaps easy to over-estimate the degree ta which west-rn-

originated ideals displaced this earlier principle in t!\C'tl.

world-view. No matter what their personal views were, the

development in their writings still reflected the currents of

62 For example, Smith, "The 'Crisis of Orientation' " p


398.

63Smith, Islam and the Search for Socud Order, pp ') 1


J .J ,

43, t!t passim.

641srae1 Gershoni, "Egyptian Intellectual History and


Egyptian Intellectuals in the Interwar Period," Asian and Airi-
can Studies XIX, (1985): 333-64,

65Gershoni, "Egyptian Intellectual History," pp. 348,


355, 363.

66 See chapter 3 below, pp. 82-83.


30
( their day where new factors brought new emphases and changed

ideology.

The relationship between the British and the Egyptian

leaders, particularly the Wafd, con~inued to move from crisis

to crisis. A kind of victory was won against the British when

the Four Reserved Points were modified in the Anglo-Egyptian

Treaty of August 1936. The abolition of the hated capitulations

at the Montreux Convention in May 1937 was met with optimism

and a fee ling of progress toward genera 1 se 1 f - gove rnment . 67

Britain was trying to appease Egypt in the face of the growing

Axis threat on the continent. As time went on, and especially

with the outbreak of World War Il, i t became clear that Britain

was determined to maintain her interests at Egypt's expense,


( especially those pertaining ta the Canal Zone. 68 Any visions

of Egypt's strengthened independence were quickly dispersed as

Europe moved ~owards war, and a wave of anti-Wafd and anti-

British demonstrations plagued the country. Britain's unfa-

vorable fortunes during the war had adverse repercussions in

Egypt as the domestic political, social and economic crisis

heightened. All f)f this came to a head in the 1942 February

crisis when Brit3in used the threat of gunfire ta impose a

Wafd gogernment because she felt this party wauld best serve

her interests at the time. The Wafd had shawn little reluctance

in the past in cooperating with the British if doing so served

67Terry, p. 237.

68Vatikiotis, p. 291.
31

the ir in tere s ts agains t the palace. Afte r 1942 the na t i onalis t

raison d'tre had been even more compromised, and Many Egyptians
were more alienated from the Wafd. 69

After the war governments continued to resort ta offering

"carrots-on-a-stick" reform or to mobilizing mob demonstrations,

but the leadership had been almost completely discredited.

Often the government was paralyzed because of fear of retalia-

tion against unpopular p,~licies from extremist groups. Tho

prime minister, A~mad Hahir, was assassinated in 1945, and in

1949, s hort1y afte r the Mus 1 im B ro the rhood was suppressed, !;Iasun

al-Bann' was shot. Feelings against Britain and the West

generally were intensified by the war in 1948 that ac~ompanied

the establishment of the state of Israel. Many Egyptians felt

the sting of perceived betrayal by those whom they had previ-

ously emulated.

During this time another literary controversy highlightd

the resistance of Many Muslims to borrowed Methodologies bein~

applied to religious texts, even in the name of defending the

Qur' An. Mu~ammad Khalaf AllAh' s thesis in 1947, Al-fallll a1-

qu~a~i fi al-qur'n al-karim, examined the narratives of the

Qur'n in the context in which they were revealed. Khalat

Allh criticized the orientalists because they doubted the

factuality of some Qur'Anic accounts, not distinguishing "liter-

ary truth" from historical fact. 70 Instead of finding in his

69Terry, p. 253.

70 Reid , "Cairo University," p. 69.


32

work a defence of the Qur'an, his critics saw him as starting

a process which would destroy Islam. Khalaf Allh had used

an alternative standard of truth and implied that the Qur'n

was tailored to what the Prophet' s companions could accept

without regard to truth and reality.7l His thesis was failed 72 ,

but he did not have to undergo the investigation his cri tics

demanded, although he did have to write a new thesis on a non-

religious topic.7 3 After so many years of seeking ways to

utilize western sciences, this controversy, like those before

it, demonstrated that Islam was integral to the fabric of the

social and cultural life of Egypt.

In 1951 the Wafd unilaterally abrogated its agreement with

Britain who in turn refused to leave the Canal Zone. Months

of anti-British demonstrations culminated in a show-down between

Egyptian and British troops resulted in "Black Saturday", Janu-

ary 26, 1952, when order broke down and Cairo witnessed mobs

engaged in burninb and rioting. Whatever the mixed motives

behind this anti-western demonstration were, the people were

clearly tired of empty promises of reform. Martial Law restor-

ed order, but later that summer a sma11 group of army officers

71Haddad, Con temporary Islam, pp. 51- 2.

720ne of the members of the committee who fai1ed the thesis


was A~mad Amin, who with his co1league, A~mad a1-Shyib, felt
it would cause unrest because of the questions it raised.
Inter-personal politics between al-Shyib and another member
of the committee were apparent1y a1so a factor. Haddad, p.
216, n.3.

73 More on Khalaf AllAh can be found in Wielandt, pp. 134-


152.
33

declared that they had taken over the government. "The forces

that supported the revolution were anticolonial. antimonarchy,

and anticorruption, representing persons from all walks of

life. 74 "Egypt entered a new era under the revolutionary govern-

ment of Jaml cAbd al-N~ir.

7 4Haddad, p. 25.
34

Chapter Two

"If l were to survey my life from beginning to


end, i t would be a film with some strange things and
Many windlng llnes. How far its beginning is from
its end, and how many are the disparities in it and
the changes of direction and the variations of
possibilities!Hl

A~mad Amin was born October l, 1886 in the Manshiya Quarter

in the Khalifa precinct of Cairo, a neighborhood he describes

as very litt1e changed from medieval times. There was no elec-

tricity, and as a boy he witnessed the laying down of water

lines for running water. Life in this quarter was as it had

been in the Middle Ages when neighbors played an important

role. The approximately 30 houses represented members of the

Middle class, such as government emp10yees in the Waqf or per-

haps in the publ ic records department, and lower classes, such

as masons, tailors and owners of little cafs. 2 Amin's father

had been from a small village in al-Bu~ayra. His family had

owned a small piece of land, but harsh economic conditions had

forced him and his brother to flee to Cairo. As a teacher at

al-Azhar and Imm al-Shfici mosque as well as prayer leader

in another smal1 mosque, Amin's father was comfortably placed

in the Middle class, earning about (12 a year which sufficed

for his family's simple needs. His mother's family was from

al-Manfiyah province and his uncles worked in the spice trade.

1 Al;1mad Amin, l1y L~fe: t:he Aut:obiography of an Egyptian


Scholar, Writ:er and Cultural Leader, trans. & intro. Issa J.
Bou1lata, (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1978), p. 230.
2 Ibid . pp. 27-28.
--------- - ---- --------,

35

Amin's father was a serious, deeply religious man who sternly

watched over the education and moral upbringing of his six

children, even sending his daughters to school. He often re-

treated to his room where he studied his Many books, but he

a1so encouraged his son to make use of this library. This

home Amin calls "the most important school in which were formed

the elements of my body. my character, and my spirit. If the y

ever changed ... they did in nonessential matters that did not

touch the core ... "3; "religious feeling pervaded our home."4

The early educational experience of Amin in the traditional

kuttAb was not entirely happy. He attended four different

schools over five years. The teachers were sometimes very

strict while not being very competent, and he saw many a boy

...... become broken-of-spirit because of the many beatings the child

experienced. His father held another "kuttb" in his study,

ensuring that Amin learned his lessons and something new HS

wel1. Finally he sent his son to a government school which

was more modern, teaching Qur'n and Arabie but also geography,

history, arithmetic and even French. His father did not di~-

continue his "private education" but had him read the Qur' ,in,

memorize texts from Azhar! books and poetry. Amin loved thif:.

school where he was able to put on western dress and play with

children from the Middle and upper classes, but after fIIuch

vacillation his father decided to take him out and enrol1ed

3 I bid., p. 20.

4 Ibid ., p. 18.
36

hlm at al-Azhar when Amin was 14 years old.

The Azharite method of study using marginal notes and

glosses did not appeal to Amin. He found the shaykhs' lectures

almost unintelligible; but when a friend encouraged him to

attend lectures by Mu~ammad cAbduh, he understood what had pre-

viously been unclear. Unfortunately he was able to attend only

two of cAbduh's lectures before the Shaykh was dismissed from

the university, but he continued to come into contact with

and be i nfluenced by men who had enj oye d more sus ta i ned c ontac t

with cAbduh. His father a1so helped him with his lessons by

at-home instruction using books without glosses and with a

clarity of expression. Amin, however, was miserable at the

school .nd felt distressed and ashamed as he walked through

{ his neighborhood with his turban, cloak and gown. He became

50 desperate that he applied for and received a job teaching

in Tanta, but his wretched living situation and home-sickness

drove him back to al-Azhar. A second attempt at escape, to

teach at Dr al-cUlm, failed because he could not pass the

eye examination in spite of his glasses. Finally, after four

years at al-Azhar, he secured a teaching-post in Alexandria.

AlJmad Amin was much happier here. He enj oyed teaching and

going to the sea-side ta read books on philosophy and history.

He came under the influence of a man, cAbd al~Karim ibn Muham-

mad, whom he called his "second father", a teacher of Arabie

and a graduate of Dr al-cUlm who belonged ta the Naqshbaniyah

sufi arder. Amin' s mind was opened to new horizons beyond


,
,

37

books and in bis words be was liberated from sl.very to tradi-

tion by being encouraged to think critically about social and

other issues. 5 This friend supported cAbduh' s reforms as

opposed to Hu~~af4 K4mil's. "His philosophy was that it was

necessary first to achieve internaI reform by spreading good

education and by raising the morals of the people. and that

independence would follow that as a resu1t. H6 By his own ac-

count, Amin's nationalistic feelings were not very strong at

this time, but it was here in A1exandria that he began reading

al-HuCayyad (cAli Ysuf), which he preferred for lts Is1amic

character, and al-HuqaFam (identified with British sympathies

and gradualist reform). After the Dinshawy incident in 1906,

however, he confessed he was more responsive to the sentiments

in al-Liw' of Mu~~af Kmil.

After two years his father's efforts ta have Amin trans-

ferred back ta Caira were successful. By happy coincidence

he became a teacher at the government school of his chi1dhood,

but he became il1 with typhoid after a year. W'hen he recavered,

he applied wlth trepidation to the new1y opened (1907) Hadrasat

al-QaqA', fearing the medical examination mare than the admi5-

sians test. On1y five passed the entrance exam and becduue

Amin was third the principal a11awed him ta enter in spite of

his poor eyesight. He was very happy that he wau1d be able

5Ibid., p. 56.

6 I bid., p. 60.
38

(~ to study "organized sciences in an organized school.,,7

Three groups of teachers taught at this school. The best

of al-Azhar shaykhs taught the traditional sciences, using the

texts which included commentary and glosses. On the one hand,

here the students were conditioned to place great weight on the

words of an author; yet they a1so became accustomed to adherence

to logic and accuracy of expression which served them well.

Those teachers who were graduates of D~r al-cUlm, the second

group, were disciples of Mu~~mmad cAbduh, presenting what was

perhaps old material but using the new princip1es and methods

which the Shaykh had advocated. The third group were 1eading

men of the judiciary who taught law, court systems and other

modern sciences. Many of these men had received at least part


(
'-\. of their education in an European school and would use French

or English sources in their lectures. "In chis crucible

consisting of aIl these elements, the students were p1aced 50

that each of them took his share according to his natural dis-

position and predilection. AlI this was surrounded by an ethi-

cal frame implemented under the supervision of the school prin-

cipal."S

The school director was Mu~ammad c~if Barakt, a nephew

of Sacd Zaghll and whose brother, Fat~ Allh, was to be a pro-

minent figure in Wafd polities in the years to come. Barak t

beeame an important friend and mentor to Ahmad Amin, He taught

7 I bid., p. 64.
( 8 Ibid ., p. 87.
39
J ;
~. the ethics course at the school using as sources English books

like MacKenzie's Manual of Eehics and J. S. Mill's Utilitarian-

ism. He would hold spontaneous discussion groups, ~nd on Tues-

day afternoons leading figures were asked to give talks, and

men like Zaghll or QAsim Amin would attend. Later, when he

became an instructor at the Hadrasah, A~mad AmLn was asked ta

help prepare Barakt's ethics lectures. Gradually he took

over teaching this course by himself, along with jurisprudence

and lslamic history. As they prepared lessons together, theiL

discussions often took them to social, religious and politicnl

subjects.

