al-afghānī and namık kemal’s replies to ernest renan

8102019 Al-Afghānī and Namık Kemalrsquos Replies to Ernest Renan

httpslidepdfcomreaderfullal-afghani-and-namik-kemals-replies-to-ernest-renan 114

57

TJP Turkish Journal of Politics Vol 2 No 2 Winter 2011

Michelangelo Guida

Fatih University mguidafatihedutr

Al-Afghānī and Namık Kemalrsquos Replies toErnest Renan Two Anti-Westernist Works inthe Formative Stage of Islamist ought1

Abstract

In the nineteenth-century intellectuals in the Ottoman Empire were deeply influenced by West-ern political thought and technology at said the West represented not only a military threatbut also a cultural menace for Ottoman intellectuals Imperialism was indeed advancing in Mus-lim lands carrying with it and legitimizing itself by a strong belief in its civilizationrsquos supremacyOttoman plans to acquire military technology and reform its administration proved insufficient in

countering Western claims of genetic and cultural superiority is European attitude generatedanti-Westernist reactions in the Ottoman Empire as well as in many other non-European socie-ties such as that in Japan In the Muslim world however anti-Westernist reactions and attemptsto rewrite a glorious Muslim history were at the base of Islamist thought is paper intends toanalyze the responses of two notable early Islamist writers of the Ottoman Empire to a culturalaggression directed against Islamic civilization by the French Orientalist Ernest Renan NamıkKemalrsquos lsquoRenan Muumldafaanamesirsquo and Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānīrsquos lsquoReacuteponse agrave Renanrsquo and lsquoal-Islāmwa al-lsquoIlmrsquo are particularly interesting because they give an insight into their perceptions of Impe-rialismrsquos cultural menace to Islam and their attempts to give a new rational image of religion Fearof European culturalmilitary threats and a rational image of Islam were the first component of

the ideology that later would constitute the backbones of Muslim political ideas in the twentieth-century and of Islamism

Keywords

Namık Kemal Jamal al-Din al-Afghani Islamism Renan

1 An early draft of th1048681s paper was presented at the 5th Internat1048681onal Conference of the As1048681at1048681c Ph1048681losoph1048681cal Assoc1048681at1048681on 1048681n Fukuoka Japan on 7 December 2011 I would l1048681ke to thank Fat1048681h Un1048681vers1048681ty Research fund (pro-

ject P51151002) wh1048681ch part1048681ally f1048681nanced th1048681s research



58


Introduction

After 911 a wide field of literature

emerged out of the necessity to explainthe reasons behind lsquoMuslim resentmentrsquoagainst the democratic and affluent West1 However this literature fails to provide ad-equate explanations because its writers donot understand the huge impact of WesternImperialism and all the forms it assumedin the twentieth and twenty-first centurieson non-Western political intellectuals MarcFerrorsquos Resentment in history and Le choc delrsquoIslam though helps us in reflecting on theimpact of Western policies through historyand the reactions that they created in non-European societies Anti-Westernism in-deed is not something peculiar to Muslimsocieties In nearly the same years of theemergence of Islamism in the Ottoman Em-pire from the Meiji period to World War IIJapan saw similar intellectual currents thatadopted very similar symbols and method-ologies against the West (See Aydın 2007)

Obviously it must be considered a fact thatthere were special difficulties in the long en-counter between Islam and Christendomwhich were not present in the encounter be-tween Europe and the geographically remot-er civilizations of Asia (Lewis 2002 36-7)

In this paper I will argue that it was anti-Westernism as a reaction to the evolution ofImperialism and the onset of Western domi-nation in the Middle East and North Africa

that sparked the emergence of IslamismMoreover I will argue that al-Afghānī andNamık Kemal were the two leading figuresto launch this ideology into the core of theOttoman Empire and that their answers toRenan are actually the starting point of Is-

2 e most notorious one is Bernard LewisrsquosWhat WentWrong Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response and e Roots of Muslim Rage (e Atlantic September

1990) which was published well before 911 though

lamist thought

Before proceeding any further it may be

appropriate to define the term lsquoIslamismrsquoused in the title and in the text is termis widely used but because it is semanti-cally imperfect it lacks an unequivocalmeaning in the literature By lsquoIslamismrsquo weintend a political ideology (not a religiousor theological construct) that emerged inthe second half of the nineteenth-centuryMuslim world and continuously evolveduntil present times in different geographi-cal and social contexts Islamist intellectu-als advocate the islamization of all aspectsof life and promote a reinterpretation ofIslam itselfmdashwhich was allegedly misinter-preted by previous generations is ideol-ogy appeared as a reaction to the arrival ofImperialism in Muslim lands In the secondhalf of the nineteenth-century the West notonly started to represent a military threatmenacing territory identity and politicalinstitutions the West was threatened the

Muslim identity and religion with its ma-terialism and scientism and it threatenedMuslim societies with the imposition ofits dominant ethnicity lsquofar from creating apeaceful world order guided by ascetic andall-inclusive human rationalismrsquo (Moallem2003 200) Moreover imperialism dem-onstrated the economic technological andmilitary inability to confront the West andthe inadequacy of the political and culturalinstitutions of the Muslim world Finally

imperialism encouraged the emergence ofWesternized elites that upheld the lsquocivilizingmissionrsquo among Muslim societies In Tur-key as in other Middle Eastern countriesWesternized elitesmdashperceived as alien tothe local social fabricmdashgained power andimposed authoritarian regimes that mar-ginalized those deviating from the project ofWesternization and modernization trigger-ing even more resentment us even if theOttoman Empire and Turkey did not know



59


direct foreign rule the presence of Western-ized elites as well as the continuous threat(real or perceived) of foreign occupation

Cold War neo-imperialism the state of Is-rael and the unequal international divisionof labour maintained the necessary stressthat fed Islamism to the present

