Making the Arab World

Nasser, Qutb, and the Clash That Shaped the Middle East

Fawaz A. Gerges

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781400890071
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du Moyen-Orient

How the conflict between political Islamists and secular-leaning nationalists has shaped the history of the modern Middle East In 2013, just two years after the popular overthrow of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military ousted the country's first democratically elected president—Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood—and subsequently led a brutal repression of the Islamist group. These bloody events echoed an older political rift in Egypt and the Middle East: the splitting of nationalists and Islamists during the rule of Egyptian president and Arab nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. In Making the Arab World, Fawaz Gerges, one of the world's leading authorities on the Middle East, tells how the clash between pan-Arab nationalism and pan-Islamism has shaped the history of the region from the 1920s to the present.Gerges tells this story through an unprecedented dual biography of Nasser and another of the twentieth-century Arab world's most influential figures—Sayyid Qutb, a leading member of the Muslim Brotherhood and the father of many branches of radical political Islam. Their deeply intertwined lives embody and dramatize the divide between Arabism and Islamism. Yet, as Gerges shows, beyond the ideological and existential rhetoric, this is a struggle over the state, its role, and its power.Based on a decade of research, including in-depth interviews with many leading figures in the story, Making the Arab World is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the roots of the turmoil engulfing the Middle East, from civil wars to the rise of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

Chapter 1

Egypt’s “Liberal Age”

THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL heritage of the territories encompassed by the borders of the modern Egyptian state has long been shaped by three circles of influence: Arab-Islamic, African, and European.¹ However, the occupation of Egypt by Napoleonic France in 1789 tilted the balance of influence northwards towards Europe. More than just a military venture, the Napoleonic expedition was framed as a mission civilisatrice that would bring the ideals of the French Revolution—liberty, equality, and fraternity—to the Nile Valley.² Although the French occupied Egypt for only four years, they left an indelible impact by overthrowing the Mamluk elite³ and establishing diwans (administrative councils) that were headed by local actors, including the ‘ulama (Muslim religious scholars), judges, and notables. During his time in Egypt, Napoleon asserted his rule through a combination of coercion and ideology, stressing the compatibility of Islamic and republican values and pushing for the establishment of an Islamic republic where politics would be inscribed in a religious framework. Regardless of the propagandistic pronouncements behind Napoleon’s policies, his invasion fed the emergence of the question of the “national self” in Egypt. Several developments contributed to this soul searching and the quest for self-definition: the dislocation of Mamluk power in favor of the involvement of local actors, the process of acculturation that followed the invasion, the introduction of the Arabic printing press, and the organization of an official press when the French published a political journal called Courier de l’Egypte.

The French defeat was followed by the reign of Muhammad Ali and his dynasty, which enacted a series of reforms, including centralizing state power, building a state bureaucracy, and improving the education system with the establishment of medical and language schools, as well as enacting tax and land reforms. Those policies led to a gradual Egyptianization of the army and the police, in addition to a substantial and consequential rise of nationalist sentiments and a nascent native elite determined to actively participate in state affairs. At the same time, Egypt’s formal position as a province of the Ottoman Empire constrained the development of an independent national identity as state officials continued to depict the country as an active member of the Islamic umma (the Islamic community). Throughout the Muhammad Ali dynasty, the religious and nationalist discourses continued to mirror each other.

Nonetheless, from the Napoleonic invasion until the coming of Khedive Isma’il’s rule—“khedive” was the title of the viceroy of Egypt under Turkish rule—Egypt’s national identity formation occurred through a repeated process of interaction and comparison with Europe. The modernization project carried out by Muhammad Ali and his dynasty was primarily based on an attempt to make Egypt more like Europe economically, militarily, and administratively. Yet the deepening involvement by European powers in Egyptian internal affairs culminated in the occupation of the country by the British in 1882, a development that instigated ruptures and dislocations which had lasting ramifications for the emergence of the Egyptian “national self,” and subsequently for the articulation of politics in the country.

This chapter retraces those shifts and their manifestation within the British colonial framework. It outlines how the simultaneous opening of the political scene and the consolidation of colonialism impacted the development of liberal politics in Egypt and influenced the processes of national identity formation.

Two arguments are advanced. The first is that the engagement of European powers in the Egyptian economy and the expansion of European colonization in the region caused a shift in the processes of identity formation from one of interaction with the European Other to one of opposition, in which Islam acted as an anchor for the constitution of Egypt’s political self. This fusion of nationalism and religion in turn reflected the emergence of the image of a national political community in which the boundaries between the private and public spheres, as well as their role in the constitution of the “national self,” had yet to be redefined, debated, and negotiated. The second argument is that despite the dissemination of liberal ideals by both the British and the Egyptian quasi-liberal elite, the fact that the colonial framework was based on authority rather than consensus impeded the constitution of a cohesive but diverse political community where multiple voices could engage in discussion and negotiation.