"He influenced me immensely in making reason the


judge over religion, for until that time l used to
make emotion the judge, not reason, and l did not
permit myself any rational argumentation in such
subjects .... As for the essence of religion, including
belief in God, His greatness, and His power, it re-
mained firm in the depths of my heart ... [but] l became
more tolerant of people with opposite views ...... 9

lt was while he was still a student here that Amin attendcd

occasional lectures at the new National University. He heal-u

the lectures of Nallino on Arab astronomy and of Santilland

on Islamic philosophy, and he was impressed with the research

methods of the European orientalists who taught there. "I

saw here a new kind of education which 1 had not known: thu-

roughness in research, depth in study, patience in referring

to various sources, comparison between '",hat the Arabs and thC!

Europeans said, and quite serious deductions made fram all

9 Ibid ., p. 87.
40

that."lO

After four years as a student, Amin became a teacher at

the Hadrasat al-Qa~A' from 1911-21 with a three month inter-

lude as a judge in al-Khrija oasis so that he could secure a

permanent position without passing the medical examination.

He had little work in such an isolated spot, but his observa-

tions of life there reinforeed his view that "people will not

be reformed unless their environment is reformed".11

lt was early in his tenure as a teacher that he came into

contact with the men associated with the al-Jardah paper, the

Ummah party. and its editor-In-chief, Lut;fi al-Sayyid, whose

office funetioned as a club for this group of young intellec-

tuaIs. He maintained that he benefitted from the "politieal

and social education" he received there.

After an unsuccessful attempt to learn French he embark-

ed on an effort to learn English so that he could finally see

with "two eyes" instead of only the "one eye" of Arabie. Miss

Powers, an older. educated Englishwoman who treated him as a

son as weIl as a pupil, made a deep impression on him as she

encouraged him to be less somber and to open his eyes to aes-

thetic beauty around him. Under her guidance he read books

on ethics and human society like Plato's Republic. This was

supplemented by lessons from another Englishwoman in exehange

for lessons in Arabie. He deseribes this opening of his mind

10 Ibid ., p. 73.

( llIbid., p. 94.
41

........ which his knowledge of an European language made possible as

critica1 in his development as a writer and a scholar. "If l


had not passed this stage but became a man of letters,
l would have been a reactionary man of letters con-
cerned wi th embe 11 ish i ng wo rds not wi th seeking exce 1-
lence in thought; l would have depended on the liter-
ature of the ancients and excluded that of the mod-
erns; l would have turned in thought towards the
former not the latter.~12

Amin acquired two circles of friends, one whose orientation

took its direction from English culture and the other which

discussed scholarly works etc . . drawn from French cul turc

The former consisted of students, many of whom were candidates

for a ver s e a s education missions but who we r e un a b l e t 0 go d \Il'

to the outbreak of World War 1. Their conversations made refer-

ences to authors such as Dickens, Bernard Shaw and H. G. We Ils.

They met for discussions in cafs or had weekly outings and

activities at a sports club. He relates the somewhat humoroLl';

image of a turban-clad young man entering the club, donning

shorts and runners to play football etc., and afterwards emerg-

ing once more from the club a dignified "venerable shaykh" .13

Sorne law students eventually joined the English Cil'cll'

and suggested that they form committees to examine varioll'.

problems and prescribe their treatment. All of these eventu<ll1j

died out except for the "Committee of Authorship, Translation

and Publication" (Lajnat al-ta'lif wa al-tarjamc1.h wa al-nc1.shL").

The acceptance of our serious, quiet. turbaned shaykh by thi!:.

12 I bid., p. 106.

13 I bid., p. llO.
42

( c1rcle 1s proved by the fact that they re-elected him chairper-

son every year until he died. They published, edited and trans-

lated books, expanding until they had their own press and had

produced more th an two hundred books by the year 1953. Many

of the best scholars and writers of Egypt eventually joined

this committee, including 'Fh l;lusayn, Lut;:fi al-Sayyid, and

Man~r Fahmi. Their views ranged from conservative to secular.

"This great breadth of know!edge, profession and religious

belief which was represented gave to Lajnat a1-Ta'lif an ability

to see the cultural needs of Egypt in a completeness that made

its work well-balanced.,,14 In 1939 they published their own

periodical al-Thaqfah which Amin edited and contributed to

regularly for the fourteen years of its publication. This


( endeavour occupied a large part of his life, not only with

its business details but with the regu1ar meetings of its mem-

bers who were bound by friendship and their cornrnon interests

in the political, religious and social issues of the day.

The French circle included Shaykh Mu~t;:af cAbd a1-Rziq,

a close disciple of Mu~ammad cAbduh who became the rector of

al-Azhar, and who was the brother of cAli cAbd a1-Rziq, the

writer of the controversia1 book on the ca1iphate. Here the

works of Rousseau, Voltaire or Durkheim were among the topics

of discussion. Amin relates that "there was a mixture of French

14Kenneth Crose, "A~mad Amin and Lajnat al-ta'lif wa al-


t.:lr)alUdh wa a study of their contribution to the
al-nashr:
( 20th century renaissance of Egypt" (PhD dissertation, Hartford
Seminary Foundation, 1955), p. 270.
43

- liberty,

spoke about
English moderation, and Azharite

politics and woman's liberation,


conservativism;

and we compared
we

France with Egypt. H15

Amin also began his writing career during this period.

His first publication was a translation of A. S. Rappoport's

Primer of Philosophy (London, 1904) in 1918, and soon after he

published some of his own lectures on ethics (1920). In 1918

he had his first acquaintance with journa1istic writing when

he joined the committee which published al-Sufr (The Unveil-

ing). This committee was made up of both Eng1ish- and French-

eduea ted men.

l t was his association with this latter committee which

drew him into his brief involvement with politics. During

the nationalist agitation of pre-independence, the Wafd secrp-

tary appointed him to deliver and distribute speeches in the

mosques and write leaflets about important events. He took

part in demonstrations, especial1y those which sought the con-

ciliation of Copts and Muslims. "1 used to seek a demonstra-

tion, climb into a earriage wearing my turban, accompany in

it a priest wearing his clerical cassock, and carry with hllll

a fla g b e a ri n g th e cr 0 s san d the e r es c e nt. " 16 He ne v r:: r bec il/II (~

as involved in po1itics as sorne of his friends, blarning his aCd-

demie temperament and pit Y for his parents should they suffer

repercussions for his actions. Nonetheless, due to his assoei-

lS Amin , Hy Life, p. 119.

l6 I bid., p. 133.
44

(, ation with these controversial matters, he was transferred in

1921 from his teaching position to work as a judge in the sha-

rl c ah courts. This was a matter of sorne disappointment for him,

but he did learn of sorne of the social prob1ems facing Egyptian

families at that time. In his decisions he tried going beyond

the set prescriptions of the law and seeking reconciliation

wherever possible.

The marriage and family life of A~mad Amin also serve ta

illustrate the transition and dramatic change which occurred

between the traditiona1 milieu of Amin' s father' s generation

and that of Amin's children who have grown up in a vastly dif-

ferent environment of modern conveniences. When he approached

the age of 30, he decided that he indeed would like to marry,

( but quickly found that because the practice of unveiling was

only beginning and because Many young girls associated men in

religious dress with reactionism and miser1iness, he had much

trouble in finding a wife. In arder ta appear more sophisti-

cated he carried an English book with him while visiting the

family of his potential wife. Eventually, after a mutual friend

aided him in gaining an introduction and bis mother and sister

had approved, a contract was arranged and the marriage took

pla ce in the s umm e r 0 f 1 9 16 .

Before the wedding Amin visited an English books tore to

read about marital life and child-rearing, but naturally the

reality differed from imagination. He writes: "When l met my

(. wife, l was like one who opens a fortune cooky [sic] or like
4S

a lottery ticket buyer," but he considered himse1f lucky in

his lot. 17 There was a time of adjustment; she resented his

long hours spent with his books, but once their chi1dren began

arriving she bad her own preoccupations. They had 10 chi1dren,

eight of whom survived infancy (six boys, two girls), partly

out of his wife'~ fear t~at he might take a second wife. Amin

reports that they worked out a mutually happy relationship.

and that his strong affection for his family even spoi1ed his

trave1s because he missed his chi1dren.

By his own admission he was strict with his chl1dren. es-

pecially with the first ones, but not nearly as severe as his

own father had been. He read English and Arabie books on child

care, sending his chi1dren to foreign as we11 as Egyptian

schools. All of them reeeived a good education. His sons

spent time studying in Europe and three of them marr1ed European

wives. Most of his sons became englneers. 1B

Amin often comments in his autobiography that life was

quite different for his children's generation than what he

had experienced in his own life. They are able to enj oy the

benefits of che changes chat reforms and becter education have

made possible, and yet he is also keenly aware that the changes

have been accompanied by painful consequences. One change he

did applaud was che increased enrollment of women at che uni-

versity through the 1930s and 1940s. Amin is known for his

17 I bid., p. 125.

18 I bid., p. 129-30.
46

( support of the emancipation of women, yet there are no clues

in his autobiography as to how this was realized in his own

family life. He notes that sorne of his friends unveiled their

wives and visited publicly with them, but he does not say if

his wife accompanied him to his social functions. lt can be

assumed, however, that his wife enjoyed more freedorn than Amin's

mother, who never left the confines of her home without permis-

sion from her husband; and his daughters were free to pursue

an education as they wished.

In 1926 Ahmad Amin received an invitation from his friend

Th ~usayn to beeome a lecturer in the College of Arts at the

University. Thus began his twenty year eareer as a full-time

lecturer in Arabie literature. After che firsc year a friend

convinced him finally to lay aside his turban and gown and adopt

western dress, symbo1izing outwardly the inward metamorphosis

he had experienced over the past severa1 years. He was 41 years

of age. Although it was not an easy decision, it was a relief

to him in that he had experienced discrimination due to his

dress, and he now fe1t that he could better blend into the

university milieu. He found his new environment to be like a

league of nations with the various European scholars who were

professors there. Amin ..,as quick to join in the activity which

he discerned to be the main difference between the university

and the Judicial School, namely research. He undertook an

historical study of dictionaries. This prepared him for a

( proposed joint project in research wich Dr. Th llusayn and


47

Dr. al- c AbbAd1; the former would study lslamic life from the

aspect of literary life, Dr. al- c Abb4dl would specialize in

history, and A~mad Amin would cover intellectua1 developments.

His two companions were prevented from completing their con

tr ibu tion to the proj ec t, but afte r two year 5 Amin c omp 1 e ted

Fajr al-IsIA.m (1928). the first of his famous series on thl:!

cultural history of Islam. . .