However it is far from the case that Is-lamism is an anti-modern movement orsimply a kind of lsquoprotectionist counter-movementrsquo of Polanyi e emergence of Is-lamism was possible only because of a neweducation system and the spread of newmedia which were useful in propagating itsideas at first journals then cassettes satel-lite TV and the internet Islamistsrsquo dream ofa return to pristine Islam (the Asr-ı Saadetthe lsquohappy erarsquo when the Prophet and hisfollowers were alive or to a glorious era ofMuslim history such as the Ayyubid or Ot-toman eras) is a modern reinterpretation ofthe pastmdashvery frequently idealized and notlinked to historical evidences e return

to the past was needed for the building ofa methodology necessary for the shapingof a new Islamic identity which would fit inthe contemporary world ere is not evenan lsquoOccidentalismrsquo imprinted in the IslamistDNA Indeed the West remains one of themain sources of Islamist thought yet sinceits inception there is a genuine fight againstpolitical and economic Western discriminat-ing hegemony

lsquoMussulmans are emselves theFirst Victims of Islamrsquo2

e French Orientalist Joseph Ernest

2 Renan [1883] 2000 215 All English translationsof Ernest Renanrsquos conference LrsquoIslamisme et la Science are taken from Renan E 1896 e Poetry of the CelticRaces and Other Studies 84-108 London Water Scottreproduced in Orientalism Early Sources Readings inOrientalism edited by Bryan Turner 199-217 London-

New York Routledge 199-217

Renan (1823-1892) spent most of his aca-demic career attempting to show how posi-tive science was in conflict with religion

particularly with Roman Catholicism Re-nan thought that science would eventuallysupplant religion in developed societies andhe understood religion as an enquiry thatexhibits a comparative sceptical and non-

judgmental attitude toward its subject Dur-ing a trip to Egypt Asia Minor and Greecein 1864 he composed Priegravere sur lrsquoAcropolewhich expressed what he called his religiousrevelation that the perfection promised by

Judaism Christianity and Islam actuallyexisted in the Greek civilization that cre-ated art science and philosophy HoweverlsquoRenanrsquos historical sense was not always thebest and he clearly preferred to draw hisconclusions from what he thought were psy-chological patterns of the races and religionshe studiedrsquo (Resh 1987 334) An evidence isthe letter of the qād ī of Mosul to Sir HenryLayard used in Renanrsquos conference as evi-dence of lsquolack of the scientific spirit super-

stition and dogmatismrsquo (Renan [1883] 2000211) among Muslim religious authoritiesNamık Kemal already doubted its genuine-ness (Namık Kemal 1962 61) Massignondefined it as a work edited by Renan himselfwith lsquoun humour si deacutelicieusement sarcas-tiquersquo (Massignon 1927 301) Al-Afghānīdid not spend many words to confute theweak historical knowledge of the French au-thor whereas Namık Kemal went through alengthy critique of the episodes mentionedby Renan yet missing the real challengeposed by the lecture as we will see EdwardSaid even indicated Renan as a model of howthe private man interferes with the schol-ar lsquotheir [Renan and Louis Massignonrsquos]personal in some instances their intimateproblems concerns and predilections arevery much a part of their public work andposition as Orientalistsrsquo Moreover lsquotheygrasp Islam they also lose itrsquo (Said 1980



60


60) Namely their personal approach andtheir beliefs did not allow them to really un-derstand the complexity of Islam

However his provocative prose helpedhim in becoming professor of history of reli-gions at the Collegravege de France twice in 1862but he was soon suspended after a lecture onthe life of Christ where he doubted Jesusrsquo di-vinity and again in 1879 In 1878 he waselected to the Acadeacutemie Franccedilaise where hedelivered his famous lecture LrsquoIslam983145sme et laSc983145ence which sparked so many reactions inthe Muslim world

In his lecture delivered on 29 March18833 organized by LrsquoAssociation scientifiquede France in the grand amphitheatre of Sor-bonne University Renan applied to Islam allhis main ideas on religion Initially he re-called the prejudice common to that period

All those who have been in the Eastor in Africa are struck by the way inwhich the mind of a true believer is fa-

tally limited by the species of iron circlethat surrounds his head rendering itabsolutely closed to knowledge incapa-ble of either learning anything or of be-ing open to any new idea (Renan [1883]2000 200)

en to a period from about the year 775to nearly the middle of the thirteenth-cen-tury of progress and splendour it followeda long and steady decadence of the Muslim

world the French Orientalist rememberedlsquoIt might almost be said that during thisperiod the Mohammedan world was supe-rior in intellectual culture to the Christianworldrsquo (Renan [1883] 2000 201) However

3 e conference was delivered on ursday 29 March1883 and published on page two and three of the fol-lowing dayrsquos morning edition of the Journal des deacutebats politiques et litteacuteraires available on the website of Bib-liothegraveque nationale de France httpgallicabnffr

ark12148btp6k4621949 (retr1048681eved 19072011)

much of their science was produced by theNestorian Christians that lived in the Sassa-nid lands newly conquered by the Arabs e

Nestorians and the Iranian elements (theIndo-European elements) soon surroundedcaliphs and became chief physicians

Parsis and Christians took the lead-ing part the administration the policein particular was in the hands of thelatter All those caliphs the contempo-raries of our Carlovingian monarchs

Mansour Haroun al-Raschid Mamouncan scarcely be called Mussulmans (id203)

Because they were in internal revoltagainst their own religion curious andcontinuously questioning Indian Persianand above all Greek authors Moreover thegreat intellectualsrsquo use of Arabic as a medi-um of communication does not make them

Arabic or Muslim intellectuals the samething can also be said of the many Europeanintellectuals that wrote in Latin (id 206)e stress on language is relevant becauseRenan as a dedicated philologist believedthat language determines the spirit of itspeople Indo-European languages manifesta capability to change and differentiate dur-ing the centuries whereas Semitic languagesremain fixed and immutable From here de-rives an intellectualmdashnot racialmdashsuperior-ity of the Aryans (Renan 2005 11) Renanhad in some way imposed on the university

circles the pro-Aryan thesis of Arthur deGobineau of the ineptitude of the Semites inarts and sciences

