Antun Sa'adeh: The Man, His Thought: an Anthology

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AntunSa’adeh

The Man, His Thought An Anthology

This page intentionally left blank

AntunSa’adeh

The Man, His Thought An Anthology

Edited by

Adel Beshara

ITH ACA P

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ANTUN SAπADEH The Man, His Thought: An Anthology Published by Ithaca Press 8 Southern Court South Street Reading RG1 4QS UK Ithaca Press is an imprint of Garnet Publishing Limited Copyright © Adel Beshara, 2007 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review. First Edition ISBN-13: 978-0-86372-308-7 ISBN-10: 0-86372-308-X British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Typeset by Samantha Barden Jacket design by Garnet Publishing Cover photo used with permission of Folios Limited Printed in Lebanon www.ithacapress.co.uk

To the Children of Life


Contents

Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction

ix xi 1 PA RT I

N ATIONALISM

1 Saπadeh and the Concept of Regional Nationalism

17

Nassif Nassar

2 Union in Life: Saπadeh’s Notion of the Socio-Economic Cycle

47

Inπam Raad

PA RT I I S YRIAN N ATIONALISM

3 Saπadeh and Syrian Nationalism

81

Robert D. Sethian

4 Saπadeh and the Greater Syria Scheme

121

Adel Beshara

PA RT I I I P OLITICAL H ISTORY

5 Saπadeh and the Recovery of Antiquity: The Evolution of Nations in Macro-History

163

Dennis Walker

6 Saπadeh and Lebanon: A Historical Perspective Edmond Melhem [vii]

223

ANTUN SAπADEH

PA RT I V S ECULARISM

7 Some Distinguishing Aspects of Saπadeh’s Thought

267

Adel Daher

8 Secularism in Saπadeh’s Thought

315

Rabeeπh Debs

PA RT V P HILOSOPHY

9 Saπadeh’s Philosophical Doctrine

351

Adnan Amshi

10 Saπadeh’s Conception of Religion

391

Nasri al-Sayegh

PA RT V I

L ITERATURE

11 Saπadeh: The Expatriate Critic and Man of Letters

427

Rabiπa Abifadel

12 Saπadeh’s Views on Literature and Literary Renovation

463

Mohamad Maatouk

PA RT V I I C OSMOPOLITANISM

13 Saπadeh and National Democracy

509

Sofia A. Saπadeh

14 Saπadeh and Marxism

539

Moueen Haddad

Bibliography Index

585 617 [viii]

Acknowledgements

This study could not have been completed without the help and support of many people throughout its various stages. I am grateful to the contributors to this anthology, and primarily to Dennis Walker, who was kind enough to lend an attentive ear to my project and to offer wise advice. I also wish to thank those who helped me in the translation of some of the articles: Dennis Walker; Mohammad al-Dami of Baghdad University, who lent his assistance while Baghdad was under attack; and Michel Hayek of Notre Dame University in Lebanon. Special thanks are due to my colleagues at the University of Melbourne who kindly shared with me their rich experience in the editing of this work, and to John Daye and Riad Khneisser at the Jafet Library in the American University of Beirut. Finally, I extend special thanks to Kalpalathika Rajan of Integra Software Services in India for his cooperation and assistance in bringing the anthology to its present form.

[ix]


Notes on Contributors

Rabiπa Abifadel is a PhD graduate in Arabic literature from St. Joseph University in Lebanon. He is presently a senior lecture in the Department of Literature at the Lebanese University. Dr. Abifadel has authored numerous books, including Al-Fikr al-dini fi al-Adab al-Mahjari and Jawla fi Balaghat al-Arab wa Adabahum. He is also a recognized poet. Adnan Amshi is a Palestinian scholar currently living in Damascus. His publications include: Saπadeh wa al-Falsafah al-Qawmiyyah al-Ijtimaeiyah, Al-Tarbiyyah al-Yahudiyya wa al-Sahuniyyah and Al-Sultah fi al-Hizb al-Suri al-Qawmi al-Ijtimaeπ. Adel Beshara is both a Fellow and a teacher in the Department of History at the University of Melbourne. He is also the editor-in-charge of the English-language quarterly al-Mashriq. A PhD graduate from the University of Melbourne, Beshara has two books to his credit: Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh and Lebanon: The Politics of Frustration – the Failed Coup of 1961. Adel Daher was educated at the American University in Beirut and Frankfurt University. He obtained his PhD from New York University in 1967. Professor Daher worked as a lecturer in a number of universities in New York for ten years, and is currently professor at Pace University in New York. Professor Daher is a member of the Philosophical Society, the American Philosophical Society, and the Society of International Affairs. Rabeeπh Debs received his PhD in 1988 from the Department of Middle Eastern studies at the University of Melbourne. He has since been a senior lecturer at the American University of Beirut and at Lebanese University. Dr. Debs has published extensively in both Arabic and English, and has taken part in numerous conferences in Lebanon on secular matters. [xi]

ANTUN SAπADEH

Moueen Haddad is a senior lecturer in geopolitical studies at the Lebanese University. He is a leading authority in geology, and has authored several books in Arabic and French. Mohamad Maatouk graduated in 1993 with a PhD from the Department of Oriental and African Studies in the University of London in 1993. He has published several articles on Saπadeh’s ideology, and has participated in numerous conferences in Lebanon and abroad. Edmond Melhem graduated with a PhD degree from the Department of Political Science at the University of Melbourne in 1997. Since then he has been active in journalism, primarily Arabic, and has published several booklets in English about Saπadeh. He is currently employed with the Ministry of Education in the state of Victoria, Australia. Nassif Nassar is Professor of Philosophy at the Lebanese University and Dean of the Institute of Social Sciences at the same University. He is the author of numerous books in the Arabic language such as Tassawarat al-Umma al-Haditha and Tariq al-Istiqial al-Falsafi. A graduate of Sorbon University, Nassar is one of the founders of the Arab Philosophical Association in Lebanon. Inπam Raad is regarded as an authority on Saπadeh’s thought. A graduate of the American University of Beirut, Raad was elected as Chairman of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party on at least three occasions, and produced a vast literature on Saπadeh like Harb Wujud la Harb Hudud and Antun Sa πadeh wa al-Inezaliyoun. Raad was a member of many regional and international organizations, and a member of the Arab Journalist Association. Sofia Saπadeh received her PhD in 1974 from Harvard University. The eldest daughter of Antun Saπadeh, Professor Sofia Saπadeh has taught at the American University of Beirut and Lebanese University, and, since 2000, has been adviser to the Deputy Prime Minister of Lebanon, Issam Fares. Her publications include: Ras Shamra – Ugarit, Markaz Qadi al-Qudat fi Baghdad, The Social Structure of Lebanon: Democracy or Servitude?, and Antun Sa πadeh and Democracy in Geographic Syria.

[xii]

NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

Nasri al-Sayegh is a prominent Lebanese journalist, poet, essayist and author of several books. He has contributed a number of articles on the Middle East to books and various journals. Robert D. Sethian received his doctoral degree in 1946 from the University of Michigan. His PhD thesis, The Syrian National Party, is the first known major study about Saπadeh and was completed during Saπadeh’s lifetime without the latter’s knowledge. Dennis Walker is a PhD graduate of the Australian National University in Canberra and a leading scholar on Middle Eastern history. He has published numerous articles in leading journals and is currently conducting research on contemporary Lebanon.

[xiii]


Introduction

Described by Albert Hourani as “a man of courage, decision and powerful intellect”,1 Antun Saπadeh differed from the ordinary folk of his country in the determination and inflexibility with which he held his political opinions. Much has been written about Saπadeh, a controversial personality. The admiration he generated in some was equalled only by the antipathy, even hatred, he aroused in others. These conflicting emotions are perceptible to this day in the attempts to assess his thinking and his vocation as a political leader.

* * * Saπadeh began his political and intellectual activity in South America at an early age as a journalist working on his father’s weeklies, Al-Jareeda and Al-Majalla. In these first years, Saπadeh, then in his late teens, displayed his independent thinking. Although Arabism was the dominant ideology among his expatriate Syrian peers in South America, Saπadeh remained loyal to Syrian nationalism and spurned Arab nationalism. Second, many expatriates of Saπadeh’s generation, including his father, seeking to fuse the national idea with the socialism that was then making inroads among the Syrian intelligentsia, adopted a socialist-national outlook. Saπadeh, in contrast, was a devotee of nationalism and believed that nationalism had a political as well as a social and economic dimension. Saπadeh accepted the principle that the national idea was the one single and exclusive idea. All efforts must be devoted to political activity aimed at achieving the national idea. Economic and cultural interests that did not directly serve this objective would have to wait until it was realized. A perusal of Saπadeh’s writings during this period reveals six broad principles: 1

a need to ameliorate wounded national pride nourished by Syria’s dismemberment into several states after World War I [1]

ANTUN SAπADEH

2 3 4

5 6

a condemnation of religious fanaticism as a national disaster accompanied by a call for separation of religion from the state an acceptance of the principle that the national interest supersedes every class or sectoral interest an endorsement of nationalism as a revolutionary creed concerned with the preservation of the nation and changing the status quo in the social and economic domains a recognition of the principle of force as an essential requisite for a people aspiring to national independence a denunciation of Zionism and religious intolerance as a major threat to the political and moral dimensions of the nation (Syria).

Saπadeh took up these principles as a matter of supreme urgency and pursued them relentlessly for the rest of his life. Ignoring the critical substance in his writings, most writers have sought to portray Saπadeh as a product of vintage post-World War I radical right tendencies. There is no evidence to indicate that Saπadeh fell under the sway of this movement or that he endorsed its disposition toward extreme nationalism. Saπadeh embraced the doctrine of nationalism as a basic requirement of his age, not as an instrument of aggression or chauvinism. The only occasion on which he indulged in radical-sounding phraseology was during a visit to Syria by the British politician Arthur Balfour, who gave his name to that infamous declaration: Had there been in Syria one suicidal militant (fidaπi) who would sacrifice himself for his homeland’s sake and kill Balfour, the Syrian cause would have changed from the Zionist viewpoint in a startling manner. The Zionists would see that the man who promised them Palestine met his death, and would realize that they were facing a real revolt against their illegal deeds and would know for certain that Syria was ready to defend every inch of her land with all her power and all the old and modern weapons at her disposal.2

In 1930, Antun Saπadeh announced firmly to his father that commerce, although potentially profitable, was not for him. He could not meekly continue the émigré calling in which his compatriots had been trapped. So, in that year, despite the best efforts of colleagues to keep him in Brazil, Saπadeh returned to Syria. Back in Syria, he began to wrestle seriously with the idea of forming a national party geared to the political interests [2]

INTRODUCTION

of the whole community. Within three years Saπadeh found himself leading a political party with branches in many parts of the country. Called at first the Syrian National Party, or PPS (henceforth SSNP), the nascent movement managed to survive because the authorities remained utterly in the dark about its existence and true purpose for three years. Evaluating the historical significance of the appearance of Saπadeh’s party, Hisham Sharabi has well noted: “The founding of the SSNP marked the end of the first phase of the nationalist movement of the older generation and the beginning of organized political parties.”3 The importance of the SSNP is not found in its record, but in the idea it represents. It was the first party in Syria to introduce sustained concepts of citizenship transcending traditional ethnic, familial and religious allegiances and loyalties. It was also the first party to offer a critical assessment of the national crisis in Syria and a vision of new possibilities outside the classical framework which, as Saπadeh argued throughout his works, was theoretically confining and politically useless. With every niche of the party firmly under his control, Saπadeh emerged as perhaps the leading spokesman for Syrian nationalism. His speeches and writings went a long way in stirring the discontent among the intellectuals and ordinary supporters of the national cause. His words helped to bring about a revival in the independence movement – at least among the Syrian nationalists – and he played a key role in political struggles in Lebanon, Syria and, to some degree, Palestine. From this point on, Saπadeh’s intellectual and political life – brief when compared with the long productive spans of his contemporaries – can be traced through three distinct phases. The first period spans the dramatic years 1932–1938, from the founding of the SSNP to his second departure from Syria. During this period a good deal of Saπadeh’s energy was consumed by the concrete exigencies of the new party in a political context of urgent demands and rapid change. His writings assumed three directions. The first was novel writing, during which he was able to elaborate on a particular set of social issues and offer some personal reflections on the state of things in Syria through the eyes of ordinary people and the use of conversational language. The second direction dealt with the party, its ideology, philosophy and programme. It consisted of two major works: (1) Kitab al-Taπalim, (The Book of Teachings) the first most comprehensive statement of the party’s political theory and strategy, and (2) Nushuπ Al-Umam (The Rise of Nations) consisting of two [3]

ANTUN SAπADEH

volumes. The first volume was published in Damascus in 1937, but the second, which deals with the rise of the Syrian nation from the earliest time, was confiscated by the authorities and never was published. The work as a whole is intended to create a sense of national awareness of the unifying factors in the development and rise of nations. It is basically a sociological study of human history from nomadism to statehood engaging issues such as race and racial superiority, geography and cultural environment, the raison d’être of society and its evolutionary development, and, finally, the rise of the modern state. Because both books were written under harsh obstacles imposed by prison confinement, Saπadeh was never in a position to develop fully the vast implications of his own ideas, and indeed he seemed to be quite open about it. The third direction, short-essay writing, touched upon immediate events and developments: the French mandate, the immobilism of the existing regimes, the shortcomings of state institutions, the problems of party politics in Syria, the looming menace of Zionism, the question of Alexandretta and Arab relations, to name a few. At the same time, Saπadeh wrote about a broad range of topics that went beyond the political moment – most notably philosophy, culture, economics and history – but their journalistic format inevitably worked against any elaborate theorization. The years 1939–1946, generally referred to as the period of forced exile, mark the second stage of Saπadeh’s intellectual development. No longer engaged in immediate political activity, he could now adopt a much more contemplative or analytical viewpoint which enabled him to reflect more clearly and with greater depth upon certain topics. In the early 1940s, he wrote a series of 36 articles in the Arabic journal Al-Zawbaπa of Buenos Aires. The articles were later published in two volumes. The first part of the series was called Junun al-Khulud (The Folly of Immortality) and the second part was called Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its two messages). Written in response to Rashid Salim al-Khuri (al-Qarawi), who maintained that Islam, as a superior religion to Christianity, was the only means of attaining the social and political revival in the Muslim world because of its ability to harmonize the spiritual and temporal affairs of society, the series casts a strong shadow of doubt on the individual motives of those who promote this line of thinking. The central and guiding theme of the series, which combines fragmentary notes and observations with systematic analysis, is that none of the three monotheistic religions is more dynamic than the others and that [4]

INTRODUCTION

the single most important factor in their development is the different environmental and cultural conditions in which they arose. Another work that appeared in installments in 1942 is Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature). It was published in Argentina in the same year in booklet form and reprinted in Beirut in 1955. Regarded generally as one of the most important contributions to critical Arabic literature, Al-Siraπ still bears the mark of Saπadeh’s brilliant and penetrating mind. Its basic theoretical discourse and driving spirit rest on the idea that literary flowering – and indeed human art in all its forms – is conditional not only on the existence of a cultured society but also on the existence of a philosophical outlook in society. Anwar Chejne puts it more succinctly: [Saπadeh’s] criticism is mainly directed against those who had objected to the melancholic and fatalistic poetry of the Orient, and who had recommended a new course of thought based on realism, at one time instructive and alive. While Saπadah agrees that poetry, music and all literary forms are peculiar to a given society, he maintains that they should not be based on plots, subject-matters, and forms alien to their own society. For even Wagner, Beethoven, Shakespeare, Dante, who are masters in their own cultural set-up, would be the subject of boredom and misunderstanding to those aliens of other cultures. In the case of Arab poets, the trouble lies in the fact that those poets try to imitate the Arabs of the desert thus overlooking their own cultural milieu. To remedy this situation, particularly in Syria, poets and writers should be inspired by plots and subjectmatters derived from Syrian life, past and present. This is the genuine and sure way for a real awakening and for poets and writers – if they aspire to a position of holding a torch of light in the dark corners of Syrian life. In this way alone, they will be able to bring out a realization of the real existence of man and his ultimate objectives in life.4

The third period, which covers the years 1947–1949, represents the ideological stage in Saπadeh’s intellectual development. After almost ten years in exile, he was finally allowed back into Lebanon to resume his political struggle. On his return Saπadeh found the party in disarray, more a provincial Lebanese faction than a national organization. His response to this “deviation” was swift. He purged the culprits, re-stamped his authority over the party, and initiated a series of explanatory lectures on its ideology in order to remove any further doubts about his intentions. [5]

ANTUN SAπADEH

The result was Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures). Although this book is regarded as a kind of gospel for initiates, it also includes philosophical and historical analyses and a sustained exposition of Saπadeh’s views on a variety of issues – fascism, international relations, Arab relations and the Arab League, and the Palestine question. Al-Muhadarat is a critical work not only because it contains Saπadeh’s basic discourse but also because the concepts and ideas it elucidates have a universal significance beyond Syria. In tandem with this work, Saπadeh produced numerous short essays on super-structural issues such as philosophy, culture, art, ideology, religion, politics and consciousness in a sustained attempt to define his philosophical system Al-Madrahiyyah. Saπadeh was executed in 1949 by the Lebanese regime after a protracted struggle that ended with his capture, trial and execution in less than 48 hours. Most students of Lebanese politics who are familiar with the circumstances of the trial are now prepared to agree that it was a gross error of judgement by the Lebanese government. The trial itself was a farce. Saπadeh’s half-baked deeds may have precipitated his death, but it was not the actual reason for it. The real reason derives from the desire to destroy the culture of defiance he symbolized. Saπadeh showed none of the customary deference to the state and repeatedly condemned its political mismanagement and other manifest deficiencies. He never swayed in any direction with public opinion. He wrote from the heart with the power of conviction and facts. His work bravely exposed worrying trends among his people but sought not to please anyone. Even in times of great personal danger Saπadeh continued to hit back, to write, to speak out loud without fear in the true fashion of great thinkers who pursue the truth regardless of the consequences.

* * * In certain respects, the years between 1936 and 1949 were the most intense and productive period of Antun Saπadeh’s life. During these years Saπadeh produced some of his most important works, and the truly prodigious and ideological writings that he was able to complete over a span of barely two decades before his death in 1949 constitute one of the most remarkable achievements in Arab intellectual history. Although his writings did not reach a very large audience even in Syria and were [6]

INTRODUCTION

scarcely known elsewhere for many years, they have become generally recognized – both within and outside of the nationalist tradition – as a unique contribution to twentieth-century thought, with an impact beyond Syria and the Arab world. Despite this, Saπadeh has perhaps suffered more than any Arab thinker from under-exposure and partial politically motivated interpretations. From the moment he launched himself in the world he, alas, faced a ready supply of critics with an axe to grind: the authorities countered him by banning his party from political life and by vilifying it in the official media; the Arab nationalists denounced him as a modern-day Shuπubist and an agent of British imperialism; the communists sought to portray him as a vestige of European fascism; and the Lebanese particularists succumbed to the equal and opposite error of imagining him as a traitor. This virulent campaign against Saπadeh left little room for rational dialogue and created a vicious circle of misunderstanding and distortion. Timid attempts to rectify this sorry state of affairs were launched after his death in 1949, but much of it was marred by its uncritical and partisan character. In 1952, the “spiritual father of Arab nationalism”,5 Sati Husri, and the enigmatic Lebanese socialist thinker, Kamal Jumblatt, published two separate critical reviews of Saπadeh’s ideas. Neither was sufficiently comprehensive or free of partisanship. Husri’s 79-page critique sought to explore Saπadeh’s nationalist doctrine although only vaguely his social and philosophical views. It was not a very agreeable piece of writing but it was, in another respect, highly commendable of Saπadeh’s intellectual power: “I cannot help but declare my great admiration for the energy and devotion of Saπadeh, and my appreciation of most of his reform principles. His political and social ideas, which he ably supports with sound and logical dogmas, deserve the greatest admiration.”6 Even this intended compliment serves only to diminish Saπadeh. Jumblatt’s critique, on the other hand, showed promising signs of theoretical openness, but lacked the depth and insights of his other works. Like Al-Husri, Jumblatt was inspired by purely circumstantial factors and his analysis, founded more in politics than in scholarship, suffered from all the drawbacks of instant history. Its saving grace, if there is one, may lie in its constant stream of references to Saπadeh’s philosophical ideas and social views.7 After the publication of these two reviews the amount of scholarly and political attention devoted to Saπadeh diminished. Instead, the intellectual [7]

ANTUN SAπADEH

pendulum swung towards other doctrinal systems – Nasserism, Arab nationalism and revolutionary socialism. Saπadeh’s work, ignored or discarded, was evoked intermittently either to demonize him or to undermine his influence. However, after 1970 the pendulum swung back in the other direction. Hundreds of Arabic-language books and articles on Saπadeh, plus many others strongly influenced by his work, appeared in Lebanon. At the same time, Saπadeh’s motifs began to penetrate a number of academic principles – notably history, political science, sociology and education, as well as literature, art and anthropology. With this transformation, more concise and sympathetic accounts appeared that emphasized the basic thematic and continuity of Saπadeh’s thought. The dictatorial Saπadeh was succeeded by the egalitarian Saπadeh, and the irrational, fascist Saπadeh – never more than a phantom – by an acceptance of him as the pivotal philosopher in the transition to the modern state. There was Saπadeh the cultural icon and Saπadeh the intellectual powerhouse, representing a system of ideas sufficiently convincing to have provoked a counter-attack by those who did not like him. There was Saπadeh the revolutionist and also Saπadeh the literary critic whose analysis and discourse still require much greater operational articulation than it has received or perhaps could have received. It transpired that the neglect that Saπadeh suffered in the preceding period was less the result of a reasoned intellectual judgement than the consequence of a concurrence of unfavourable historical and political events. In contrast, published treatment of Saπadeh’s work in the AngloSaxon world has remained static. The literature is guttered with bizarre images both of his life and work. A certain tendency has developed attributing to Saπadeh political positions that are not justified by a close reading of what he has actually written or by a consideration of the problems he posed. Very often his concepts have either been reformulated or misinterpreted or used in a dogmatic way to justify or attack a variety of contemporary political positions. This inadequacy, particularly (but not only) in English, has also given rise to a plethora of interpretations of Saπadeh, none of which are helpful. The first of these situates Saπadeh in the historical context of Fascism and Nazism. It basically duplicates the classical Arabic discourse which sought to portray Saπadeh’s work as a foreign contrivance and a symbol of Fascism in the Near East. The charge, often repeated without verification, rests on few resonant slogans [8]

