albert hourani：islam, christianity and orientalism

7/25/2019 Albert Hourani Islam, Christianity and Orientalism

1/11

British Society for Middle Eastern Studies

Albert Hourani: Islam, Christianity and OrientalismAuthor(s): Derek HopwoodSource: British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Nov., 2003), pp. 127-136Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3593219.

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2/11

British Journal of

Middle Eastern Studies

(November,

2003),

Carfax

Publishing

30 (2), 127-1 3 6

Taylor

&

Francis

Group

30(2), 127-136

ac

l b e r t

Houran i

I s l a m

hristianity

n d Orientalism

DEREK HOPWOOD*

(In

memory

of

Albert

Hourani,

dedicated

to

Odile

Hourani)

Albert Hourani died

in

January

1993 after a

lifetime

devoted to the

study

of

the

Middle

East and Islam. This article

s an

attempt

o assess some of

the influences

that

helped

to

shape

his intellectual

and

academic life

and

work

by

someone

who

was his student

and then

colleague

for

many years.

On

his death

'I

felt

as if

part

of

my

own

life

had ended. As

long

as

the teacher

lived,

one

thought

of oneself

as

his

student'.1

Looking

at

the

whole

of

his

life it is

possible

to

single

out

three

major

phases.

(1)

His

early

life.

He

was

born

in

Manchester,

England,

of

Lebanese

immigrant

parents.

His

family

had

been

converted from

Greek

Orthodoxy

to Scottish

Presbyterianism.

Hourani

often

spoke

of

his

family

home

in

Manchester

where

East

met

West,

where

many

Lebanese

and

Arabs would

gather,

and

where

his

father was

an

elder

of the local

church.

His brother

Cecil wrote

about

this

period

in

his

autobiography

and Albert himself wrote two shorter

biographicalpieces that mention it briefly.2He attended school at Mill Hill

near

London and

university

at

Magdalen

College,

Oxford,

where

he

read for

a

degree

in

Philosophy,

Politics

and Economics.

(2)

Then a

stay

in

Beirut,

Cairo and

Jerusalem

in

the 1930s and 1940s

introduced

him

to

contemporary

Islam and

to

modem Arab

nationalism

(about

which he wrote a

lot but

with which

I shall not

deal

here).

He

met

regularly

with

a

group

of

fellow

Lebanese

in Beirut

who discussed

the

role

of

Arab

Christians

n

the

Middle East

and their

relations

with Arab Muslims.

Charles

Malik

was

a

leading

member

of

the

group.

(3)

Finally,

his

long

period

in

Oxford

that

brought

him into

contact with

scholars

there,

particularly

Hamilton

Gibb,

Professor of

Arabic,

and

the

European

orientalist

scholar-emigres-Walzer,

Schacht and Stem-who in

turn

introducedhim to

other

European

orientalists,

particularly

he French-

Cahen,

Massignon, Berque.

In

addition to

being

influenced

by

the

scholar-

ship

of

these men he was

deeply

impressed by

the

spirituality

of

three

of

them-Gibb,

Massignon

and

Berque.

*

EmeritusReader

n

Modern

Middle

Eastern

Studies

at St

Antony's College, University

of

Oxford,

UK.

This

paper

was

originally

given

as a

lecture

at St

Antony's

in

January

2003

to mark

the 10th

anniversary

of

Albert

Hourani's death.

1

A.

Hourani,

slam in

EuropeanThought Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity

Press,

1991),

p.

37,

quoting

Ignaz

Goldziher on the

death

of his

teacher,

Fleischer.

2

C.

Hourani.

An

UnfinishedOdyssey;

Lebanon

and

Beyond

(London:

Weidenfeldt,

1984).

T.

Naff

(ed.)

Paths

to the MiddleEast; TenScholarsLookBack(Albany:SUNY, 1993),pp. 27-56; N.E. Gallagher ed.)Approaches

to the

History of

the

Middle

East;

Interviews

with

Leading

Middle East

Historians

(Reading:

Ithaca,

1994),

pp.

19-45.

ISSN 1353-0194

print/ISSN

1469-3542

online/03/020127-10

?

2003 British

Society

for Middle

Eastern

Studies

DOI:

10.1080/1353019032000126491

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3/11

DEREK

HOPWOOD

In

all of Hourani's

scholarly

writings

we find there are two broad

general

fields

of interest:

firstly,

the

study

of

Middle East

history

that culminated

n

his

major

book

A

History of

the

Arab

Peoples;3

and

secondly,

studies

on

aspects

of

Islamic

and Arabic

thought,

on

how Arab

thinkers,

Muslim

and

Christian,

absorbed

or

rejected Europeanideas and on how Europeanorientalist scholars interpreted

Islamic

history

and

religion.