Starting from about 1275 the Muslimworld plunged into lsquothe most pitiable intel-lectual decadencersquo whereas Western Europeentered lsquothat great highway of the scientificsearch for truthrsquo (Renan [1883] 2000 206)Islamism continued to persecute science andphilosophy thanks to the advent of lsquoTartarrsquo



61


and lsquoBerberrsquo races which lsquoare heavy brutaland without intelligencersquo (id 208) As inthe West when religion dominates civil life

there is no liberty and no curiosity And in-deed lsquoWestern theology has not persecutedless than that of Islam only it has not beensuccessful it has not crushed out the mod-ern spirit as Islamism has trodden out thespirit of the lands it has conqueredrsquo (id209) In the West reason managed to limitthe influence of Christian theology and tocreate military and industrial superiorityIn Muslim lands though Islam slew science

and became condemned in the world to acomplete inferiority

is lecture sparked in the Muslimworld a series of refutations the most no-table of which is the one of Jamāl al-Dīnal-Afghānī first published in Arabic and inFrench a few days after the publication ofthe text of Renanrsquos lecture Al-Afghānī alsoreceived a reply from Renan from the pagesof the Journal des Deacutebats the following day

(on 19 May 1883)4

e Ottoman intellec-tual Namık Kemal also prepared a refusalof Renanrsquos lecture but it was published onlyposthumously in 1908 Ernest Renanrsquos repu-tation as a prominent secular European in-tellectual though cannot alone explain theMuslim response to his ideas Muslims tookthese arguments seriously because Renanrsquosthesis about the history of Islamic sciencewas seen as a symbol of a larger European

justification for Europersquos racial superiority

over Semitic and Turkic Muslims as a way to justify its imperialistic civilizing mission inthe Muslim world Moreover

What made Renanrsquos ideas differentfrom the frequent anti-Muslim writingsin the European media was their precise

4 e English translation of the reply is alsoreproduced in Orientalism Early Sources Readings inOrientalism edited by Bryan Turner 199-217 London-

New York Routledge

attack on the historical consciousness ofoptimistic Muslim modernists who sawtheir own history as part of the history

of European civilization and progress(Aydın 2007 48)

Muslim reformists believed that if Mus-lims had once achieved a golden age in sci-ence and technology there was no reasonwhy they could not reach a similar achieve-ment in scientific progress after the processof modernization e Tanzimat reformersfor instance believed in the capacity of non-European societies to attain the same prog-ress of European civilization Namık Ke-mal belonged to the Young Ottomans thatstrongly criticized the Tanzimat reformersfor their naive interpretation of modernityOn his side al-Afghānī was a strong criticof Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) Indianmodernist and founder of the Aligarh Mus-lim College

Furthermore Renanrsquos lecture came afterthree major events that strongly influencedthe Muslim intellectual approach to Europethe Treaty of Berlin and the occupations ofTunis and Egypt e Treaty of Berlin (13July 1878) greatly reduced Ottoman do-mains in the Balkans thanks to Westernpowersrsquo influence e occupation of Tunisby France in 1881 and of Egypt by Englandin 1882 marked a radical change in the Im-perialist policies of these two countries andbrought them closer to the core of the Mus-

lim world and the seat of the Caliphatersquos for-eign domination Occupation followed thealready existent control of Egyptian and Ot-toman state finances by foreigners

Renan then offered an alternative his-torical explanation for the past achieve-ments in science and progress in Muslimsocieties between the eighth and thirteenthcenturies arguing that it was due to either

Aryans or Christian Arabs as stated above



62


e Semitic and Turkic elements were in-capable of recognizing the relevance of thenatural sciences and philosophy is implic-

itly meant that Muslims needed colonial tu-telage to overcome their backwardness andany attempt to modernize their societieswas destined to fail

We will now concentrate on three distin-guished replies to Renanrsquos arguments

Jamāl al-Dīn al-AfghānīBorn in Asadabad in northwest Iran in

183895 Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī receivedhigher education in the Shiite shrines ofOttoman Iraq in the 1850s Here he wasprobably influenced by rationalist Muslimphilosophers He then travelled to Indiaand he was probably there during the 1857mutiny In India he developed his hatredtoward British colonialism and foreignoccupation He moved to Afghanistan butin 1868 he was expelled and he directed

himself toward Istanbul His intelligenceand personality quickly brought him intothe Tanzimatccedilı circles On 20 February1870 al-Afghānī participated in the open-ing of the Dacircr al-Fuumlnucircn directed by HocaTahsin an Albanian member of the lsquoilmiyye educated in Paris and passionate about thenatural sciences Hoca Tahsin had alreadyattracted the resentment of the conserva-tives among the lsquoilmiyye During the monthof Ramadan (December) of the same year

they held lectures open to the public whichabruptly interrupted Hoca Tahsinrsquos careerand al-Afghānī first sojourn in Istanbul

Apparently the second night of Ramadan

5 Jamāl al-Dīn later pretended to be of Afghanorigin from that the name al-Afghānī from a villagethree day walk from Kabul probably to conceal hisShiite background is version was reported by the of-ficial biographies of lsquoAbduh and Makhzūmī (MahzumicircPaşa 2010 3-4) but the Iranian origin was proved by

Keddie (1972)

the lesson was on how oxygen is necessaryfor life they also made the experiment ofdepriving a bird from air Many among the

public found the words of the two intellec-tuals offending to Islamic religious valuesand complaints forced authorities to act(Akuumln 1998)

From 1871 to 1879 al-Afghānī lived inCairo supported by the statesman Riyād Pa-sha Here he was involved in teaching andin promoting political newspapers He soonbecame the guide and unofficial teacher of agroup of young men who were to play an im-portant part in Egyptian life among othersMuhammad lsquoAbduh and Salsquod Zaghlūl Hetaught them mainly in his home what heconceived to be the true Islam theology ju-risprudence mysticism and philosophy Buthe taught them also the danger of Europeanintervention the need for national unity toresist it the need for a broader unity of theUmmah and the need for a constitution tolimit the rulerrsquos power (Hourani 1983 109)