TAhA Husayn wrote its introduction

and generously praised Amin's meticulous method which he had

learned from European sciences. l;Iusayn wrote:

"[Amin] has become expert in science with its me


thods ... as he was already expert in the scientific
me thods 0 f the anc ients in ... the sc inces of religion.
[He handles] these literary, philosophical, and lin-
guistic problems. firmly, expert:ly, and with a mind
that knew how to work and proceed from one problem
to another ... with excellently balanced judgement,
avoiding bQth short-coming and excess.,,19

His position at the university afforded him opportunity

to travel both in the Middle East and in Europe. In 1928 he

and a colleague went to Istanbul to examine sorne libraries

the r e, but aIs 0 t 0 vie w fi r st han d som e 0 f K e m 1 A ta t: u r k l ';

reforms. He was favorably impressed with much that he saw,

especially the new freedom that women enjoyed. Am i n Ln hi',

lifetime was also an advocate of language and 1iterary retorm,

and during one conversation his attention was directed to ob-

serve how the Turks had used their language and 1iterature la

reform their social, intellectua1, and psychological affairs. 20

19 Nej la M. Izzeddin, "Taha l;lusain and the Dawn ot [.,lal/l"


(M.A. Thesis, University of Chicago, 1931), pp. 30-31.

20Amn, My Lite, p. 161. See a1so below pp. 67-69.


48

He a1so met those who feared for the direction of society and

the condition of Islam. En route to Syria in 1930 he noted

Zlonist settlements in the Gaza area of Palestine. He met

wlth sorne politlcal leaders in Palestine and deplored their

divisions over personal interests, expecting the worst for

that country. A trip to Iraq in 1931 near1y had tragic con-

sequences. Amin felt that sectarian strife was a great evil

and that the Sunni/Shicah enmity caused Many misfortunes over

an issue that only God could decide Ue. the merits of the

rAshidn caliphs). He had 1isted in his book Fajr al-Islm

his criticisms of the Shicah in a manner that he himself felt

was academica11y true and in no way imp 1 ied tha t the Sunni

were without fau1t. However, in Baghdad Amin attended a cere-

( mony where, when the speaker noted Amin's presence, he then pro-

ceeded to incite the audience with quotes from Amin' s book,

necessitating a hast y exit through a side door.

He was a1so able to see the West first-hand. In 1932 Amin

attended the Congress of Orienta1ists in Leiden, taking time

to visit other European countries: France, Eng1and and Ita1y.

He delivered his speech on the rise of the HuCtazilah but was

ve ry uncomfo r tab le lec tur ing in Eng 1 1sh. When he was aga i n

elected by the university to attend this conference in 1938,

this time in Brussels, he was able to de1iver his paper in

Arabie. He even experienced air travel when in 1946 he was

asked to be a de1egate at the London Round Table Conference

( on Pales tine. Thus he was able to make observations and com-


1
49

parisons about aspects of social life and culture between coun-

tries of the Middle East and between the East and the West.

Just as learning English had opened new horizons, he describes

his travels as giving him two eyes and two perspectives Instead

of only one. 2l

A~mad Amin also made the ~ajj in 1937 which he described

in several places in his writings and on a radio broadcast

series. The strong religious emotions of the pilgrims are

related, "particularly the sense of purification and renewal

that comes from one's review of his past life. He emphasizes

also the importance of the J.1ajj as a symbol of inter-class

unit y and a means of contact among Muslims from all parts oE

the world. .. 22 He was also critical of the way the Pilgrimaee

Administration fell short in its handling of the logis tics

surrounding the visit to the holy sites and submitted a report

recommending reforms. It should be added, however, that otlll'l"

prescribed rites of Islam dld not recelve as much attentton

from Amin. He observed the Rama~n fast until he was discovercd

to have diabetes in 1935 and thereafter simply made a symbolic

one day fast at the beginning of the month. After the rigorou!">

attention he gave ta the performance of the ~al~c as a child

under his father's supervision, it ls perhaps surprising thdt

21 Ibid ., p. 178.

22 Wi 11iarn Shepard, The FaiCh of a Hodern Huslim Intel1~c


tual: the Religious Aspect:s and ImplicatIons of elle Wrltlll!J~
of A1J.mad Amin, (New Dehli: Vikas Pub1ishing House PVT Ltd.,
1982), p. 121.
50

l he did not practice this rite regularly in his mature years,

although in his writings he did recognize the value of such an

outward act, especially because of its collective aspect.

This omission was not uncommon among educated Muslims of Am1n's

day, but he did not entirely escape criticism on this point. 23

Scholars who have written about A~mad Amin place varying

emphasis on his ideas about and possible practice of sufism.

For example, William Shepard discusses Amin's attitudes to "the

spiritual life" and ta~awwuf24, and ~. llid Duran maintains that

Amin experimented with "ethical mysticism" and finally arrived

at a synthesis where "mystica1 phi1osophy" predominated. 25

During his time in Alexandria he was influenced in many ways

by his "second father" who was a sufi disciple. Amln does tend

(. to emphasize the inward intention, as opposed to the external

forms, of religion which is associated with some sufi orders

He writes:

"1 have a vague, mystical [,Qfll tendency and some-


times feel religious emotion filling my soul and
moving my heart. This is mostly manifested on seeing
wonderful natural scenes ... l have a sense of ecstasy
when l see them and l see God in them. However, l
feel sorry that l have not developed this tendency
as l should, and l did not attend to it or take care
of it as l ought. H26

23Shepard, The Faith of a Modern Muslim Intelleetual, pp.


122-23.

24 Ibid ., pp. 68-98.

25Khlid Duran, "A~mad Amin: the Twentieth Century Quest


for Muslim Identity, (Part One)", International Journal of
Islamic and Arabie Stud~es, l (1984), p. 13.
( 26 Amin , N\' LIie, p. 230.
51

- Amin is never explicit as to whether he actua11y joined a sufi

order as Kenneth Crose 27 or Duran 28 clalms. More 11kely Shepard

is correct when he states that "A~mad Amin presents himself

as one who is not a ~fl but is willing to engage in serious

dialogue with the ,Of! position.,,29

He was generally a quiet man with a shy manner but could

be surprisingly outspoken when it came to defending a cause

or principle he believed was right. and this qual i ty caused

him problems in his professional life. Even though he did

not agree with Th I;lusayn on all issues, he supported the

latter in the controversy which led to ~usayn's dismissal from

the university in 1932 and so had difficu1ty in achievlng th~

rank of full professor. A1though the university's constitution

did not stipulate that instructors had to have a PhD to becom~

full professors, it seemc; his lack of a degree was the excuse

offered to Amin when denying him this status. When someone (::l~,(!

became full professor without a PhD, he protested and recoll1'

mended that two orientalist professors, Schaade and Bergstrnq

s e r. e x ami ne h i s b 0 0 ks Fa j r a 1 - l s l man d {) U {Iii a l - l s 1 .:1 min 1 i l' U

of the degree. Their report was favorable, but the Ministry

of Education suppressed it. His friends of the Committee for

27Kenneth Crose, "A~mad Amin and Lajnat al-ta'lif wa al


tarjamah wa al-nashr, p. 151.

28Duran, "Ahmad Amin: the Twentieth Century Quest fol'


Muslim Identity, (Part Two)", Internatl.onal Journal of Isl[JlIIJe
and Arabie Studl.es, II (1985), P 70.

29Shepard, Faith of a Modern Muslim Intellcctllal, p. 83.


52

Authorshlp held a "protest party" ln his honour, but lt was

not untl1 he threatened resignation ln 1936 that he achieved

his goal. lt is probably no concidence that in this same

year the Wafd returned to power, and ~h4 ~usayn returned to

the university.30 Amin finally received an honorary doctoral

degree, along with the Fucad l prize for literature, but in

1948, two years after he had retired.

The list of achievements and writings of Ahmad Amin i5

full. In addition to raising his family, teaching, working

on the Committee of Authorship, editing al-Thaq~fah and writing

his numerous books such as the multivolume history series,

he held a variety of positions on boards and eommittees. He

was elected to the board of the National Library (1936-52),

he represented the College of Arts on the University Couneil

for ten years (1936-46), and even became Dean of the College

in 1939, but served only two of the three years of his term

as he found the interruption of his scholarly work and the

administrative headaches too frustrating. He was a member of

the Arabic Language Aeademy, where Lu~fi al-Sayyid was the

president, from 1941-54. Here he worked toward implementing

sorne of the language reforms he saw as necessary. For a year

he held a post in the Ministry of Education (1945), sat on

the board of DAr al-cUlm (1949-52), and was the first director

of the Cultural Department of the Arab League from 194752.

The purpose of this latter department coincided with many of

( 30 S hepard, Faith, p. 2l.


53

, the goals of A~mad Amin himself. The Department endeavored


......
to preserve and study manuscripts, publish lists of works baing

produced in Arabie, translated books into Arabie, and sponsored

conferences on various aspects of culture. The flrst of these

conferences was convened in Lebanon in the summer of 1947;

Amin was the chai rperson a t tha t event. 31 The proj ec t he

was personally most proud of (he called it his "daughter n )

was the founding of the Popular University (al-jamiCah 1I1-

shaCbiyah) , later known as the Foundation for Popular Culture

(mu'assasat al-thaqAfah al-shaCbyah). lt offered adult edu-

cation courses, lectures and films etc., a program which ex-

panded ta other provinces until more than 17,000 students were

enrolled. 32 This project came close ta embodying Amin's ideals

for language reform and for bringing education. nd culture to

ordinary people. One could add ta this already long list his

contributions to radio broadcast series, his participation in

various scholarly conferences, and his involvement with studenl&

visiting Egypt.

He remained active in writing as well. His contributions

ta papers such as al-Risdlah, al-Thaqdfah, al-Hildl and other~

amounted to more than 500 essays, Many of which were collect~d

in ten volumes under the title FaY1 al-khdfir (The Stream ot

Thought) . "In these essays 1 headed for a kind of literature

in which the social character and the reforming ten-

3lCrose, "A9mad Amin and Lajnat al-ta'lif," pp. 243-44.

32 Am in, Hy Life, p. 202.


54

dency preva lled. Thl s was the mo s t favori te 1cind


of literature to me and the ~ruest to give expression
to my self, for the best literature i5 that which
is true, expresses the self without imitation, and
conveys the writer's experience of life without falsi-
fication ... 33

He also assisted in the editing of classical texts, wrote bon~s

for use in schools or collaborated in writing or editing a

number of other works.

After he retired at age 60 (1946) he continued teaching

part-time as a visiting professor at the university, as well

as numerous other positions such as those listed above. Two

years later he experienced trouble with his vision and was to1d

that the retina of his left eye had become detached. The op-

eration was only of limited success, and soon thereafter he also

( suffered from cataracts. The prolonged period of anxiety and

restricted movement during which he was not a1lowed to read

resulted in a profound depression which was more debilitating

th an his physical suffering. He experienced much bitterness

and confusion about the values which he had previously held,

and even though he recovered to some degree, he retained some

of these uncertainties. 34 In 1950 he had a mild stroke due

to an accidental overdose of insulin but fortunately recovered

a1most comp1ete1y. He was forced to sec ure the help of one of

his sons or someone e1se to help him with his reading and wri-

ting as best he could.

33 Ibid ., p. 197.

( 34 Ibid ., p. 219.
55

- when the Free Officers

cautiously optimistic, but


initiated

he did not
th~tr

w:'tness
revolution, he was

much of what

they were to accomplish, and he was even somewhat distressed

over some of the subsequent developments. After attending a

meeting of the Committee for Authorship only two nights he-

fore, Al)mad Amin died quietly on May 30, 1954. The funeral

procession on the morning of June 1st was led by President

Nagib, the mayor of Cairo, followed hy the Prime Minister,

members of the Revolutionary Command Counci1, the Shaykh al-

Azhar and Many other dignitaries and memhers of the Committee

for Authorship.35 They rnourned a man who had appealed to the

hearts and minds of a wide range of Egyptians through his per-

sonal influence and through his Many writings. Sorne of his

concerns and appeals for reforrn, hringing together a religious

and a modern outlook, are the subject of the chapter which fol-

lows.