This latter

topic

seemed

to

engage

his

mind

in

his

later

years quite

considerably.

His last

published

work

was Islam in

European

Thought,

a collection

of

papers

that contained his

final lectures

with the

same

title.

Houraniwas a committed

Christianand it is

clear that

his faith

played

a

major

role

in

the

way

he

approached

his

work and

in

particular

his

study

of Islam. A

fascinating aspect

of

his Christian

ife

was his conversion

to

Catholicism.

It

is

clear that

in

the late

1930s,

in

Beirut,

he was

deeply

interested

n

religion

as his

attendance at discussions

on

Christianity

in a

group

with

Charles Malik

and

others

demonstrates.

'In

the

American

University

[of

Beirut]

there is

the

movement for the creation of a Christian philosophy in Arabic, which is

associated with Charles

Malik,

Professor of

Philosophy

in

the

University,

so far

almost unknown but

perhaps

the

greatest

intellectual

figure

in

the

Arab world

today.'4

I am not sure

whether at this time he had abandonedhis

family

faith.

Conversion

to

Catholicism

is not

uncommon

amongst

intellectuals

but it is not

clear what it was in

particular

hat

attractedhim. His

friend at

Oxford,

Charles

Issawi,

the

Middle

East

economic

historian,

discerned

his interest n

Catholicism

very early

and claimed

that 10

years

before Hourani's

conversion

he had laid a

bet that he would convert.

Was it the

influence of Charles

Malik?

Was it the

structureof the Church

he found

satisfying?

Was it the cultural and

spiritual

aesthetic or the intellectualrigour?There can be two kinds of conversionand of

faith

in

general.

One is

the emotional

experience,

the claim to have had

a direct

experience

of

God,

and

there is the more intellectual assessment of faith

that

leads to commitment.

I think that Hourani

agreed

with

the notion of

Cardinal

John

Henry

Newman that

faith is an act of

intellectual

assent,

made under the

discipline

of

self-control,

prayer

and

right

direction of

the

heart. Faith is

not

simply

blind assent. Man

strives after a

vision of God about

which

human

reason

continuously

asks all the

relevant

questions.

Hourani

must

have asked these

questions

and come to

the

conclusion that to follow

the

path

of

Newman

(himself

an intellectual

convert to

Catholicism)

was

the

most

satisfactory

answer.

Houranispoke aboutaspectsof his faith in a sermonhe gave in the University

Church

of

St

Mary

the

Virgin

as

university preacher

n

1976.

I

do not know

how

university

lay preachers

are chosen or how it is

known

that certain

people

are

suitable,

but

Hourani

used the occasion to

speak

both about his own faith

and

about how

it

had

influenced

his

attitudetowards work and towards other

faiths.

It is

interesting

that he

based

most

of

what he said on

the

thoughts

of John

Henry

Newman,

who had

often

preached

n

St

Mary's

(as

an

Anglican).

He

said

that the title of his own sermon

could have been

'On

presuming

to stand

where

Newman

stood' and

added

that

'echoes of his words will be heard

in

everything

3

A.

Hourani,

A

History

of

the Arab

Peoples

(London:

Faber and

Faber,

1991).

4

A.

Hourani,

'GreatBritain and

Arab Nationalism

1943',

unpublished

report,

pp.

84-85.

128



4/11

ALBERT HOURANI

I

have

to

say'.5

He

was,

he

said,

like Newman

and

many

others,

engaged

'in

the

search for

a faith ...

by

which

we can live'.6 He found

that

faith, or,

as he

said,

he found the

Kingdom

of

God

and enrolled himself

in it. His

faith and his work

became intertwined

and

the

one influencedthe other. One

of the most

unpercep-

tive things I have ever read in a biographyis Abdulaziz al-Sudeiri's comment

in his

biography

of Hourani

that

'Although

the conversion

proved

to be an

important

ustaining

force

in

his

life,

it did not

appear

significantly

to recast his

scholarly writing

and

outlook'.7

For

Hourani he

ultimate

reality

was the voice

of

God

speaking

to

the

human

soul

and to the

individual

conscience,

the voice which

guides

one to exercise

tolerance,

to live

in

peace

with

others,

to a

charity

of

forgiveness-and

in his

studies

he twice

quoted

Pope

Gregory

VII's

words on the

charity

we owe to one

another.8

The ultimate

goal

of life for the believer

was union with God

and the

final

reality

was the isolated

soul

in

the

presence

of God.

Here we have echoes

of

Newman's

great poem

on the

journey

of the soul to

God-'The Dream

of

Gerontius'.