In 1879 because of his anti-Britishpropaganda he was expelled again and tookrefuge in the Indian state of HyderabadBetween 1883 and 1885 he was in Pariswhere he started the publication of the Ara-bic newspaper al-lsquoUrwah al-wuthqagrave with hisEgyptian pupil Muhammad lsquoAbduh

He kept travelling to Iran and then Rus-sia until he was invited to Istanbul in 1892

by Sultan Abduumllhamid II who insisted onseeing al-Afghānī in the Ottoman capital be-cause of the letter that he wrote to the Sul-tan from London It suggested some subtlediplomatic ways to achieve the goal of Pan-Islamism by bringing about at first an alli-ance of the Ottoman state with Afghanistanand then with Iran realizing a Shii-Sunniunity (Oumlzcan 1995 286) However his ac-tions were limited very soon by an increasingsuspicion of him by Ottoman authorities



63


his relations with Abbas Hilmi the Khediveof Egypt and with members of the opposi-tion were found to be intolerable In 1896

al-Afghānī was held responsible by the Irani-an authorities for the murder of Shah Nasral-Dīn but Ottoman authorities refused tohand him over but put him under house ar-rest In 1897 al-Afghānī died of cancer andwas buried in the Maccedilka cemetery

Ernest Renan had the chance to meetal-Afghānī in February or April of 1883 in-troduced by Khalīl Ghānim (Halil Ganem)(Renan [1883] 2000 213) Khalīl Ghānimwas a Maronite activist elected as deputyfor Beirut in the short-lived Ottoman Parlia-ment In Paris he was a collaborator for theJournal des Deacutebats and published an Arabic

journal called al-Basīr which promoted con-stitutionalism and Ottomanism and hadbeen published with official support since

April 1881 (Kedourie 1977 40) Later KhalīlGhānim became an activist for the Commit-tee of Union and Progress (Han1048681oğlu 1996

45-6 and Houran1048681 1983 264-5) Renan hada very good impression of Jamāl al-Dīn al- Afghānī and considered him lsquoan Afghan [sic] entirely emancipated from the preju-dices of Islam he belongs to those energeticraces of the Upper Iran bordering upon In-dia in which the Aryan spirit still flourishesso strongly under the superficial garb of of-ficial Islamismrsquo (Renan [1883] 2000 213)Renan also appreciated al-Afghānīrsquos con-demnation of fanaticism and the decline of

the Muslim worlds an opinion shared alsoby Khalīl Ghānim who saw the reason be-hind Ottoman decadence in religious fanati-cism and despotism Moreover he stressedthe authoritarian and exclusive character aswell as the attitude toward political intoler-ance and violence of the Turks that emergedfrom the long fights with the Christians(Ganem 1902 II 295-6)

ere is no doubt that Jamāl al-Dīn al-

Afghānī was fascinated with modern sci-ence or rather the lsquomechanisticrsquo side of itHe saw it as the secret of Western strength

which Muslims had to acquire in order tofight back In his view science ruled theworld and the European hegemony thanksto its scientific knowledge was in keepingwith a pattern where ancient civilizationswere able to affirm themselves over othersby beings comparatively more technicallyadvanced (Cortese 2000 505)

e most well-known response of al- Afghānī to Renan was published on thepages of the Journal des deacutebats on 18 May1883 (al-Afghānī 1883c) A ccording to LewisFreeman Mott the author of a biography ofRenan published in 1921 the translation ofal-Afghānīrsquos letter to the Journal des deacutebats (published on 18 May 1883) from Arabicinto French was done by Ernest Renan him-self (Cuumlndioğlu 1996 29-31) MohammadHamidullah the well-known Indian scholaramong others believed that the article pub-

lished in the Journal des deacutebats was translat-ed and forged by Renan Hamidullah advo-cated that al-Afghānī did not know Frenchand sent the Arabic text to the journal a fewdays after the lecture but was not capableof following the long publishing processMoreover his article was never published bythe Arabic journal of his pupil lsquoAbduh whofollowed with care all of his masterrsquos work(Hamidullah 1958 5-7) Keddie howeverbelieves that even if al-Afghānīrsquos written

and spoken French was imperfect and heread the lecture in lsquoa more or less faithfultranslationrsquo6 the French text was genuineand accurate lsquosince Afghānī soon came toread French quite well and never made anyrecorded complaint about the way the ldquoAn-swerrdquo was translatedrsquo (Keddie 1983 86)

6 Quotations from the lsquoReacuteponse agrave Renanrsquo aretaken from the translation of Keddie published in An

Islamic Response to Imperialism pp 181-187



64


Moreover the Journal des deacutebats was widelyread among al-Afghānīrsquos close circles lsquoAbduhknew about the article and in a private corre-

spondence with his master he first expressedinterest in translating it Later when a draftwas ready he dropped the idea of publishingit waiting for al-Afghānīrsquos new elaborationin Arabic (Kedourie 1977 44-5) Moreoverit appears that Renanrsquos Arabic was too poorfor him to have translated such an articlee translator of al-Afghānīrsquos letter mighthave been Khalīl Ghānim who publishedanother answer to Renan speach in Arabic

fifteen days earlier on the pages of his jour-nal As we will see the Arabic text was verydifferent in style and context but probablywritten with completely different aims

e lsquoReacuteponse du Cheik Gemmal Eddinersquoprinted on the Journal des deacutebats was pub-lished in French and intended for a Westernaudience As in other writings addressed to aFrench or British public al-Afghānī could bealmost the image of logic clarity and ratio-

nality appealing to the liberal sentiments ofhis audience in a way that would be impossi-ble for a man who did not have a fairly sym-pathetic acquaintance with modern West-ern ideas When writing a book or articlesintended for mass circulation in the Mus-lim world he was less rational and stronglyanti-Westernist even more anti-British(Keddie 1983 36) Moreover in his writingsaddressed to the Muslim world what he in-tended by lsquoIslamrsquo was a desideratummdashbased