35Crose, p. 208.
56

Cbapter Three

The writings and reflections contained in the works of

A\:lmad Amin contain valuable insights into the historical change

expe r i enced by Egyp t and the va r ious issue s which he and other s

felt required addressing. Amin touches on a very wide range

of subj ects. These include specifie and general questions of

Arabie literature, education, great historical figures, literary

reform, politics (especially those relating to international

events and colonialism, less often to Egyptian polities), ques-

tions of ethies, individual morality in connection with the

community, the problems and duties of leaders, "and many other

subjects that .interested him, either beeause they eaught his

( scholarly attention and he wanted to popularize his knowledge,

or because he eonsidered them as important in connection with

the deep structural changes that were affecting his society." 1

He did not view himself as a crusading reformer, but as

a scholar, and sorne of his essays are more the reflections of

an artist th an the strietly erudite critiques of the professor.

A~mad Amin was an advocate of reform although much of what he

proposed was formulated in general principles rather than speci-

fic proposaIs for the use of politicians. Categories and labels

are always in need of qualification, but perhaps the designation

"social critic" and "intellectual" describe Amn the best.

lA. M. H. Mazyad, AJ}mad Amin (Cairo 1886-1954): Advoclte


( of Social lnd LLCerary Reform in Egypt:, (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1963), p. 54.
57

Amin worked during a period when experimenting in dif-

fere~t 1iterary forms was encouraged by the various journals

and newspapers estab1ished in Egypt in the first half of this

century. Journalistic writing and the essay became popular

vehic1es for advocating solutions ta the problems faced by

Egypt. A~mad Amin wrote hundreds of essays, as mentioned in

the previous chapter. Most of these have been callected and

published as Fayd . al- khA .e ir. The title cornes from the word

fay~an used ta describe the overflowing of the Nile. liA per-

son's Eayg, moreover, is sometimes equated with the outpouring

of his very self, the fu11est expression of which is the de-

tenanting of the body after death. Il 2 A kh~~lr is an ide,l.

notion or inclination, not necessarily implying intellectualiz-

ing or self-conscious philosophizing. Most of the essays werc~

written for the popular medium of jaurnals and papers lib"'

al-Sufr, al-Rislah, al-Hill, and al-Thaq.fah; their "editor-

ia1 comment is a va1uable index to the emotions and attitudes

which made up the stuff of events. Its continuity not on1y

keeps the thread of popu1ar thinking through the sequence of

time but also ensures, or 50 it would seem, that literate opin-

ion in the nation is made accessible.,,3

An important background source ta be read in conjunction

with his other writings 15 his autobiography. This genre Ol

2Kenneth Cragg, "Then and Now in Egypt: the Reflection::;


of Attmad Amin, 1886-1954," The Middle East Journal IX, (1955),
p. 28.

3 I bid., p. 29.
58

(~ literature is not traditionally part of Arabie belles-lettres,

and even though the reader 1s not given the answer to every

question on the thoughts and attitudes of Amin, the work' s

simple style is nonetheless sincere and uncontrived. Scattered

among the related events Amin a1so discusses some of his views

on the need for reform in various areas of society.

Amin' s inte11ectual history series has been hailed by many

as an important contribution to scho1arship. lndeed Safran

regards it as perhaps the "most important production" during

che period he ca1Is the "progressive phase", even though much

of it was written at a time when he claims the reaction had

set in. 4 H. A. R. Gibb considers it as the "first comprehensive

attempt to introduce critical method into modern Muslim Arabie

( historiography."S F'aj r al- l s lm, . .


Duh al-Islm and Zuhr al-.
Islm provide a study of the intellectual developments of 15-

lamie society. They cover religion, theology, jurisprudence,

historiography and other aspects of the first four centuries

of the I}ij ra. These are set against a backdrop of the changes

in political and social life, highlighting the ways in which

the Muslims borrowed from other ethnic and cultural groups.

Th I}usayn in his introduction to Fajr al-IslAm praises the

"scientific approach of Amin, how he traces back to what extent

and in what proportion various elements have contributed to

4Nadav Safran, Egypt: in Search of Politlcal Community,


(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), p. 16l.

( A. R
SEncyclopaedia of Islam, New Ed., s.v.
Gibb.
"Ahmad Amin," by H.
S9

-
, the intellectual life: pre-lslamie. Persian,

and finally giving the Arabie mixture which resulted from the
Jewish, Greek,

combination of these elements. n 6 The series "pravided valuable

sunport ta Many of the main themes of the intellectual leaders,

particularly to their positive attitude towards Western culture,

their natural, earthy humanistic ethics, their bssertion of

the rights of reason, and their advocacy of a siO'cular national

state.,,7

A~mad Amin was for the gre3ter part of his life a supporter

of tJestern liberal political ideals, although he himself with-

drew from active participation in polities. He even declined

an invitation to become editor-in-chief of the Sacdist Party

paper al-Ass beeause he felt i t would compromise his scholarly

neutral i ty. He did, however, continue to deal with politic,ll

matters and offer advice ta politieal leaders. "For him the

politica! leader was, or at 1east ought ta be. a leader 0 f

social reform, and he was very much interested in this aspect

of his task ... 8 As far as his personal sympathies were con-

cerned, he favored Zaghll and the Wafd unti1 around 1918 when

he supported the Sacdist off-shoot. 9

6Nejla M. Izzeddjn, "Taha ljusain and the Dawll al' IsLam,"


(M.A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1931), p. 29.

7Safran, Egypc in Search of Politlcal COmtnUl1lty, p. l(Jl

8William Shepard, "The Di1emma of a Liberal. Some Political


Implications in the Writings of the Egyptian Scho1ar, A~mad Amin
(1886-1954)," !1odern Egypc: Studles ln Pol1.Cics and Society,
(London: Frank Cass & Co., Ltd., 1980). P 85

9 Ibid .
60

( On the question of nationalism, Amin had Many reservations.

His writings did not explore the neo-Pharaonic themes and the

ideology of Arabisrn as did sorne of his contemporaries. As a

you th he was ac qua in ted wi th the tradi t iona 1 wor ld- view of

his father which did not encompass the idea of nationalism in

the way Amin' s generation came to see it. Whi le he was a

teacher at the judicial school Amin was caught up in the in-

dependence movement and supported Egyptian nationalism. He

also admired what nationalism in Turkey, together with Ata-

trk's reforms, was able to accomplish there, yet he also

critlcized the particularism which is part of the Western con-

cept of nationalism. In al-Sharq wa al-gharb he states:

"Nationalism, the creation of modern eivilization,


i5 one of the worst afflictions of the eontemporary
( world and does not merely Mean the defence of the
fatherland, rathar it is chauvinism at its worst
and attempts to dominate other countries . . . . This
brand of nationalism [combined with the chauvinism
of language and religion] is in reality nothing but
the lackey of imperialism ...... 10

Elsewhere he remarks that "na 1 onalism, the narrowness that

makes the nation, not humanity, its unit y, is the root of a11

evil. The world will only be safe and happy in the advent of

a eivilization which will make the whole of humanity the ground

of unity."ll He demanded that "Muslim nationhood l i f t itse1f

above nationalist evils to merge itself into a universal humani-

10A1;lmad Amin, Orient and Occident: an Egyptia.n's Quest


for NatIonal IdentIty, trans. from the Arabie by Wolfgang H.
Behn, (Berlin: Adiyok, 1984), p. 27.

llFayq al-khir I, p. 108, cited in Cragg , "Then and


Now," p. 38
61

ty. "12

Am1n viewed his wor1d as beginning with Egypt, th en going

to the larger Arab world, the Islamic world and then the East

as a wh01e. 13 The concern with the issues facing th~broader

Orient, became more prominent as the years went on, culminating

in al-Sharq wa al-gharb, although it is true that his references

to the "East" still focused primarily on the Arabs. The East

and the West are described in his writings as having particular

character traits which aid or hinder their respective progress.

For example he calls on people of the East to unite individual

interests with those of the welfare of the nation as people in

the West do, for each society "in the East and the West has

its merits and lts faults, and the most obvious of our faults

is the weakness of social sentiments and the weakness of the

"we" feelings and the strength of the "1" feelings. ,,14 Amin

is also occupied by the relatively advanced progress of the

West and the reasons for the lack of parallel progress in th0

East. He admits that blind adoption has produced bewilderment

and reservation among OrientaIs because the science an tecll-

no log y wh i c h ha v e bee n e mplo Y e d di d no t h il V e an i n d i ge n 0 li "

source. This confusion Is further aggravated beciluse it WdS

12Cragg, "Then and Now in Egypt," p. 38.

13 Wi lliam Shepard, The Faith of a Modern Husllm Intellec-


tual, (New Dehli: Vikas Publishing House PVT Ltd., 1982), p.
135.

14James Pollock, "Moral Attitudes in Modern Egyptian


Islam," (M.A. thesis, The Kennedy School of Mission of the
Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1961), p. 185.
62

largely imposed forcibly by the colonial powers to facilitate

their exploitation of the East. 1S Amin does not, however,

entirely despair of his hope that, given judicious selection

of Western ideas and technology, the East can take its turn

aga in in leading the progress of the human race .16 lndeed

progress in the last 50 years contradicts the Western perception

that the East is moribund and incapable of change. 17

The theme of Eastern spirituality versus Western materia1-

ism is also addressed by A~mad Amin. A 1939 article "Between

East and West, or Materialism and Spirituality"l8 was a rebutta1

of Th ~usayn' s The Future of Cul ture in Egyp t . He agreed

that the West is not purely materialistic, but continued that

the East 15 less inclined to make a "GodjCaesar" distinction

( and, contrary to this sacredjsecular contrast, to take into

account this wor1d and the one beyond in deciding its actions. l9

Amin a1so disagreed with ~usayn's argument that Egypt should

be considered as part of the West. It is true that, especia11y

in his latter years, Amin developed a simultaneous admiration

and contempt for the West, but the hope that the East and the

West can fruitfu1ly learn from one another is the dominant

l5 Amin , Orient and Occident, p. 15.

16Fay~ al-khir VI, pp. 84-88, cited in Shepard, Faith


of a Modern Musllm, p. 38.

17 Amin , Orient and Occident, p. 71.

18 Faycj al-khir II, pp. 52-58.

( 19Shepard, Faith, p. 150.


63

end-note. Materialism and spirituality have their strengths

and weaknesses and the pursuit of mutual interaction may be

difficule, but in the end they can cooperate for the good of

aIl mankind. 20

In his writings Amin displays his concern for and sympathy

with the "common people"; "democracy" is commonly contrasted

with "aristocracy". For example, literature should ref1ect

more the life of the ordinary people chan that of the lite

He cites in one essay Lincoln's famous definition of democracy:

ie is the government of the people, by the peop1f.!, for the

people. 21 Applying this definition goes beyond just puttlnE

"the people" in power, but it also means ensuring that t!H"/

will desire the right things because they have received ail

education. He felt there should be no privileged class domina-

ting others, and he was not ashamed of his own roots in the

"common" people. In the same way as the worth of an actor is

said to consist not in the size of his role but in the quality

of his performance, Amin draws attention to the worth of tho~p

who do menial tasks, as for example in his artie le about l

street sweeper. 22 His interest in the folklore and custO/ll'.

o f o r d i na r y Cg y P t i ans bega n w i th his chi l d ho 0 d 0 b s e r vat ion,.

about his neighbours and his playmates. Amin even publi~hcd

20 Amin , Or~ent and Occident, pp 66, 72.

21 Fayq al-khiir I I I , pp.98-99, cited in Shepard, The Failh


of a Hodern Husl~m Intellectual, pp. 32-33.