INTRODUCTION

(“long live Syria”) wrenched out of context, turned upside down and then cited as apparent justification for his “fascism”. A second perspective has sought to impose upon Saπadeh a more or less singular vision of him as “the architect of Syrian nationalism par excellence”.8 While this interpretation undeniably possesses a grain of truth, it tends to blind commentators to Saπadeh’s other contributions. Indeed, the essential idea of nationalism, we would argue, is the basic theoretical point of departure for Saπadeh, but his conceptual formulation of it clearly outstretched the concept of Syrian nationalism. If we are to appreciate what the latter actually meant to Saπadeh, it is important to note some of the distinctive features of his wider theoretical work and to consider not only the objective determinants of his theory but also its subjective responses, particularly its comprehension of the dynamic of national consciousness. The third schema is organized largely around a picture of Saπadeh as a discredited, outmoded and irrelevant figure. The range of opinion in this schema has tended to associate Saπadeh with a peculiarly Lebanese political tradition, one that is geographically parochial and historically limited. It basically caricatures him as a romantic and utopian holdover from an earlier phase of the nationalist movement. Saπadeh’s thematic, I would suggest, stands for something much more important than this. The issues that concerned him, his approach to his subject matter, the types of arguments he used, the nature of his hypotheses, the broad scope of his insights – all these enable us to classify him as a bona fide political thinker and not merely as a polemicist or a quixotic politician. This confusion in standard Western secondary sources is somewhat understandable. To begin with, the lack of primary resources in English has often impeded access to Saπadeh’s works by Western academics. Until recently, virtually none of Saπadeh’s major works had been translated into a foreign language outside his country. Although fragments have appeared in English from time to time, on the whole they have been inadequate and counterproductive. Selectively appropriated from Saπadeh’s writings, these fragments have tended to undermine his theoretical consistency and to foster a general presumption that Saπadeh lacked a coherent political theory, and that as a result his writings contain little of present-day value or significance. Another reason derives from the disorderly publication of Saπadeh writings. The problem is that, although some of Saπadeh’s works did [9]

ANTUN SAπADEH

appear during his lifetime and, therefore, were accessible to scholars, most of them were not published in book form until after his death in 1949. Worse still, the first definitive edition of his writings did not appear until the mid-1970s – almost a quarter of a century after his execution. As for the works that appeared during Saπadeh’s lifetime, they are as follows: • • • • • • •

Id Sayyidat Saydnayyah (The Feast of Lady Saydnayyah, 1932) Fajiπat Hubb (Love Tragedy, 1932)9 Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations) Kitab al-Ta πalim (The Book of Teachings) Al-Sira π al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature) Junun al-Khulud (The Folly of Immortality) (see Appendix 1) Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures).

After Saπadeh’s death, three of his works appeared in book form: • • •

Shuruh fi al-Aqida (Commentaries on the Ideology) Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages) Al-Rasaπil (Correspondences).

Three editions of his works in collected form have appeared since 1950: • • •

An-Nizam al-Jadid (The New Order, 12 volumes) Al-Athar al-Kamilah (Collected Works, 16 volumes)10 Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works, 10 volumes).

The latter includes his journal articles and short essays. It covers a vast range of topics and is perhaps the most useful and accurate primary source on Saπadeh. Nonetheless, we are unlikely to see any significant rise in academic interest in Saπadeh’s thought until this edition is translated into the English language. Third, the perception of Saπadeh as exclusively historical and atheoretical was fostered by the lack of published material on Saπadeh in English itself. Apart from a general study by the present author,11 the only other source material on Saπadeh in the English language has been Yamak’s redundant book The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An [10]

INTRODUCTION

Ideological Analysis.12 Many scholars, even some of progressive inclination, have shown considerable interest in Yamak’s study, even though it is no more than a simple introduction to Saπadeh. The book is limited both by its brevity and scope – that is, by the emphasis that the author placed on clarifying some of Saπadeh’s main concepts without adequately situating them within their proper historical or national tradition. Tracing the development and change in Saπadeh’s thought will remain a problem in the Anglo-Saxon world until his works are translated into English. This is because an analysis of Saπadeh in his own terms is a necessary precondition for considering his place in Arab intellectual history, as well as of the relevance of his thought to contemporary times. In recent years several doctoral dissertations and numerous lesser ones have been written about Saπadeh, and a small selection of his writings has now become available in English translation. The most significant development in this area has been the publication of his The Rise of Nations in Portuguese and, recently, in English. What’s more, the number of academic institutions stocking Saπadeh’s works in Arabic has greatly increased, accompanied by a growing literature on various aspects of his thought – mainly, but not all, in English – on the Internet. These inclusions have helped to remove some of the limitations in the secondary literature and have served as a powerful corrective to specific problems. However, Western scholars will not gain a great deal of the flavour and richness of Saπadeh’s writings until they read them in toto and in their original form: there can be no substitute for the real thing.

* * * As with every thinker, in searching for the essential line of continuity in Saπadeh’s thought, “it is constantly necessary to sift the chaff from the grain, to extract the deeper intuitions and main ideas from the mass of raw details and otiose digressions. Eventually a general design becomes visible.”13 This can be done in several ways: by tracing the development and change in Saπadeh’s thought; by establishing the historical context of his ideas; by identifying the object of his work; and by defining the theoretical unity that permeates his entire range of contributions. Moreover, any attempt to impose a thematic structure on Saπadeh’s writings must start from two basic rules. [11]

ANTUN SAπADEH

1 2

It must try to locate the point where “historical context, intellectual vision, and political commitment”14 intersect in Saπadeh’s thought. It must address his work using the concepts and definitions he developed, not those developed by others.

This is one of the basic objectives of the present volume. It is an occasion to revisit an intellectual and personal itinerary that has been misinterpreted for more than 50 years. In contrast to the often crude and uncritical use of Saπadeh’s work, this volume provides a critical introduction to Saπadeh’s thought, centring on a broad range of topics. By consequence, then, it is neither a biography nor a wholesale interpretation of all his ideas. Rather, its task is to introduce readers to Saπadeh’s concepts and categories and to try, through a critical review of his ideas, to rediscover the true efflorescence of his scholarship and explication. Of course, one book cannot cover everything, but it can at the very least dispel some of the accumulated misconceptions that have grown up around Saπadeh and point to areas of particular importance. The contributors to this volume discuss several aspects of Saπadeh’s thought, thus providing a guide to further study and reflection. The essays deal with specific issues, the arguments and counter-arguments that have been voiced, and they try, whenever possible, to take a few steps further the various interpretations of various aspects of Saπadeh’s thought. It provides a synopsis of the work hitherto done in the field, discusses the important studies published over the past 50 years (including the most up-to-date work) and at the same time identifies the main problems that have arisen in Arabic as well as English secondary sources. Thus, on the one hand, it provides a reference work summarizing previous research in the field and, on the other, it is an original work of synthesis and new interpretations. It is one of the first works on Saπadeh to look on many aspects of his thought through leading authorities in the field. Saπadeh, as we shall see, barely resembles some of the portraits painted in the secondary literature. Rather, the portrait that will emerge is that of a man who valued highly the comfort and tranquillity of intellectual life; a man whose cultural tastes were conservative and classical; a man who took a deep interest in music and art, and whose chief form of recreation involved long, solitary walks in the woods, swimming and tennis; a man who suffered personal hardship but never wavered; a man who enjoyed a joke and was quick-witted himself; a man who spent his [12]

INTRODUCTION

entire life in modest surroundings and on the margins of society. As we deconstruct Saπadeh’s works and life, we shall discover in them nothing less than an attempt to provide a coherent explanation of basic trends and problems of a turbulent era and a range of topics which go well beyond both Saπadeh’s time and framework. Nonetheless, any study of Saπadeh, however thorough, must be treated with a degree of caution and only as a first approximation of his thought. This is because its interpretations might be abandoned as a result of further research, and even the opposite might turn out to be more correct.

NOTES 1 Albert Hourani, Syria and Lebanon: A Political Essay, Beirut: Librairie Du Liban, 1968, p. 197. 2 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, 1980, 1, p. 118. 3 Hisham Sharabi, Governments and Politics of the Middle East in the Twentieth Century, Westport: Greenwood Press, 1987, p. 12. 4 Anwar G. Chejne, “The Syrian National-Socialist Party”, Islamic Literature, vol. 10, 1958, p. 47. 5 Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry, London: Macmillan Press, 1981, xi. 6 Ibid. p. 74. 7 One example is Kamal Jumblatt, Adwaπ ala al-hakikat al-Qadiya al-Suriyya al-Qawmiyya (Lights on the Reality of the Syrian Nationalist Cause), Beirut: Progressive House, 1987. 8 Labib Z. Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966, p. 10. 9 A third novel called Dumyah, written in 1937, remained in manuscript form. 10 Al-Athar al-Kamilah consists of 19 volumes, three of which cover Saπadeh’s personal letters and internal party directives to officials and members. It was assembled and published intermittently by the Information Bureau in the SSNP between 1972 and 1995. A more creditable attempt at reconstructing Saπadeh’s works appeared in 2003 in a slimmer edition of ten volumes. What has excited interest in this edition has been its publication of Saπadeh’s writings in something approaching the order and originality in which they were written so far as this can be ascertained, and this is obviously of consequence for those who are interested chiefly in what he produced rather than in what he did. 11 Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995. 12 Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party. [13]

ANTUN SAπADEH

13 Joseph V. Femia, Gramsci’s Political Thought: Hegemony, Consciousness, and the Revolutionary Process, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, p. 14. 14 Ibid.

[14]

PA RT I

N ATIONALISM


1 Saπadeh and the Concept of Regional Nationalism Nassif Nassar

The concept of regional nationalism, which started with Butrus Bustani1 and Rifaπa al-Tahtawi2 in the nineteenth century, remained undeveloped until the 1930s.3 During this period, Egyptian nationalism felt no real need to modernize its main concepts, especially the concept of nationhood, because it prevailed over all other orientations based on linguistic or religious conceptions of nationalism. The Egyptian conception was chiefly political, based on the already established Egyptian state and on the struggle for gaining full independence from Britain. In contrast, Syrian nationalism lost much of the vigour and appeal it had once commanded due, in part, to the growth of linguistic nationalism, especially its racial aspect, and, in part, to the pressure of local sectarian conflicts and their international and political repercussions. Nonetheless, Syrian nationalism kept struggling to fulfil its aims in the face of partition designs by the European colonial powers and local religious, linguistic and racial visions of nationalism. The patriotic Syrians had to re-conceptualize the regional model of nation in order to regain a front-line position in the ongoing debate on the nature of nationalism, its elements as well as its corollaries. The unique perspective of Antun Saπadeh (1904–1949) was the outcome of this duality, in which the concept of regional unity was drastically renewed and tangibly crystallized. His achievements on these fronts broadened theoretical debate among the clashing nationalist movements in the Middle East and continue to do so to this day. For this reason, if for no other, Saπadeh’s thought has to be more deeply analysed. Saπadeh’s place in the regional unitary debate It is erroneous to view Saπadeh’s thought as just another manifestation of the ethnical or idealist Irdawi unitary conceptions. In Saπadeh’s view, the [17]

A N T U N S A π A D E H : N AT I O N A L I S M

fundamental basis of nation is the territory or geographical region, not the ethnical bond. Nor is a nation a product of popular will or interest.4 This description, nevertheless, does not fully represent the total theoretical content of Saπadeh’s definition of the nation. It creates the impression that he was a firm exponent of the theory of geographic determinism or that he regarded other non-geographic, nation-shaping factors as of no consequence at all. Some interpretations have in fact classified Saπadeh’s thought as another manifestation of geographic determinism. Ahmed Baydun, for example, writes: “Saπadeh represents the extreme attitude which overstates the importance of the land and its role in the formation of national identity. This attitude is better called ‘Territorial Nationalism’, as it considers the land the only criterion upon which a national community is established.”5 Of course, a fuller and more detailed study of Saπadeh’s nationalist thought would show that it is not that at all. Saπadeh neither accepted the principle of geographic determinism nor gave the geographic factor an absolute role in nation formation. Any interpretation of Saπadeh’s concept of the nation in strictly geographical terms would suffer from serious shortcomings. The need for non-judgemental interpretations of Saπadeh’s nationalist thought was recognized by Majid Khadduri. Explaining some contemporary views on nationalism, Khadduri writes: Saπadeh also denied the ethnic basis of the Arab nationalism that became evident to him when he had witnessed some Arab leaders claiming their Arab tribal origins. On the strength of the evidence of science, he said, he was not prepared to accept the ethnic origin of nations because every nation is a mixture of races, generated by migrations and intermarriages.6

Khadduri adds: The ingredients of Syrian nationalism as recognized by Saπadeh were three: geography, history and population. To geography he attached the primary importance in the emergence of nations and the formation of national character, although he conceded that geography is not an absolute factor because its effects diminish as civilizations grow. He maintained that in the history of every nation, especially in the initial stage, geography plays the most important role.7 [18]

S A π A D E H A N D T H E C O N C E P T O F R E G I O N A L N AT I O N A L I S M

Nonetheless, Khadduri’s elucidation is half-done because it ignores the keyword in Saπadeh’s definition of the nation – “community”. For when Saπadeh asserted that the “nation is the most complete community”,8 he did not ignore geographical factors or the importance of environment in human life and in the formation of national character. On the contrary, he re-incorporated them into the concept of community but in a way that justifies designating his conception as “communitarian”. His definition of the nation is based almost entirely on his definition of community, and since a community presupposes the existence of a specific geographical milieu, it is only fitting to designate it as a conception in communitarian regionalism. From a purely structural perspective, Saπadeh’s concept of the nation is distinguished by certain features. In fact, no writer or political activist in the history of modern Arab thought provides such an integrated and thorough theoretical study of the concept of nation as Saπadeh. Even the views of Bustani, Tahtawi and others, who attempted before Saπadeh to define the nation, homeland and nationalism, do not show the theoretical focus, systematic integration and detailed account of Saπadeh’s views. This is because he studied a wide section of the history of European nationalist concepts and carried out a contrastive, critical analysis on its trends and definitions. His book Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), published in Beirut in 1938, studies how nations are crystallized and the way “nation” should be defined. According to the book’s introduction, it was completed between February and March of 1936.9 But this was not the only occasion on which he tried to explain the concept of nation: an article entitled “The Meaning of Nation and its Characteristics” had previously been published in Al-Majalla magazine in 1933,10 along with other commentaries that included views on the same topic.11 Moreover, most of what he wrote after 1938 included references on the concept of nation. This means that, although The Rise of Nations is the primary reference point for studying Saπadeh’s conception, we should not neglect the publications that appeared before or after it.

Geography as a primary factor Where does one begin in evaluating the geographical factor in Saπadeh’s writings, and what is its importance in his conception of a national entity? The answer to both questions should be based on Saπadeh’s principle of [19]


genesis and evolution. It should acknowledge the fact that Saπadeh was a sociologist in the first place. In The Rise of Nations, he devotes the third chapter to the issue of land and its geography, and remarks that if his research were on geophysics, he would have devoted the whole book to it.12 The issue of geography, therefore, should be considered in the context of Saπadeh’s investigation into the rise of nations. As land is of primal importance to the existence of mankind, the relation between mankind and land must be clearly defined. Saπadeh’s interest was in this relation and not in geography per se. In determining this relationship, it was not enough for him to state that land is of primal importance to life, in its diverse forms, and leave it at that. Advancements in awareness of the foundations of human life call for more in-depth study into the relation between man and nature: The relationship between nature, animals and plants is different from the relationship between nature and man. The former is unilateral – that is, land meets the biological needs of plants and animals whereas no plant or animal carries out a deliberate action to condition land or prepare the necessities of life … On the other hand, the relationship between nature and man is reciprocal. It provides him with the materials necessary to fill his needs and, at the same time, it represents the scene of his achievements and aspirations.13

It is this difference which creates the foundations for human civilization. Man’s continuous effort to answer his needs distinguishes him from the other creatures and creates a complex relationship between humankind and nature. The latter provides the objective conditions for human life and man invents the instruments necessary to tame nature. These instruments are available if the raw material is available.14 In addition, as man exerts his effort to force nature to fulfil his needs, nature forces man to tailor his needs to its conditions. “The physical environment,” says Saπadeh, “moulds man, who in turn and in response to its challenge adapts it to his needs. It is to this strong relationship between man and nature that we can attribute the superiority of man over all animals in the struggle for survival.”15 After stating this, Saπadeh reflects on another fact, that the earth is divided into regions and environments over which mankind is distributed in groups. He accepts this division as a fact of life without paying much attention to the concept of region or carefully distinguishing between [20]


the concept of environment and that of region. However, he tried to highlight the causal relationship between the diversity of regions and the diversity of groups. In his opinion, environments play a vital role in diversifying human groups because of their different geographic characteristics. If earth were a flat valley, with the same level of temperature and moisture and no geographical barriers – that is, deserts, rivers, mountains or seas – mankind would be a unified large community.16 The reality, though, is that earth is made up of various regions and environments, and that mankind does, indeed, consist of various groups and civilizations. The diversity of regions and environments, therefore, is the starting point for understanding the diversity of civilizations. I say “starting point” because there are other reasons Saπadeh attributed to the diversity of civilizations. We will return to this point shortly. The environment determines the group. How is that? Saπadeh, while trying to demystify the issue of definition, points to the impact of the geographical boundaries of regions, and to their nature and forms.17 The geographical confines of a region guarantee the unity of the community against the expansion of other communities. The nature and form of the region distinguish communities from each other by the resources, raw material, and physical and spiritual characteristics it offers each community in accordance with the two-way interaction process between man and nature. The one example Saπadeh offered in this respect is that of homogeneity. He states that flat land is generally more suitable for homogeneity than mountainous environments. The one with diverse forms produces “diverse homogeneity”. Across the generations, the interaction between the milieu and the community thus creates a unique spiritual and physical personality that also shares some of the general characteristics of mankind. “There is [a] strong connection between the personalities of communities and the land on which they live. Indeed, the very essence of their personalities is the homeland-environment.”18 The geographical milieu of a community represents only one side of the interaction between the environment and the community. The environment is indispensable, but is not the only factor that determines the character of the group and its history. A community is determined by its regional environment and the bonds and common qualities that unite its members and induce them to build a civil life. Certain environmental stimuli may not trigger the same response from every community. Here [21]


Saπadeh introduces the factors of culture and psychology, drawing a sharp line between geography and history. The geographical interpretation of history does not take into account the interaction between man and nature, between the group and the environment, and neglects the psychological factors, in their broadest sense, even though they are an important aspect of human development. In this context, Saπadeh writes: Nature and geography represent the yolk of human history. Even though they distinguish one community from another, in respect to history, they do not provide the imperatives, save in exceptional cases, but the possibilities. The land is not the only source of history although land is one of the premises upon which history is established. The most crucial factors in the evolution of life are the psychological and individual factors.19

The same point is made in the chapter entitled “The Rise and Evolution of the State”, in his book The Rise of Nations: “History is not the product of earth. It is not an absolute factor … The truth is that land provides the possibilities, but not the imperatives or the inevitabilities. Land is the positive, not the passive, side of history.”20 This is not the place to describe Saπadeh’s view of history. But we think it is necessary to add one more observation about the role of psychological factors in history. Rejecting the geographical interpretation of history does not relegate its postulate to the metaphysical idealist side. Likewise, the historian who highlights the psychological and individual factors in the study of human history should not be classified as a psycho-liberal historian. Saπadeh remonstrated against interpretations of history that pay no heed to the interaction between the community and the group or fail to see the process of interaction as a product of group peculiarities. For just as a certain environment has unique features that differentiate it from other environments, a certain community is, as well, characterized by many psychological traits that enable it to determine the extent to mould and exploit the environment and build its unique history in the general context of human history.21 This principle is applicable to the nation in the same way that it is to the group. This is because the group, as perceived by Saπadeh, is not a faction of society but the whole society: it parallels the notion of society or complete community on which depends his definition of the nation.22 [22]


This connection is clear in Saπadeh’s writings, particularly in his general analysis of communities and environments and in his specific study of the nation and its regional territory. This specific exploration involves a greater emphasis on the dynamics and vitality of the nation as well as on the socio-economic environment. From this perspective, the role of geographical boundaries becomes relative. They divide between communities or societies but only to an extent determined by group willingness for mutual communication and trade. A strong and budding nation, for example, can modify its geographical boundaries if it deems it necessary to protect itself through sheer socio-economic power if it is vulnerable. Saπadeh summarizes this as follows: “A nation primarily exists on a piece of land with which a group of people interact and unite. As the nation acquires its own unique personality from its region, nutrition, culture and its unique social life, it acquires a national immunity and would modify its natural confines according to its resources and wealth.”23 This complex perspective, is in fact a reiteration and development of a concept that Saπadeh had earlier declared during the founding of the Syrian (Social) National Party. In a lecture on the principles of nationalist education, he attacked both the racial and religious principles of the day because they denied the factor of popular interests and the “principles of popular nationalism”.24 In another lecture entitled “Practical Unity in the Lives of Nations”, Saπadeh emphasized to his fellow compatriots the importance of national unity and its implications for the protection of the nation from imminent dangers. Saπadeh also illustrates that the meaning of the nation and national independence depends on the establishment of “a common life based on a national geographical unit”.25 Further, in an unfinished study entitled “The Nation and its Characteristics”, Saπadeh tried to propose a definition of nation totally different from the definitions that were generally accepted in his milieu. His starting point was political scientist Ernest Barker’s idea that a nation is a material foundation on which a spiritual entity is built and that the relationship between the nation and land is unbreakable, asserting that loss of land is more catastrophic for a nation than loss of its sovereignty.26 From this study, which can be considered a prelude to Saπadeh’s book The Rise of Nations, comes the observation that: “[a] nation can only exist in its homeland. Often the region or homeland is the principal [23]


factor in the acquisition of different national characters. If not for the land, its nature, and topography, there wouldn’t be as many nations today.”27 There is no doubt that Saπadeh’s awareness of the Zionist schemes in Palestine, and of the arbitrary nature of the nationalist struggle of the Syrian communities in South America (where he lived for some ten years from 1920 to 1930),28 played a crucial part in his emphasis on land or, to use his expression, on “environment-homeland” as a basic requirement for a nation to exist and to continue to exist. However, he did not wish for his views to be seen as reflections of his own position or that of his country, but as universal facts.29 It is clear then that, from Saπadeh’s point of view, interaction with a certain region is an essential, but not the only or fundamental, prerequisite for a nation to be formed. A nation as a community with a special personality is a human entity that should be distinguishable from other communities. The methodology Saπadeh utilizes to determine the decisive factor, after the geographic, in nation formation rests entirely on the concept of community. In his view, a community is a self-existent group of people, which differs from other communities not by a specific number of peculiarities or interests, but by the unity of life it enjoys within the limits of a certain geographic spot.30 The village or city is a community. But the region “as the community of the nation or the national community is the most complete of all communities”.31 This is the antithesis to doctrines that regard race, or language or other subjective factors as the uniting element in nation forming.