The National Question: Islam, the Nation, Modernization, and Colonialism

Muhammad Ali and his dynasty adopted a set of policies that ultimately focused on the centralization and modernization of the state, particularly the army, the bureaucracy, and infrastructure, in an attempt to transform Egypt into a European power. Despite Isma’il Pasha’s claim that “Egypt is part of Europe,” the various modernization processes thus far had only increased encroachment by the two rising European empires—Britain and France—on Egypt’s independence and sovereignty. Turning to European financiers and governments to finance their ambitious modernization project, the Ali dynasty miscalculated by borrowing at exorbitant interest rates. Furthermore, endemic corruption left the Egyptian state unable to service or repay its debts. European powers used Egypt’s indebtedness to tighten their grip over Isma’il and to weaken the Palace’s control over the state apparatus. For example, the Caisse de la Dette, an international commission designed to supervise the repayment of Egyptian state debts to European governments, was instituted in 1876 and was supplemented by a joint Anglo-French financial administration of the country between 1876 and 1882. The khedive’s loss of control undermined his legitimacy and authority as the ruler of the country in the eyes of the people.

Egypt’s debt crisis also directly impacted the rural community, which contained the bulk of the Egyptian population. While Muhammad Sa’id Pasha, the fourth son of Muhammad Ali, and Isma’il Pasha, his grandson, enacted new laws that ultimately aimed at ending the feudal system, these were rarely implemented. In the 1860s, the American civil war led to a cotton boom in Egypt, but although the elite and village notables profited significantly, the peasantry gained little, especially as land prices increased. The result is that the Turco-Circassian⁴ elite and the village notables, together with Europeans who were protected by the Ottoman capitulatory system,⁵ bought large land holdings, while peasants found it increasingly hard to keep up with repeated tax increases. In 1878–1879 the country saw a wave of peasant revolts that were brutally repressed by the army. As discontent continued to brew among the population, self-reflecting questions about the nation, the self, and modernity preoccupied Islamic scholars.

While some ‘ulama (religious men of letters) and other writers looked within the Islamic corpus to bring about cultural renewal, others mined the European Enlightenment for sustenance and progress.⁶ Seeking to bridge the divide between the two opposing schools of thought, another group of thinkers attempted to marry asala (cultural authenticity) with liberal European ideas. They appropriated selectively from Europe, arguing that neither outright emulation nor outright rejection of European political and social models could provide the fuel to power an Egyptian nahda (awakening or renaissance). Regardless of the differences in worldview and philosophy among the three schools, all were forward-looking and believed in universal progress, leadership, and agency, viewing the nation-state as the key political organization and the focus of their nahda project. This project of cultural renewal was an extension of the acculturation process triggered by Napoleon’s invasion and subsequently pursued by Muhammad Ali.

The renewed dialogue between the Middle East and the West in the nineteenth century occurred during a critical moment pregnant with social tensions and struggles. Several intellectuals debated the Industrial Revolution and its adverse effects on society and the working classes. Although Middle Eastern writers praised the progress made in Europe, they were fully aware of the contestation within European societies and growing inequities among the social classes. More and more Egyptian and Muslim public intellectuals began to view modern life on the continent through the lens of leading European critics, including the doctrine of socialism, which highlighted the predicament of the poor and the growing obsessive individualism and personal enrichment of the few, around which liberalism based itself. These Arab writers directly questioned the viability and validity of modernization purely modeled on Europe’s blueprint.⁷ For instance, the aim of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and ‘Abdullah al-Nadim was to look at Europe’s progress and learn appropriate lessons, while at the same time finding a third way that would bring about a social ideal based on dignity and equality. The result was that Muslim writers paid considerable attention to socialist European thinkers such as Saint-Simon, Robert Owen, Pierre Proudhon, and Karl Marx.⁸

Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, in particular, pioneered some of the most innovative ideas informing the debate on national pride and religious regeneration in Egypt.⁹ He critically examined the role and place of reason, philosophy, science, religion, and social cohesion in helping to generate cultural renewal. Drawing from both Islamic thinkers such as Ibn Khaldun and French historian and politician Francois Guizot,¹⁰ Afghani contended that Islam was not just a religion, but a civilization that comprised within itself all the necessary elements to fuel a new nahda. For Afghani, this renewal entailed a return to the principles laid down by the Prophet and his four caliphs, who lived a modest life in which social justice prevailed over personal enrichment. Afghani notes that the rightful Muslim ruler is not necessarily democratic but is one who struggles for the generation of Islam; in other words, Islam needed a Martin Luther. By discussing Western ideas and Western history, and relating them to the challenges facing the Muslim community, Afghani acknowledged the role of the European Other in the constitution of a renewed Islamic civilization. But he was also ambivalent toward the West, a stance shared by other Muslim intellectuals who played a key role in the rise of nationalism and national consciousness in the twentieth century in the Arab-Islamic world. On the one hand, these writers wanted to emulate Europe’s progress and even surpass it. On the other, they affirmed the authenticity of their national identity as a way to break away from their Europeans occupiers.