22 Fay cj al-khipr VI, pp. 138-1 /.0, eited in Shepard, Fluil


of a Hodern Husl~m Intellectual, p. 33
64

a dictionary of Egyptian eus toms , sayings and express ions,

(QAmrls al-cAdAh wa al-taqAlid wa al-taCAbir al-mi~riyah, Cairo,

1953) partly as a refleetion of this interest, but also to

aequaint bis cbildren's generation with past eustoms and super-

stitions 50 they could see how far Egypt had eome. 23

The relationship betwnen religion and polities in Amin's

wrltings ls elosely 11nked wlth bis eoneern with etbles. In

Amin's book on ethies, KitAb al-akhlAq, he states that the

purpose of government is not just to rule, but to reali~e jus-

tice and freedom, even for the underprivileged, and that a

politieal party could be thought of as a group of people united

for action by a common idea of the public good. 24 Amin and his

eolleagues are critieized for giving more emphasis to politieal

( Ideals which become ethieal values, and not enough attention

to how these ideals are to be realized. 25 Religion is clearly

to be the support for these ethical ideals and for reform,

but chere is sorne tension in his thought on the relation of

religion and polities. "On the one hand, insofar as religion

is re1ated to and supports ethies, he wants it to be connected

with polities. On the other hand, insofar as it goes beyond

this to impose details of bellef or provokes undesirable re-

sults, lt should be separate from pOlltics.,,26 The separation

23Shepard, Faith of a Modern Musll.m, p. 26.

24 K l. t b al-akhlq, pp. 269, 141, cited in Safran, p. 150.

25Safran, pp. 149-50.

( 26Shepard, Fal.th, p. 180.


65

of religion and polities in his writings decreases as his at-

tention 1s increasingly foeused on the problems of social re-

form 27 _ He makes a rather broad statement near the end of

his life when he writes:

"Separation of religion from polities ... is not


something Islam requires, beeause it is neeessary
that religion enter into politics to correct and to
ref1ne it and to set right the intentions of the
po11tical leaders ,and to direct them toward that
whieh benefits cheir subjeets. Europe has fallen
into eontinual wars only by separating polities from
religion, for by being separated from religion it
was separated from ethies too.,,28

This last, questionable statement i5 also citod by Safran to

show how Amin revoked his former western-style nationalism 29 ;

this excerpt, however, was written during a period of ill-health

which seemed to affect Amin negatively and can not be takell

as consistent with the bulk of his writings.

The attention to a moral quality of concern for the cornmall

people is emphasized in Amin's writing, but it i5 never fulLy

integrated or specifically linked with particu1ar forms of

government. 30 He implie5 that parliamentary forms are necessnry

50 as to curb the potential tyranny of the governrnent, dlld

that this is a "natural" form of rule for hurnankind but whiclt

has on1y been implemented re1ative1y recently. Howeve r. Il Y

"failing to connect par1iamentary government clearly with 'dl'-

27 Ibid., p. 75.

28 Yawm al-Islm, p. 189, cited in Shepard, Faith, p 7'J

29 Sa fran, pp. 227-228.

30Shepard, Fai th, p. 54.


66

{ mocracy'-an indisputab1y central symbol and powerful concern

for Ahmad Amin and for others--Ahmad Amin's writings fail to

counter those who would argue that true' democracy does not

involve liberal parliamentary forms."3l Liberal parliamentary

institutions of the pre-revo1utionary era did not take effective

ho1d when transp1anted in the soi1 of Egypt, and Amin along

with his contemporaries did not seem to address this di1emma.

In paral1el with the role of the writer and intel1ectual

in society a political leader and reformer is to be a teacher

and a guide, not just a representative of politieal consensus.

Amin writes about those figures who have been great leaders,

that is reformers, of the past and present. Mul;1ammad is of

course the Ideal example. The prophet is presented without

( much of the apologetics which accompanied sorne of the writings

of other inte1lectuals in the 1930s. Amin wrote various essays

on historica1 figures which were collected in a book Zucam'

al-isl~h fi al-casr al-hadith (Leaders of Reform in the Modern


" . "

Age, Cairo, 1948) where political reformers, like Zagh1l and

MUl?afA KAmil, and cultural reformers, like Mul;1ammad cAbduh,

are discussed. Leaders, according to a 1946 article "Leaders

and Leadership", should have qualities which Amin groups under

four headings: (l)frankness and honesty, (2)moral courage to

take stands which are not necessarily popular, (3)practical

intelligence and competence, and (4)sympathy and compassion

( 3l S hepard, "Dilemma of a Liberal," p. 90.


67

- for his people. 32 The idea of moral and social reform is also

linked with renewal (taJd!d) and the idea of a renewer-leader

(muJaddid) . In a 1949 article he writes: "Renewal is not

limited to religion but every institution of life renews itself:

religion, habits and customs, literature, singing, political

theories, and sCience,,,33 and then goes on to discuss "laws"

of renewal with examples from modern political and soclal re-

form.

A survey of his essays indicates that the strong leadership

needed for his vision of reform is not clearly evident in his

time. His criticism is especially evident in articles written

during his later years. In his book al-Sharq wa al-ghBrb.

published posthumously, he calls for indigenous leadership

that will help bring about a stronger East. "What the Orient

needs Most urgently are lead~rs who will encourage their coun-

trymen to initiate, but who will accept things only after care-

fuI e x am i n a t ion and bye 0 nt i 1. ua 11 y se arc h in g for an 0 rie n t <l l

solution, rather than always asking what Europe would be daille

in such circumstances. ,,34 An implied criticism of contemparary

leaders could be found in his essay "Gad' s procedure wi t Il

regard ta nations". When describing those who are lI/lUfll1.lIlt1.

he states that "in their struggle for social improvement [lnd

32 Fayg al-khir VII, pp. 263-271, cited in Shcpard, "Di-


lemma of a Liberal," p. 88.

3 3 F a y cf a 1 - k h f i r VII l , pp. l 2 3 - 2 4, c i t e d i nIb id., p. ] l,l,

34 Amin , Orient and Occident, p. 20.


68

( civilization they act as reformers, they do not encroach upon

the rights of others, do not commit crimes and aggressions

and do not behave like tyrants.,,35 However, strong leadership

was needed because public opinion had not yet received enough

benefits by way of education. The Egyptian people had too

long accepted autocratie rule. Amin stresses the need for

enlightened an1 aroused public opinion through newspapers,

radio broadcasts, and the mosque. 36 Numerous examples could

be given in Amin's own life of actions in which he dedicated

himself to this task.

His concern for the "common people" is continued in his

writing on literary and language reform. Amin was eager that

all people have access to education and to intellectual nourish-

( ment. In his autobiography he writes: "1 hate the aristocracy

of men of letters who do not write except for the lite and

do not produce any art except for them. The dut Y of writers

is to bring their nourishment to every intellect and convey

their artistic productio~ to every ear. If they do not, they

will have been remiss."37

When Ahmad Amin travelled to Turkey in 1928, he observed

the many changes and reforms implemented by Keml Ataturk,

35 Fayq al-khpr IX, p. 35, cited in Detlev Khalid, "Ahmad


Amin and the legacy of Mul;tammad cAbduh," Islam~c Scudies IX,
(March, 1970), p 14.

36 Shepard, "Dilemma of a Liberal," p. 86.

37A~mad Amin, My Life: che Aucobiography of an Egypcian


( Scholar. Wrlter and Cultural Leader, trans. & intro. Issa J.
Boullata, (Leiden. E.J. Brill, 1978), pp. 199-200).
69

-
,\

"
including those in the realm of language and literature.

5eems that the words of a fellow Egyptian residing in Istanbul


Tt

echoed Amin's thoughts when he observed: "There is no hope of

reforming Egypt as long as there is a language for learning

and another for conversation. Either the language of conver

sation should rise or that of learning should come down 50

that the two may become one. Only then will there be true

thinking and a language that derlves lts soul from real 1lfe."38

The wide gap between the colloquialtlanguage and the writ

ten language hindered the spread of 1iteracy and culture. On

several occasions A~mad Amin proposed making the written lan

guage easier.

"1 suggest that we adopt a people's language whlch


we would purify from vulgar terms [harfish] .. and
drop declension at the ends of words' This language
will be that of education, conversation, and writing
for the masses .... Both the colloquial and the literary
languages will gain by this. The literary language
ls not much nourished now by the daily use ot words
which, by nature, gives more life to the language
than do books and elite circles. The colloquial
will make progress and approach the literary and
this will enable us to spread culture and education
quickly among the masses, and present literary nou
rishment ta people who have been 50 far deprived of
it. And that is as great a crime as the imprison
ment of the innocent or the starving of the poor "39

Just as ijt:ihd had been "closed" in the development ot juri ...

prudence, in Amin's view, the Arabie written languaee had not

kept up wich eeonomic, social and cultural changes, especl.tlJ:;

38 Ibid ., p. 161. This friend was cAli Bey Fawz i.

39 Amin , My Lite, p. 200. An example of this type of pro-


posal in his essays can be found in Fayg alkhtrr VII, pp
246-258.
70

( those of the modern period. There were too Many words relating

to bedouin life and too few relating to urban life. The remedy

lay in amplifying the vor.~bulary, arabizing foreign words when

necessary in addition to creating new words by derivation and

ana1ogy.40 The classical language with its lexicons and other

too1s wou1d continue to be used in the universities by those

wishing to study scho1arly texts. 41 When Amin gave radio broad-

cast talks, he self-consciously treated his subject in a simple

style, using language which approached the colloquial out of

pit y for the illiterate and semi-1iterate who had limited access

to intellectual nourishment. 42

The duality of language and the lack of connection between

the colloquial and the written language also eontribut:ed to

( the weakness of modern Arabic literature. The veneration of

classical styles and elaborate prose had left behind that strata

of society which was not adequately education to understand

the poetry and texts of the great Arabie writers. Moreover

this older 1iterature did not ref1ect the current social back-

ground, and the modern literature had not achieved the sarne

40"An examination of reform of the corpus of the Arabie


language," Fayq al-khir V, pp. 173-183, cited in Mazyad,
AQmad Amin, pp. 98-99.

4lMu~ammad cAbduh and Lu~fi al-Sayyid are also associated


with advocating reform of the Arabie language. For more on
other inte11eetua1s who worked for change in this area and
are not as wel1-known, see Giora Eliraz, "Tradition and Change:
Egyptian Intel1ectua1s and Linguistic Reform, 1919-1939," Asian
and African Scudies XX, (Ju1y, 1986): 233-62.

( 42 Amin , Hy Life, p. 199.


71
scope as ln the West. Amin wrltes ln an essay "Our Llterature

does not represent us ,": "In my opinion Arabie literature in

its present state ls not suited to be an adequate


source of nurture for the present generation. This
is equally true of the classical literature, the
modern literature, or the two together .... It ls essen-
tial that the llterature of every nation keep pace
with lts times, but our literature today does not
portray us. l t ls behind our time, whereas i t should
be ahead of lt.,,43

Literature should have a wider range, touching on religious,

social and political concerns. This expansion does not mean

abandoning all the old styles, but literature must point out

areas of weakness in society. In another essay he writes:

" ... literature fulfills its mission to the nation when it suc-

ceeds in beeoming the voice of [the nation's1 very life, WhC'1l

[literature] truly conveys [the nation'5] hopes and pains,

when [literature] becomes the nation's veritable spiritll,1i

food that gives the people what they need of consolation and

hope.,,44 Nonetheless, Amin does not support the use of literd-

ture for purely politieal purposes beeause this utilization

subordinates literature for temporal purposes. "The men Dt

letters who value their mission know that th~y are above poli-

ticians . . . . ,,45

43 Fayq al-khAir l, pp. 163-66, cited in Kenneth Cro';l',


"Al;1mad Amin and Lajnat al-ta'lif wa al-tarjamah wa al-nl1.shr.
a study of their contribution to the 20th century Renaissance
of Egypt," (PhD dissertation, Hartford Seminary Foundation,
1955), p. 40

44"On Modern Egyptian Literature, " Fayq al-khtir VI,


pp. 282-91, eited in Mazyad, p. 94.