Saπadeh and race Saπadeh addressed the issue of race and nation in The Rise of Nations and in writings prior to its publication. His conclusion was clearly negative. He explicitly attacked his contemporary nationalist writers for embracing what seemed to him to be obsolete racial doctrines and neglecting recent sociological and anthropological findings. His analysis centred on three primary issues: the concept of race, racial purity and racial superiority. Saπadeh was unequivocal about the concept of race. He argued that, contrary to common belief, race is a purely physical concept that has nothing to do with the psychological or social differences between [24]


human communities.32 People differ among themselves by their physical features – that is, colour, height, appearance – and are accordingly divided into races. Nationalism, however, cannot be founded on this reality. Every nation is made up of diverse racial groups, and none of them is the product of one race or one specific tribe. Hence, racial purity or national racial unity is a myth. Neither is attainable in this modern age of ours.33 In this respect, Saπadeh stated: We must clear out from our thought the concept of physical unity in the nation. Most sociologists agree that racial unity is an illusion and scientifically unacceptable. The nation then is not a physical or blood unit, but a rational and historical one. A deep chasm separates lineage from nation: a lineage is a general physical entity, while a nation is a general mental and rational faith. Race is a natural pre-historic fact. The nation, on the other hand, is something that evolves across time. It is a product of human thought, human emotion and human will.34

Admittedly, the superiority of one nation over another is never the work of lineal or racial differences. And if we glance through The Rise of Nations we will find the same basic ideas, except with further detail and elaboration. It is bizarre that Saπadeh’s attitude to race has been misinterpreted as a racial attitude or lumped with doctrines that believe in the race principle and racial superiority. Saπadeh begins the second chapter of The Rise of Nations with a definition of race. Being different from genealogy it belongs to a different area of study. The scientific term “race” is the designation given to offshoots from a single kind which inherits their characteristics from their stems. Intermarriage among kinds hardly exists, but intermarriage among the branches of one kind is possible and productive. The criterion for distinguishing branches of the same kind is purely physical. Colour has been considered a criterion but scientists do not consider only one distinctive characteristic. One of the most popular indicators used in this context is the skull – its shape, dimensions and size. But Saπadeh was quick to point out that scientists have different interpretations on the origin of human races and their type number.35 For purposes of analysis he divided the human race into two groups. The first group is classified into primitive and civilized, and the second subdivides the civilized races into three classes [25]


according to skull types: rectangular head, average head and broad head. Saπadeh uses this classification to prove that no relation exists between lineage and mentality. If lineage is a physical reality and if evolutionary differences have been detected among the primitive lineages, the truth remains that no special lineal or mental gifts are unique to one lineage. Advanced lineages, the ones belonging to the Euro-Asian civilization,36 do not show superiority among themselves by means of mental capacities and the ability to advance forward in civilization. Saπadeh, thereupon, launched a fierce attack on the doctrines that claimed that the purity of a lineage is a prerequisite for development and civilization. He also chastises the doctrines that upheld the principle of racial superiority, debunking their corrupt ideas and political motives, and denouncing what he called “racial illusions” and “the deceitful linguistic evidence”, used by proponents of Aryan racialism. Within this framework, the relationship between nation and race is clearly and definitively defined.37 Every nation necessarily consists of individuals belonging to certain races, according to their physical features, but there is no necessary relationship between national unity and racial unity or racial purity. “From a racial perspective,” wrote Saπadeh, “a nation is a racial compound, an amalgam of lineages.”38 In fact, the history of modern nations such as France, Italy, Germany and England indicates that lineal interrelation is the general basis on which history is woven. To quote Saπadeh again: “No modern nation has a single racial or lineal origin.”39 The real unity upon which a nation is based is not the unity of lineage but “the unity of life across generations, whose cycle is reached within a specific region”.40

Saπadeh and language Saπadeh’s critical mind asserts itself as it moves from physical anthropology to the more complicated cultural anthropology. Cultural phenomena such as language, literature, traditions and religion play an essential role in uniting groups and individuals, distinguishing them from others. What, therefore, is the power of this role on national existence? Do cultural factors determine such an existence? What is more important? Saπadeh dealt with these questions seriously and thoroughly. Hence we will examine his ideas in detail, starting with language. Earlier we stated that nation is not race. Is it language then? Is it possible to divide the nations on the basis of language and thus render [26]


every human group with the same language a nation unto itself? No doubt that “no” is the right answer to these two questions.41 In this very candid fashion, in 1933 Saπadeh raised the issue of the relationship between the nation and language, rejecting the possibility of classifying nations according to language. Language cannot determine a nation, but the unity of language is still necessary for the spiritual unity of the nation. Saπadeh supports his view by several real-life examples. On the one hand, many diverse nations speak English while others speak Spanish, without having the tendency to create one English-speaking or one Spanish-speaking nation. On the other hand, no unity of language actually exists in nations like Switzerland and Belgium. This reality negates the relationship between the unity of language and the unity of national life in as much as language is a source of ideas and emotions that nurture national values. Language is a means of expression, dialogue and solidarity. Its unifying role, however, does not mean that national boundaries can be determined on linguistic grounds, as the Germanic and Slavic schools had propounded. The truth, supported by the reality on the ground, is that not all the people who speak the same language are apt to form a single nation. Policies which delude themselves that such a tendency exists and rely on it are destined to fail. Alternatively, those who form a single nation much prefer to speak one language because it is necessary for the spiritual unity of the nation.42 In other words, Saπadeh considered the unity of language a complementary, rather than a fundamental, factor in creating nations. In his opinion, language is less important than society, which predates any phenomena related to it. On another occasion, Saπadeh writes: “Language is one of the means by which society is established, but not a cause of it in itself. Language depends on society, not vice versa.”43 This observation, extracted from The Rise of Nations, is a re-affirmation of views that Saπadeh had earlier formulated, and now reconciled to the concept of community: “It is necessary for the nation, as a social community leading a special life in a certain environment, to speak a single language that paves the way for a unified life and ensures the spread of a wholesome spirit encompassing its literature, arts, psychology and ideals.”44 It is not crucial for the nation to gain a monopoly on language because what matters in language is really the images it contains of its life and needs, [27]


the spiritual as well as the material, the depictions it narrates about its suffering through history.45 Nevertheless, it is true that linguistic unity is necessary for national coherence because multilingual nations “suffer the weakness of spiritual unity and the possibility of disintegration”.46 But what are the factors that ensure the unity of life and destiny of multilingual nations? Saπadeh’s answer to this question is circuitous, and we will attempt to extract it later in this study.

Other cultural factors Language, as a medium, dominates both social and cultural scenes, and can be considered one of the phenomena on which the socio-cultural construction is established. Saπadeh also had views on other phenomena such as religion, traditions, sciences and philosophies. So what, in his opinion, is the relationship between these phenomena and nation formation. Saπadeh dealt with the phenomenon of religion critically and analytically in many of his writings during different stages of his life. In fact, this aspect of his thought has attracted enormous interest from students, activists, ideologists and politicians. Our interest centres on the aspect of his thought that deals specifically with the role of religion in social unity. The first obvious fact that immediately arises is that Saπadeh did not characterize nation by religion or by sect. But he noted that, from an objective sociological perspective, religion already exerts huge influence on the formation and lives of nations. When the unity of the people coincides with the unity of the religious creed, religion becomes one of the factors that fortify the spiritual homogeneity of the people.47 This means that singular religion can be a national element if there is strong coherence between the national society and itself. National society does not establish its unity on religious unity but rather benefits from the religious unity of its members. When the national interests of society clash with religious loyalty, the national society will re-examine the state of religious loyalty, modify it, and integrate it to correspond with its needs and aspirations. As a result, different religious sects begin to appear, and this is really an aspect of the conflict between religion, aspiring to unite the human race under one umbrella, and nationalism, which stands for national unity. The appearance of national religious traditions, in the meanwhile, is concrete evidence of how the [28]


national society is able to assimilate the religious factor and its behavioural symptoms. Saπadeh’s attitude to religion’s role in national formations is clearly stated in the observation: “Religion is one, but nations are manifold. When nations interact with one another, each nation will resort to a creed, whether religious or not, to ensure its spiritual independence and avoid its subjugation by another nation through a religious spiritual authority.”48 In reality, Saπadeh aspired not only to show how nations capitalize on religious unity to assert their own personalities and interests, but also to explain, first and foremost, how national unity ultimately subordinates the sectarian and religious loyalties of its members. The greatest problem regarding the relationship between nation and religion lies in the struggle for power and control of the state. This problem disappears when national unity is finally able to overcome the diversity of religious and sectarian beliefs. This only happens after a long, multi-phased struggle culminating in religion retreating to its natural metaphysical role and with the national doctrine in more control of the social and secular affairs of life. In this case, religion ceases to be a national element and nationalism takes on a religious character. As Saπadeh put it: “In multi-religious nations, nationalism becomes the all-embracing religion, and religion reverts back to its original self and to its basic metaphysical principles.”49 Saπadeh was fully aware of the role religion can play in the conflicts among nations, but he objected to the amplification of the nationalist theory to incorporate religion as a cornerstone in national life. What happened, for instance, in Persia,50 Germany or Ireland,51 is an index of how the national principle was able to exploit the religious doctrine, in one way or another, in order to assert itself. However, in the case where the religious doctrine is in full control of the socio-political system and its jurisprudence, ethics and international considerations, the national principle would cease to be a foundation for social and political affiliation and society would return to the primitive phase of a religious state. National affiliation is reinforced by the religious bond but is not subordinate or equal to it in maintaining the general interests of its individual members. If this is true where there is nationwide unity of religion, it is also true in a religiously diversified nation. On the basis of this we can now understand why Saπadeh fiercely attacked the religious and sectarian movements that discarded the national principle or tried [29]


to subordinate it to its full control.52 Indeed, his devotion to secularism was an inseparable part of his conception of the national society and its political structure. Just like religion, culture also has a general human nature. By culture, Saπadeh meant the intellectual type in its narrow sense, not culture in its wider sense. It is “the various sciences and philosophical systems that deal with life and with the rational altitudes, intellectual trends, ethical doctrines, and awareness of the spiritual and material issues that spring from it”.53 In this narrow sense, culture cannot be considered unique to a certain nation, because all nations are part of the general intellectual culture, but in relative degrees. Humanity has been through several cultural phases involving different peoples each of whom participated under a certain name, or a principal language or some other designation. Some nations may become distinguished by their cultural achievements, whether in form or substance, but the truth remains that the differences among nations in the universal intellectual culture are relative ones, and therefore cannot be used as a basis for national existence. It is true that common customs and traditions play an important role in the lives of nations,54 but that does not make them nation-forming factors.55 This is because customs, which evolve from the circumstances of life and from accepted behavioural norms that change with time and circumstances, and traditions, which evolve from observable occurrences and deeply rooted beliefs passed from one generation to another, are shared among many peoples and nations through the agencies of religion, intellectual culture, neighbourhood, communication and trade. The unique customs and traditions of a nation are an important element in national existence, but we should not forget that it is an outcome of a pre-existing social life. Customs and traditions, even those unshared among nations, are formed within the social history and change with progress or with drastic changes in social life. It cannot therefore be deduced that common customs and traditions are an index to the existence of a single nation. It is also untrue that different customs and traditions are an index to the inexistence of a single nation. Unique customs and traditions that distinguish between nations may impart specific colour to a nation, but they do not affect its inner essence.56 That said, we arrive with Saπadeh at a clear definition of the role of cultural factors in nation formation. Language, religion, traditions and [30]


intellectual culture are double-edged factors. With respect to their nature and the way they spread among human communities, none of these factors represents a sound criterion for determining the entity of the nation. On the other hand, they play an undeniable unifying role within the entity of a nation because of their intellectual and psychological influence. Therefore, their importance should not be underestimated even though there is ample evidence that diversity of language, religions and traditions can be absorbed into one national entity.57 Finally, whether common language, common religious beliefs or common traditions are present or not within a certain nation, the essential requirement (beyond geography) necessary for the establishment of a nation does not lie in the sphere of cultural anthropology. A nation is a natural social community whose reality lies in the unity of its life, which produces the traits shared among its members. A nation is a natural, not an artificial, society formed according to the laws of a geographic, historic and social environment. Hence, the study of nationalism must be conducted strictly at the societal or communitarian level. If we dig deeper we will find that the underlying factors that determine a nation’s existence are the “unity of life and a common social conscience”. To quote Saπadeh: This is the real and basic starting point for the nation’s existence and to define it. For a society to be natural, it has to show a unity of life and a common social conscience. It has to lead a life with the same socio-economic cycle, encompassing all the masses and stimulating in them the feeling of leading one life within one destiny. This feeling forms the social personality, its interests, its will and its rights.58

This short excerpt embodies Saπadeh’s last word on the fundamental factors in national self-assertiveness. It is both a terminal and a starting point because, until now, we have only looked at how the geographic and cultural factors influence, positively and passively, the formation of nations. We must now examine in detail Saπadeh’s concept of “unity of life and a common social conscience”. What, for example, are its implications? What place does it occupy in national life? How does it affect the way nations emerge and endure?

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The nation in function mode Regarding the “unity of life” in the natural society – that is, the nation – Saπadeh distinguished between subjective and objective dimensions. The subjective dimension is the national social conscience.59 It is a feeling of the unity of national life and national destiny, and it is essential for the complete crystallization of the nation. If this feeling is absent or stagnant, the nation’s personality will suffer and its ability to express its will, rights and interests will be greatly diminished. In this context, the term “nationalism”, in its narrow sense, is but an expression of the subjective dimension of the nation as an entity: Nationalism … is the nation’s awakening and alertness to the unity of its life, to its personality, to its distinguishing traits and to the unity of its destiny. It is the solidarity of the nation. Sometimes it is equated with patriotism, which is love for the homeland, because patriotism proceeds from nationalism and because the homeland is the most significant factor in the formation of the nation. Nationalism is a deep, living and cognizant sentiment; the source of affection for the homeland and the stimulant which fosters domestic cooperation in the face of external threats or to expand the resources of the nation. From nationalism flows a feeling of common psychological and material interests; it is the source of the will to sustain life and to improve its quality through a zealous commitment to it – a life whose prosperity is prosperity for the whole group and whose stagnation is also stagnation for the whole.60

As perceived, nationalism is closely interlaced with the objective dimension of the nation. Its spirit springs from the objective unity of the nation and constantly interacts with it.61 Therefore, nationalism is a condition for the emergence of the nation’s personality but, at the same time, contingent on the objective situation in the nation. What, then, are the main characteristics of this dimension, dubbed by Saπadeh “the unity of life and unity of destiny”? There is no doubt that the homeland, or territory, whose characteristics and make-up exert considerable influence on the general personality of the group living in it, is the first objective feature of a nation. We have seen how Saπadeh defined the relationship between the community and the environment. However, it was not enough for him to leave it at this point. The homeland, however complex the interaction with it is, remains an external factor in the relationships among people. It is necessary, [32]


therefore, to bring in the issue of social interaction – the internal relationship of the people on the land – in order to illustrate the objective human factor in nation formation. This is precisely what Saπadeh did when he talks about “a single socio-economic cycle enveloping the whole group”.62 The concept of “one socio-economic cycle” is an auxiliary to the idea of the one region, or one environment, or one homeland, and it is upon it that Saπadeh founded his notion of the “national unity of life and destiny”.63 Saπadeh had, in fact, devoted an entire chapter in The Rise of Nations to the evolution of what he called “the material basis of human society” or “the socio-economic bonds involved in the general development of society”.64 His account is based on a number of principles, at the head of which is “the economic principle for earning the living”, the principle of uniformity between social and economic development, the principle of labour and the labour system, and their determining role in the interaction mechanism between man and environment and part in shaping the social structure.65 Through the concept of labour and its basic requirements of instruments, knowledge and organization, Saπadeh then introduced the element of culture to the heart of economic life. From a historical point of view, he classified societies into primitive, savage societies and structured, civilized societies. He also distinguished between material culture, representing the laws and conditions of matter, and spiritual culture, representing the affairs and forms of spiritual life. As his historical account reaches the gates of the modern ages, Saπadeh accentuates the revolutionary impact of the economic and productive transformation from the familial system to the craft system and, finally, to the capitalist, industrial system. He goes on to assert that the Industrial Revolution was the most critical one because “it placed human society on a completely new basis”.66 The reason for this was that the Industrial Revolution, apart from inducing new inventions and developments in economic production and commercial systems, created the social class that would ultimately destroy the feudal social system, masquerade as the new representative of public or general interest, and transform, on the basis of a common economic market, the structure of social loyalty from feudalism to nationalism.67 Saπadeh did not analyse in detail the historical process that led in modern times to the creation of the European nations through the rise of the bourgeois class and the industrial, capitalist economy. However, it [33]


is clear that he makes links between the unity of the socio-economic cycle that facilitated their emergence and the bourgeois class, whose development was contingent on the Industrial Revolution. Does this mean that Saπadeh ruled out the possibility of a national socio-economic cycle outside the bourgeoisie and the process of transformation from an agricultural or commercial economy to an industrial, capitalist one? In other words, did he make the first contingent on the second? The answer is no. It was simply implausible for Saπadeh to apply to all peoples and countries the socio-historic experience of Western Europe as it emerged from feudalism. He was aware that, given what he had already said about the diversity of natural environments and the different levels of cultural development and economic and labour structure among societies, it would not be possible, or indeed rational, to think of the cycle of socio-economic life, which forms the basis of the nation homeland, in strictly Western European terms. History is abundant with other patterns: the peoples of Eastern and Middle Europe, the people of Egypt, and others still at the experimental stage in areas wrestling with backwardness and colonial rule. From a general theoretical perspective, the concept of the socioeconomic cycle appears to be more inclusive than the notion of the economic productivity system. Moreover, it is not contingent on a particular economic system. Nevertheless, if this is really the case, is the unity of life and destiny, at the level of the “complete social community”, attributable only to the cycle of socio-economic life? Is it possible to achieve this unity outside the state? Is the state an essential factor in the objective process of nation formation?