Take me

away,

that sooner

I

may

rise and

go

above,

And

see Him

in the truth of

everlasting day.

There is

a

striking passage

in

his sermon about

what Hourani

calls the

religion

of Islam at its

highest-that

is,

in Sufi

thought.

He

says:

'All

created

things

have

descended

from the

Divine Source

in

successive

stages,

and all

strive to return

to that

source; men,

moved

by

their love of

God,

may

ascend ...

through

the

world

of

images,

to the courts

of God'.9

This is the

point

where his

vision of

Islam comes nearest to his vision of Christianity.But Christianityhas that

essential

extra

dimension

which is God

himself

descending

and

appearing

in

flesh

and

in

spirit.

He wrote

in

1955:

'It can mean

nothing

to

say

God

became

Man,

if we do not

mean that

He became one

particular

man'.10

This extra

dimension

that

distinguishes Christianity

rom

other

religions gave

Hourani

he

certainty

of faith

that he had

writtenabout so

forcefully

in

his

earlier

years.

Later,

he became

more reticent

and one no

longer

found the bold

sentiments

expressed

in

his

first works

that took one aback

by

their

forthright-

ness and

by

the fact of

their

being

used

by

a

historian

n

particular

non-religious

contexts.

Influenced

by

the

views of the

Beirut

group,

which,

he

wrote,

regarded

'the Lebanese

and

Syrian

Christians

as

having

a

special

mission ...

to re-state

Christianity

n

Arabic,

to

stand

for it

in

the face

of the

Moslem

world'.ll

It was

almost

as

though

he

felt threatened

and

that he had to

respond proportionately.

For

example,

in

1946

he

wrote:

'Every

human

community

must,

if

it would

avoid

falling

into

mortal

sin,

make

itself servant of

something

higher

than

itself'.12

Again,

a little

later,

writing

on

racism: 'The idea

that there

is a moral

5

A.

Hourani,

Unpublished

sermon delivered

in

Oxford,

1976.

6

Ibid.,

p.

3.

7

Abdulaziz

Al-Sudairi,

A

Vision

of

the

Middle

East;

An Intellectual

BiographyofAlbert

Hourani

(London:

.B.

Tauris,

1999),

p.

27.

8

Hourani,

Islam in

European Thought,pp.

9,

60.

9

Hourani,

Sermon,

p.

11.

10A.

Hourani,

A Vision

of

History;

Near Easternand other

Essays

(Beirut:

Khayats,

1961),

p.

26.

11

A.

Hourani,

Syria

and

Lebanon;

A Political

Essay

(London:

Oxford

University

Press,

1946),

p.

265.

12

Ibid.,

p.

119.

129



5/11

DEREK HOPWOOD

and intellectual

gradation

among

human

beings

...

implies

that

Christ

did not die

for all of

us

all alike'.13

Faith

gave

him a

clear

pattern

or his

life

and he lived

up

to

it-remembering

of course the

human

weaknesses

all are heir to. He said

(in

his

sermon)

that he

wanted to make clear to himself and othershis vision of life, leaving it to others

to

judge

him.

This

had

profound

implications

for his

personal

and

working

life.

He

was

very

sure of the

place

of

religions

in the

world.

'Certain

groups

of

modern educated

Arabs ...

regard

Islam and

Christianity

as mere survivors

of

a

dark

age,

and

... look forward to

their imminent extinction

...

This

hope

is vain.

Revealed

religion

cannot vanish

from

the

world to

which

it has

brought

ight.'14

This

certainty

that faith

gave

influenced his

historical

writing

and

gave

him an

approach

hat

others

may

not have had-a concern

with and

a

readiness to

define

the

concept

of

truth. He

believed

that an

organizing principle

of

historical

thought

could

be Truthand defined Truthas

what

people

believe.15

If

that is

the

case then there

must be

many

truths,

yet

truth

with a

capital

T

implies

that there

is only one truth, .e. Christianity.A strongbelief must lead one to questionthe

'truths'

of

others,

for

as he wrote:

'If

I

affirm

anything

I

am

necessarily

excluding

something

else'.16

The

Christian

scholar

of Islam has to find

an

acceptable

method

of

writing

about his

subject.

Islam

and

Christianity

have

found

(find?)

it difficult to

give

an

intelligible place

to the other

within

their

systems

of

thought.

Hourani wrote

notably

of the

look of

'uneasy recognition'

with which

the

two

religions

have

always

faced each

other.17

He

approached

he other

religion

as

a

responsible

Christian scholar

with,

he

wrote,

a sense of

a

living

relationship

with those

whom he studied.