on a modernist reinterpretation of religionforgetting tradition Namık Kemal and allIslamists after him would keep on present-ing an ideal image of lsquoIslamrsquo In lsquoReacuteponsersquo lsquolareligion musulmanersquo has a negative conno-tation and what he intends by it is the cor-rupt unscientific contemporary Muslim so-cieties (Keddie 1983 39-40) A translationof the lsquoReacuteponsersquo would have created confu-sion among al-Afghānī and lsquoAbduhrsquos readersLater other Islamist writers had the oppor-

tunity when the lsquoilmiyye lost their grip evenfurther to openly blame the learned classfor their backwardness and their incapabil-

ity in promoting progress and knowledgethroughout the centuries Al-Afghānī asKeddie believed was accustomed to adapt-ing his discourse to his audience and alsoavoiding certain arguments with the widerMuslim public influenced by a lsquotraditionalmystic and philosophical background whichparticularly stressed speaking differentlyto the initiated and to the massesrsquo (Ked-die 1963 27) Moreover al-Afghānī also hid

his Iranian and Shiite background to avoidSunni blame or mistrust Adjusting argu-ments and words to the context appears tobe something quite normal for a public in-tellectual he was also sponsored by differentnotables and probably in different occasionshe refrained from making comments thatmight have been unwanted by his patronHowever in al-Afghānīrsquos approach ratherthan intellectual unfairness there is a gooddose of elitism and paternalism common to

many Islamist writers before the diffusionof public education and the mass mediais approach comes from authors like IbnRušd who believed in lsquopeople of diverse in-telligencersquo and different lsquonatural capacitiesrsquoprobably inherited from Greek philosophyis is also an attitude of Shiite Islam andmany mystical confraternities to which al-

Afghānī was exposed

In the Journal des deacutebats al-Afghānī

summarized Renanrsquos speech in two mainpoints Islam is opposed to the developmentof science and Arabs by nature do not lovemetaphysical sciences or philosophy As forthe first point al-Afghānī believed that atits origin no nation is capable of letting it-self be guided by pure reason because it isincapable of rationally tracing back causesor to discerning effects is is certainly alsquohumiliating yokersquo but it is the first step to-ward a more advanced civilization Islam is



65


not different in this respect from other reli-gions However if the Western world has ad-vanced and emancipated itself from religion

Renan noticed lsquoMuslim society has not yetfreed itself from the tutelage of religionrsquo(Keddie 1972 183) Muslims however haveundoubtedly a lsquotaste for sciencersquo as theydemonstrated in the past

As for the second point the one whereRenan showed his belief in racial theoriesal-Afghānī stated that Greek and Persiancontribution to the development of Muslimsciences was immense At the same timethough lsquothese sciences which they usurpedby right of conquest they developed ex-tended clarified perfected completed andcoordinated with a perfect taste and rareprecision and exactitudersquo (p 184-5) Europe-ans learned from the Arabs the philosophyof Aristotle lsquowho had emigrated and become

Arabrsquo (p 185) is proves the fact that Ar-abs have a natural attachment to philosophyeven if they fall into ignorance and into reli-

gious fanaticismHowever al-Afghānī is very categorical

when analysing the reasons of the later fallinto darkness of Arab civilizations

Here the responsibility of the Mus-lim religion [la religion musulmane] ap-

pears complete It is clear that whereverit become established this religion triedto stifle the sciences and it was marvel-

lously served in its designs by despotism(p 187)

e first reply to Renan from al-Afghānīhowever was published on the pages ofGhānimrsquos journal on 3 May 1883 and titledlsquoal-Islām wa al-lsquoilmrsquo (al-Afghānī 1883b) In-tended for the Ottoman Arabic-speakingpublic its theme and aims were politicaland Renanrsquos lecture was criticized for its op-portunism and not really for its content Af-

ter quoting the verse lsquoSo learn a lesson O ye

who have eyesrsquo (59 2) inviting the reader tomake a comparison he called Renanrsquos speechdisrespectful but he noticed how illustrious

Frenchmen strongly condemned his wordsHowever the rest of the article was a politi-cal statement quite far from the content ofRenanrsquos speech Al-Afghānī believed that Re-nanrsquos words were inappropriate for a coun-try that ruled over such wide Muslim landsmainly those of Algeria and Tunisia More-over France was a country that in mattersof justice and rights was so different fromBritain which ruled over fifty-million Mus-

lims in India en the author attacked dis-respectful British rule in the Muslim worldand its sponsorship for protestant mission-ary activities He concluded lsquoSo look O yewho see [al-basīr ] to the existing differencesamong these two nations and do justicersquo

Al-Afghānī saw the British government asan enemy of the Muslims not only becauseof the direct military attack that he fearedHe feared the British for their subtler waysof working they had conquered India by a

trick insinuating themselves into the Mo-gul Empire under the pretext of helping theMoguls ey sowed division and weakenedthe resistance of their victims by weakeningtheir beliefs It was thus that General Gor-don had brought missionaries from Egyptto spread the idea of Protestant Christianityin Sudan while in India the false gospel oflsquonaturalismrsquo was encouraged (Hourani 1983113)

It is interesting to note the distinctionbetween French and British rule in Mus-lim lands made by al-Afghānī Al-Afghānīexperienced British colonial rule in Indiaand Egypt and based on these experienceshe formed an aversion toward Imperialismstarting to think about its deleterious ef-fects on Muslim culture and identity

When he wrote his article on Ghānimrsquosal-Basīr he was in Paris writing for the



66


pages of a journal that was financed by theFrench government initially to contrastItalian propaganda in Tunisia with the aim

of letting lsquoArabs love Francersquo en after theoccupation of Egypt it assumed an anti-British stand in line with French foreignpolicy (Kedourie 1966 40) us al-Afghānīwrote the piece perfectly aligning himself tothe editorial policy Paradoxically the West-ern powers Russia and Japan financed andsupportedmdashgranting asylum and recogni-tionmdashto transnational movements whichheld and anti-Western and anti-Imperialist

agenda until recent times (just rememberthe emergence of the Taliban and al-Qālsquoida)