Nation and state We do not raise these questions from outside Saπadeh’s thought.68 The political problem is there at the heart of his thought, both in theoretical and practical terms. It is not possible to look at one side and ignore the other. Saπadeh’s conception of the nation also overlaps with his views on history, economy, ethics, politics, man and the world in general. However, because these views are outside the scope of this study, we will only examine how they interrelate and overlap with his conception of the nation. In this context, our primary interest in Saπadeh’s view on politics is on the “state” (dawla) as a nation-forming factor. What exactly is Saπadeh’s opinion in this respect? [34]


If we go back to Saπadeh’s discussions about the conditions for nation formation and its elements, we would find that the state is among them. Indeed, it is regarded as an essential factor for the nation’s socio-economic structure, in much the same way as a single language is important for its spiritual cohesion. Saπadeh was crystal clear about this: Political unity is the nation’s crowning moment. It is the means by which it gains international recognition of its personality and right to live in dignity. Political unity, however, is not a basic element in nation-formation. It is a necessity for the nation if it is to achieve a socio-economic structure of practical and vital value. Every nation, by its own nature, aspires to establish a state that would protect its sovereignty and international rights.69

However, it is not as simple as this. The above statement is just one aspect of Saπadeh’s views on the relationship between the nation and the state. The delightful metaphor “crowning moment” and the important idea of “necessity” do not give a complete picture of the role that Saπadeh actually gave to political unity in the lives and formation of nations. Saπadeh asserted, time after time, that the state is a political phenomenon whereas the nation is a social reality. He also cautioned against confusing political science and sociology.70 For him, as a social reality, the nation predates the state and can continue to exist without it. Nationalist movements, whether liberation or revivalist, separation or irredentist, offer ample examples of separation between the national existence and the political framework associated with it. Even so, the most ideal relationship between the two is when they match. Still, if we look more closely at Saπadeh’s historical account of how nationalism rose in Western Europe, and his basic conceptualization of the state, we would discover a dialectic that contradicts the distinction he made between politics and sociology and between the nation and the state. Saπadeh observed that Western nationalism emerged as an expression of a common feeling in economic life, interests and direction among the masses under bourgeois leadership. The emerging nationalism, he added, played a political role equivalent to its economic role. In the conflict between the feudal aristocracy and the King, for example, the masses often sided with the King because the monarchy was more representative of national unity.71 Eventually, however, nationalism turned against the monarchy because the nation could only reach full realization under a [35]


democratic state: “Nationalism not only put an end to feudal authority and re-invested it in the person of the King, whose hold on power became unbearable with time, but proceeded to the objective that accelerates its rise, namely, that sovereignty ultimately resides in the people and that the people was not created to serve the state, but the state to serve the people.”72 In other words, Western nations did not achieve full nationhood at the moment they established a single socio-economic cycle among their peoples. To reach this stage they required input first from the central monarchical authority and then from the democratic state. This indicates a kind of correlation, at full nationhood, between the unity of the socioeconomic cycle, popular support and the democratic principle in political rule. In more practical terms, it means that the unity of political life is an integral part of the unity of life and destiny at the national level. Even if we cast aside the peculiarities of the Western European experience and the principle on the compatibility between the political system and full nationhood, and ask Saπadeh about the substance of the psychological dimension embedded in the nation’s personality, inasmuch that it is a “spiritual, social and economic compound”,73 the conclusion will be no different. It would show that the state, as perceived by Saπadeh, is indeed one of the principal factors in nation formation. This is because the spiritual or psychological element in society is not confined to social feelings or conscience, which manifest in collective sympathy, cooperation and support, but also includes anything non-material in society and in its interactive relationship with its wider milieu. What generally applies to society applies also to the nation because the nation is nothing but society. In fact, it is applicable in the full sense of the word because, in Saπadeh’s opinion, the nation is the greatest and most ideal society. According to Saπadeh, society rests on a basic duality between matter and spirit. On the spiritual side, the state occupies an illustrious position74 because it is a spiritual manifestation organically tied to mental and cultural life.75 If not for mental life, which is the distinguishing mark between humans and animals, there would be no culture and no state, the very existence of which depends on mental faculties and a definite system of rights and obligations, to say nothing of power and control. In the animal world, there is no state because there is neither an intellectual nor societal life. In a primitive society, both culture and the state are primitive. Only civilized society has experienced the meaning of [36]


full statehood, designated by Saπadeh as “the historical state” or “the cultural historical state”. From this we can understand why Saπadeh regarded the state and human culture as twin and why political and cultural factors overlap in his conception of the state.76 At the start of his analysis on the “historical state”, Saπadeh gave a succinct and categorical elucidation of his views on the role of the state in forming societies, uniting their elements, and constructing their systems and histories. He asserted: We have so far seen how the state evolved in the course of human life. Once it crystallized, the state became the personality and façade of society, growing and shrinking together. Thus, in his Introduction, Ibn Khaldun defines the social community in one term, namely, the state. The state managed to fuse diverse communities in one pot, and to form an orderly unit out of them, where permitted by the environment and course of life. In fact, once the state grew aware of its power and authority over society, it put its hands on it and began to use it for its own purposes. The state shapes society, defines its limits, moulds its daily affairs, and represents its personality. This is how the state began and how states create history.77

Let us now analyse this quote more closely taking into account Saπadeh’s explications before and after it. First is Saπadeh’s assertion that “the state evolved in the course of human life”. This means that the state is not a gift, nor a magical solution, nor a transitory phenomenon in human society. Its rise is inseparable from human sociality and its history. There is no existence for the state outside society, and its purpose is “to look after society and to organize its diverse parts in accordance with a system of rights and obligations”.78 Of course, Saπadeh did not worry about the problem of how the state first appeared in human history and the controversy over it. However, he believed that discussions on the state, at the social level, should begin from when society began to form or at least from when it assumed simple form. For even the state that formed in the primitive stages of human societies, in all its simplicity, carried out typical state functions, defined by its time, and experimented with different forms of democratic, autocratic and aristocratic rule. On the other hand, the state that formed in contemporary civilized societies, owing to its association with a certain region, went through different phases from the despotic to the [37]


national democratic, in keeping with development in the economic system and human culture. Second is Saπadeh’s assertion that the state, since its emergence, has become society’s “personality and façade”. This means the state is not a disposable item that can be added or removed from society at any time. The state is a façade of society in that it is part of its entity and ontologically associated with its material base. It is clear that Saπadeh borrowed this idea from Ibn Khaldun79 who himself had borrowed it from Aristotle and developed it further.80 Regardless of the kind of study that Saπadeh undertook of Ibn Khaldun’s thought and sociological analyses,81 his inclusion of the concept of façade in his conception of the state meant that he now could think in terms of two dualities: a duality of society and state, and a duality of matter and façade in the one society. The first duality affirms the distinction between politics and sociology; the second instils the political factor into the heart of the social entity. We cannot begin to understand Saπadeh’s theories on the nation, nationalism and other related issues, like the party, without referring back to his use of these dualities, although it is a matter of some confusion. In our opinion, Saπadeh overcame the ambiguities arising from the interrelatedness between these two dualities by introducing a third duality – namely, that of actual and imposed existence. However, the application of this duality to solve the ambiguities of the other two dualities, particularly on the level of national existence, involves a certain predilection towards actual existence or towards imposed existence and producing the right justification or hypothesis. In any case, Saπadeh was explicit in his predilection and in the way he rationalized it.82 Third is Saπadeh’s assertion that the state arose when the two stipulations – environment and the cycle of life – matched and “fuse[d] diverse communities in one pot”. Through this idea Saπadeh had explicitly admitted that the state is capable of assimilating and fusing the personalities of different groups to form a new personality – namely, a society. A closer examination of this idea would show the state had two functions: first, it is able to mould society into a coherent unit based on one system of rights and obligations; and second, it emerges as a representative of society, a symbol of its unique personality towards other societies and states. State moulding of society is a complex dynamic process that involves internal and external considerations, among them defining the outer boundaries of the nation and articulating relations between society’s [38]


various parts and between the nation and its wider geographical milieu. It is self-evident that the terms “artificial” and “natural” play a decisive role in this complex process. In Saπadeh’s view, a state can encompass two or more natural societies, as in empires and colonialism. In this case, the difference between society and the state is crystal clear. A state also can emerge from the assimilation of diverse communities, but it is contingent on the environment and cycle of life in the society – two conditions that, for Saπadeh, are functional only if there are no environmental or popular obstacles to undermine the possibility of exchange and fusion. It is clear that the state’s fusionist work does not solely depend on his suggested prerequisites, even if they are positive. Fourth is Saπadeh’s view that the role of the state is not only to fuse society’s diverse elements and organize relations among them. The state also exploits its position as a power in society to control society and use it for its own ends. In fact, this is relatively true for different states, systems and governments. Saπadeh believed that the national democratic state has the least control over society in this respect, saying: “It does not depend on external doctrines or an illusory will, but on a popular will nurtured by the feeling of sharing a single socio-economic life. The democratic state does not represent the past, or by-gone traditions, or the will of God, or ancient glories, but only the interest of the people in a common life epitomized by a universal will.”83 Fifth, Saπadeh says: “This is how … states create history.” By this laconic, all-embracing statement, he responded to those who deny the ability of the state to create human history or who regard it as a subsidiary factor.84 States create history, not in a Hegelian, Fascist or Nazi sense, but in an interactive psychological sense that can be found in Ibn Khaldun and ancient Greek thought, and reflects many types of political and historical experiences.85 States create history by their unique political and cultural vitality and by their interaction with the material, natural and economic bases, the diverse groups on whom they are founded, and the spiritual and cultural wealth they produce. After all this, can there be any more doubts about the nature and role that Saπadeh assigned to the state in the formation and crystallization of the nation?

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Conclusion Saπadeh’s conception of the nation cannot be premised on biology and geography, as Labib Zuwiyya Yamak once supposed.86 Yamak’s approach, recounted by students and scholars alike, does not distinguish between the necessary and sufficient elements in Saπadeh’s thought. Others, like Inπam Raad,87 have attempted a deeper investigation of Saπadeh’s conception, and although they have been able to shed new light on it, they have failed to capture its full essence. Their effort focused primarily on the concept of the socio-economic cycle. In our opinion, Saπadeh’s conception necessarily includes the factor of political unity or the state. Homeland-environment and one socioeconomic cycle are two essential material elements. But they are significant in defining nation if they interact with a third element, namely the state, and other spiritual and cultural elements detailed earlier. In our view, the state is the most important of these spiritual and cultural factors. In the interaction process between society, the natural environment and the world, the state is the centre of objective and subjective existence. Given that unity of life and destiny, in its broad social sense, is both subjective and objective, it is only rational for state unity to be an integral part of it. Similarly, no national movement, as a subjective and objective entity, can achieve its full potential outside this unity.

NOTES 1 See Butrus Abu-Manneh, “The Christians Between Ottomanism and Syrian Nationalism: The Ideas of Butrus Bustani”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 2 (1980): pp. 287–304. 2 On Tahtawi see Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, pp. 67–103. 3 On Syrian regionalism see H.M. Van Dusen, “Political Integration and Regionalism in Syria”, Middle East Journal 26 (1972): pp. 123–136. 4 For instance, in his Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (p. 379), Albert Hourani, describes Saπadeh’s national thought in terms of the wish and interest versus language and religion as bases for forming a nation, neglecting the geographic factor except in his account of “Geographic Syria”. 5 Ahmad Baydun, Identite confessionenelle et temps social shez les historiens libanais contemporains, Beirut: Lebanese University Press, 1984, p. 31. See also Naji Alloush, A Dialogue on the Nation, Nationalism and Unity, Beirut: Dar al-Taliπa, 1980, p. 12. [40]


6 Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Connecticut: Greenwood Press Publishers, 1984, pp. 188–189. 7 Ibid., p. 189. 8 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), vol. 5, Beirut: SNNP Information Bureau, 1981, p. 197. 9 Ibid., p. 5. It seems that Saπadeh prepared the necessary material for a second volume to this book, dealing with the rise of the Syrian nation, its place in human history and its relation with other nations, but the French authorities confiscated it before it made it to the printers. 10 Al-Majalla was published by Saπadeh in 1933 while he was secretly organizing the SSNP to promote his nationalist ideas. Only four issues appeared, due to financial difficulties. See Gibran Jraij, Min al-Jua’ba, Beirut: n.p., 1986, pp. 57–99. 11 Some of Saπadeh’s much earlier views on nationalism, published in Brazil, can be found in the first volume of his Complete Works. 12 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 43. 13 Ibid., p. 44. See also pp. 65–66. 14 Ibid., p. 45. 15 Ibid., p. 44. 16 Ibid., p. 45. 17 Ibid., pp. 45, 57. 18 Ibid., p. 148. 19 Ibid., p. 48. 20 Ibid., p. 110. Also in his book Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures) he recalls the same idea: “We are the passive pole whilst land and this universe are the positive one”, 5th edition, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1959, pp. 74, 88–89. 21 Saπadeh’s definition of psychological life is much broader than the one we find in present-day psychology books. Religion, language and science, for example, form part of his definition where it might not elsewhere. 22 In his masterwork, Man and Society (Beirut: Mawaqif, 1981), Adel Daher tries, through psychoanalysis, to explain the implications of Saπadeh’s complex sociological philosophy, but fails to explain Saπadeh’s concept of society or to back up his explanation with evidence from Saπadeh’s writings. Saπadeh, according to his explanation, had defined society as a special community and indeed the most complete human community. In fact, Saπadeh had employed the concepts of both society and community to define a nation and he does not distinguish between the notions of society, community and group. On many occasions he uses these concepts in synonymous terms. (See Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), reprinted in his Complete Works, vol. 5, pp. 138, 144, 147, 153 and Explanatory Notes on the Doctrine, pp. 170, 171, 172.) Closer analysis, however, may reveal some differences among the terms “community”, “society” and “group” in Saπadeh’s social philosophy, such as the difference between the general and the specific, or in his discussion of the various types of interaction with the environment and the like. Saπadeh, for certain, does not distinguish between society and the community the way the German sociologist Ferdinand Tuniz does. 23 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, pp. 156–157; also, The Ten Lectures, pp. 71–72. 24 Ibid., vol. 1, Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1975, pp. 229–236. 25 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 110. [41]


26 For additional discussion of this point see Ernest Barker, National Character and the Factors in Its Formation, London: Methuen & Co, 1927. 27 Ibid., p. 133. 28 On this period of Saπadeh’s life see Nawwaf Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar: 1921–1930 (Saπadeh Abroad: 1921–1930), Beirut: Dar Fikr, vol. 1, 1988. 29 It can be argued that Saπadeh did not explain clearly what he meant by “several” nations whose existence is attributable to the geographic factor or homelandenvironment. He was not always restricted by numbers in his discourse on nations and natural environments. Some phrases of his suggest a generalization which is not based on a comparative study of the relationship between the existence of nations and their regions. 30 Adel Daher, Man and Society, from p. 30 onwards. Arabized or Arabic sociological dictionaries define Saπadeh’s Western-oriented concept of community as “local society” or “local group”, which are totally different from the way Saπadeh had defined it. 31 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 147. The final definition of the nation as complete community was articulated by Saπadeh at the end of his study The Rise of Nations as follows: “A nation is a human community with a unified interest, destiny and psycho-physical factors, living in one region that confers upon it certain unique characteristics.” 32 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 2, p. 131. 33 The list of references at the end of The Rise of Nations (reprinted in Complete Works, vol. 5) suggests that Saπadeh was profoundly influenced by Western scientific findings in anthropology and human development. 34 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 2, p. 132. Also pp. 231–232 in vol. 1, where he mentions the fusion of races within nations and points to the danger of the race principle to the popular national principle. 35 Explaining the reasons behind the formation of races, Saπadeh combines the effects of both the environment and heredity. He writes: “I suggest that human lineages are evolutionary chains that took place in evolutionary environments, that is, before the settlement of nature as it is now.” He also deduces: “If strong geological and astrological changes take place, creatures would be forced to experience evolution or extinction” (The Rise of Nations, p. 33). 36 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 37. 37 Ibid., pp. 156–158. 38 Ibid., p. 157. 39 Ibid., p. 156. 40 Ibid., p. 158. Also in vol. 2, p. 111: “The basis of a nation is not a certain origin, but a certain shared life and a single land.” 41 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 2, p. 134. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 159. 44 Ibid., p. 160. 45 Saπadeh gave a more detailed exposition of the issue of the relationship between literature and national life in his book, Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature, written during his exile in Argentina, in the inter-war years. In his Articles on Methodology, Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1980, Marwan Faris deals with the methodological critical aspect of Saπadeh’s book. Saπadeh’s views, it must be stressed, influenced [42]


46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

modern Arab poetry and literature, especially the poetry of Khalil Hawi and Adonis. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 161. Ibid., p. 161. He observed: “The slower a people advances in philosophy and intellectual achievement, the more that a powerful religion is able to control its way of thought.” Ibid., p. 162. Ibid., p. 163. See H.E. Chehabi, Iranian Politics and Religious Modernism: The Liberation Movement of Iran under the Shah and Khomeini, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990. Thomas E. Hachey and Lawrence J. McCaffrey (eds), Perspectives on Irish Nationalism, Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky, 1989. Vol. 4 of his Complete Works is instructive in this regard. Ibid., p. 164. Joan Sabin, Customs and Traditions, Oxford: Blackwell, 1973; also, Rudolph Brasch, How Did It Begin? Customs and Superstitions, and Their Romantic Origins, New York: D. McKay Co., 1966. Ibid., pp. 158–159. See Roland Sussex and J.C. Eade (eds), Culture and Nationalism in NineteenthCentury Eastern Europe, Columbus, Ohio, USA: Slavica Publishers, 1985. Louis L. Snyder, The Meaning of Nationalism, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1954. Ibid., p. 165. See Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995, pp. 77–80. Ibid., p. 167. Saπadeh occasionally designated nationalism as a kind of esprit de corps to distinguish it from jingoism or national xenophobia. See his letter to Hamid Franjiyyeh reprinted in The Ten Lectures, Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1980. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1938, p. 169. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 61–85. Ibid., p. 84. Ibid., pp. 84–85, 130, where his account of modern economic history merges into his account of modern political history. Inaπm Raad tried to clarify Saπadeh’s concept of socio-economic cycle by accentuating the concept of “interaction between man and land”, and the capacity of the community to benefit from its natural resources and potentials. This means that the interaction process is relative and determined by the psycho-intellectual credentials of the community and by the nature of the available resources. Raad also points out some differences between the Marxist and social nationalist conception on the role of economy in the evolution of nations. But he does not go beyond the interpretation which regards Saπadeh’s principle of “unity of life” as an objective factor, save in the socio-economic cycle. Nor does he raise the issue of the state as one of the factors in the “unity of life” as Saπadeh himself did. (See Raad, The Foundations of Intellectual and Revolutionary Strategy, Beirut: Dar Ghandour, 1979, pp. 69–71). [43]


69 70 71 72 73 74

75

76 77 78 79 80 81 82

Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 163. Ibid., pp. 114, 135, 146, 197; and vol. 2, pp. 132–133. Ibid., vol. 5, p. 124. Ibid., p. 130. Ibid., p. 13. In 1933, Saπadeh wrote a clear exposition on the material and spiritual bases of the nation. The material basis, in his view, consists of two elements: the region and the people inasmuch as they are physical entities. On the other hand, the political system, or the state, is listed among the fundamental elements in the spiritual basis. “The spiritual edifice,” Saπadeh wrote, “although not separate from the material basis, is the outcome of the intellectual interaction among the mental faculties of the nation and their desire for a rational unanimity in codes, legislation, social traditions, language, literature and education” (Complete Works, vol. 2, p. 130). In The Rise of Nations, 1938, he offers a more detailed explication of the material basis and, along the way, overemphasizes the importance of the state and its position in the nation’s spiritual edifice. In the introduction to a long chapter entitled, “The Rise and Evolution of the State”, he writes: “So far we have explored the material basis of human society and its characteristics. In this chapter, we will study the spiritual edifice of this society. Perhaps the state is the most essential cultural representative of intellectual life, which is one of the characteristics of human society. One can even say that human culture and the state are identical” (Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 90). Saπadeh ascribed many meanings to the term “culture”. In his explanatory notes on how society and the state evolved, he seems to regard “cultural” as something distinct from the “innate and the instinctive”. In this broad sense, all the things that emanate from rational human spirit, both in social and individual life, are cultural manifestations. The type and degree of culture itself become criteria by which human communities are classified across history (Complete Works, vol. 5, pp. 91–104). Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 90. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid., p. 90. See Fuad Baali, Society, State, and Urbanism: Ibn Khaldun’s Sociological Thought, Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988. Abraham Edel, Aristotle and his Philosophy, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982. Saπadeh mentioned Ibn Khaldun on many occasions, particularly in The Rise of Nations. In fact, the relationship between his thought and that of Ibn Khaldun deserves a special study. Saπadeh made several remarks about the duality of actual and enforced existence, one of which can be found in his analysis on the difference between illusory Arabism and true Arabism: “The cause advocated by the Syrian Social Nationalist Party is a national cause that exists by force on the ground of social laws. The Party has taken it out from the sphere of force and placed it in the sphere of the actual” (Saπadeh, al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages), 3rd edition, Beirut, 1958, p. 232). Another is included in his explanation of the reality of the Syrian nation and it goes as follows: “Before the rise of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, before the social national renaissance, this reality was only a [44]


83 84 85 86 87

theory. It was in an oblivious world of its own, a reality that existed by an unseen force. After the Party had been established, it became an actual reality, dynamic and vibrant, a reality with an entity of its own and able to express itself by its very own volition” (The Ten Lectures, 5th edition, 1959, p. 69). Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, pp. 130–131. See Roger King, The State in Modern Society: New Directions in Political Sociology, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986; also, Harold J. Laski, The State in Theory and Practice, London: Allen & Unwin, 1935. See Christopher Gill, Greek Thought, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Labib Zuwiyya Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Harvard University Press, 1966, pp. 76–82. Inπam Raad, The Foundations of Intellectual and Revolutionary Strategy.

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2 Union in Life: Saπadeh’s Notion of the Socio-Economic Cycle Inπam Raad

The study of nationalist thought reveals that the objective is subordinated to the subjective. That is, each school of nationalist thought usually emphasizes a particular element, not merely because of its objective significance, but because of specific national problems faced by nationalist thought in a particular phase and in particular countries. Consequently, it becomes necessary in studying nationalist thought to distinguish between objectively scientific facts on the one hand, and, on the other, features which significantly affect the formulation of nationalist theory in any given era.