There was

a

need to stretch

out

across

the

gulf

created

by

power, enmity and difference.In a real sense, he asserted,dialogue should be at

the heart of our studies.18

In

the

days

of his

stay

in

Beirut he

had not been

averse

to

expressing

prescriptive,

bold

opinions

that aimed to set

an

agenda

for

Muslim-Christian

relations.

For

example,

he

claimed:

'The whole future

development

of the Arab

countries

depends

on a

change

in

the

spirit

of

Islam',

in its

'living

creative

spirit'.'9

In

those

days

he

saw

in

the

relationship

between Arab Christiansand

Muslims

only

the

'contemptuous

olerationof

the

strong

[Muslim]

for the

weak

[Christian]',

a

situation,

he

said,

that

must be

changed.

How could

it

be

changed?

By

absorbing

differences

into

a

deeper unity,

in

a mutual love for God

that

would lead to 'a

sort of

humility

and

forgiveness'.20

The

two

sides,

he

wrote,

had

to engage in a dialogue of fruitful tension. I do not thinkthat in his lateryears

he would have

insisted so

openly

on

a

change

in

Muslim

attitudes,

nor

on the

possibility

of

a

deeper

unity

in love.

In his

sermon

he set out three

ways

of

approaching

he

religion

of

the other.

13

Hourani,

Vision

of

History,

p.

110.

14

A.

Hourani,

Minorities

in the Arab

World

(Oxford

University

Press,

1947),

p.

124.

15

Gallagher,

Approaches

to the

History of

the Middle

East,

p.

39.

16

Hourani,

Vision

of

History,

p.

27.

17

Hourani,

Europe

and

the Middle

East

(London:

Macmillan,

1980),

p.

4.

18

Hourani,

Islam in

European

Thought,

p.

89.

19

Hourani,

Minorities,

p.

123.

20

Ibid.,

p.

125.

130



6/11

ALBERT HOURANI

(1)

The

way

of

argument,

of

trying

to

persuade

others

that our beliefs

are

the

only

true ones. This is

rather the

way

of missionaries.

(2)

By trying

to

extract the

common features of the

two

religions.

(3)

Through

what he termed

'witness',

by

which

he meant

making

clear what

he believed and leaving it to others to judge the value of his writings and

of his faith.

He

found confirmation

of these

three

approaches

n the

writings

of

Newman,

who

claimed

that:

(1)

The

way

of

argument

can

only

show

that

controversy

s

superfluous

(if

we

all understand

each

other)

or

hopeless

(if

we

cannot

change

our

views).

(2)

Trying

to extract

common

features

may

lead

to a situation where

all

statements are

accepted

even

if

they

contradict

each other.

(3)

We

need not

dispute,

we

need

not

prove,

we need

but define.

This latter

is

surely

the

way

of witness

that Hourani

adopted,

attempting

to define

as

clearly

as he could and

leaving

others to

judge

the value of his work.

The

defining

of another's

religion

must

be done with

reverence and

respect,

the

reverence

of a Christianand

the

respect

of the serious

scholar. Hourani

chose

to

write

about Islam

at what he

called 'its

highest',

i.e.

as

taught

and

practised

by

the

trained

'ulama'

and as

expressed

by

some Sufis.

He

found

many positive

factors

in Islam that

strengthened

his

respect

for it

as

faith

and

a

way

of

thought;

hey

are human

factors,

however,

as he

stopped

short

of

ascribing

direct divine

inspiration

to Islam.

In

general,

he believeed that

all

cultures

produced

by

the human

spirit

have value and

that

their ideas should

be

treated

with

respect.

Islam is

equally

a

manifestation

of the human

spirit,

a form

of

human

reasoning

in

the

attempt

to know

God,

a valid

but limited

response

to

the

Truth.One can

admire a

virtuous Muslim

life and

treat with

respect

Muslim

scholars

who

revere the

Qur'an,

but

in

the

end one

cannot

go

as far

as to see

Islam

as an

alternative form

of salvation.

In

support

of these views Hourani

quoted

the formulations

of the

Second Vatican Council

(1962-1965)

in

defining

its attitude

towards

Islam.

'The Church

looks with

esteem

upon

the

Muslims,

who

worship

the one

living

God

... who has

spoken

to men'.21

But behind this

statement

there lies of course

the Roman Catholic

certainty

that the one God

is

the

Christian

God

of the Vatican.

In his

scholarly

life Hourani

was

deeply impressed

and influenced

by

numer-

ous other sensitive thinkers(mainly orientalistscholars)who could not dismiss

Islam

out of hand22

and who

had

something

valuable

to

say

about

it.

He

immersed

himself

in the works

of men such as

Goldziher,

Massignon,

Gibb and

Marshall

Hodgson.