45 lb id., p. 97.
72

( Amin ls not insensitive to the purely literary criterion

which ls part of evaluating various writings, but he sees the

writer as a promoter of reform. The writer is to reflect the

social and cultural conditions of a people in his/her work,

but the author's task is also to heighten th!! standards of

mentality and emotions, which is why i t is important that liter-

ature be "democratic", or accessible. 46 Writers who fulfill

their role as social refo!:'mers are performing a "prophetie"

task.

"The writer of this type i~ the apostle (rasaI) of


his nation and its guide to ~~e good, and the tracer
of its <"'oals in life, realizing the facts before
other men do, feeling them before they do, and then
moving their emotions to enthusiasm for acting on
them. He fe~ls in the depths of his soul that he
has a mission (risAIa) to raise the level of men and
impel them toward a happier life and a sounder live-
:( lihood, combining moral and artistic loftiness and
using his art in the service of that for which his
people aspires.,,47

Numerous essays by Amin approach this "prophetie" style.

Perhaps also in keeping with Amin's concern for democraey

ls his aversion to inter- or intra-communal strife. Amin fre-

quently praises the sufi tradition for its religious toler-

ance. He writes about the conflict between the sufis and the

fuqah' in his history volume ?uhr al-Islm, noting that eaeh

went to extremes but that society has need of both the emotional

46 Ibid ., p. 93.

47 Fay d al-khtir VI, pp. 65-69, cited in Shepard, Faith,


! 52 .
p.
!
73

and the intellectual temperament. 48 He often expresses his

concern to reconcile intra-communal differences. Amin ",as

deeply pained by the reaction of some Shicah to his comments

in FaJr al-IslAm. He writes: "The truth 15 that l have no

blas for Sunna or for Shl c a, for l crlticize sorne doctrines

of the Sunna people no less than those of the Shica . . . . ,,49

When the king of Iraq wanted to punish the Drator who had in-

cited the crowd against Amin, Amin requested that he not do

so.50

His modernist ideo10gy would a1so include the principle

of re1igious tolerance, influenced by Western 1ibera1 ideas,

wh i che mph a s i z e d a " c 0 mm u na 1 Il vie w 0 f I s 1 am, i e., the th rel>

faiths of Judaism, Christianity and Islam are all a1lowed to

co-exist harmonious1y.51 Islam is still the pinnacle in the>

evolutionary deve10pment of religion, and he does not reject

the idea that all people ought to bec orne Muslim, but he fre-

quent1y "makes the point that Islam is a religion for all time'J

and places in contexts where he is urging the idea of tolerance

or equality over against national and racial animosities. In

this context such a statement" is quite consistent with th(

48 Zu hr al-Tslm II, pp. 59-64, cited in Shepard, FaJth


of a Modern Muslim Inelleccual, p. 88.

49 Amin , My Life, p. 173.

SOSee ab ove p. 48.

SlWilliam Shepard, liA Modernist view of Islam and oth~r


Re 1 i g ion s , " Th e !1 u s l i m W0 r 1 d , LXV, ( AP r i 1 19 7 5 ), p. 8 1 .
74

( communal image of Mus11m-non-Musl1m relations ... 52 Jews, Chris-

tians and Musl1ms are spoken of as separate nationalities.

His willingness to cooperate with Christians was demonstrated

ln his life when he partlcipated in demonstrat1ons together with

Coptic clergy. Islam and Christianity are frequently linked

ln his essays. Their respective terms, such as church and

mosque are llnked together 53 , and Amin ls equally crltical of

both in their tendencies to asceticism and authoritarianism,

He even holds up European clergy and churehes as examples at

times. 54 Amin often makes the assumption that the follower~

of all the various early prophets have fallen short of their

respective teachings 55 , although he also singles out the Muslims

for their failure to remain faithful to the prophetie message. 56

In diseussing the main communities he does not compare specifie

doctrinal differences; for example, in his history books Fajr

al-Isldm and qu~~ al-Isldm he treats Christian doctrines in a

strictly historical manner. 57

Safran notes Amin's strong criticism of Chr.istianity in

Yawm al-Islm as a symptom of his extreme reaction to the

52 Ibid ., p. 83.

53 eg . Fay,! al-kh~ir III, pp. 108-09; VII, p. 23.


54 Favd al-kh.tir II, p. 188, 216-217; IX, p. 132, cited
in Shepard: liA Modernist View, Il p. 88.

55 Ibid., pp. 84-5, ego Faye} al-kh.ir VIII, pp. 43-7.

56 Faxcf al-kh.~lr IX, pp. 1-5, cited in ibid., p. 85

( 57 Ibid ., p. 89 n. 31.
75

- West. 58 The attack here, however,

particular doctrines but against imperialistic attacks of


is directed not against

th~

West ("Christians") against Muslims. 59 It is maintained that

this book and the articles written in this time period .(1949-

52) were not typical of Amin's writings previous to this inter-

val or even after. 60 This time period reflected a time of

personal crisis in his health and the national crisis of social-

economic dislocation and the impact of the establishing of

the state of Israel. This latter fact complicates his view

of the Jewish community, but there is nothing to indicate that

he would treat Judaism any differently than Christianity.6l

The challenge in the 20th century of finding a legitimate


/

basis for identity and dignity confronts the Mus1im community

more urgent1y than many other religious groups Al]mad Amin

fo1lows the legacy of Islamic modernism which was inaugurated

by Mu~ammad cAbduh in that he relates religious decline to ~

paraI leI dec1ine in the social rea1m. Amin sees the apparent

decline in faith as a factor in the "dec1ine" of the Muslilll

East. If belief and religion are strengthened, then Mus1iJJlB

will again become leaders in faith. "This urgent desire (or

spiritual conviction presupposes that all ls not well in rell-

58Safran, pp. 226-27. See 8 l soS hep 8 rd, "A 11 0 der Il l 'i t:
View," pp. 89-90.

59 Ibid ., p. 90.

60Shepard, Faith, pp. 47-48. See 81so be10w p. 81-83.

6lShepard, "A Modernist View," p. 91.


76

( gion and society. lt becomes the recurrent theme of Fayq al-

.
khAtir. ,,62

Amin realizes that simply changing the institutions of

society will not be sufficient if the moral and intellectual

attitudes of the members of that society do not change 50 that

they can accept these changes. In an article entitled "Modern

Reform" he states: "If you are not pleased with the fruit of

a tree it is a useless wish ta expect it ln the future ta be

good and sweet as long dS you preserve as they are its roots

and sail, climate and nourishment."63 This coneern for reform

is not developed in his writings as specifie proposals. Amin

presents a more general discussion on the necessity of reform,

the nature of leadership needed to bring about change, and com-

( ments on political developments. In earlier articles, where

he speaks more generally of religion without emphasis on Islam

in particular, the focus i5 much more on the need for social

reform to be scientific, which is in keeping with Amin's gradu-

alist approach. 64 In the sarne article cited above, Amin main-

tains that "the course of action of modern reform Is ta follow

up disease and ta know its causes, then ta make an effort to

remove the causes to that the disease will go away .... The old

way in reform use ta say, 'Feed the hungry,' but the new way

62Cragg, "Then and Now," p. 35.

63 Fayq al-kh.Lr II, pp. 289-93, translated in James Pol-


lock, "Moral Attitudes in Modern Egyptian Islam," p. 178.

( 64Shepard, Faith, p. 44.


77

- says, 'Let there be no hungry person.'

to the poor man', but the new way says,


The old way says,

'Wipe out poverty' . ,,65


'Give

lt might be said that this approach reflects the way he

has been influenced by Western ideas of reform, but it wou1d

not be accurate to say that A~mad Amin then merely attaches

Qur'nic concepts to his ideas about such reform. Islam and

reform are linked even in one of his ear1iest publications, hL~

collection of lectures in KitAb al-akhlAq; one "may argue that

A~mad Amin was conscious of receiving many of his ideas about

reform from the West, but here he makes explicit the Islamic

ground work upon which they were based when borrowed, dnd in

terms which, to a great extent, they were understood.,,66

Amin is consistent with the modernist tradition; he sees

no contradiction between religion and reason or between religioll

and science. In the article "Science and Religion" he commpnl~

that the challenge presented by Copernicus and Darwin to Chrls-

tianity and the subsequent resistance by the Church i5 simlla~

ta the resistance of contemporary Islam to accomodate modern

ideologies and methodologies. However, according to Amin,

this resistance only serves the interests of the secu1arists.

Gradually "it came to be realized that the methodology ot

science was inapplicable to the areas with which faith i5 mostly

concerned . . . . Amin sees no reason for the traditionsl bitter COII-

flict between faith and science and takes his stand upon tilt

65pollock, "Moral Attitudes," pp. 184-185.

66 Ibid ., p. 126.
78

( notion of the two provinces. "67

He does not address specifie intellectual issues facing

Islamic dogma to any great extent, but he does maintain the

idea that science answers the questions of "how" and faith

the questions of "what". 68 Amin does not want to say that

religion does not address questions of science, politics or

other social issues. He maintains that even in the West science

is becoming more open to the recognition that faith is necessary

too. For Amin the "great need is for an intelligence made

religious and a religion made intelligent: tadyn al-Caql wa-

taCqil al-din.,,69

Reason and religion, for instance, must work together in

the realm of ethics, an area of utmost importance for Ahmad

( Amin. For him "reason in the moral realm is not so much a

means for discovering basic moral values, which he generally

assumes to be obvious, as a means for determining their appli-

cation in a given situation. ,,70 Rational considerations may

determine the content of ethical decisions, but they are not,

however, sufficient to sustain a deep moral committment. Their

binding force must be derived from religion which permeates

aIl aspects of life, individual and social. Religion i5 the

67 Fayq al-khir IV, pp. 148-155, cited in Cragg, "Then


and Now," p. 37.

68Cragg, "Then and Now, p. 37.

69 Ibid ., p. 39.

( 70 S hepard, Faith, p. 82.


79

- source of moral renewa1 and is the prerequisite of any improve-

ment in the social rea1m. Science and teehnology are necessary

for naaterial improvement, but: he stresses that spirituality

and religion are necessary counterbalanees to science. This

1s inereasingly stressed by Amin in his 1ater years. 71

Al:tmad Amin favored the idea that the "door" of iJti/ujd

should be open to a110w for flexibility since outward circum-

stances are a1ways changing; "religion must learn to distinguish

between the e1emental obligations such as justice and honour,

and the detailed applications in a changing world. Ijcihd ... i5

the princip1e of movement in Islam."72 Amin dealt with this

principle from an historical point of view in his history series

as well as from the standpoint that it i5 needed as a tool ta

meet modern needs, together with the Qur'n and with the SUIIIl:Jh

which Is, after all, the ijtihd of Mu~ammad. This princlple

for our author "essentlally involves confronting a body of

ideas and practices that come from outside Islamic culture

with an Islamic moral sense and selecting from them or modifyine

them in accordance with that moral sense, bearing in mind the

7l Ibid ., pp. 36-37.

72Cragg, "Then and Now," p. 37. Cragg here uses a phrd'd.'


which is used by Multammad lqbal in his work The RecollsCructlon
of Religious Thought in Islam [Shepard, Falth, pp. 71011;
Det1ev Khalid has found a strong connection between SOllll' l J l
Ami n / s w rit i n g and th a t 0 f l q b a 1 wh i c h h e 0 U t 1 i n e sin li i !, d r -
tie1e "Altmad Amin and Mul)ammad Iqba1," Iqbal Revlew XLI, (April,
1971), pp. 39-68. W. Shepard argues in an appendix to his
book that Iqba1' s influence on Amin is "no greater than tildt
of many others and far 1ess than that of sorne". [FaLth, p
213, appendix found on pp. 207-213.1
80

needs of the practical situation."?3 Amin's view differs from

the traditlonal view of iJtihAd in that those who act as muJ-

tahidn could be trained in the western sciences and be active

in dlscernlng what needs to be utilized from the West, but

this 1s never separated from Amin's ethical-moral concern which

he feels is best expressed in Islam. 74 lt is the spirit of

Islam and the ethical norms stated in the Qur'n which are to

guide the modern Mus11m community. and not slavery to every

detailed verse. In Yawm al-Islm Amin comments that the cir-

cumstances experienced by the umm8h in the last 1000 years

since the death of Mu~ammad are certainly no less severe than

those which in the lifetime of the prophet necessitated the

abrogation of certain verses. In this understanding the Qur'n

( can be the authoritative guide even in changing circumstances,?5

Standing still i5 as harmful as whole-hearted adoption of Wes-

tern principles, making the necessity for the use of iJtihd

by those who fully know the spirit of Islam an urgent task.