Nationalist thought between the subjective and the objective An example of this specificity was the German emphasis on language (beginning with philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s famous lectures),1 in which they discovered a trait that distinguished them from the Latin peoples (such as in France) or the Slavic peoples (such as in Russia). The same trait served as a means to bring Germans in neighbouring countries into the fold of the German state. Consequently, language instantly became an instrument of national unification and expansion into other countries where German was the principal language.2 This expansionist tendency reached its height under Adolf Hitler when German minorities in Czechoslovakia and Poland were appended to Germany. The Nazis added to language in German nationalism the factor of race. This was not unusual because at the time biological sciences emphasized the importance of anthropology and evolution. However, the German racial theory was not a scientific theory, but one fraught with outdated ideas and subjective complications. The Nazi racial theory distorted the premises of modern science. It brought together the legacy [47]


of Friedrich Nietzsche’s superman philosophy3 and Richard Wagner’s return to Siegfried’s legends,4 in addition to Fichte’s legacy in which language is the central factor. The German linguistic community thus became a racial community even though speaking the same language does not necessarily mean belonging to the same race. Indeed, common origin is uncommon in modern and advanced nations. Even if it can be proved it would not justify treating other races as inferior. These distortions led Nazism to stray from the objective facts. Most theorists of Arab nationalism, including such well-known names as Satiπ al-Husri,5 Zaki al-Arsuzi and (Al-Hakam) Darwaza,6 were influenced by the school of language and race.7 Some of them, emphasizing the language factor, viewed the Semitic nations on the basis of linguistic lineage stemming from the same racial origin. Others stressed the race factor, as in the book The Arab Race. Yet the inclusion of religion in the Arab understanding of nationalism softened the marriage of language and race and gave it a humanizing aspect distinct from the racist arrogance that characterized Nazism. The influence of language and religion on Arab nationalism stemmed from specific Arab circumstances that go back, essentially, to Arab reaction against foreign attempts to destroy the Arab national character, including Turkification8 in the east and Gallicization in the west.9 Hence the significance of language and religion in the Arab nationalist idea. One of the shortcomings of this approach is that, by merging the two factors, Arab nationalism placed religion on a par with the material forces in human development and subordinated the social reality to the complex merger and its narrow applicability. The race factor came into focus with the emergence of the Semitic school of national and historical thinking in the Arab world. This school tried to discover a single Semitic source for the Arab world by looking for a common derivation in the ancient languages of the region. In doing so it made the same mistake as the German school of language and race, and contravened scientific methods in genealogy and anthropology which determine racial origin according to skull measurements or other physical features rather than linguistic criteria. This is the argument by means of which Saπadeh discredited the ethno-linguistic theory, emphasizing racial mixture as a scientific fact, as against the illusion of a single racial origin.10 A comprehensive study of the national question cannot be confined to the human factor and its racial formation. According to Saπadeh, it must [48]

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also take into account the continuous interactive relationship between man and land and the resulting fusion into a single socio-economic cycle: The organic correlation between the nation and its homeland is the only principle whereby community of life can be achieved. It is within a national territory that the unity of national life and participation in its activities, interests and aims are attained. The national territory is vital for the development of the social character of the nation and forms the basis of its life.11

On this basis alone we can understand Saπadeh’s attitude towards the national question in general, and Syrian nationalism in particular.

The concept of the socio-economic cycle Two critical features distinguish Saπadeh’s social nationalist school of thought from other schools of national thought. The first feature is that, in his school, the subjective is based on the objective. The goal of nation building, as defined by Saπadeh, does not depend on an exclusive factor – language, religion and race – outside the social reality.12 Saπadeh was as meticulous about national unity as he was about a definition based on sociological facts rather than rigid interpretations derived from one aspect of the nation. Unlike other intellectual schools which fostered xenophobia by emphasizing cultural factors in nation formation, thus driving a wedge between the subjective and the objective, Saπadeh anchored the subjective – represented by the desire for unity, on the objective – represented by the process by which it is realized (the interaction process). The second distinguishing feature is the concept “community of life” – the cycle of the socio-economic. This concept is conceived of as an evolving and integrationist process rather than as an accumulation of factors. The nation is not land and man,13 although they are essential for its formation, but a continuous and dynamic social movement. As Saπadeh put it: “[S]ocial conscience and community of life: that is, one life based on a socio-economic cycle including the whole community and stimulating national consciousness.”14 This means that unity, the achievement of which was Saπadeh’s ultimate aim, has no existence outside this process of interaction. With him the theory of society on a fragmented land or a fragmented society on one land is baseless. This is the essence of his doctrine of social [49]


nationalism.15 It does not believe in society as a product of a common racial origin or as a physical association based on religion or language. What matters is the community of life that develops from the social interaction of man with the land. Bedouins who take a superficial view of their relationship with land, because they regard themselves as nomadic people outside the interaction process, are just that – nomadic and fractional. Similarly, over-emphasis on the economic factor or/and on land outside the sphere of the socio-economic cycle are non-interactive material concepts that ignore the totality of social reality. Almost every major explanation has tried to limit Saπadeh’s ideological conception of nationalism to one or more factors in the process of nation formation. A more logical approach would start by distinguishing between two main conceptions: 1 2

The classical universal national conception, which places sociocultural factors outside the process of interaction. The dynamic interactive conception, which classifies factors and defines their role on the basis of social interaction.

In a lecture I delivered at the College of Law in 1974 I stated: The most important contribution made by Saπadeh is that he anchored nationalism on sociology on the basis of a dynamic conception that regards the nation as a product of an interaction cycle fusing all the social, ethnic, tribal and sectarian elements into one life and one destiny within a specific territory. As perceived, the nation is an integral social reality, a material-psychological-economic compound. Like every other living being it is subject to the principle of progress and development in line with the psychological and material conditions in society and its interaction cycle. This is a scientific concept that re-affirms the objectivism of the national question and its social practicality. It outperforms both the romantic, ethnic or classical national theories, which do not perceive the national question as a genuine social-material-psychological-economic-cultural reality, and the cosmopolitan and disjointed internationalist theories, which claimed that it is possible to transcend the national question as a social reality before the development of certain materialpsychological conditions.16

Two important observations are in order here. [50]

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1

2

Saπadeh’s conception does not inflate the nation beyond time and place; rather, the nation is an objective reality that emerges in the context of social development and interaction according to psychological-material conditions. Because the nation is a social reality – the most complete social reality and the most complete society17 – the national issue and the social issue with all their economic and psychological variations become one social national issue. If modern developments have confirmed the downfall of national chauvinism, they have also confirmed the validity of scientific national realism as a social starting point.

The national reality which was Saπadeh’s point of departure has not become irrelevant. Despite globalization and greater international collaboration, it is still the predominant political order in the world. The nation, as a concrete yet diverse social reality, has defied the idea of a single world community beyond the diverse circumstances of national societies – their experiences, social reality, socio-economic cycles and stages of development. A recent example is the socialist experiment which realized that socialism had to be based on the particular situation of each country rather than applied uniformly.18 This prompted a re-think of socialist strategy to accommodate national diversity and the objective conditions and development of different societies.19 The national question as a dynamic concept In Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Saπadeh offered a critique of existential theories for restricting themselves to an exclusive factor within the nation. His first target was linguistic nationalism: Whenever language is used as a basis of nationality, the purpose is primarily the aggrandizement and expansion of the nation as is presently the case in Germany. German thinkers have sometimes harked back to the unity of race and sometimes to the unity of language in order to justify their expansionistic aims and their desire to bring all the German-speaking peoples into a single state.20

Just as stark was his condemnation of racial nationalism: “The alleged purity of the race or the blood of any nation is a groundless myth. It is found only in savage groups, and even there it is rare.”21 [51]


Even the land – the factor without which there is no life – was integrated by Saπadeh into the interaction process that generates the socio-economic cycle. In doing so, Saπadeh developed a new philosophy of freedom based on struggle (freedom through struggle), beginning with the emancipation of mankind from the forces of nature through interaction and struggle and the development of the human intellect in line with objective conditions and material life. Thus, the interaction process is a two-way process: “Although man moulds the physical environment it is the physical environment itself that determines the extent and content of this moulding. At the same time man strives to mould his physical environment in order to satisfy his livelihood needs, he also finds himself having to adapt his needs to conform to the region which he has come to inhabit.”22 Here the subjective is intertwined with the objective in a continuous sequence that cannot be broken up or separated: interaction + struggle + human intellect + material conditions = freedom.23 At this point we must discuss further the role and significance of the mind in human development. In Saπadeh’s theory, the concept of mind has several broad dimensions: •

• •

as a scientific entity, from using simple techniques like the wheel and the plough to using more advanced technological skills in the course of human development as a repository of the nation’s heritage, and as an engine of revolutions and change in society.

All three have complementary dimensions in the process of interaction. The level of intellectual development in all of these dimensions is the factor that determines the character and intensity of the interaction process. The same factor also determines the thrust and momentum of the socio-economic cycle. It is not enough, for example, to own the machine unless social relations and systems allow for the maximum use of its interactive potentials. The correlation between ends and means is therefore vital. It is one of the most important factors in modifying the process of interaction or determining whether or not to intensify the socio-economic cycle in a given society. In Saπadeh’s conception of nationalism, great emphasis is placed on the natural environment. It is regarded as the material and natural [52]

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framework for the process of interaction and nationhood. Despite this, his conception is neither static nor deterministic. According to Saπadeh, once the nation has evolved and settled down it can change not only its external borders, but also its socio-economic cycle and interaction with its natural resources, environment and the soil. This dynamic flexibility is not present in the theory of geographical determinism.24 Saπadeh explained the dimensions of the dynamic interactive relationship between man and his natural environment in The Rise of Nations as follows: Just as natural borders are essential to protect society from the expansion of neighbouring societies, the nature and resources of a nation are similarly important, if not more so; the nation is either strong or weak, advanced or backward, according to the possibilities of its economic environment and its ability to benefit from these possibilities and potentials.25

It is clear from this extract that, for Saπadeh, the nation is based on two conditions: the economic possibilities of the environment (this is the objective condition), and its ability to benefit from these possibilities (this is the subjective condition). Here, progress or the lack of it, are not measured according to race or ethnic supremacy, as is the case with ethnic chauvinistic conceptions; rather, they are judged according to economic possibilities and the nation’s ability to benefit from these possibilities. Looking at the nation from this perspective has several theoretical implications that may change our understanding of human development, social philosophy and the mechanism of nation formation.

The relationship between the subjective and the objective Saπadeh described the relationship between the subjective and the objective as a dialectic interactive relationship that cannot be separated. He looked at the situation where interaction is between a premium environment and a community primed to take full advantage of its – that is, the environment’s – possibilities. The purpose of this exercise was to show that, regardless of its economic potential, an environment cannot produce a civilization left to its own devices; for civil and cultural progress to occur, community participation and interaction with the land is more important. [53]


Here the issue of the mind – its development and stages of growth, as well as that of the overall culture of a society – enters the picture. To quote Saπadeh: “Since the time the alphabets appeared side by side with trade, and their unity in the cycle of socio-economic interaction, human society began to move towards a psychological (mental) life and the mind began to assert its control over nature’s resources and raw materials.”26 This pattern reached its peak in the Industrial Revolution, which, Saπadeh says, “placed the world on a new foundation”.27 Hence, the greater a society’s ability to control the environment, the greater the chance that the interaction equation will tip in its favour. This leads us to the principle of social relativism in interaction. For just as it is important to realize the potentials of the “natural environment”, it is essential to know the level of growth of the human community and whether it has the right skills and aptitudes to interact with the environment. Out of this analysis one can construct a comprehensive model which may be called “sociography”, the geography of society, in lieu of “topography”, the study of earth. One very important example that comes to mind here is the discovery of petroleum in the developing countries. In the Arabian Peninsula, the environment remained basically unaffected for a very long time because, with its difficult terrain, its inhabitants failed to go beyond the surface of the land in their interaction with it. For them, the environment was a desert unsuitable for livestock because pasture and water were scarce. However, when the Europeans, and later on the Americans, arrived in the Arabian Peninsula equipped with the fruits of industrial and technological revolution, the once barren region – at least in the eyes of its Bedouin inhabitants – transformed into one of the richest environments on earth, floating over the greatest oil reserves in the world.28 This is a stark example of social relativism in the relationship between society and economic possibilities of the environment. It illustrates how flawed the superficial view of man or the environment is when it does not fully explore the complexities of this relationship. Of course, the above example and others are subject to important standards and rules in what we have called the sociographic model, including a break-up of all the psychological, cultural and socio-economic factors in the stage of development reached by the society in question. From this perspective, too, we can understand the qualitative difference between the interaction processes of the two Americas. In [54]

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North America a modern and powerful state – the USA – was created partly because the white settlers brought with them the ideas and accomplishments of the European Industrial Revolution, and partly because the settlers, liberated from Church power and feudal traditions, extended the dynamics of the socio-economic interaction cycle of their homeland (Britain) beyond its national borders.29 In contrast, Latin America was “Balkanized” into several communities because its socioeconomic cycle was undeveloped and lethargic.30 It was a stagnant society bound by age-old conventions and lacking vibrant and interactive energy, particularly with its natural environment. Suffice to mention that Brasilia, the capital of Brazil, was built in 1959 while all the time the Brazilian interior remained neglected and barren. In contrast to the United States, Brazilian cities existed only along the coast as late as the middle of the twentieth century. On occasions, political revolutions and visionary liberators exceeded social expectations in Latin America because the social and economic institutions of society were undeveloped and old-fashioned. Simon Bolivar, the “liberator”, tried to unify the Caribbean countries but was unsuccessful because the cycle of socio-economic life that confronted him was moribund.31 Even though there are no notable boundaries between Colombia and Venezuela, Bolivar faced enormous hurdles. George Washington, on the other hand, was more successful, becoming a unifier and nation builder, because the interactive process in the United States was highly developed and unencumbered. Further north, in Canada, the outcome was less satisfactory because the cycle of socio-economic interaction was arrested by the ethnic and linguistic barriers between British and French Canada. A deeper understanding of the Canadian problem would show that the separatist movement in Quebec is due, in large part, to Canada’s uneven economic development in favour of Toronto, the capital of the English state of Ontario, as against French Quebec.32 In short, the outcome in the two Americas strongly reflected the colonial situation: traditional and industrially backward Spanish society moved to the southern continent, whereas modern and industrially advanced Anglo-Saxon society moved to the north. Naturally, the cycle of socio-economic interaction turned out to be different between the two continents.

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The socio-economic cycle and separatist sectarian and ethnic tendencies There is a further point. In The Rise of Nations, Saπadeh advanced a twofold classification of human society: “[T]he primitive type, which is based essentially on the blood tie, and the advanced type, where the tie is based on socio-economic relations derived from the vital needs of the community and its desire for progress and development, irrespective of blood and race.”33 In primitive societies, discord is not a major issue because the social tie is based on blood and the cycle of socio-economic life is usually embryonic and stagnant. Not so in advanced societies. Social discord, in the form of racial and ethnic separatist tendencies, seems to occur in these societies when the socio-economic cycle stalls or breaks down. Ethnic and separatist discord may also arise if there is a major discrepancy in economic integration or if the growth between society’s vital centres is lopsided. During General Francisco Franco’s rule, the imbalance between Madrid and Barcelona on the one hand, and the remaining Spanish cities on the other, and the fact that Madrid was made the focus of virtually all economic development at the expense of all the other cities, was an important factor in the rise of separatist movements in Spain. These movements manifested themselves, after Franco’s death, in the Basques and Catalonia.34 A more recent example is Kurdish separatism in northern Iraq.35 In this case, the economic and social backwardness of the Kurds, after many years of deliberate neglect by Baghdad, gave the Western imperial powers a potent instrument to create national discord and in-fighting between the Iraqi groups. In the Indian peninsula, the disruption of the socio-economic cycle by British colonization split the region into a Hindu society and an Islamic one, and led to the establishment of independent political entities on a religious basis.36 In this case, however, colonial division was facilitated by the static nature of these societies, particularly the persistence of antiquated beliefs. For example, in India many people starved to death while the “sacred cow” roamed around freely protected from slaughter to feed the hungry.37 This is unimaginable elsewhere. Democratic and socialist development in India will not solve the problem of real backwardness, the principal source of ethnic and sectarian conflicts and political division in India, until the Indian mind is emancipated from such old-fashioned beliefs and achieves a unifying secular state. [56]

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The three examples given here are just the tip of the iceberg. They clearly show why the cycle of socio-economic life, as perceived by Saπadeh, is central to the unity of society and its progress, particularly in an age when ethnic and sectarian discord can be (and have been) utilized by powerful states to disrupt backward and developing societies.

Social interaction in the socio-economic cycle Interaction between man and land is one aspect in the evolution of society. The other is interaction between the human communities that settle on the land. Thus, the fourth Fundamental Principle of Saπadeh’s national platform states: “The Syrian nation is the product of the ethnic unity of the Syrian people which developed throughout history.”38 The explanation under this principle is more relevant to our purpose: This principle … reveals the concrete actuality of the nation which is the final outcome of the long history of all the people that have settled in Syria, inhabited it, interacted with each other and finally became fused in one people. This process started with the people of the Neolithic age who preceded the Canaanites and Chaldeans in settling this land, and continued through to the Akkadians, the Canaanites, the Chaldeans, Assyrians, Arameans, Amorites and Hittites. Thus the principle of Syrian nationhood is not based on race or blood, but rather on the natural social unity derived from homogeneous intermixing. Through this principle the interests, the aims and the ideals of the Syrian nation are unified and the national cause is guarded against disharmony, disintegration and strife that result from primitive loyalties to blood ties.39

Saπadeh regarded the human interactive process as basic to all national formations: “The Syrian nation consists of a mixture of Canaanites, Akkadians, Chaldeans, Assyrians, Arameans, Hittites and Metanni as the French nation is a mixture of Gauls, Ligurians, Franks, etc. … and the Italian nation of Romans, Latins, Etruscans, etc. … the same being true of every other nation.”40 As perceived, the process of human interaction has two important features: first, blood origin is irrelevant; and second, loyalty is not based on ethnic or linguistic ties, as in other theories. Rather, the unity of social national life, in association and interaction with the land, is the force that creates the national community to which alone loyalty should be pledged. [57]


Saπadeh proclaimed this principle at a time when racial nationalism was on the rise in Europe. His treatises Kitab al-Taπalim (The Book of Teachings) and The Rise of Nations, which appeared in 1935 and 1938 respectively, dismissed the concept of racial purity, both Semitic and Aryan, as absurd. Paradoxically, it was about the same time that Constantine Zuryaq,41 the academic and liberal Arab nationalist, enthused by West European and American ideals, published his National Consciousness, in which Hitlerian Germany is portrayed as an exemplar model to follow. Saπadeh stands out not only because he regarded the nation as a melting pot, as Western political thought generally did, but also because he linked the “pot” to the idea of interaction in its dual functions. The practical ramifications of this scientific outlook are great, particularly for Syria. The greatest misfortune that can happen to a nation is social division. Neither the Kurdish issue in Iraq nor the sectarian issue in Lebanon and the Arab Republic of Syria can be solved except on the basis of unity of society and unity of land. Initially, Arab nationalism dealt with the Kurdish issue as though it did not exist. It suppressed the Kurds and tried to impose itself by force.42 When this failed, it turned to a solution it considered revolutionary, progressive and democratic, based on the experience of the Soviet Union. Instead of force, it now gave tacit recognition to a Kurdish nationality alongside an Arab nationality. There are thus two nationalities in one part of the nation; imagine how many nationalities there are in the whole nation! In Lebanon, the sectarian problem is worse because it continues to be treated on the basis of accords such as the National Covenant rather than on the basis of social and territorial unity.43 These compromising solutions, damaging as they are to the national interest, reflect the sectarian context within which both Arab nationalism and Lebanese nationalism operate. In contrast, Syrian social nationalism is represented in all groups. It has distinctly secular terms of reference that bypass sectarian, religious or racial loyalty. Saπadeh succeeded where others had failed because his solution to the social problems of Syria is based on the two poles: one life, one land. He showed how Lebanese particularism harmed Lebanon’s core interests by attempting to drag it out of the socio-economic cycle of the nation: he cited emigration, brain-drain, unemployment and political immobility as symptoms of this particularism.44 Of course, he was vindicated by the recent civil war, which showed how Lebanon could easily self-destruct when it goes down the path of particularism. In the same vein, Saπadeh [58]

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demonstrated how the break-up of the socio-economic cycle in the rest of Syria – Jordan, Iraq, Palestine and present-day Syria – created a pattern of relationships that were more conflicting than cooperative. He was particularly poignant about Palestine – and rightly so. The physical rupture of the socio-economic cycle in natural Syria, beginning with the Sykes–Picot Agreement (with British interests represented by MP Sir Mark Sykes and French interests represented by the former Consul General for France in Beirut, François Georges-Picot), had facilitated the takeover of Palestine and provided a base for the Zionists to occupy more of Syria and its resources. Keeping the cycle of socio-economic life in Syria dysfunctional and divided into ethnic and sectarian entities is an integral part of this plan. There is no room for particularism or ethnic irredentism in the cycle of socio-economic life. As a unifying force, it does not tolerate mythical and illusory doctrines like Zionism that promote isolation – as opposed to interaction – inside the nation. For Saπadeh, the question of whether one is Aryan or Semitic, Phoenician or Arab, Kurd or Assyrian, and so on, is not important because it can never be accurately ascertained.45 Rather, what matters is the knowledge that a nation’s origin is in the unity of its life and the cycle of its socio-economic development.46 Outside The Rise of Nations, this conception is stated in the fifth Basic Fundamental of Saπadeh’s national programme: The principle “One Nation-One Society” is the basis of genuine national unity, the mark of national consciousness, and the guarantee of the life and endurance of the Syrian character. The unity of society is the basis of the community of interests and consequently the basis of the community of life. The absence of social unity entails the absence of common interests, and no resort to temporary expediency can make up for this loss. Through social unity, the conflict of loyalties and negative attitudes will disappear to be replaced by a single healthy national loyalty ensuring the revival of the nation. Similarly, all religious bigotry and their nefarious consequences will cease and in their stead national collaboration and toleration will prevail.47

For Saπadeh, national unity is inconceivable until the causes of dissent, including the legal and social hurdles, are dispensed with.48 Hence the inclusion of specific reforms in his national revival programme, as follows: [59]


1 2 3 4

5

Separation of religion and state. Debarring the clergy from interference in political and judicial matters. Removal of the barriers between the various sects and confessions. The abolition of feudalism, the organization of national economy on the basis of production and the protection of the rights of labour and the interests of the nation and the state. Formation of strong armed forces which will be effective in determining the destiny of the country and the nation.

Each principle is tailored to the cycle of socio-economic life in Syria: Principle one = political integration Principle two = social equality Principle three = social toleration Principle four = economic integration Principle five = military uniformity Sectarianism, tribalism and racism belong to the age of decline, the decaying swamp in which human communities froze in distorted loyalties. Kick-starting the socio-economic cycle would create a unity of spiritual and material life, and accelerate the process of integration. It would rid the nation of parochial loyalties and protect its interests from foreign intruders who want a place in the nation but do not want to be part of its socio-economic cycle. “One Nation-One Society” is an egalitarian principle because it treats every member of the nation equally.49 A democratic state, or any state for that matter, has no right under this principle to treat the local inhabitants of the country who have been assimilated in the nation’s socio-economic cycle throughout history, like those who force their way into the country with colonial designs.