Amongst

the

many concepts

he

quoted

with

approval

from

them

and others

there is a

notable one

from

Ignaz

Goldziher,

the

Hungarian

Jewish

scholar:

'A

life

lived

in the

spirit

of Islam

can be

an

ethically impeccable

life'.23

In

Louis

Massignon,

a

French Greek

Catholic

priest,

a man to his

mind

of

disturbing

genius,

he found

a

mystical empathy

with

Islam,

although

he

could

not

accept

his view that

Islam

was a

stage

of

Christianity;

n

Marshall

Hodgson,

an

American

co-follower

of

Massignon

and

Gibb,

he

found

compassion;

and a

21

Hourani,

Islam in

European

Thought,

p.

40.

22

Hourani,

Europe

and the Middle

East,

p.

74.

23

Hourani,

Islam

in

European Thought,p.

40.

131



7/11

DEREK HOPWOOD

certain

inspiration

n

Robin Zaehner

(Spalding

Professor

of

Eastern

Religions

at

All Souls

College,

Oxford),

whilst unable to

accept

his

claim

that

Muhammad

was a

genuine

prophet.

He

commented

on this claim that for Christians

'it

is,

to

say

the

least,

a matterof

doubt

whether,

and

in

what

sense,

the

Islamic revelation

can be regarded as valid'.24

So for

Hourani,

Islam

was

not a

divine revelation but was an

encountered,

contemporary, living religion

followed

by

millions across the world and

a

religion

with

a

history.

Therefore,

t

could

be

described

and

analysed

as it is

and

as it had been

practised

and

interpreted.

From his

many

writings

it

is

possible

to discover

what

for him

were the essential features of

Islam.

At the

beginning

of

his

A

History

of

the Arab

Peoples

he describes a

journey

taken

by

the

great

Muslim historian Ibn

Khaldun

n

1382 from

Tunis,

where he was in the

service

of the

ruler,

to Alexandria and

Cairo,

where

he

took a

post

with the

Mamluk

sultan. He also visited

Damascus,

Jerusalem

and

Mecca.

Ibn

Khalduncame from

a

family

that

had

left

Southern

Arabia

to

settle

in

Andalusia.

Hourani used

his

life to

point

up

several lessons,

among

which was the fact that the Muslim world

had a

'unity

which

transcended

divisions of

time

and

space'25

and that

within

that world

there

existed a

corpus

of

knowledge

'transmittedover the

centuries

by

a

known

chain

of

teachers'.

It was a moral

community

that

continuedto

exist

even

when

rulers

changed

and one

that

preserved

its faith in one

God;

a

community

that observed

prayers,

fasts

and

pilgrimage

in

common.

Hourani

admired and tried

to

understand his

'profoundly

unified'

society

that

was

able

to withstand outside shocks

by taking

in what was

of value and

refining

it.

He

was influenced

and,

he

admitted,

moved

by

Gibb's vision of the

Islamic

umma

persisting

throughout

history.26

t

was this vision

that he

tried

to

perpetuate

n

his

own work.Unity was moreimportant handisruptivemovements and factorsthat

tended

to

disturb

t. Ibn Khalduncould travel

through

this ummaunhindered

and

discuss

points

of law

or

theology

in

Arabic

with

fellow scholars

in

numerous

cities.

This was the Sunni world of Islam and it

is

clear that

this

is the world

that

best

represented

slam

for

Hourani.

It

was the

steady

world that

kept

a

balance

between extremes-a world

in which

the

'ulama'

slowly

accumulated

radition

and

in which

Muslims strove

for

moral

perfection,

where

Islam

could

be

observed without

let or

hindrance.

As

he

put

it,

it

was

a

world in which

the

Shari'a

was

followed,

the

way

'by

which

men

could

walk

pleasingly

in

the

sight

of

God

and

hope

to reach Paradise'.27

This very positive view of Islam entailed writing about it, as he said, at its

highest,

and

another feature that attracted

him was

Sufism 'at its

highest'.

He

disliked

the

more mundane

aspects,

what he

considered

the

almost commercial

exploitation

of

the Sufi

tarnqas.

The

sincere dedicated

Sufi followers

he found

to

be men of the

highest

motives,

men who in

every age

kept

the

world on its

axis.

Abu

Hamid

al-Ghazali-the twelfth

century

Islamic

scholar-seemed to

rep-

resent

all

that was best

in

the

Sunni

and Sufi

worlds.

He

wanted to

keep

the

whole

community

on

the

right path

by

underlining

all

the moral

implications

of

24

Hourani,

Europe

and the

Middle

East,

p.

74.

25

Hourani,

History

of

Arab

Peoples,

p.

4.

26

A.