The educational experience of Amin in the "crucible" of

the Hadrasat al-QacJ' mentioned above, where the traditional

and the modern sciences were brought together, was probably in-

73Shepard, Faith, p. 161.

74Shepard, Fait=h, pp. 166-67. There seems to be a poten-


tial contradiction here ta Amin's concern expressed elsewhere
ta maintain cultural integrity and to find indigenous solutions
to problems faclng Egypt and the East as a whole. See ab ove
p. 66.

751'awm al-Islm, pp. 44f. 161, 187, cited in Wielandt,


( Offenbarung und Geschichte, p. 71 n. 108.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

81

'-
\ strumental in his concern for finding the "missing link" between

these two realms. In the former, Islamic scholars tended to

be out of touch with present-day probl~ms, and the mosque school

system tended to be suspicious of the modern emphasis on sci-

ence, western philosophy and technology. Those educated only

in the latter, modern, system lacked the theological and spi-

ritual aspects of education, the necessary Arabie fluency,

and the ability to Mediate between these two areas of learn-

ing. 76 Amin calls for intellectual integration, although he

is not the first to recognize this need; Mu~ammad cAbduh a1so

saw the need to create a bridge linking Islam with the rapid

changes modernization had brought about. Amin blames the exist-

ence of a complete separation between traditional and modern

systems of education for the lack of intellectual and culturnl

integration. In the article "The Missing Link" he "pleads

for a group of scholars truly at home in both worlds, who could

provide a bridge of culture.,,77 Certainly it can be argued


that Amin himself tried to provide sorne kind of "link" in his

own 1ife, through his study of a Western language and of EUl"O-

pean works on Islamics and ethics, and through his writirl!;',

like his books on the cultural history of Islam.

for a "1ink" is fundamental to the creation of an authcntlc

76Kenneth Cragg, "The Modernist Movement in Egypt," 1.<>1(JII/


and the West, ed. Richard Frye, (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 19')6),
p. 151.

77 Fayg al-khtir l, pp. 30-34, cited in Cragg, "Then alld


Now," p. 33.
82

( Islamic identity for Amin.

Here iJtihAd is again important as a symbol of cultural

creativity. When nit is urged for the present, [ijtih4d] fun-

ctions as not a programme but as a distinctively Islamic symbol

for sorne of A~mad Amin's most central genera1 concerns, moral

and social reform, cultural integrity, and creativity. lt is

a symbol of Is1amic 1egitiwacy."78 He also uses the image of

"pruning and grafting" (al-taqlim wa al-tatCim) to convey this

same idea. There is a need for drastic cutting away of the

old and for restoring with the new in such a way that the new

can draw on the nourishment of the mature stock. 79

His support for this inter-linking of ldeas accounts for

his positive discussion of the HuCtazilah in his history series.

( They helped integrate various e1ements encountered by the Mus-

11ms into something that can be called Islamic culture. Sorne

admirers go so far as to calI Amin a neo-mu C tazllah. 80 He is

not, however, so concerned with their specifie tenets as with

what the y accomplished, and he even criticized their use of

reason in certain areas of religion. Other instances in which

the early Muslims successfully adapted elements from diverse

groups of people and integrated them into Islam also receive

78Shepard. Faith, p. 169.

79 For example the article "Pruning and Grafting in Litera-


ture." Fayg al-khrir III, pp. 119-124, cited in Shepard, Faith,
p. 41.

BOsee for example Detlev Khlid, "Sorne Aspects of Neo-


( MuCtazilism," Islamic Studies VIII, (Dec. 1969): 319-348.
83

- a positive presentation from Amin. 8l

There ls some change in the emphasis and the tone of Amin' s

writing over time, but he never went to the same degree of

advocating secular liberal values as sorne of his colleagues

Therefore, to say that the change in expression or the weight

given to religion over time in his writings constitutes a "cri-

sis of orientation" would not be accurate. 82 "It is not the!

substance of his teaching that changes but the emphases and

the degree of ambivalence towards the Western source of so

much of his thinking.,,83 Over time Amin becomes more explicir

in linking Islam to his proposaIs and concerns, as opposed tu

speaking of religion only in general terms or tacitly implyin~

that Islam and its principles are to be the guiding moral fram~-

work. Earlier articles reflect more of a concern with reli

gion' s social effects but on the whole have a more ~ecular

tone than later ones, assuming, for instance, rather than ar-

guing the role of religion in ethical motivation. There il,

more confidence in his 1930s work than in his late writin~s

chat his society will move towards the moral values which Ill'

advocates. 1t i s in hi s P st - Wo r 1 d Wa r II writ in g th il t t !lI'

most noticeable shift occurs. Although he always seemeu ::'Ul"1'

of his moral judgments on religious, social or scholarly issue~,

8lGustave von Grunebaum, "The Concept of Cultural Classl-


cism," Modern Islam: the Search for Cultural Identity, (West-
port: Greenwood Press, Publ., 1983), p. 91, n. 42.

82Shepard, Faith, pp. 132-133.

83 Ibid ., p. 155.
84

( the healthier tolerance of the 19305 seemed to give way to

increased "moral indignation" in his writings of the 19405

and early '505. 84 Moreover, between 1949 and 1952 "there is

a distinct body of his writings which may be described as self-

consciously Islamic and which seems to represent a conscious

effort to restate many of his general ideas in a more explicitly

Islamic form. ,,85

A prime example of this more self-consciously Islamic

writing is Yawm al-Isl~m. lt was written when Amin realized

that time and health would not permit him to finish his series

as he had envisioned, but it does not strictly follow in se-

quence with the other works. Much of Yawm was contained in

other earlier articles. In this work Amin draws attention to

( the fact that liberal ideals did not prevent Europe from plung-

ing into social and economie crisis and the Second World War,

and that after the war the European powers seemed to want to

reassert their colonial power, indicated by Pritain' s policy

vis-A-vis Egypt and by the establishment of the state of Israel.

This disappointment, combined with his personal ill-health, eon-

tributed to the negative emphasis of the book.

Safran makes much of this book as a negative indictment

of the West and of liberal ideology, as not'ed above. At best

it is a highly ambivalent book that reflects Amin's deep disap

pointment that the West seems determined not to treat the East

84Shepard, "Dilernma of a Liberal," p. 92.

85Shepard, Faith, p. 65.


85

- as an equal partner. 86

view that "a11 the


lt is true that Amin cites al-AfghAni's

Christian peoples are unanimous in their

enmity to Islam ... represented in the constant secret effort

to annihilate Islam comp1etely, ,,87 but he goes on to stress

that this hostility must be overcome and be turned to love.

This hope for reconciliation continues to be the dominant em-

phasis in the latter part of the book. BB There is enough evi-

dence supporting Amin's ideal of universal humanity and tole.-

ance before and after this controversial book to support

Khalid' s observation that Yawm al-Isl1m is lOto be Ilnderstoocl

as the lament of a jilted lover rather than an implacable

foe.,,89 Despite this moral impatience and indignation, "towards

the end of his life [there] is a definite effort to bring the

religious and Islamic symbols back into the centre of the pat-

tern, ta find through them once again the element of transcend-

ence which had been partly lost or ignored, and ta relate th('1II

more exp1icitly to the broad areas of political and social

1ife.,,90

86 Ibid ., p. 48.

87 Yawm al-Islm p. 110, cited in Safran pp. 226-27.

8BYawm al-Islm pp. 227-228, cited in Shepard, Fa l tll,


pp. 47 - 48 .

89Det1ev Khalid, "A~mad Amin Modern Interpretation oi


Mus1im Universa1ism," Islamic Studles VIII, (Hureh, 196()), p.
72. Amin' s deep disappointment over the reassertion ot control.
by European powers after World War II i5 tempered by hi.'; callti-
OUS optimism for Islam represented in the establishment ,:,t
Pakistan. [Shepard, Faith, p. 140.]

90 S hepard, Faith, p. 197.


Safran also does not adequately account for the chronology

of Amln's writings; that is, he admits that Amln's history

series was a major contribution to the "progressive phase" of

Amin's thought while most of its volumes were written during

his so-called "reactionary phase". Neither does Amin fit into

the pattern of a rural-based leading family as does Husayn



Haykal in Charles Smith's analysis. Amln's concern with poli-

tics and political leadership was more directed at promoting

education and reform for aIl of society, it.cl'.lding the common

people, than at the kind of political agenda established by

Haykal as someone who himself was trying to stay active in

government concern'J.

This chapter is only a summary of sorne of Al:'mad Amln's

ide as and conc e rns . Throughout Amin' s life, his advocacy o(

reform, his concern for democraey in polities and in education,

and his desire to see established the "missing link" between

the rieh Islamic tradition and the necessary adoption of certain

Yestern ideas and sciences, al1 reflect his quest to create

an au th e n tic l s 1 am i c i de n t i t Y wh i ch wi 1 1 a Il 0 w Mus 1 i J" S t 0 file e

the future with renewed confidence and digni ty.


87

(~ Conclusion

A1;tmaCl Amin belonged to an important gll!neration in the

history of Egypt. The first half of the twentieth century.

especially the interwar period. has been called the "golden

age" of literary and intellectual life in modern Egypt. "lt

witnessed the emer 6 ellce of a unique intel1ectua1 generation

whose formative years were the 1ate nineteenth century and

first two decades of the twentieth, and which had reached its

full literary and intellectual f10wering during the years 1919-

1939. ,,1 They had grown up '~hile MulJ.ammad cAbduh was active ly

working for reform, and the y had benefitted from schoo1s es-

tab1ished on western models where new kinds of research were

encouraged. Ideas 1ike nationa1ism, evolution and liberalism

were actively debated. Many came under the influence of Lufi

al-Sayyid and attended the informal discussions of the al-Jari-

dah circ1e. In turn they were important figures in the cultural

1ife of Egypt.

Our understanding of the changes which took place in the

institutions and in society during the first half of the twen-

tieth century is enhanced by studying an individua1 like A~mad

Amin. Evaluating the state of lslamic and Middle Eastern his-

toriography, Albert Hourani advises regarding the writing of

social history that "[just] as for the social historian politics

Ilsrael Gershoni, "Egyptian Intellectual History and Egypt-


( ian Inte11ectua1s in the Interwar Period. Il Asian and African
Studies XIX. (1985), p. 338.
88

must be seen within an entire .Jocial system, 50 it may be neces-

sary to see the social system within a larger whole: in other

words, to see it not only in itself but as it and its changes

are mirrored in minds molded by a particular culture, and not

only mirrored but themselves changed by the way in which those

minds see them. ,,2 He goes on to say this can be done in terms

of a kind of "collective mind", group or nation (for example,

N. Safran's treatment of liberal intellectuals in Egypt in

Search of Political Community) , or as ref1ected in the mind

of an individual. An example of this latter type is Charles

Smi th' s b iography of Mu?ammad J:lusayn Haykal, Islam and tll e

Search for Social Order. 3 .


Ahmad Amin reflects sorne of the

changes which Egyptian society experienced in the first halE

-- of this century. The present writer was not able to read ex

tensively the writings of Amin in Arabic, and consequently this

study does not comprise the detailed examination and analysls

which Amin deserves. Amin has been overshadowed by his better

known colleagues, and this thesis serves as a basis for a fut"

ther analysis and evaluation of his thought. This thesis ls

not conscious1y modelled on Smith's work, but an effort ha5 been

2Albert Hourani, "The Present State of Islamic and Middle


Eastern Historiography," Europe and che Middle East, (Berkeley:
University of California, 1980), p. 19l.