The theory of civilizational contact between societies Under the concept of “sociography”, in which we discussed the extent to which a community is capable of using the possibilities of its environment to its advantage, we looked at some of the factors that facilitate or hinder interaction between man and environment. Technological development alone is not adequate, even if it is imported. Development in ways and [60]

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means must ultimately lead to a change in objectives. Its role is to help society overcome its cultural and psychological backwardness and to spawn revolutions that shake the spirit and change the foundations of society. Technology will then become a force for the mobilization of potentials, rather than an alien instrument that cannot be reconciled with local laws and attitudes. The Industrial Revolution, for example, was the product of scientific and social upheavals which laid the groundwork for it.50 Even then, Western societies continued to witness a great contrast between the capitalist few, who controlled the enormous wealth generated by the industrial machine, and the productive mass that created it. We also discussed briefly how socio-economic cycles can transcend the limits of the environment to link up with each other. Here again we must emphasize that, in Saπadeh’s view, this interaction does not take place on a material or psychological level, but on the two levels combined. “Psychological force, however perfect it might be, is ever in need of material force; the material force is in fact evidence of a sublime psychological force.”51 The term used by Saπadeh to describe this situation is al-takamil al-madrahi, which denotes continuity between the psychological and material forces in the cycle of socio-economic life whether at the individual national level or at the wider regional level.52 Once the national cycle develops to a certain stage it will begin to interact with other cycles around it. Out of this interaction a civilization will emerge (the Mediterranean civilization, for example, was the product of several interacting socio-economic cycles, including Syria, Greece, the Roman Empire, Egypt and other countries on the same water basin).53 Alternatively, interaction between various cycles may lead to regional unions or pacts. A good example is the European Union. Another is the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). A union along the lines of Europe might occur in the Arab world one day, but not before some major hurdles have been overcome. The potential for cooperation between different cycles depends on three important conditions: 1 2

greater human control over the environment, including its negative as well as positive aspects an ability to transcend natural obstacles by technological means that is a material translation of society’s development, and [61]


3

the realization that unions are subject to national conditions and to the interplay of material and psychological factors that cannot be ignored or dismissed.

The aim of regional cooperation is not merely to link up environments and societies. Rather, it is to fuse them into a unity of life and a unity of civilization that is durable and effective. This kind of cooperation cannot happen in a tribal, sectarian or ethnic society, because backward societies that cannot interact with their own natural environments cannot interact with other societies. It is more likely to happen in societies whose socio-economic cycles are highly developed and, consequently, have begun to look beyond the limitations of their natural environments. Previously, we showed how the absence of feudal traditions and conventional Church power accelerated the socio-economic cycle in America and enabled the United States to become a melting pot for various smaller cycles. The example of Europe is more pertinent because it is closer to the situation in the Arab world. In fact, Europe and the Arab world are similar in several important ways: both are deep-rooted societies with a long history; both have been through adversity and prosperity; both have experienced division and wars; and both cherish the idea of union. But the Europeans have been more successful in this regard because they are socially, materially, technologically and industrially more advanced than the Arabs. Another example is the former Soviet Union, which was a union of peoples and nations of diverse background. This union relatively succeeded because it was based on a policy of integral growth through industrialization and technological development to pull the outer regions to the centre.54 Thus, unlike Franco’s Spain,55 the Soviet Union did not neglect the republics or starve their economies. It tried to win their favour by proliferating economic activity and by allowing them to keep their individual languages and cultures.56 The Union collapsed about 70 years later because the nationality question strained its energy and resources. Unlike the United States, which was the product of a European migration, the Soviet Union consisted of several different national groups, some of which were brought into the Union against their will. Moreover, during the Soviet era, some minorities were whimsically turned into nationalities – a policy which threw the whole national concept into disarray, particularly in the Arab and third worlds. The result was that minority groups, citing the Soviet example, began to [62]

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call for greater autonomy without realizing that the Soviet Union consisted of different nations and nationalities, whereas the problem in the Arab world was (and still is) that of ethnic or sectarian minorities which belong to the same nation. It is dangerous to adopt foreign systems indiscriminately, regardless of whether they are applicable to the situation at hand.57

The socio-economic cycle and Marxian economics The correlation between nation forming and the bourgeoisie implicit in the vertical concept of economy is based on two main premises: first, that the nation came into existence through the power of the bourgeoisie; and second, that national economic integration, as a by-product of the Industrial Revolution, occurred because the bourgeoisie had outright control over the means of production, particularly in Europe. Thus, for a while, Marxism mistakenly believed that nationalism would end with the demise of the bourgeoisie. Moreover, according to this view, the consolidation of nationalities into integral nations was brought about by struggle at different levels of the bourgeoisie. From this analysis flowed the much-touted Leninist-Marxist precept: “A nation is not merely a historical category but a historical category belonging to the epoch of rising capitalism.”58 In our opinion, Marxist thought erred when it linked nationalism to the interest of the bourgeois class. This attitude was the result of a Eurocentric approach: the Industrial Revolution, which pulled the socioeconomic cycles in European nations to the centre and pushed national interaction in every society towards a state of integration and unity, was totally unlike any pre-industrial revolutionary force: it effectively ended the era of estates and petty manors. At the outset, the Industrial Revolution was accompanied by bourgeois progress, but the two phenomena are not identical; development in the means of production is not the same as change in the relations of production – a point that has remained confused in Marxist thought.59 When socialist and communist revolutions broke out in the world during the twentieth century, particularly in Asia and Africa, the unexpected took place. These revolutions set out to industrialize their societies and to bring them out from their backward and feudal existence. This had the dual effect of pulling the nation back together and re-invigorating its [63]


socio-economic cycle. The result was unprecedented national steadfastness, and the creation of multiple national axes under socialism and the red banners of communism. Moreover, unlike the situation in 1848, when the Communist Manifesto60 first appeared and the working class was said to have no homeland, the nation became the homeland and the workers, holding tight to the nation, became the agency of national integration, economically as well as socially. The Industrial Revolution, which took place in this context, produced the highest degree of economic integration and socio-economic activity. It proved that the distinction between the economic system and the socio-economic cycle in Marxist thought was ill-founded. As an objective and constant truth, the socio-economic cycle includes the whole of society. It is not subservient to changes in the means of production or class struggle. Industrial progress, whether under a bourgeois regime or a socialist system, has the same effect: it stimulates the socio-economic cycle and, consequently, the importance and relevance of the national question. The events of the 100 hundred years, particularly in socialist countries, testify to this. At any rate, communist revolutions did not achieve any of the material conditions for socialism until after military and political victory. In the Asian countries where communism came to power, it was industrialization that gave rise to the proletariat, not the other way around. In this instance, economics was clearly a consequence of politics. This association between the economic and the political was sighted by Saπadeh as early as 1939.61

The socio-economic cycle and Leninist-Marxism An oft-cited Leninist-Marxist perspective on nationalism is Joseph Stalin’s study Marxism and the National Question.62 In this study, Stalin defined the nation as “primarily a community, a definite community of people”.63 Like Saπadeh, he goes on to describe the nation as a racial mix: This community is not racial, nor is it tribal. The modern Italian nation was formed from Romans, Teutons, Etruscans, Greeks, Arabs, and so forth. The French nation was formed from Gauls, Romans, Britons, Teutons, and so on. The same must be said of the British, the Germans and others, who were formed into nations from people of diverse races and tribes.64

[64]

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Moreover, like Saπadeh, Stalin carefully distinguished between nations and empires: “A nation is not a racial or tribal, but a historically constituted community of people … great empires … [cannot] be called nations, although they came to be constituted historically and were formed out of different tribes and races.”65 For Stalin, the main characteristics of a nation are: a common language, a common territory, a common economic life (economic cohesion) and a common psychological make-up. None of these characteristics taken separately is sufficient to define a nation. Indeed, for Stalin, “it is sufficient for a single one of these characteristics to be lacking and the nation ceases to be a nation”.66 This is basically a cumulative conception of nationalism because it depends on socio-cultural factors. However, Stalin apparently felt the weakness of his position. He corrects himself in the middle of his analysis stating that a nation is the product of a long interaction process: “A nation is formed only as a result of lengthy and systematic intercourse, as a result of people living together generation after generation. But people cannot live together for lengthy periods unless they have a common territory.”67 This admission brings the Leninist-Marxist thought closer to the concept of the socio-economic cycle, but does not quite reach it. The reference to “lengthy and systematic intercourse” on “a common territory” is similar in principle to Saπadeh’s interaction theory, but was under-emphasized by Stalin in order to stay within the Marxian context. Indeed, the nation, as perceived by Stalin in Marxism and the National Question is closer to Marx’s first concept which regards the family, churches, religion, education and the state as part of that superstructure which represents institutions of non-economic activity.68 However, in another study entitled Marxism and Problems of Linguistics, Stalin seemed to have had a mind change: The base is the economic structure of society at the given stage of its development. The superstructure is the political, legal, religious, artistic, philosophical views of society and the political, legal and other institutions corresponding to them … In this respect language radically differs from the superstructure. Take, for example, Russian society and the Russian language. In the course of the past 30 years the old, capitalist base has been eliminated in Russia and a new, socialist base has been built. Correspondingly, the superstructure on the capitalist base has been eliminated and a new superstructure created corresponding to the socialist base. The old political, legal [65]


and other institutions, consequently, have been supplanted by new, socialist institutions. But in spite of this the Russian language has remained basically what it was before the October Revolution.69

He goes on to say: Language has been created precisely in order to serve society as a whole, as a means of intercourse between people, in order to be common to the members of society and constitute the single language of society, serving members of society equally, irrespective of their class status. A language has only to depart from this position of being a language common to the whole people, it has only to give preference and support to one social group to the detriment of other social groups of the society, and it loses its virtue, ceases to be a means of intercourse between the people of the society, and becomes the jargon of some social group, degenerates and is doomed to disappear.70

In this respect, Stalin added: [W]hile it differs in principle from the superstructure, language does not differ from instruments of production, from machines, let us say, which are as indifferent to classes as is language and may, like it, equally serve a capitalist system and a socialist system.”71

Stalin wanted to prove that language is an important instrument of human intercourse, but at the same time he inadvertently proved something he did not mean to prove – namely, the importance of land. In every respect, land is more effective than language as an instrument of communication between people, particularly at the economic and material level. It is a common denominator for all members of society and for society itself, and, to use Stalin’s own words, “equally serves a capitalist system and a socialist system”.72 We can just as easily say the nation (rather than language) “has been created precisely in order to serve society as a whole, as a means of intercourse between people, in order to be common to the members of society … equally, irrespective of their class status”. The nation, indifferent to classes as is language, is the socio-economic cycle that should not be confused with relations of production or the base and superstructure of society. [66]

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Stalin had removed language from the realm of class struggle because it is cross-sectional. It cuts through all classes. But so does the nation, the land and, consequently, the national life cycle of society. Milovan Djilas73 once asked Stalin what the difference is between “people” and “nation”. Stalin’s answer was: You already know what a nation is, a nation is the product of capitalism with given characteristics, all classes belong to it, whereas a people – a people consists of the working persons of a given nation, working persons with the same language, culture and customs.74

Djilas wrote The New Class and other powerful critiques of communism that became dissident classics.75 A sensation at the time, and now a classic, The New Class remains an abiding criticism of communism. Its argument is straightforward, and Djilas’s status as Tito’s right-hand man made it all the more powerfully convincing: communism was not the just and egalitarian social system it claimed to be, but a grabbing of spoils and privileges by a small number of unscrupulous people. Those in control of the party and the state enjoyed and displayed powers and dynastic ambitions even more arrogantly absolute than the monarchs and aristocrats they had dispossessed. In Djilas’s view, the communist ideal in its Leninist–Marxist aspect was destroyed by the capitulation of communism to nationalism and the rise of what he called national communism.76 The problem with this analysis is that it depends on theory rather than society. What is true is the opposite: communism would not have survived for that long had it not adjusted itself to the national level. This was the case with religion and religious sects, which had either to acclimatize to the nation or face extinction. In short, it is important to distinguish between the socio-economic cycle, which is just another term for national economy, and relations of production. However, there is not a complete separation between the two concepts and one should not make the mistake of abridging the importance of one for the benefit of the other.

The intimate bond between development and the economic system In Saπadeh’s view, there is an intimate bond between society’s development, as a result of its interaction with the environment, and the development [67]


of its economic system. He traced the links between discoveries which release great human energy – such as the machine and Industrial Revolution – and the social system and its development; he also linked national production and the economic system. These are important features of Saπadeh’s thought. In The Rise of Nations, Saπadeh wrote: “It is clear from this analysis that if the economic tie is the basis of the human social tie, work and its collaborative system are the source of the social system as well as the basis of society’s development.”77 He added: “Poets and idealists regarded the machine as a misfortune that separated man from the land and the beauty of a fictional life. But I regard it as a factor in the liberation of mental force from the pressure of individual profit-oriented work and in the refinement of social interaction.”78 For Saπadeh, the machine placed social life on a new basis: “it not only rendered the family’s simple hand-made tasks and individual handicraft useless, but it also founded big factories employing hundreds and thousands of workers. As industrial cities and districts developed, a class of workers, known as the proletariat in modern terminology, gradually started to form, becoming in the last decades a tremendous political force.”79 The machine, representing the Industrial Revolution, cannot be restricted to any particular economic system, whether capitalist or communist. Nor can the machine be restricted to any class. As Stalin said: “[M]achines do not care about classes.”80 As an instrument of interaction between the nation and the national environment, the machine is an important source of energy for the socio-economic cycle and a productive power in its own right. The new economic system envisaged by Saπadeh derived from the basic principle in his interaction theory – the one with which we started this chapter – the ability of the nation to benefit from the economic possibilities of the environment. In regard to Syria, he wrote: “The unity of agricultural land is the basis of Syrian cultural unity, and the unity of Syrian production in all its kinds is the basis of the national economy in Syria. Devising a new system for this production and its utilities is the building block upon which the Syrian Social Nationalist renaissance was founded.”81 Just as Saπadeh does not confine the socio-economic cycle to the relations of production, or the national question to class struggle, he does not distinguish between national unity and the economic system. [68]

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For him there is an organic relationship between the two concepts which cannot be separated. Therefore, unlike the Marxists, Saπadeh did not discard the issue of the relations of production, but re-established it on the national base and the socio-economic cycle. His theory provides a bridge between production and the relations of production, just as it provides a bridge between material factors and psychological factors.

Conclusion Saπadeh’s conception of the nation is based entirely on the idea of interaction. To him, the nation is not the same as socio-cultural characteristics, but a union in life based on a single and indivisible socio-economic cycle. It is the product of an interaction that spans different historical stages. This interaction is double-faceted: one facet is interaction between people and land, and the other is between the people on the land. The main features of this theory may be summed up as follows. •

•

•

•

It is a dynamic theory of nationalism for the whole society based on union in life and the socio-economic cycle. As such, it is a theory of unity in the face of division – a theory that rejects unity outside the interaction process and views the factors in nation formation strictly in the context of this interaction and as a product of it. It is not deterministic. Land and people are two important ingredients of the nation but are not the nation themselves. Without them a nation cannot come into existence, but their presence may not always create a nation. What is important here is the interaction process between the two factors and the cycle of socio-economic life that emerges from this interaction. It is a civilizing theory because it recognizes the necessity and inevitability of interaction between nations. This interaction is the basis on which civilizations and regional unions are formed. However, the experience of Europe, North America and, until recent years, the Soviet Union, shows that any union, whether civilizational, regional or cultural, cannot be achieved outside the social reality and its material-spiritual conditions. The interaction process has two poles: the first, economic possibilities of the environment; and the second, society’s ability to benefit from such possibilities. This means that in the study of nations a [69]


•

•

•

complete sociological anatomy of society is necessary. It must include both material and psychological factors as part of the same cycle. Interaction takes place on two levels: horizontally, which determines the extent and character of regional interaction; and, vertically, between man and land, out of which a horizontal interaction may or may not occur. There is no room in vertical interaction for sectarian and/or ethnic separatist tendencies because the nation becomes a melting pot for all these tendencies. It is here that the practical and progressive feasibility of the socio-economic cycle comes to the fore. Unlike Marxism, which reduced the economic question to one of class and considered the national question synonymous with the bourgeoisie, the concept of the socio-economic cycle is basically a societal concept. It recognizes the correlation between the socioeconomic system and nationalism, but the first is neither an alternative nor a contrast to the second. The mind is a primary factor in human progress. It is a liberating force and a complex entity that should not be viewed from just one angle. For Saπadeh, the mind represents the liberation of human energy and its incorporation into the process of socio-economic interaction. This liberation opened the way for major discoveries and inventions, boosted human and scientific potential, and improved work techniques, thereby enabling man to overcome the obstacles of his environment and to extend his control over its resources. For Saπadeh, moreover, the ascendancy of the mind signified human liberation from the forces of reaction and the triumph of reason over ignorance.

The socio-economic cycle is also a theory in change and revolution. It has two dimensions: first, the destruction of outworn traditions and myths; and second, the liberation of man from socio-economic injustice. As early as 1937, Saπadeh observed: The nation whose traditions and customs fossilize is itself in a state of fossilization. This is the case in China, for example. The rigidity of its tradition has deprived China of progress and alienated it apart from other world civilizations. Traditions in this case become chains and cuffs; the nation cannot be free without destroying them. Every cultural development in a nation begets new traditions. And the [70]

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condition of a nation’s distinguishing traditions is that they should be derived from the nation’s life itself.82

The confrontation between revolution and lifeless traditions is part of every revolutionary doctrine, but it becomes more acute when tradition is completely deadening and when the revolution has a material dimension devoid of spiritual integration. Unlike other concepts of revolution – Marxism in particular – the socio-economic cycle regards spirit and matter as overlapping factors in the process of change. This explains why Saπadeh did not adopt the models of revolutionary change used in other countries. He argued that change had to be based on the particular situation of each country. This means that, as far as the situation in Syria is concerned, the revolution would have to be based on its civilization and national heritage in order to create harmony between its historical psyche and the demands of a contemporary revolution. As perceived, revolution is a bridge between the past and the future. It is about building a national society in Syria without uprooting its civil and national roots or denying its heritage: “ The Syrian Social Nationalist movement derives its inspiration from the talents of the Syrian nation and its cultural political national history.”83 About Syria, Saπadeh wrote: Given Syria’s major achievements, its history, literature and discoveries, it is clear that it is not Eastern in the psychological sense. It has not an Eastern psyche because the Eastern psyche is not forward-looking in life. It is not interested in the universe for the purpose of understanding its features or extending the supremacy of the human mind over it. Rather, it is a psyche completely interested in hidden psychological issues. It is a mystical psyche inclined to the unknown, to spiritual explanations of existence and the purpose of existence, and therefore ends up in the unknown, in the spiritual belief of the “unknown” and finally in what is called “nirvana” in Indian mysticism. We are not nirvana-oriented. The invention of the alphabet indicates that we have a practical side that is well-rooted in life.84

Saπadeh added: “We are not like those who direct their attention towards the metaphysical and what is beyond existence. We are like those who aim through the nature of their existence to achieve a beautiful and sublime existence in this life and to have this life continue as beautiful and sublime.”85 [71]


Here, the heritage of the mind is the essential law in society. It must not be decimated by the force of tradition or immobilized by rigid and inherited canons. From Saπadeh’s perspective, the process of change, including the destruction of traditional society, is a monumental act of national revival connected to the national heritage by a strong thread. This thread, stretching way back to a distant and great past, is the inspiration that Syria will need in its national endeavour: [N]o Syrian revival can be effected save through the agency of the inborn and independent Syrian character. Indeed, one of the major factors in the absence of Syrian national consciousness or its weakness is the overlooking of the genuine character of the Syrian nation as manifested in the intellectual and practical contributions of its people and their cultural achievements.86

NOTES 1 Fichte encouraged the development of German nationalism in opposition to Napoleonic threats in Der geschlossene Handelsstaat (The Closed Commercial State) (1800) and Reden an die deutsche Nation (Speeches to the German Nation) (1808). 2 See Hagen Schulze, The Course of German Nationalism: From Frederick the Great to Bismarck 1763–1867, translated by Sarah Hanbury-Tenison, Cambridge University Press, 1991. 3 Nietzsche’s fundamental contention was that traditional values (represented primarily by Christianity) had lost their power in the lives of individuals. He expressed this in his proclamation “God is dead”. Since God is dead, Neitzsche saw the necessity for the emergence of the Übermensch, the Superman, who is to replace God. He maintained that all human behaviour is motivated by the will to power. In its positive sense, the will to power is not simply power over others, but the power over oneself that is necessary for creativity. Supermen are those who have overcome man – i.e. the individual self – and subliminated the will to power into a momentous creativity. See Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power, translated and edited by W. Kaufmann and R.J. Hollingdale, New York: Vintage, 1967. 4 Richard Wagner (1813–1883), who regarded himself as “the most German of men”, “the German spirit”, is not only known because of his 13 operas and numerous other compositions but also because of his inevitable influence on our understanding of German culture and history. He has been classified as an anarchist and a socialist and, simultaneously, as a proto-fascist and nationalist. In fact, his name has appeared in connection with almost all major trends in German history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. See Derek Watson, Richard Wagner: A Biography, London: J.M. Dent, 1979. [72]