Hourani,

The

Emergence of

the

Modern

Middle East

(London:

Macmillan,

1981),

p.

xiii.

27

Hourani,

Arabic

Thought,

p.

2.

132



8/11

ALBERT

HOURANI

Muslim

practices.

Man's chief aim was

always

to

draw nearer to

God. While

perhaps

not a full

Sufi,

Hourani

saw in him all that

was

noblest in

the Sufi

masters,

whose aim was the 'utter

absorption

of

the heart in the

remembranceof

God'.28

He

quoted

a sentence from

Ghazali which does not sound

very

different

fromNewman's Gerontius: Worldlydesiresbegan tuggingme with theirclaims

to remain

as

I

was,

while the

herald

of faith was

crying

out,

"Away

Up

and

away "'

29

Into

the

nineteenth

century,

Hourani found other

scholars who

had

struggled

to

preserve

the umma

n

the face of

the

moder

world. His book

Arabic

Thought

in the

Liberal

Age,

1798-193930

is a

study

of their

responses

to

modernity

and

it is

interesting

that

in the

preface

to the second edition he wrote that he

should

have written

a

different

book,

one

that

emphasized

continuity

in

the

world

of

Islam

rather han a break

with the

past.

There

were at

least two reasons for this

change

of

approach.

Firstly,

since

the

publication

of the

first

edition

a number

of studies

had

appeared

that stressed

the

continuity

of

Islamic

thought

in the

eighteenth

century

and he was

very

much influenced

by

them; and

secondly,

continuity

rather han

change

became

more

important

o him.

He

had,

however,

singled

out two scholars

who had

laid

emphasis

on

preserving

the

umma,

Jamal

al-Din

al-Afghani

and

Muhammad

Abduh.

Both

had

stressed

that all

the basic

principles

of Islam

were valid and

that

they

had

only

to be

observed meticu-

lously

for Islam to

prosper.

Although al-Afghani perhaps

seemed

a

little

rough

to

Hourani,

he saw

in 'Abduh an

ideal

type

of

human

being

and

Muslim:

'In

later

years

[his]

gentleness

increased,

and those who knew him were

conscious

of his kindness

and

intelligence

and

a certain

spiritualbeauty'.31

Hourani

disliked the

violence or

extremism

that

lately

disrupted

his world. He

called the last chapterof his History of the Arab Peoples, which dealt with the

post-1967

period,

'A disturbanceof

spirits'.

It was almost as

though

he

shut his

eyes

to

violent

change.

In

his

early

book on minorities

he

had

expressed

misgivings

about extreme

Shi'ism

and wrote that it was essential that

the

'gap

between

the different

Islamic sects

should be

bridged',32

although

I

think

that

later he

came to

appreciate

more the

positive

features of

Shi'ism,

even

writing

that

he would

place greater

emphasis

on the Shi'ite tradition han had Gibb. This

view

developed

later

under the

influence of a numberof Shi'ite scholars whom

he

got

to

know

well.

The

single

most

important

aspect

in

the

preservation

of

the

Muslim com-

munity

was,

in

Hourani's

view,

the

continuity

of

knowledge

transmitted ver the

centuries

by

a known chain of teachers-the famous silsila. He returned o this

theme

many

times

in his

writings.

In his

autobiographical

ketch

he

says

that he

was introduced

o this

concept

by

his

colleague

at

Oxford,

Richard

Walzer,

who

'taught

me the

importance

of the

continuity

of

scholarly

traditions:

he

way

in

which

scholarship

was

passed

from

one

generation

to

another

by

a

kind

of

apostolic

succession'.33

There are two

aspects

of the silsilsa: the one

referring

o

the Hadith

(the

Muslim

traditions)

passed

through

a

recognized

chain,

the

isndd,

28

Hourani,

History of

Arab

Peoples,

p.

170.

29

Ibid.,

p.

168.

30

A.

Hourani,

Arabic

Thought

n the Liberal

Age,

1798-1939

(Cambridge:CambridgeUniversity

Press,

1983).

31

Hourani,

Arabic

Thought,

p.

135.

32

Hourani,

Minorities,

p.

124.

33

Naff,

Paths

to the Middle

East,

p.

38

133



9/11

DEREK HOPWOOD

which

Hourani admitted could

be

fabricated

or

faulty;

and the other that

he

valued

in

scholarly

life,

the

relationship

of teacher and

pupil

and of

colleagues.