A similar attack on the British hostilitytoward Islam had already been expressedIn April of 1883 in another letter publishedin the Journal des deacutebats al-Afghānī warnedEuropeans that Muslim Indians were con-vinced that the British campaign in Egyptwas only the first step to the conquest ofthe Hijaz and Mecca centres of Islam lsquothey

unanimously say that the English alreadyhad put their hand on the cradle of Islamand that they will make a great effort toerase this religionrsquo If that would ever havehappened the reaction of the Muslim popu-lation would have been devastating

Namık Kemal

Mehmet Namık Kemal is probably

the founder of modern Islamist politicalthought in the Turkish speaking area of theOttoman Empire Born in December 1840to a family of bureaucrats one year afterthe beginning of the Tanzimat reformshe started a career first in the TranslationBureau of the Customs and then in theOttoman Porte (1861-7)mdashlsquoTurkeyrsquos openwindow to the Westrsquo (Lewis 1961 137)ndashwhich brought him into contact with West-ern culture especially through the medium

of works in French In 1865 Namık Ke-mal took over the editing of Şinasi EfendirsquosTasvir-i Efkar newspaper where he started

to advocate the introduction of constitu-tional and parliamentary institutions In1867 the government became uneasy withhis criticism of its conduct of foreign affairsthat urged a more forceful defence of Otto-man interests against the European powersSoon Namık Kemal was appointed as assis-tant governor of the province of Erzuruma gentle way of getting rid of him Insteadof accepting the appointment he left the

country for Paris and then London with hisfriend Ziya Bey where they began the pub-lication of the newspaper Huumlrriyet with thefinancial help of a member of the Egyptianroyal family Prince Mustafa Fazıl Paşa Huumlr-riyet was outspokenly critical of the Otto-man government for its lack of direction andits despotism

In 1870 Namık Kemal returned to Istan-bul where he established a more moderate

newspaper İbret Two years later he was ap-pointed to an administrative post in Gallipo-li in order to reduce his powerful opposition

After a short period back in the capital hewas again exiled to Cyprus (1876) and thento the isle of Mytilene in July 1877 this timepurportedly for the disturbance created byhis play Vatan yahut Silistre (e Fatherlandor Silistre) In the play written in a clear andsimple Turkish able to address the commonpeople Namık Kemal tried to promote love

and attachment for the Ottoman father-land e term that he used was the Arabicword watan which has the original meaningof lsquohomersquo the place where somebody lives(Ibn Manzūr 1997 XV 338) Namık Kemalrsquosinnovation is his attempt to indicate withthe word a place and not just an ideal com-munity like the more common words umma and milla A simple translation of the Frenchconcept of patrie was very complicated bothbecause there was (and probably still there



67


is) no general understanding of a nationthat includes a community within a spe-cific region and because of the political and

cultural circumstances in which the authorlived e play in fact is about the heroic de-fence of Silistre a city strategically locatedon the Danube today northern Bulgariawith a small Muslim population surroundedby Bulgarian and Romanian speaking non-Muslims

Namık Kemal died in December 1888again in exile on the isle of Chios Accordingto his sonmdashAli Ekrem (Bolayır)mdashthe reasonof death was pneumonia strongly worsenedby the protracted and unfair exile as well asthe depression following the censure by thePorte of his Ottoman history book pub-lished just a few months before his death(Ali Ekrem 1992 111-113)

In June of 1883 in his exile in MytileneNamık Kemal with profound emotions start-ed to write his Renan Muumldafaanamesi a taskwhich he consideredmdashas he wrote in a let-ter to his fathermdasha lsquogreat act of worshiprsquo Heintended to refute Renanrsquos lecture with evi-dences taken from European literature andfrom Renanrsquos own work (Tansel 1955 89)However in a letter written on 1 Septemberhe wrote that his lsquoRenan Muumldafaanamesirsquomdashas he himself called his workmdashwas complet-ed yet revisions were progressing slowly Fi-nally in a letter on 4 November he admittedto be profoundly unsatisfied with his work

and that he did not intend to publish it (id89-90) His work was published by his son Ali Ekrem in 1908 and presented as lsquoone ofhis greatest successrsquo (Ali Ekrem 1992 56)probably unaware of the correspondencewith his grandfather

In fact Renan Muumldafaanamesi appears to the reader a weak refutation ofErnest Renanrsquos argument

Kemalrsquos specific target was this

French thinkerrsquos allegation that thereexisted no philosophy in the true senseof the word in Islam Renan had relied

on an argument similar to the one thathas been advanced in this study namelythat Islam had not been able to achieveso great a distinction in the field of sci-ence as Europe because it did not havea major tradition of secular thought in-dependent of theology Namık Kemalrsquosdefense even though passionate wasquite weak for he obviously was unableto understand his adversaryrsquos position

(Mardin 2000 324)e Ottoman author gave indeed plenty

of evidences that Renan did not have goodknowledge of Islamic history somethingthat as we have already seen was alsoknown to the French public Besides a re-view of the historical evidences brought byRenan the author of Renan Muumldafaanamesi mentions the imperative of Islam to searchand investigate from verses like lsquoMy Lord

Increase me in knowledgersquo (XX114) and lsquoArethose who know equal with those who knownotrsquo (XXXIX9) or sayings of the Prophetlike lsquoSeek knowledge from the cradle to thegraversquo Namık Kemal then asks how it is pos-sible that a religion with so strong a commit-ment to the search for knowledge then act asan obstacle to science Namık Kemal failedto tackle the main point of Renanrsquos thesisnamely the accusation that Islamic societ-ies have failed to develop as fast as those in

Europe We do not know the exact reasonsbehind the decision of Namık Kemal not toprint his latest work but one hypothesis isthe fact that he himself realized the weak-ness of his argument

us while on the one hand Namık Ke-mal defended the thesis that nothing in Is-lam forbade the study of the exact sciencesand mathematics on the other he showedhis own inclination in the matter by stat-