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5 See Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Enquiry, translated and edited by Marion Farouk-Sluglett and Peter Sluglett, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1990. 6 See Sylvia Haim (ed.), Arab Nationalism: An Anthology, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. 7 See Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry, London: Macmillan, 1990. 8 See Hasan Kayali, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908–1918, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. 9 See J. Zdanowski, “Arabs, Turks and the British: The Persian Gulf in the years 1895–1918”, Hemispheres, 1998, no. 13, pp. 119–124. 10 Antun Saπadeh, Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1978, chapters 2 and 3. 11 Ibid., p. 157. 12 Saπadeh discusses the primary factors of cultural nationalism, including language and race, in The Rise of Nations and then links his analysis to Morrison MacIver’s notion of “community”. On the latter see MacIver, Community, London: Macmillan, 1921. See also Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Saπadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995, pp. 72–77. 13 Yamak’s contention that Saπadeh defined the nation in terms of “blood and soil” is a total misrepresentation of the facts. In Labib Z. Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969, p. 80. 14 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1978, p. 167. 15 The keystone to social nationalism is society; its essence, its purposes, and its needs. “Our ideology,” wrote Saπadeh, “believes in a basic and total human reality which is the social reality par excellence: the group, society, community; and society is perfect human existence and total human reality” (Complete Works, Beirut 1985, vol. 14, p. 185). 16 These themes are explored at length in Inπam Raad, “A Comparison between Saπadeh’s Social Nationalism and European Doctrines”, Beirut, Fikr, March 1976; and Al-Muntalaqat al-Fikriyyah wa al-Istratijiyyah al-Thawriyyah (The Foundations of Intellectual and Revolutionary Strategy), Beirut, SSNP Publications, 1976. 17 On Saπadeh’s notion of the most complete society, see the last chapter in The Rise of Nations. 18 See Edward Hallett Carr, Socialism in One Country, 1924–1926, New York: Macmillan, 1958–1964. 19 See chapter 5, “Marxist Theory of Revolution”, in A.S. Cohan, Theories of Revolution: An Introduction, London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd, 1975. 20 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1977, p. 172. 21 Ibid., p. 36. 22 Ibid., p. 40. 23 Saπadeh regarded freedom as one of the most important of all human values and incorporated it into the emblem (zowbaπa, or Tempest) of his party. See Abboud Abboud, The SSNP, Sydney: n.p., 1980. 24 On geographical determinism see Stephen Frenkel, “Old Theories in New Places? Environmental Determinism and Bioregionalism”, Professional Geographer, 1994, 46(3): 289–295; Frenkel, “Geography, Empire, and Environmental Determinism”, Geographical Review, 1992, 82: pp. 143–153; Ellsworth Huntington, Civilization [73]


25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34

and Climate, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1924; Richard Peet, “The Social Origins of Environmental Determinism”, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 1985, 73(3): pp. 309–333. The Rise of Nations, 1978, p. 75. Op. cit., p. 85. Op. cit., p. 84. This must not be understood as a supporting argument for Western domination of the Arabian Peninsula or similar territories; it is merely an illustrative point. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, translated by Talcott Parsons; introduced by Anthony Giddens, London: Allen & Unwin, 1976. See Arthur Morris, South America: A Changing Continent, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995; and E.W. Shanahan, South America: An Economic and Regional Geography, London: Methuen, 1927. Born on 24 July 1783, in Caracas, Venezuela, Simon Bolivar was one of South America’s greatest generals. His victories over the Spaniards won independence for Bolivia, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. He is called El Liberator (The Liberator) and the “George Washington of South America”. His parents died when he was a child and he inherited a fortune. As a young man, he travelled in Europe. As he returned to Venezuela, Bolivar joined the group of patriots that seized Caracas in 1810 and proclaimed independence from Spain. He went to Britain in search of aid, but could get only a promise of British neutrality. When he returned to Venezuela, and took command of a patriot army, he recaptured Caracas in 1813 from the Spaniards. The Spaniards forced Bolivar to retreat from Venezuela to New Granada (now Colombia), also at war with Spain. He took command of a Colombian force and captured Bogota in 1814. The patriots, however, lacked men and supplies, and new defeats led Bolivar to flee to Jamaica. In Haiti he gathered a force that landed in Venezuela in 1816, and took Angostura (now Ciudad Bolivar). He also became dictator there. Bolivar marched into New Granada in 1819. He defeated the Spaniards in Boyar in 1819, liberating the territory of Colombia. He then returned to Angostura and led the congress that organized the original republic of Colombia (now Ecuador, Colombia, Panama and Venezuela). Bolivar became its first president on 17 December 1819. He crushed the Spanish army at Carabobo in Venezuela on 24 June 1821. Next, he marched into Ecuador and added that territory to the new Colombian republic. After a meeting in 1822 with another great liberator, Bolivar became dictator of Peru. His army won a victory over the Spaniards at Auacucho in 1824, which needed Spanish power in South America. Upper Peru became a separate state, named Bolivia in Bolivar’s honour, in 1825. The constitution, which he drew up for Bolivia, is one of his most important political pronouncements. On the Canadian predicament see Daniel Latouche, Canada and Quebec, Past and Future: An Essay, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1978, p. 58. Catalan separatism reemerged in the nineteenth century in the support given to Carlism. The resurgence really began in the 1850s, however, when serious efforts were made to revive Catalan as a living language with its own press and theatre. Catalan nationalism became a serious force after 1876 when the defeat of the Carlists led the Church to transfer its support to the movement for autonomy. By [74]

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35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42 43 44 45

46

1913 Catalonia had won a slight degree of home rule, but the legislation conferring it was repealed in 1925 by Primo de Rivera, who attacked all manifestations of Catalan separatism. Rivera’s policy led to the formation of a left-wing coalition party in Catalonia, the Esquerra Republicana. The Esquerra won a sweeping victory in the municipal elections of 1931, and two days later its leader proclaimed a Catalan Republic. A compromise was worked out with the central government, and in September 1932 the statute of autonomy for Catalonia became law. Catalonia played a prominent role in the history of Republican Spain and in the Civil War (1936–1939). However, the Nationalists’ victory in 1939 meant the loss of autonomy, and General Franco’s government adopted a repressive policy toward Catalan nationalism. The establishment of democratic rule in Spain after Franco’s death did not lessen Catalonia’s desire for autonomy, and in September 1977 limited autonomy was granted to the region. Full autonomy was granted in 1979 with the establishment of the autonomous community of Catalonia. The government established in 1979 consists of a Generalitat (an executive council headed by a president) and a unicameral parliament. See Michael M. Gunter, The Kurds of Iraq: Tragedy and Hope, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1992. Ian Talbot, India and Pakistan, London: Arnold, 2000. See Deryck O. Lodrick, Sacred Cows, Sacred Places: Origins and Survivals of Animal Homes in India, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981. Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956, p. 76. Ibid. Ibid. Aziz al-Azmeh, Constantine Zuryak: An Arab for the Twentieth Century, Beirut: Institute for Palestine Studies, 2003. Born in Damascus on 18 April 1909, Zurayk was also an “activist intellectual”. He founded a cultural club, Al-Urwa al-Wuthqa, at AUB to promote a common secular and liberal Arab identity. Its members included numerous students who subsequently became active in the Arab National Movement and its offshoots. The Arab–Israeli conflict helped to turn the club into a political forum. See Edmund Ghareeb, The Kurdish Question in Iraq, Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1981. Farid El-Khazen, The Communal Pact of National Identities: The Making and Politics of the 1943 National Pact, Oxford: Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1991. Antun Saπadeh, Al-Inπizaliyyah Aflasat (1947–1949) (Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1976. Saπadeh wrote: “For those Syrians who believe or feel that they are of Aramaic extraction would no longer be actuated to fan Aramaic blood loyalty, so long as the principle of Social Nationalist unity and the equality of civic, political, and social rights and duties are guaranteed, and no ethnic or racial discrimination in Syria is made. Similarly, those Syrians who claim to descend from a Phoenician (Canaanite), Arab, or Crusader stock, would no longer have allegiance but to their Syrian community.” See the fourth Fundamental Principle in The Ten Lectures. Inπam Raad, Antun Saπadeh wa al-Inezaliyoun (Saπadeh and [Lebanese Isolationists]), Beirut: Fikr Publications, 1980; also, Salim Mujaπis, Antun Saπadeh wa al-πIklirius al-Maruni (Saπadeh and the Maronite Clergy), USA: n.p., 1993. [75]


47 The Ten Lectures, 1956, p. 89. 48 The sixth Fundamental Principle establishes the legal and legislative homogeneity of the society as a basis for a sound nationalist state. While Saπadeh recognizes that in Syria today there are many religious and ethnic distinctions distributed over much of the Syrian homeland, these distinctions should not be brought into the realm of the legislation of the Syrian state. Furthermore, national loyalty should surpass and supersede religious and ethnic loyalties and affiliations. Generalized and absolute equality of rights is a basic principle of Social Nationalism. 49 This is explicit in the sixth Fundamental Principle: “Real independence and real sovereignty will not be fulfilled and will not endure unless they rest upon this genuine social unity which is the only sound basis for a national state and Social Nationalist civil legislation. This unity forms the basis for citizenship and the guarantee of the equality of rights for all citizens” (The Ten Lectures), p. 69. 50 Pat Hudson, The Industrial Revolution, London: Routledge, Chapman and Hall, 1992; R.M. Hartwell (ed.), The Industrial Revolution, Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1970; and Nigel Smith, The Industrial Revolution, London: Evans, 2002. 51 The Ten Lectures, 1956, p. 155. 52 Inπam Raad, al-Madrahiyyah: Mafhoum Saπadeh lil-Tatawur al-Ijtimaπe wa Nushuπ al-Umam (Al-Madrahiyyah: Saπadeh’s Conception of Social Development and Nation Formation), Beirut: Muπassassat Inπam Raad al-Fikriyyah, 2002. 53 See Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1978. 54 See Hans Kohn, Nationalism in the Soviet Union, translated from the German by E.W. Dickes, London: Routledge, 1933. 55 See L.E. Snellgrove, Franco and the Spanish Civil War, London: Longmans, Green, 1965; and Filipe Ribeiro de Meneses, Franco and the Spanish Civil War, London: Routledge, 2001. 56 In my opinion, one of Lenin’s distinctive contributions lay in this plan which he crafted in order to solve the problem of numerous nationalities in one union. 57 Mao Tse-Tung’s ideas are pertinent in this respect. See Alain Bouc, Mao Tse-Tung: A Guide to his Thought, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1977. 58 See Bruce Franklin (ed.), The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings (1905–1952), London: Croom Helm, 1973, p. 65. 59 See Ephraim Nimni, Marxism and Nationalism: Theoretical Origins of a Political Crisis, London: Pluto Press, 1991. 60 See A.J.P. Taylor’s introduction to The Communist Manifesto, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1967. 61 See his article “Political Independence is the Key to Economic Independence”, in Souria al-Jadida (New Syria), 30 September 1939. 62 Reproduced in Bruce Franklin (ed.), The Essential Stalin: Major Theoretical Writings, London: Croom Helm, 1973. 63 Ibid., p. 57. 64 Ibid. 65 Ibid., pp. 57–58. 66 Ibid., p. 60. 67 Ibid. 68 Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg (eds), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988. 69 J.V. Stalin, Marxism and Problems of Linguistics, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1972, p. 4. [76]

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70 71 72 73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86

Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., pp. 10–11. Ibid. Milovan Djilas (1911–1995) was born in Montenegro and became a Yugoslav political leader and writer. A Communist Party member from 1932, he helped Tito to organize volunteers to fight in the Spanish civil war. He was active in the Yugoslav resistance in World War II and after the war rose to high posts in party and government. As a top political adviser to Marshal Tito (formerly Joseph Broz) and an outspoken critic of Russian attempts to bring Yugoslavia into the Soviet orbit, he was widely regarded as a possible successor to Tito. He was about to assume the presidency when, in 1954, he was abruptly dismissed from government service. His support of the Hungarian revolution (1956) brought him a prison term, extended in 1957 when his influential book criticizing the Communist oligarchy, The New Class, was published in the West. Released in 1961, he was jailed again in 1962–1966. He also wrote Land Without Justice (1958, reproduced 1972), Conversations with Stalin (translated 1962), The Unperfect Society (translated 1969), Tito (1980), Fall of the New Class (posthumous, 1998), and a novel, Under the Colors (translated 1971). Although Djilas welcomed the end of Communist rule in Yugoslavia, he was critical of both Croat and Serb nationalism. Vasilije Kalezic´, Fall of the New Class: A History of Communism’s Self-Destruction, ed. Vasilije Kalezic´; translated from Serbo-Croatian with an introduction by John Loud, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998, p. 75. Milovan Djilas, The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System, New York: F. Praeger, 1957. Milovan Djilas, Fall of the New Class: A History of Communism’s Self-Destruction, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1978, p. 74. Ibid. Ibid., p. 84. Stalin, Marxism and Problems of Linguistics. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, 1956, p. 92. Ibid., p. 152. Ibid. Ibid., p. 78. Ibid. Ibid.

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3 Saπadeh and Syrian Nationalism Robert D. Sethian

This study is an analysis of Saπadeh’s national conception of Syria. It attempts to relate his views to the trend of nationalism in Syria and the Arab East. Unless the two are closely correlated there can be no community of aspirations, which is the essential condition for the establishment of a revival from within, a revival which would release – and be a product of – the national genius. It examines the national programme of reforms proposed by Saπadeh in order to make that revival possible.1 This is then followed by an analysis of the relationship of Syria with its sister Arab states in order to bring to light the pattern of Near Eastern Arab nationalism and show whether Saπadeh fitted into that broader ideal.2 As the Syrian background is so intimately related to the whole of the Near East and as most Syrian nationalists uphold the ideals of Arab nationalism, the analysis of Saπadeh’s national principles will be made in the light of the development of Near Eastern nationalism in general. To make the analysis clearer both Saπadeh’s views and the trend of Near Eastern nationalism will be discussed along the commonly accepted bases – namely, the historical, racial, geographic, religious, linguistic, cultural, social and economic bases of nationalism. In each case, Saπadeh’s views and reasoning will be developed, confronted with historical facts and present conditions, and, finally, general conclusions drawn.

Historical background To Saπadeh, the history of the Syrian nation is the gradual shaping up of the community which inhabits Syria at the present time, regardless of its racial origin, its past allegiances or subjections.3 It is only because historical data have been classified according to nomenclature of empires, reigns and rulers, that we have lost sight of the true processes of history4 “which involved all the peoples who have settled in this land, inhabited [81]

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it, interacted on it each with the others, become intermixed and finally fused into a new racial compound”.5 At different times – and until the present – Syria has been politically manipulated to fit into different orders devised by the strong power of the day. Thus the political history of the nation resolves itself into a background of shifting allegiances. But, although these various regimes have left several characteristic watermarks in the heritage of the nation, they have not destroyed the natural social unity which constitutes the nation today. Saπadeh was, therefore, mainly interested in asserting the “concrete actuality” of the nation.6 He wanted to awaken its consciousness in its identity, rights and duties – as a nation and not as “an historical or racial entity”.7 This does not mean that Saπadeh disregarded the glorious past of Syria or that he repudiated its ties with its sister Arab states.8 He was proud of Syrian contributions to the progress of civilization, such as the invention of the alphabet, “the material-spiritual culture and the constructive order which was spread by the Syrians all around the Syrian Mediterranean Sea”.9 But he considered these contributions as manifestations of the genius of a succession of diverse communities which inhabited the land. It is the succession of these communities – rather than the empires which rose and fell – which constitutes the history of Syria.10 However, this view of history does not underestimate the importance of national sovereignty in shaping a people’s history. It is quite evident that during its period of absolute or relative sovereignty the people of Syria flourished, while since the loss of its independence its entire culture stopped at the level it had attained then.11 Naturally, Saπadeh drew the conclusion that the true history of the Syrian nation began when the new national faith of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) first brought together and united the youth of the country. Besides representing a realistic and practical approach, Saπadeh’s view of the history of Syria is substantiated by facts – although some of these should be weighted to fit a broader perspective. The Syrian background belongs to the age of peoples, city states, and empires. Its geographic position as a passageway attracted the empires which rose on its four sides, but the country kept no other vestiges from these successive rules than a further bracing of its ethnic mixture, some institutions of material culture and a considerable number of ruins. The only rule which left indelible marks on the country was the Arab Empire: it gave Syria its [82]

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modern language, the religion of its majority, and most of its culture and traditions.12 The change was partly imposed by the conquerors and partly adopted by the inhabitants over a long period, and Syrians became prominent contributors to the civilization as well as to the political life of that Empire.13 Ever since then, the life of Syria has been so intimately related to the fortunes of the Arab countries that its history can only be recounted as part of the history of the Arab East. But although the Arab Empire gave the population permanent cultural traits, it did not contribute to the building of a nation in the modern sense, because the concept of government in that age was based on religion and/or power. The main political alignments of the time moved within the orbit of religious distinctions: the Christian kingdoms and principalities united against the might of Islam; the latter fought the Christians in the West and the pagans in the East. In the case of the Arabs, the identification of the state with Islam made this concept of religious allegiance even stronger than in the West. As a result, as long as power remained in Muslim hands, a transfer of authority from one person or element or nation to another – even if accomplished by assassination, revolt or despotism – was accepted, as today we accept the government of the victorious party in a civil war. When the Abbasids wrested the Caliphate from the Umayyads and shifted the centre of gravity of Islam from Damascus to Baghdad, they started their campaign by “taking advantage of the widespread discontent and posing as defenders of the true faith”,14 although the real basis of the struggle was the revolt of the non-Arab and dissenting Muslims against the Syrian Arab rule of the Umayyads15 and although the real meaning of the Abbasid victory lay in the ending of the truly Arab period in the history of Islam and the rise of international Islam inspired by Iranianism.16 A similar process was repeated in practically all the political transformations of the Islamic Empire, such as the establishment of the Caliphates of Spain and Egypt, the Mameluk dynasty, the rise of the petty dynasties in the East, and the ascendancy of the Saljuq Turks in Baghdad – in which new elements (clannish, regional, national and racial) seized the power and, by posing as defenders of the faith, won or forced the allegiance of the faithful. The advent of the Ottoman Turks followed the same pattern, but this time with more far-reaching results. In the first place, with the addition of large numbers of non-Arabized peoples (the Ottoman Turks [83]


themselves and the peoples they conquered) the Islamic state became more thoroughly dissociated from its Arab origin and character. Heirs to both the Graeco-Roman Empire of the East and the Islamic state, the Ottoman Turks had neither the capacity to blend the two decaying civilizations, nor to revive one of them for their own use.17 They merely adopted the administrative bureaucracy of Byzantium and superimposed it on the Islamic state whose religion they had embraced earlier. In the second place, the Arabized elements of the Empire were relegated into the background; the general policy of the Sultan-Caliphs kept their eyes turned towards the rising West and made them neglect their Eastern possessions, which entered a period of stagnation. Finally, the corrupt administration of the Empire rapidly turned that stagnation into decay. The might of the Ottoman armies held the rapidly conquered territories together, but the various provinces were never welded into a homogeneous whole. Their administration was left to the discretion of governors who bought their offices at high prices and then felt free to exploit their subjects with a complete disregard of the economic and social welfare of the population.18 With the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, then, the Arab elements in Islam were driven into obscurity. They were incorporated into an Empire by conquest and on the basis of religious allegiance. But that Empire had none of the dynamic traits which could have ensured or even permitted a revival of the Arab culture that had decayed as a result of the disintegration of the moral forces of the Arabic-speaking peoples and the invasions of Jengiz Khan and Hulagu. The extent of this stagnation is best realized when we consider that up to the fifteenth century the Near East was far ahead of the West in culture, science, technique and material welfare, while in 1900 it was some five centuries behind. It would seem that this long torpor should have brought some reaction to that vast Empire. But its military successes and its external magnificence drew attention away from its internal decrepitude. Once its military might was spent (Treaty of Carlowitz, 1699, and of Kutchuk Kainardja, 1744) it was given a new lease of life by the jealousies of the Western powers, who preferred to maintain the dilapidated Ottoman Empire rather than see it (or some strategic portion of it) fall into the hands of powerful rivals.19 It is noteworthy that the two attempts of Arab elements to detach themselves from the Ottoman Empire came in the interim period [84]


between the end of Ottoman strength and the definite establishment of the surveillance of Western powers: first, the Wahhabi revolt which, from the middle of the eighteenth century to 1818, had wrested the Arabian Peninsula from Turkish hands; and second, the vision of the Albanian Pasha of Egypt, Muhammad Ali (Mehemet Ali), who, had it not been for the armed intervention of Russia, Austria and especially England, would probably have re-established an Arab Empire.20 The European policy of maintaining the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire and yet keeping it weak and disunited had far-reaching effects on Near Eastern Arab Nationalism both in delaying it and in sowing the seeds of its revival in the twentieth century. It prevented the regeneration of the Empire (or of parts of it) by upholding its degenerate structure artificially and by exploiting its weakness for the benefit of the powers. The “protection” that was given to the Sultan called for compensation in the form of an extension of former prerogatives and the granting of new privileges: the Capitulations and other extra-territorial rights were strengthened and extended until they made the status of practically all foreigners highly profitable and a special honour;21 economic prerogatives (especially unilateral customs duties) and monopolistic concessions opened up the Ottoman Empire to the products of the Industrial Revolution at the expense of native industries;22 liberal loans for palace-building and other non-productive spending finally brought the full control of the finances of the Empire into the hands of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration (a committee representing foreign bondholders);23 special rights of foreign powers to protect “congenial” minorities drew various elements of the population towards one power or the other and emphasized sectarian differences and strife. While the Ottoman Empire was thus serving as a balance to European power politics and its economic life was being exploited by a corrupt local administration as well as by foreign imperialism, its population sank lower into lethargy. The necessity of adjusting one’s self to the precarious conditions created by the arbitrariness of the government left no place for the development of civic or national consciousness. “Let the devil rule us, but let us have some security” was a common saying. In fact, the ambition of the “honest” city dweller was to keep away from public life and to have as little to do with the government as possible. Any energy that survived was directed towards the consolidation of sectarian, clannish or regional entities still under Ottoman rule and yet [85]