He

quoted

Massignon,

I

believe

with

approval,

hat

it is

possible

'to hold a view

of

history

which sees the

handing

on of

knowledge

of God from one

individual

to another as the only significant process, and therefore the process most

deserving

of

study'.34

Hourani could see

(with

Massignon)

this

process

in

an

almost

mystical

light: 'History

is

a

chain of witnesses

entering

each other's lives

as

carriers

of

a

truth

beyond

themselves.'35

In

Islam

the

prophet

Muhammad was the initiator of the chain

of the

transmission

of

knowledge.

For

the non-Muslim scholar of

Islam the life of the

prophet

has

always

posed

the

greatest

problems

of

interpretation-in particular

the

thorny question

of whether

he

was the

recipient

of

divine

inspiration.

We

have seen that

Hourani himself

did

not

accept

a divine

aspect

to

Muhammad's

mission,

but

to avoid

causing

offence,

in

his

History

of

the Arab

Peoples

he

accepts

that

'It seems

best

...

to

follow the traditionalaccount of the

origins

of

Islam' but to do this with cautionas there is roomfor scholarlydiscussionabout

the

way

these beliefs

developed.36

We can

see

here a

nod

in

the

direction

of

Crone

and

Cook's

'Haggarism',

which

caused such

a

stir

on

its

appearance

with

their

criticism

of the

traditional

sources for the

life

of

Muhammad.

It

is

interesting

that

in

an

earlier

lecture

given

in

1974

he

appeared

o

be

still under

the

influence

of

Haggarism

when

he

said:

'Much

of the

traditional

biography

[of

Muhammad]

begins

to

crumble

if

one looks

at

it

closely

and

critically'.37

In

a

possible

escape

from

having

to deal with the

theistic

aspects

of

Islamic

history

the historian can

follow the advice of the Dutch

scholar Snouck

Hurgronje,

who

suggested

that Islam

should be studied

in

its historical

reality

without making value judgementsabout what it ought to be. This he extended

to

the

principle,

with

which

Hourani

agreed,

of

studying

the

society

in

which

Islam

emerged

and

the

societies

in

which it continues to

exist,

although

Hourani

believed

that

studying

the societies

of

the different Islams

was

a task

of the

social

historian

or

anthropologist.

He admired the work of

scholars such as

Michael

Gilsenan

and

others

who

stressed the

specificity

of

different

societies.

This was

not the

high

Islam

that

Hourani

sought

but

what

he

and others have

termed

'popular',

the

people's

interpretation

and

observance

of

sometimes

non-orthodox

practices.

This led

him

to

propose

the

principle

that

whatever

people

believe

to

be

Islam is Islam.38But

he

repeated

hat his

'intention ..

[was]

not

to

study

these

popular

movements,

but to confine

[himself]

to

the

high,

urban,literatetraditionof Islam'.39

The

final section of this

paper

deals

with

the

third of

the

trinity

of

topics

in

the

title-orientalism.

Hourani

maintained a

very

deep respect

for

that much

maligned

group

of

scholars-the

orientalists-and

felt

uncomfortable

with

some

of

the strictures

n

Edward Said's

book

Orientalism.When

writing

about

Said's

theories

he went almost

as

far

as he

could,

without

descending

to

polemics,

in

criticizing

them. He wrote

restrainedly

that Said's

methods of

expression

'at

34

Hourani,

Islam in

European Thought,

p.

97.

35

Ibid.

36

Hourani,

History

of

Arab

Peoples, p.

1.

37

Hourani,

Europe

and Middle

East,

p.

2.

38

Hourani,

Islam

in

European

Thought,

p.

101.

39

Ibid.,

p.

102.

134



10/11

ALBERT

HOURANI

times

bring

him

near to caricature'

and

that

'perhaps

he makes the matter

too

simple

when

he

implies

that

[orientalism]

s

inextricably

bound

up

with

the fact

of domination'.40

Hourani

often used the word

'perhaps'

when he meant

'absolutely

certainly'.)

He is careful to

give

weight

to some of Said's

points

but

regrettedthat the epithet 'orientalist' could no longer be used with the respect

he

thought

it deserved.

As

he wrote:

'The

time

has

gone

when

orientalistscould

speak

of

themselves,

without fear of

contradiction,

as

contributing

from

the

purest

of

motives to the

spread

of

knowledge

and mutual

understanding.'41

e

had an almost

mystical

regard

for the clan of

orientalists-'priests

of a

mystery'

he called

them-whose task was 'to

lay

[their]

hands

in

reverence and devotion

upon

... the

past'.42 They

are all

part

of that silsila-of orientalist scholars rather

than 'ulama'-into

which

any aspiring

young

scholar should insert

him-

or

herself.

He believed that he did not form

part

of a chain himself

and that

he

was

not an

orientalist,

but it is clear that he felt

very

much a

colleague

of the scholars

already

mentioned.

This

feeling deepened

as

he

grew

older.