68


ing that science was not merely lsquoan instru-ment to gain control over nature and createwealthrsquo lsquoIt can never be known of those

who use science for practical goals if theyhave been able to attain a higher status [ieif they have evolved morally] or reached ma-turityrsquo (Namık Kemal 1962 25 translatedby Mardin 2000 324) Namık Kemal makeshere an anti-utilitarian and strongly moral-istic-religious comment which will becomethe frequent critique of European material-ism Again Namık Kemal protested that Re-nan should have equated science with math-

ematics and the natural sciences only If thismethod were to be adopted he stated hewould agree that Islamic culture had thwart-ed the growth of science He however didnot recognize the fact that the Islamic scho-lastic approach to philosophy was quite bar-ren and that the spirit of hair-splitting wasno more part and parcel of European philos-ophy Namık Kemal did not recognize thatErnest Renan attributed a great part of theprogress that had been accomplished in Eu-

rope to the gradually widening limits of free-dom of thought and in particular to therise of the political liberalism that had beenassociated with two parallel movements theemancipation of philosophy from religionand the conceptualization of a mechanisticsystem of nature (Mardin 2000 324)

Nonetheless the Ottoman author didnot fail to strongly criticise the Europeanapproach to Islamic culture something that

we would today call Orientalism On oneside Christian believers intentionally con-trast and censure the investigation of IslamSecular researchers on the other side lookinto Islam with a prejudice believing thatas all religions in Europe Islam also is lsquotheheaviest chain enslaving human thoughtand the stronger impediment to the prog-ress of knowledgersquo (Namık Kemal 1962 17)

One of the possible reasons of Renan

Muumldafaanamesirsquos weakness is the fact thatits author could not really distinguish theidealized image of Islam (and Christendom)

from Muslim societies even though he hadbeen an outspoken critic not only of theOttoman regime but also of society in gen-eral is actually constitutes a very good ex-ample of the attempt to de-historicize Islamand separate it from the various contexts inwhich it has flourished over the centuriesis de-contextualization of religion7 allowsNamık Kemalmdashand all Islamist authors thatwill follow in his pathmdashin theory to ignore

the social economic and political milieuswithin which Muslim societies exist

It provides Islamists a powerful ide-ological tool that they can use to ldquopurgerdquo

Muslim societies of the ldquoimpuritiesrdquo andldquoaccretionsrdquo that are the inevitable ac-companiments of the historical processbut which they see as the reason for

Muslim decline (Ayoob 2004 1)

Conclusion

Nevertheless Namık Kemalrsquos work wasyet another expression of the early Islamistintellectualrsquos urge to expose the cultural ag-gression coming from the West making Re-nan Muumldafaanamesi a relevant text probablyalso because it marks the starting point ofIslamism in the Turkish speaking provincesof the Empire

As evident also in al-Afghānīrsquos textsMuslim intellectuals were now facing a newchallenge from the West Rather than repre-senting the military technological and sci-entific superiority over the Muslim worldRenan introduced a racial and religious dis-crimination us the gap between the twolsquocivilizationsrsquo could have not been filled by

7 Mainly Islam but it applies also to its image of

Christianity



69


simply making administrative and politicalreforms A total alienation from its culturetraditions and values was needed maybe al-

lowing white colonial authorities to shoul-der the lsquoburdenrsquo of civilization Islamism wasthe ideology reacting precisely to this newthreat that urged a reinterpretation and re-evaluation of its past and religion togetherwith reforms based on Islam

References

Akuumln Oumlmer Faruk 1998 ldquoHoca Tahsinrdquo DİA XVIII

[al-Afghānī Jamāl al-Dīn] Che1048681k Gemmal Edd1048681neEl-Afghan1048681 6 April 1883a ldquoEgypterdquo Journal des deacutebats2

[al-Afghānī Jamāl al-Dīn] Gemmal Eddine Afghan 18 May 1883c ldquoAu Directeur du Journal desdeacutebatsrdquo Journal des deacutebats 3

al-Afghānī Jamāl al-Dīn al-Hussaynī 3 May1883b ldquoal-Islām wa al-lsquoilmrdquo Al-Basīr 3

Ali Ekrem 1992 Namık Kemal İstanbul MEB

Aydın Cemil 2007 e Politics of Anti-Westernismin Asia Columbia University Press New York

Ayoob Mohammed 2004 ldquoPolitical Islam Imageand Realityrdquo World Policy Journal 21 3 1-14

Cortese Delia 2000 ldquoMedieval Sapiential Knowl-edge and Modern Science in Islam Some Consider-ations on a lsquoMissed Linkrsquo based on the ought ofĞamāl al-Dīn al-Afgānīrdquo Oriente Moderno 19 503-517

Cuumlndioğlu D 1996 ldquoErnest Renan ve lsquoreddiyelerrsquoBağlamında İslam-bilim Tartışmalarına Bibliyografikbir Katkırdquo Divacircn 2 1-94

Esenbel Selccediluk 2011 Japan Turkey and the Worldof Islam Forlkerstone Global Oriental

Ferro Marc 2002 Le choc de lrsquoIslam XVIII e-XXI e siegravecle Paris Odile Jacob

Ferro Marc 2010 Resentment in history Cam-bridge Polity

Ganem Halil 1902 Les Sultans Ottomans ParisChevalier-Marescq

Hamidullah Muhammad 1958 ldquoErnest Renan veİslamiyetrdquo İslacircm 14 4-7

Hanioğlu M Şuumlkruuml 1995 e Young Turks in Op- position New York-Oxford Oxford University Press

Hourani Albert 1983 Arabic ought in the Liberal

Age 1798-1939 Cambridge Cambridge UniversityPress

Ibn Manzūr 1997 (1418) Lisān al-lsquoarab Bayrūt

Dār ihyārsquo al-Turāth al-lsquoarabīKeddie Nikki R 1963 ldquoSymbol and Sincerity in

Islamrdquo Studia Islamica 19 27-63

Keddie Nikki R 1972 Sayyid Jamāl ad-Dīn ldquoal- Afghānīrdquo Berkley-Los Angeles University of CaliforniaPress

Keddie Nikki R 1983 An Islamic Response to Im- perialism Political and Religious Writings of Sayyid Jamālad-Dīn ldquoal-Afghānīrdquo Berkley-Los Angeles University ofCalifornia Press