3Gershoni, "Egyptian Intellectuals," p. 339. Israel Ger


shoni has praised Smith for his revisionism in terms of method-
ology which rejects the (western) theories of modernization
as the general conceptual framework for intellectual and cul-
tural interpretations as being incompatible with the Egyptinn
intellectual context.
89

made to keep the external events and the formative experiences

in balance when examining the life and writings of A~mad Amin,

and as far as possible to avoid western ethnocentric assump-

tions. Smith's methodology could be more fully uti1ized in a

dissertation study of Amin. 4

An admirer of Ahmad Amin wrote: "Amin's course has been

the line of enlightenment, evolutionary adjustment, avoidance

of the Ambittering struggle, a feeling for historica1 rooted-

ness, combining recognition of historical conditions and a

logical critique. uS He was inf1uenced by the Islamic reform

,
of Muhammad cAbduh, but he also utilized the methods and ideas

of western orientalist scholarship. If he did not effect spe-

cific changes, he at least exposed many of the problems which

( needed to be addressed. He communica ted his ideas through

his writings, both to the scholarly community and to the general

population, through his more accessible essays, and through

personal contacts in the classroom and with his colleagues.

His friends and acquaintances included men who were very in-

fluential in Egyptian society and government, but he at the

same time retained the respect of more conservative Muslims.

Amin himself marvels at the changes which occurred in the course

4 A bibliography on A~mad Amin which came to my attention


too 1ate for the purposes of this thesis but which would be
important in aiding such a study is edited by ijamdi Sakkt,
Ahmad Amin, AClm al-Adah al-mucsir fi misr, vol. 4 (Beirut:
DAr al-kitb al-luhnni, 1981).' .

SMashe Perlmann, "The Autobiography of A~mad Amin," Middle


( Eastern Affairs V, (January, 1954), p. 18.
90

of his lifetime. He watched the struggle for lndependence,

the establishment of parliamentary government, and the upheaval

of the 1930s and '40s which have been called a crisis of iden-

tity. The impact of these events can be found in his writings

while at the same time Awin took upon himself the role of 3

social cri tic and advocate of reform who called for the diagno-

sis and the cure of social ll1s. Throughout his life, as Amin

addressed the social, ethical and religious questions faced

by Muslims in the 20th century, he remained committed to main-

taining an authentic identity fusing the best of liberal ideolo-

gies and methods with Islamic tradition.

--
91

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Works by Ahmad Amln

Ahmad Amin. DuhA al-Isl~m. 3 vol. Cairo: Lajnat al-ta'ltf wa


al-tarjamah wa al-nashr, 1952.
__________ . FaJr al-IslAm. lOth ed. Cairo: Lajnat al-ta'llf
wa al-tarjamah wa al-nashr, 1965. English translation in
Nejla M.lzzeddin. "Taha Husain and the Dawn oE Islam."
M.A. Thesis, University of Chicago, 1931 .

. Fayd sl-kh~tir: ws huwa majmO C maq~l~t adablyah wa


-----7]tTm~elyah. 10 vol. Cairo: Maktabat al-nahdah a1-
misr1yah, 1938- Eng1ish translation of four
essays in James Pollock, "Moral Attitudes in Modern
Egyptian Islam." M.A. thesis, Hartford Seminary Foun-
dation, 1961.

HayAtl. 2nd ed. Cairo: Maktabat al-Adab, 1952.


__________ My LiEe: the Autobiography of an Egyptlan Scholar,
Writer and Cultural Leader. trans. & intro. Issa J. Boul-
lata. Leiden: E. J. Brill. 1978.
__________ Orient and Occident: an Egyptian's Quest for Na-
tional Identlty. [belng a translation from the Arabie of
al-Sharq wa al-gharb, Cairo, 1955] trans. Wolfgang H.
Behn. Berlin: Adiyok, 1984.

Yawm el-IsI~m. Cairo: DAr al-Ka c 4rif, 1952.

__________ Zuhr sI-IslAm. 4 vol. Cairo: Maktabat al-nahdat


al-misrlyah, 1952-55.

II. Monographs

Adams, Charles C. Islam and Modernism in Egypt: a study of


the Modern ReEorm Movement inaugurated by Muhammad cAbduh.
London: Oxford University Press, 1933.

Ahmed, Jamal M. The Intellectual Origins of Egyptian National-


ism. London: Oxford University Press, 1960.

Cragg, Kenneth. Counsels in Contemporary Islam. lslamie Surveys


3. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1965.

Haddad, Yvonne Y. Contemporary Islam and the Challenge of His-


( tory. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1982.
92

Hourani, Albert. Arabie Thought in the Liber.l AS. 1798-1939.


Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983 (1962).

Mazyad, A. M. H. Ahmad Am!n (Cairo 1886-1954): Advoc.te of


Social and Lit~rary Reform in Egypt. Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1963.

Safran, Nadav. Egyp t in Search of Pol i tical Communie)': an An.ly-


sis of the Intellectual and Political Evolution of Egypt,
1804-1952. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961.

al-Sayyid-Marsot, Afaf Lutfi. Egypt's Liberal Experiment: 1922-


1936. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977.

Shepard, William. The Faith of a Hodern Huslim Intellectual:


the Religious Aspects and Implications of the writ:ings
of Al}mad Amin. New Dehli: Vikas Pub1ishing House PVT Ltd. ,
1982.

Smith, Charles D. Islam and the Search for Social Order in


Hodern Egypt: a Biography of HU~Bmmad lJusayn Haykal.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983.

Smith, Wilfred C. Islam in Hodern History. New York: The New


American Library, 1957.

Terry, Janice J. The Wafd: 1919-1952: Cornerstone of Egyptian


PolLeieal Power. London: Third World Centre, 1982.

Vatikiotis, P. J. The History of Egypt. 2nd ed. London: Welden-


feld and Nicholson, 1980.

von Grunebaum, Gustav. Modern Islam: the Search for Cultural


Identity. Westport: Greenwood Press, Publ., 1983 (1962).

Wielandt, Rotraud. Offenbarung und Geschiehte im Denken modern-


er Huslime. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Ver1ag GMBH, 1971.

III. Articles

Bou11ata, Issa J. "The Ear1y Schoo1ing of AlJmad Amin and H4rn


cAbbdd." The Muslim World, LXIV (1975), 93-106.

Chejne, Anwar G. "Egyptian Attitudes towards PanArabism."


The Middle East Journal, XI (1957), 253-268.

Cragg, Kenneth. "The Modernist Movement in Egypt." Islam and


the West. ed. Richard N. Frye. The Hague: Mouton & Co.,
1956.
-'-
93
l Cragg, K.nn.th. "Th.n and Nov ln Egypt: th. R..fl.ctlon. of
Ah.ad Allln, 1886 1954. Il Th. lfJ.ddle Ea.t Journal, IX (1955).
28-40.

Duran, Kha1ld. "Ah.ad Allln: th. Tv.ntleth C.ntury Qu t for


Mu.1la Id.ntlty. (Part One)." International Journal of
IslamJ.e and Arabie Studl , 1 (1984), 11-31.

Il Ah.ad Allln: th. Tvent 1. th Century Que. t for


-----ii;Iii-ld.ntlty, (Part Tvo)." International Journal of
Islamle and Arabie Studl.s, II (1985), 69-82.

Eliraz, Giora. "Tradi tion and Change: Egypt ian Intellec tual.
and Llngulstlc R.eforll. 1919-1939." Aslan and Afrlean Stud-
le., XX ( J u 1 y, 1 9 8 6), 2 3 3 - 2 6 2 .

Encyelopaedla of Isla"" New Ed., S.v. "Ahmad Amln," by H. A.


1.. Glbb.

Cerahoni, IIrae 1. "Arabization of Islam: the Egyptlan Salafiyya


and the Rise of Arabisa ln Pre-R.evolutionary Egypt." Aslan
and Afrlcan Studie., XIII (March, 1979), 22-57.
________________ . "Egyptlan Intellectual History and Egyptian
Intellectuals in the Interwar Period." Asian and Afriean
( Studie., XIX (1985), 333-364.
________________ "The Emergencae of Pan-Nationalism in Egypt:
Pan- Islamisll and Pan-Arabism ln the 1930s." A.lan and
Afriean StudJ.e., XVI (March, 1982), 59-94.

Hourani, Albert. "The Present State of Islamie and Middle East-


ern Historiography." Europe and the Ifidd le Eas t. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1980.

Razziha, \lalid. "The Jarldah-Ummah Croup and Egyptian Politics."


Mlddle East Studie., XIII (October, 1977), 373-385.

Rhalid, Detlev. "Ahmad Amln and Muhammad Iqba1." Iqbal Review,


XII (April, 1971), 39-68.

______________ . "Ahllad Aliln and the Legacy of Muhammad cAbduh."


I.lamie Studies, IX (March, 1970), 1-32.
______________ . "Ahllad Amln - Modern Interpretation of Muslim
Universalism." Islamle Studie., VIII (March 1969), 47-93.

______________ "Some Aspects of Neo-MuCtazilis ... " Islamie


Studies, VIII (December, 1969), 319-348.

(-
94
(). al-Ma.uai, K. Saghi r Ha.an. "Pro fe or Al]lIad Aaln." The Islamic
LLterature, VII (April. 1955), 253-258.

Perlilann. Mo.he. "The Autobiography of Al}.ad A.ln." HLddle


Eastern AffaLrs. V (January, 1954), 17-24.

Rej d, Donald K. "ArabLe Though t in the LLberal Age: Twenty


Years After." In Cernac ional Journal of HLddle East Studies,
XIV (November, 1982), 541-557.

____ .__________ . "Cairo University and the Orientalists." Inter-


national Journal of Middle East Studles, XIX (February,
1987),51-76.

Shepard, William. "The Dilemma of a Liberal: Sorne Politieal


Implications in the Writings of the Egyptian Scholar,
Al}mad Amin (1886-1954)." Hodern Egypt: Studies 111 Politlcs
and Society. Ed. Elie Kedourie & Sylvia G. Haim. London:
Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1980.

________________ nA Modernist Vlew of Islam and Other Reli-


gions." The Huslim World, LXV (April, 1975), 79-92.

Smith, Charles D. "The 'Crisis of Orientation': the Shift of


Egyptian Intellectuals to Islamie Subjeets in the 1930's."
International Journal of Middle East Studies, IV (October,
1973), 382-410.

________________ . "The Intellectua1 and Modernization: Defini-


tions and Reconsiderations: the Egyptian Experience."
Comparative Studies in Society and History, XXII (1980),
513-533.

Smith, Wilfred C. "The Intellectua1s in the Modern Deve10pment


of the Isl~mic Wor1d." Social Forces in the Hiddle East.
ed. Sydney N. Fisher. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1955.

Walker, Dennis. "Modernists, Particu1arism and the Crystalliza-


tion of Pan-Arabism in Egypt in the 19205." Islamic CuI-
tu r e, LX ( A P r il, 1 9 8 6), 5 7 - 9 6 .

IV. Unpublished Theses


Crose, Kenneth L. "AJ:1.mad Amin and Lajnat al-ta'llf wa al-tar-
jamah wa al-nashr: a study of their contribution to the
20th Century Renaissance of Egypt." Phn dissertation,
Hartford Seminary Foundation, 1955.
95

Izzeddln, Nejla M. "raha ~usain and the Dawn of Islam." M.A.


the.is, University of Chicago, 1931.

Pollock, James W. "Moral Attitudes in Modern Egyptian Islam."


M.A. thelis, The Kennedy School of Missions of The Hartford
Semlnary Foundation, 1961.

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