Oxford,

he

felt,

had

made no markin Oriental studies until the arrival of Professor Gibb, together

with

Walzer,

Schacht

and Stem.

He in

particular

evered

Gibb.

'Behind us

there

stood the

great figure

of

...

Gibb ... even

when

physically

absent he was

spiritu-

ally

with

us,

the murshid

guiding

our

steps

in

different

ways'.43

Walzer

introduced

him

to

'the

central

tradition of

Islamic

scholarship

in

Europe,

that

expressed

in

German'44-and

so

obviously

omitted

by

Said.

Stem seemed to

be

the

'very

embodiment of that tradition'.45These

colleagues

at Oxford

strength-

ened

the link with

European

orientalist

scholarship-the

Italians,

the Germans

and

the

French. Two Frenchmenmade

a

deep impression,

orientalists

with their

semi-mystical

attachment

o

the

world of

Islam, both,

like

him,

Catholics. Louis

Massignon fascinated him, a man who seemed to dwell partially in another

place,

with a vision

of

the

mystical,

a

pilgrim

as Hourani

wrote,

in a

world that

was not for

him. In a

photograph

of

him

entering

Jerusalemwith T.

E.

Lawrence

and

the

allied forces

in

1917,

Hourani

discerned

n

his

eyes

a man with a

vision

of

another

Jerusalem.46That

is,

the Catholic

vision of an orientalist.

Hourani

found

this too

in

Jacques Berque,

the

other

Frenchmanwho had

spent

a lifetime

in

the

study

of the Middle East.

In a

tribute

to

him,

he

pictured

Berque

devoting

his later life

to

the

study

of

Islam,

which

was for

him

'the

"other",

to be

apprehended

and

accepted

in

itself:

a

fitting

task for a

long

and

fruitful

retirement'47

n his home

village

of St

Julien-en-Bom,

which as

Hourani added

significantly

ies

'on the road to

Santiago

de

Compostela',

a

seemingly

irrelevant

remark until one realizes that for Hourani that city must have represented he

ultimate

goal

for the Catholic

scholar-pilgrim.

In his

writings,

Houraniremained

a

strong

defender

of

the orientalist radition.

He

praised

the work

of

the

earliest orientalist

scholars,

showing

that

they

wrote

and related to

the

world

as

they

did as their

minds were

inevitably

formed

by

40

Ibid.,

p.

63.

41

Ibid,

p. 62.

42

Ibid.,

1.c.

43

Hourani,

Islam in

European Thought,p.

61.

44

Naff,

Paths

to

the

Middle

East,

p.

38.

45

Ibid.,

I.c.

46

Hourani,

Islam in

European

Thought,

p.

116.

47

Ibid.,

p.

135.

135



11/11

DEREK

HOPWOOD

the

culture of

their

age

and

by

the

ideas and

convictions

their lives

had

taught

them.

By

and

large they

succeeded,

often

working

in

isolation and

as

pioneers

in

difficult

topics. They

had to do

many

things

and

Hourani

admitted hat it

was

'not

surprising

hat

they

did

not

do all

of

them

equally

well'.48 Their

knowledge

and use of orientallanguages, often criticized as tools of imperialism,Hourani

considered to be

liberating

forces

enabling

them to

penetrate

different

cultures

without

ulterior motives. In

general

it

is clear

that he held

the

orientalist

contribution o

knowledge

as

being

much more

positive

than

does

Said,

and he

wrote

approvingly

of

the scholars

de

Sacy,

Lane,

Massignon

and

many

others,

so

often

criticized

by

Said.

How

does one end this

survey

of

another's

ife,

of a

man who

himself

devoted

himself

to the

study

of

the

other,

of

a man

who made

such a

deep

impact

on the

lives of

others? Hourani

said that

'Edward

[Said]

once asked

[the]

question,

"How can one

understand

he other?"

One could

answer,

"One has

to do

one's

best".' But

more than that I

think he

gave

us

a

fitting ending,

a

fitting

summary

of how he thought we should live and how we should relate to others in this

world. In

the

preface

to

the

English

translation

of

Jacques

Berque's

book

Egypt;

Imperialism

and

Revolution,

he asked:

'Is it

possible

to

grasp

the

essential nature

of a

country

other than

one's own?

Yes,

in the

sense in which

one

can know a

human

being

other than

oneself:

through

patience,

clarity

and

love,

and with a

final

acceptance

of the

mystery

of

otherness'.49

48

Ibid.,

p.

35.

49

J.

Berques, Egypt;

Imperialism

and

Revolution

(London:

Faber and

Faber,

1972), p.

7.

136

albert hourani：islam, christianity and orientalism

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