Kedourie Elie 1966 Afghani and lsquoAbduh an Essayon Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern

Islam London Frank CassLewis Bernard 1961 e Emergence of Modern

Turkey Oxford Oxford University Press

Lew1048681s Bernard 2002 What Went Wrong WesternImpact and M983145ddle Eastern Response Oxford-New YorkOxford Un1048681vers1048681ty Press

Mahzumicirc Paşa Muhammed 2010 Cemaledd983145n Afganicircrsquon983145n Hatıraları İstanbul Klas1048681k

Mard1048681n Şer1048681f 1995 ldquoKemal Mehmet Namıkrdquo Ine Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World edited by John L Esposito vol 2 409-410 OxfordOxford University Press

Mardin Şerif 2000 e Genesis of Young Ottomanought Syracuse Syracuse University Press

Massignon Louis 1927 ldquoLa laquolettre du Cadi deMossoul agrave Layardraquo Critique par Nameq Kemal drsquounesource citeacutee par Renanrdquo Revue des eacutetudes islamiques1 297-301

Moallem Minoo 2003 ldquoCultural Nationalismand Islamic Fundamentalism the Case of Iranrdquo In Antinomies of Modernity edited by Vasant Kaiwar andSucheta Mazumdar Durham-London Duke UniversityPress

Namık Kemal 1962 Renan Muumldacircfaanacircmesi

( İslamiyet ve Maacircrif) Translittered by M FuadKoumlpruumlluuml Ankara Millicirc Kuumlltuumlr Yayınları

Oumlzcan Azmi 1995 ldquoJamaladdin Afghanirsquos Honor-able Confinement in Istanbul and Iranrsquos Demands forhis Extraditionrdquo e Journal of Ottoman Studies 15285-291

Renan Ernest 2000 ldquoIslamism and Sciencerdquo InOrientalism Early Sources Readings in Orientalismedited by Bryan Turner 199-217 London-New YorkRoutledge

Renan Ernest 2005 LrsquoIslam et la science avec lareacuteponse drsquoal-Afghacircnicirc Apt LrsquoArchange Minotaure

Resh Richard J 1987 ldquoRenan Ernestrdquo In e





58


Introduction

After 911 a wide field of literature

emerged out of the necessity to explainthe reasons behind lsquoMuslim resentmentrsquoagainst the democratic and affluent West1 However this literature fails to provide ad-equate explanations because its writers donot understand the huge impact of WesternImperialism and all the forms it assumedin the twentieth and twenty-first centurieson non-Western political intellectuals MarcFerrorsquos Resentment in history and Le choc delrsquoIslam though helps us in reflecting on theimpact of Western policies through historyand the reactions that they created in non-European societies Anti-Westernism in-deed is not something peculiar to Muslimsocieties In nearly the same years of theemergence of Islamism in the Ottoman Em-pire from the Meiji period to World War IIJapan saw similar intellectual currents thatadopted very similar symbols and method-ologies against the West (See Aydın 2007)

Obviously it must be considered a fact thatthere were special difficulties in the long en-counter between Islam and Christendomwhich were not present in the encounter be-tween Europe and the geographically remot-er civilizations of Asia (Lewis 2002 36-7)

In this paper I will argue that it was anti-Westernism as a reaction to the evolution ofImperialism and the onset of Western domi-nation in the Middle East and North Africa

that sparked the emergence of IslamismMoreover I will argue that al-Afghānī andNamık Kemal were the two leading figuresto launch this ideology into the core of theOttoman Empire and that their answers toRenan are actually the starting point of Is-

2 e most notorious one is Bernard LewisrsquosWhat WentWrong Western Impact and Middle Eastern Response and e Roots of Muslim Rage (e Atlantic September

1990) which was published well before 911 though

lamist thought

Before proceeding any further it may be

appropriate to define the term lsquoIslamismrsquoused in the title and in the text is termis widely used but because it is semanti-cally imperfect it lacks an unequivocalmeaning in the literature By lsquoIslamismrsquo weintend a political ideology (not a religiousor theological construct) that emerged inthe second half of the nineteenth-centuryMuslim world and continuously evolveduntil present times in different geographi-cal and social contexts Islamist intellectu-als advocate the islamization of all aspectsof life and promote a reinterpretation ofIslam itselfmdashwhich was allegedly misinter-preted by previous generations is ideol-ogy appeared as a reaction to the arrival ofImperialism in Muslim lands In the secondhalf of the nineteenth-century the West notonly started to represent a military threatmenacing territory identity and politicalinstitutions the West was threatened the

Muslim identity and religion with its ma-terialism and scientism and it threatenedMuslim societies with the imposition ofits dominant ethnicity lsquofar from creating apeaceful world order guided by ascetic andall-inclusive human rationalismrsquo (Moallem2003 200) Moreover imperialism dem-onstrated the economic technological andmilitary inability to confront the West andthe inadequacy of the political and culturalinstitutions of the Muslim world Finally

imperialism encouraged the emergence ofWesternized elites that upheld the lsquocivilizingmissionrsquo among Muslim societies In Tur-key as in other Middle Eastern countriesWesternized elitesmdashperceived as alien tothe local social fabricmdashgained power andimposed authoritarian regimes that mar-ginalized those deviating from the project ofWesternization and modernization trigger-ing even more resentment us even if theOttoman Empire and Turkey did not know



59

















60





















61






(on 19 May 1883)4






New York Routledge










62











Keddie (1972)









63



















64

















65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































59

















60





















61






(on 19 May 1883)4






New York Routledge










62











Keddie (1972)









63



















64

















65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































60





















61






(on 19 May 1883)4






New York Routledge










62











Keddie (1972)









63



















64

















65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































61






(on 19 May 1883)4






New York Routledge










62











Keddie (1972)









63



















64

















65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































62











Keddie (1972)









63



















64

















65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































63



















64

















65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































64

















65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































65






















66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































66







Namık Kemal












67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































67


















68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































68















Conclusion




Christianity



69




References










































69




References








































al-afghānī and namık kemal’s replies to ernest renan

Documents