For Afghani, the West became an image through which Islam could establish itself as ethically and morally superior, albeit in a process of opposition to Europe. His thought is anchored in anti-colonialism, and his support for the Egyptian state’s authentic identity is an extension of a belief that the fight against the colonizers could be won through the achievement of independence. Two of Afghani’s most important concepts also reflect his stance of opposition to Europe. He used the concept of Islamic civilization to inscribe continuity between Egypt’s past and present consciousness and to assert the future national role of the country as the regional leader of the Islamic umma. In opposition to the linear view of progress, Afghani asserted a cyclical view of history; the authentic character of Islamic civilization would be reclaimed and even reinvigorated through a dialectical relationship to the European Other and his symbols. The idea was to imitate European progress by identifying Islamic concepts around which the social body would be reorganized.

The process of opposition is again reflected in his concept of ishtirakiyya al-islamiyya (Islamic socialism). Afghani saw socialism as the political creed of the Qur’an, an ideology whose principles were articulated by the Prophet himself and his first four successors. He utilized the concept of Islamic socialism to critique materialism and continuously compared Islamic socialism to Western socialism, dismissing the latter as fragile and weak. Afghani argued that this frailty stemmed from the inability of Western socialism to embed itself in Western socioreligious ideals, instead developing as a reaction to socioeconomic developments. In contrast, there existed an organic link between Islamic socialism, Islamic teachings, and Arabic culture, which unlike Western nationalism was an authentic articulation of the social ideal of Islam. Afghani argued that by uncovering and reclaiming its true Islamic identity, Egypt would affirm its own national individuality while at the same time retaining its pivotal role in the umma. At the end of the nineteenth century, a shift was taking place in Egypt as national consciousness and anti-colonialism coalesced towards the same goal, but many still viewed Afghani’s calls for partition from the Ottoman Empire as radical. If the growing role of both the French and the British made it increasingly difficult for intellectuals to reconcile the role of Europe as a stimulus for progress when European colonialism had so severely impacted the living conditions of ordinary Egyptians, Islam still provided a powerful framework for identity. It is no wonder then that severing all ties with the Ottoman Empire was seen as highly perilous at a time when the struggle had shifted from the Europeanization of Egypt to the liberation of Egypt from its colonial masters.

Such heated debates about how best to modernize Egypt and end British colonialism peaked with the ‘Urabi revolution, a term used to refer to a movement of Egyptian-born army officers and notables led by army colonel Ahmad ‘Urabi between 1879 and 1882. The indigenous rebels’ revolt had three targets: the power held by a small Turco-Circassian elite over the army; foreign control of Egyptian finances and politics; and British military domination.¹¹ While the protests by the religiously framed ‘ulama against the French occupation after 1798 clearly used Islam as their rallying cry, the ‘Urabi revolt both reflected the growing nationalist character of the anti-colonial movement and included tenets of Islam as a basis for social identity. This twin aspirational identity explains why soldiers, police officers, merchants, guilds, and peasants joined in the ‘Urabi revolt and why the ‘ulama remained divided with both the Palace and the ‘Urabists vying for their support. Although the power of the ‘ulama had declined since Muhammad Ali, Al-Azhar continued to provide teachers for the whole Ottoman Empire till the end of the nineteenth century. The ‘ulama still enjoyed a privileged position in society as the representatives and guardians of moral authority. In the face of growing encroachment by European powers in Egypt and the khedive’s subservience to them, the continued inclusion of the country in the Ottoman Empire became a contentious point in the debate both within the ‘Urabi movement and in ‘ulama circles.

For ‘Urabi, an uprising against the khedive also meant questioning Egypt’s formal link and attachment to the Ottoman Empire and through that the umma as well; it would then openly question Egypt’s place in the world, not just in the region. This ambivalence is reflected in the National Party’s January 1882 declaration, where the ‘Urabi nationalists asserted their determination to achieve independence and self-government as well as their loyalty to the caliph and most importantly through him to the Islamic umma. This document attests to the linkage and interweaving of both the national and the Islamic foundation of Egyptian nationalism. The strategic goals of the actors and social movements converged towards the overthrow of European power and the Palace as well.

Interestingly, th...