with a considerable degree of local autonomy. Thus, in the Arab lands, the Maronites gathered around their patriarch, the tribes thronged around their chieftains, the Druzes concentrated around their lords, and the Egyptians withdrew from the Near Eastern sphere. As each group jealously segregated itself, the sense of kinship which had developed among the Arabized peoples by centuries of common national life and culture fell into the background.24 Meanwhile, the infiltration of Western influence was rousing some elements in the Near East from their lethargy. Foreign missionary institutions competed with one another (and stimulated the emulation of native institutions) in their efforts to spread education to a vastly illiterate country.25 Although they infused in the minds of their pupils their own ideals instead of arousing them to a sense of national consciousness, they awakened in them a feeling of social and cultural responsibility. This work was particularly fruitful in the Arab East because the Arab has always kept a cherished memory of his or her heritage. The movement started in Syria which had closer contact with the West: American missionaries initiated a cultural revival which, thanks to the participation of two Christian Arab scholars, Nasif Yaziji and Butrus Bustani, and the contributions of French missionaries seconded by native Catholic scholars, flowered into a real renaissance. Soon it spread to Muslim centres of learning and to other sections of the Arab East, especially to Egypt where a more liberal government encouraged such activities. Literary revival inevitably led to an awakening of national consciousness and the founding of several politically inclined literary societies to further the aims of Syrian Arab nationalism.26 Up to this point, Western influence had mostly acted as a catalytic agent, but with the emergence of political clubs the European ideal of secular nationalism found its way into the new movement. The first of these organizations, referred to as the “Beirut Society”, was founded as a secret organization in Beirut in 1875; it included members of different creeds and sects, and operated by posting placards asking for independence from Ottoman rule.27 The appeal to popular sentiment for independence by a lay body indicates an influence of modern European mentality and the prospect of a political separation from the Sultan-Caliph shows a definite determination to depart from the concept of the ecclesiastical state. But at that time the national consciousness of the population was not developed enough to [86]


back the programme of the Beirut Society and, with the rise of Hamidian despotism, the new movement took refuge in underground activities. Its original vigour was also debilitated by subsequent restatements of its aims and by contact with related but different movements. Thus until World War I, which began in 1914, no unified programme of separation from the Ottoman Empire was widely accepted by Syrian Arab nationalists: some asked for Arab autonomy under a decentralized Ottoman Empire;28 some wanted a revived Arab Empire and the return of the Caliphate to Arab lands (Abdul al-Rahman al-Kawakibi); and some thought only of close regional affiliations.29 Yet the most powerful of these groups, Al-Fatat and Al-Ahd, definitely aimed at a complete liberation of the Arab countries. These were the early foundations of modern Arab nationalism – a blending of the revival of a sense of Arab consciousness with the Western idea of secular nationalism. Until 1914 the process of adaptation of these two sources was not clearly apparent even to their proponents because, in the absence of a political status which reflected the nature of the movement, the trend of ideas was overshadowed by the compromises that were necessary to keep the movement alive. A political test of the movement came with the revolt, in June 1916, of Sharif Husayn who, in alliance with Great Britain, marched against the Turks. He had been approached beforehand by delegates of secret military (Al-Ahd) and civil (Al-Fatat) nationalist clubs, and by other nationalists who promised cooperation in a revolt against the Ottoman Empire. In Syria, although the general population did not take an active part in the revolt, they welcomed the Sharifian troops as liberators and when the assurances of the allies confirmed the hopes of independence, their jubilation was virtually unanimous.30 At the end of the war, then, the Syro-Arab national movement had reached its height both in extent and in cohesiveness. It was generally felt that the opportunity of reviving the Arab nation had arrived at last. The three sons of Sharif Husayn were to found kingdoms in the Fertile Crescent closely associated with the Hijazi Kingdom of their father. The spirit of brotherhood between most of the regions of the Arab East was manifest and, despite divergences of views, the great majority of nationalists in Syria, Iraq or the Hijaz were inspired by the common ideal of Arab nationalism. But the movement was more than an ambition to revive the old Arab state: it aimed at the creation of an [87]


Arab nation state based not on tradition, religious allegiance or power, but on the concepts of citizenship and national government. The Resolutions that the General Syrian Congress31 submitted to the King-Crane Commission, for instance, represent an authoritative formulation of Arab aspirations. Among other things, they demanded absolute independence for Syria with Amir Faysal as its constitutional king; they protested against the tutelage represented by the proposed mandate system and against any treaty or declaration providing for the dismemberment of Syria; and they pointed out the Arab character of their nationalistic aspirations by stating: “[W]e would not have risen against Turkish rule under which we enjoyed civic and political privileges, as well as rights of representation, had it not been that the Turks denied us our right to a national existence.”32 Here are evident signs of the influence of the Western concept of the nation state in the trend of the Syrian Arab nationalist movement. The election of a congress to formulate national aims and to choose a king, the equal participation of all elements and creeds in the elections, the constitutional form of the proposed government, the rejection of foreign tutelage (unless unavoidable) and of schemes of partition, and, more specifically, the emphasis on the right to a national existence over and above the enjoyment of civic and political privileges are definitely principles evolved by Western secular nationalism and in contradistinction to the substance of a theocratic state. Yet this can hardly mean that the national movement adopted en bloc the principles of Western nationalism, as Turkey did. Putting to advantage the experience of Europe in a similar evolution, it based its existence on the complex of common culture, ways of life and aspirations rather than on its religion alone and it appropriated the mechanics of the Western art of national government; but its sense of values and its source of inspiration remained Arab and, to a great degree, Islamic. The two kingdoms of Faysal – his short-lived Syrian kingdom of Damascus and his Iraqi kingdom – displayed this combination of the Western concept of nationhood and Western principles of government with the characteristics of Arab culture and sense of values. The partition of Arab lands and the establishment of mandates in violation of previous promises and against the wishes of the population turned the Syrian Arab movement against European domination.33 The paradoxical situation of Syrian nationalists working independently from Iraqi or Palestinian nationalists for the cause of Arab unity [88]


created some confusion. Syrian and Arab nationalists were forced to organize themselves within the framework of the political units created by Great Britain and France after World War I, in order to cope with local problems and be able to participate in the political life of each state. At times local leaders concentrated on those problems so hard that they have lost sight of the main objective. All in all, there was more cooperation between them than they were usually given credit for. A good example was the efforts of Nuri Pasha Saπid, Mustafa Pasha al-Nahhas (and other Arab leaders) to create a federation of the Arab states.34 The history of the mandates is one of unending struggle between the nationalists and France and Great Britain, each side using the weapons at its disposal. The powers consolidated their hold on the country by forcible occupation, by dividing and subdividing it, by putting severe restrictions on nationalist activities, by securing the support of classes interested in the regime they established and by intensifying their economic and cultural grasp on the country. The nationalists spent their energy in revolts, demonstrations and political negotiations.35 At first this state of affairs diverted the nationalist movement from its direction and considerably weakened its position. The partitions and the French and British policy of encouraging – and even promoting – dissenting group consciousness (such as, for example, the Lebanese, Druze, Alawite, Turkish, Jewish and Assyrian) blurred the vision of Syrian Arab nationalism: there sprang up several nationalisms based on group consciousness and mainly following the artificial boundaries set up by the powers. Thus, in spite of their feeling of kinship, Palestinian, Syrian, Lebanese and Iraqi nationalisms could not unite for concerted aims and action. Furthermore, their efforts were, of necessity, concentrated on emancipating the country from foreign control and could not be directed into constructive channels – such as the development of a more evolved sense of civic consciousness, economic reforms and so on. A definite evidence of the waste of energy that this represented is offered by the inverse ratio between foreign control and the positive achievements of several freer states, like the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, which had advanced with rapid strides, while the mandated territories, which had been more developed in 1920, lagged behind in 1930.36 Yet the very excesses of the conditions created by European policy brought the reaction that was to revivify Arab nationalism. They intensified [89]


the desire of all to get rid of European control and made them realize the importance of uniting for that purpose. But antagonism to alien domination was only a temporary and secondary aspect of Arab nationalism. “Western rule has opened their eyes more clearly to the problems they must face and has even helped them to meet some of these problems.”37 It did, but only to an extent. The stressing of sectarian and religious differentiations awakened even their proponents to their crippling influence on the development of national life and on their role in making the country an easier prey to imperialist control. The parcelling of the Near East brought to light the undermining effects of barriers and isolation on the economic life of the region. Most important, the attempts of the mandatories, especially the French, to transplant Western institutions and Western culture and language into the Arab East38 emphasized the menace of that cross-breeding to the spirit of the Arab East and rallied the population around its culture. The outcome of these experiences and reactions was the spreading of national consciousness to hitherto indifferent or hostile classes. Up to the establishment of the mandates, the nationalist ideal held only a vague sentimental appeal for the majority of the population. But the developments of the last 50 years have furnished a concrete, realistic basis to that ideal. The movement became more than an ambition of the intelligentsia, or a sectional revolt against alien domination or a political manoeuvre to secure more liberal terms of self-government. It became a determined will to ensure a revival of the spirit and civilization of the Arab lands, to coordinate the administrative, civic and economic reforms necessary to equip the population for full participation in that revival and to “build up a bloc of independent Arab states, whose integrity will be respected and whose joint influence in international affairs will be comparable to that of European states”.39 The foregoing summary of the historical evolution of national consciousness in the Arab East indicates that it drew its inspiration from the civilization evolved by the Arab Empire. The identification of Arabs with Islam and the theocratic ideals of the time obscured the group consciousness of the Arabized peoples, until a cultural revival in the nineteenth century and the influence of Western secular ideals gave rise to a new variant of nationalism. If this analysis has retained the right perspective, Syrian nationalism is one aspect of the broader ideal of the Arab movement and the historical [90]


view of the Syrian National Party, as expounded by Saπadeh, would be more correct in emphasizing this relationship.

Racial background Saπadeh recognized racial ties only in so far as they reveal kinship in temperament and mentality. All civilized nations are a mixture of races and the idea of pure blood ties, besides being “a myth with no truth to it in any nation whatsoever” is a barbaric form of loyalty.40 In the same way, the Syrian racial composite has manifested its superiority and the special earmarks of its genius set it apart from other nations.41 It is for this reason that Saπadeh insisted on considering Syrians as individual members of the composite ethnic group of the country rather than as stratified groups each tracing its origin to one racial stock or another. The latter outlook, aside from its being historically incorrect – for, in a country as old as Syria, who can trace his origin to a pure race? – creates race bigotry and forgets the true character of the Syrian people, which is an indecomposable blend enriched with the qualities of its elements and yet entirely distinct from any of them.42 Unfortunately for Syria, racism has been exploited by interested parties that have tried to link it with religious loyalty, thus assimilating the concept of an Arab Syria with Islam and that of a Phoenician or Lebanese Syria with Christianity. That race and religion have no connection, especially in Syria, is proved by the fact that both religions were superimposed, at alternate periods, over an already mixed and evolved racial stock. However, Syria’s association with the rest of the Arab lands is undeniable. Racially, the Arab stock constitutes one of the component elements of the Syrian people and for that reason among others Syria “is one of the Arab nations”, although still a complete nation by virtue of its specific identity and make-up. This is the theory that Saπadeh advocated concerning the composite ethnic group of Syria and it is in conformity with both the character of the population and its race consciousness. Successive incursions and unhampered intermarriage have made a thorough job of mixing the various racial stocks of Syria as well as of the whole Near East. There are still some distinct racial groups (Kurds, Armenians, Circassians, Assyrians and so on), but the overwhelming majority of the population is the product of centuries of [91]


racial fusion and is aware of the fact. Consequently, racism is not a problem in Syria and cannot be made one. By tradition, the Arabized countries are preeminently free from colour or race prejudice and their discriminations are drawn along lines other than racial. Whenever race is invoked as a line of differentiation, it bears linguistic and cultural connotations rather than an ethnological meaning. Thus, a Syrian, an Iraqi or an Egyptian is an Arab in a cultural sense in that he or she speaks the Arabic language and has the traditions and ways of life that are the heritage of the civilization founded by the Arabized peoples in the Middle Ages. This seems precisely the connotation that Saπadeh gave to race as a basis for nationalism and, in that meaning, it is evidently a concrete feeling and represents a strong factor for national unity.43 But in that meaning it transcends Syria and embraces the whole of the Arab East although with varying intensity – the Arabs of the Peninsula and of the interior of the Fertile Crescent, as well as the nomads, consider themselves more Arabs than the Lebanese Christians, the Egyptians or the Westernized inhabitants of the Mediterranean coast. This differentiation is a complex phenomenon which owes its origin to religious distinction (Lebanon), to political conditions (Egypt) and to the intensity of contact with non-Arabized civilizations (Westernized elements) as well as to differences of racial admixture. Whether it constitutes sufficient reason to regard Syria as a complete nation – “distinct from other Arab nations and yet one of them” as Saπadeh often described Syria’s position in the Arab world – was a point of contention between Saπadeh and Arab nationalists. Since it is agreed that the issue cannot be solved by strictly racial considerations and since race as applied to the Arabs, the Arabized peoples, the Arab nations and so on, refers to the aggregate population who have a more or less common Arab heritage, we must turn to an examination of the components of that heritage for an answer. Before that, though, one point has to be cleared up: the difference between citizenship and nationality.

Citizenship and nationality Saπadeh sought the unification of the Syrian nation in ideals, purposes and interests. His nationalism aimed at setting up a unique national cause which would represent the interests of the social community. The source of inspiration for the whole movement he created is an enlightened [92]


realization of these interests which arises from the community of life that has welded together the people of the country. Consequently, a strong spiritual unity must unite the entire nation for the development of its own spirit, temperament and genius. This entails the removal of all causes of dissension and the breaking down of barriers among the different sects. It also involves the assimilation by the nation of “immigrants who are homogeneous with the original Syrian composite” and who, after the passing of sufficient time, “may dissolve in the nation and lose their special bigotries” (The Ten Lectures, p. 69). Therefore, the unity advocated by Saπadeh is not just a political integration but one that embraces the whole life of the community – economic, social, cultural and political.44 Saπadeh emphasized that such a singleness of purpose is essential for a Syrian revival which can be accomplished only “by the action of an original and independent Syrian mentality”.45 Next to religious divisions with which they are often confused, minority differentiations represent a great obstacle to the unification of Syria. Saπadeh was amply justified in trying to do away with them. The various groups have formed the habit of thinking of themselves as Kurds, Druzes, Circassians, Armenians, Assyrians, Alawites, Maronites – indeed, as anything else but Syrians. The successive dominating powers encouraged this tendency by giving them administrative recognition and by displaying a marked solicitude for “protecting the minorities”. As a corollary of the principle of self-determination, the protection of minority rights became a favoured concept of the League of Nations, and the Mandatory justified its policy of partition and division as a necessary measure for the guaranteeing of these rights. The Alawites, who constituted 12 per cent of the population, were given an autonomous administration for the reason that they belong to a separate sect of Islam; Lebanon, which was only half Christian, was set as a separate state to protect the Christian minority. The case of the Circassian minority shows the extremes to which such a policy can be carried. They are the descendants of a corps of Circassian guards who were brought to Syria by the Turks in 1867. In 1933 there was a great deal of agitation to grant them “particular rights” and parliamentary representation to make up for the omission of the French High Commissioner’s decree of 14 May 1930, which recognized such rights only to religious minorities. Altogether, there were 4,000 Circassian families in Syria. [93]


Evidently no system of independent government is possible with such a concept of minority protection. But the minorities do exist and it is necessary to devise a system by which they can be integrated into the nation without being forced to lose their personality. Is such a system possible? For an answer it may prove useful to distinguish between cooperative and hostile minorities. The latter consist of those sections of the population that consider themselves affiliated to a foreign power or organization. The Turkish minority of Northern Syria, attracted by the success of Turkey and by its propaganda, became distinctly hostile and was finally instrumental in the loss of the region of Alexandretta. Political Zionists constitute the other separatist minority. Their aim of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine is essentially incompatible with Near Eastern Arab and Syrian nationalism, and is opposed by all nationalists. Consequently, a Jewish state could not be established in Palestine except by a forcible elimination of Arab or Syrian nationalist sentiment concerning that country and the subjugation of its Arab inhabitants. Even then, it is extremely doubtful that a hostile Jewish state could survive in the midst of the general Arab awakening – except by the constant intervention of Western might. Cultural and spiritual Zionism is less difficult to accommodate in Syria. It might not have solved the problem of Jewish homelessness – but, for that matter, even the exclusive possession of Palestine could not solve that problem. The abandonment of the political aims of Zionism – which was advocated by some farsighted Jews themselves – would have transformed Palestinian Jewry into a cooperative minority analogous to the Iraqi or Syrian Jews. There was no definite and widespread anti-Jewish feeling in the Arab East, and in Palestine itself the old Jewish communities and settlers lived in harmony with the general population until political Zionism brought its threat. Deep-rooted anti-Zionist feeling started only with the attempts of Zionist leaders to implement their political aims. Consequently, the solution of the Zionist problem is not a compromise but a choice between two courses: first, either encourage the programme of political Zionism and let a struggle determine the survival of the fittest; or second, abandon political Zionism and make the Jews who are already in Palestine full citizens with absolute freedom to foster their spiritual and cultural life. The latter solution was the one advocated by Palestinian and other Arab nationalists, and seemed in harmony with the general pattern of [94]


the non-sectarian nationalism of the Near East. Paradoxically, however, it was opposed by Saπadeh, although he championed the removal of barriers between the various sects. This attitude might be explained by the belief of Saπadeh in The Ten Lectures that the Jewish people have “strange and exclusive racial bigotries” and “can never be assimilated”. When we consider the importance Saπadeh attached to the spiritual unity of the nation and to the role of the ultimate assimilation of minorities in bringing about that unity, it becomes clear why he deemed Jewish aims as “essentially incompatible with the Syrian ideals”. In Saπadeh’s words: There are several large settlements of immigrants in Syria, such as the Armenians, Kurds and Circassians which are of similar stock as the original Syrian composite, and whose assimilation is possible, given sufficient time. These elements may dissolve in the nation and lose their special loyalties. But there is one large settlement which cannot in any respect be reconciled to the principle of Syrian nationalism, and that is the Jewish settlement. It is a dangerous settlement which can never be assimilated because it consists of a people which, although it has mixed with many other peoples, has remained a heterogeneous mixture, not a nation, with strange stagnant beliefs and aims of its own, essentially incompatible with Syrian rights and sovereignty ideals.46

Cooperative minorities are made up of communities which have no formal connection with other states or organizations: the Kurds, the Assyrians, the Armenians, the non-Zionist Jews and the Circassians, who are permanently settled in the country and would readily become part of an independent Syrian state.47 Their integration would present no problem in so far as citizenship goes if they could retain their national traditions and if they could be guaranteed against discrimination. In fact, the fear of discrimination and persecution seems to be at the root of minority dissensions in the Near East. The case of the Assyrian minority in Iraq is an eloquent illustration of this point. It was anticipation of Muslim oppression which drove the Assyrians to ask for autonomy and League of Nations’ protection. This attitude was countered by an increase of Iraqi hostility towards the Assyrians and led to actual persecution, while the other minorities (the Kurds, Armenians and Jews) went unmolested.48 In the case of cooperative minorities, therefore, a guarantee of equal rights of citizenship and the removal of any apprehension concerning their freedom to retain their cultural individuality appears to be a safer [95]


means of winning them over to political unification than a programme of systematic assimilation and of cultural unification. And political unity is precisely the first test of nationhood: the body politic comprises minorities along with majorities, and both elements must exercise their rights and duties. However, is more than political assimilation of minorities necessary to make them useful elements in the state? Saπadeh was emphatic about the freedom of minorities to retain their characteristics as long as they accept the principles of Syrian nationalism and conform to them. But obviously the characteristics which distinguish the components of the Syrian population separate them to such a degree as to make complete unity in all phases of national life a rather problematical expectation. Which “way of life” is to predominate: the Islamic Eastern or the Christian Westernized? For it is not only a question of integrating minorities; it is also a problem of finding common grounds for the aspirations of the major elements which constitute the population. For Saπadeh national revival entailed a new “social national” order, not a choice between Eastern Islamism and Westernized Christianism.49 Among the people of Syria there was a growing willingness to live together as a nation; but the characteristic mark of that tendency is precisely the fact that it was based on goodwill and tolerance for differences of faith, culture, social customs and traditions. The separation of these phases of national life from the political life of the country is as important as the separation of Church and state. The desire to obtain complete homogeneity within the state is a result of the prevailing confusion between the concept of citizenship and the concept of nationality. Since the rise of modern nations – and with philosopher G.W.F. Hegel’s blessing – statehood and sovereignty have been identified with the personified nation. Yet the exact correspondence of political allegiance and of nationality is only the result of evolution in which the several parts of a nation have come under either the same government (such as Germany and Italy) or under one system of government and have developed common national traditions (such as the USA). But such a correspondence is neither essential (for example, Switzerland, USSR) nor universal (all empires), and even when it exists it is compatible with the existence of loyal minorities. For unless one takes a totalitarian view, it is not the function of the state but of the aggregate national community to shape up its behaviour patterns and culture and to reflect them on the state. [96]


Consequently, the member of a Kurdish, Armenian or any other minority who thinks of himself as a Syrian and wants to participate in the life of the country and exercise his rights and perform his duties on equal terms with his fellow citizens, but yet wants to retain his culture, traditions and faith, is as useful a member of both the state and the national community as any other citizen.50 His contribution is necessary to create that “composite” which becomes the common culture, and, ultimately he also goes through the general atmosphere and becomes part of that civilization. He corresponds to the Greek and the Arab and the Persian, whose contributions built monuments to the civilization of the Umayyads and the Abbasids.51

Geographic considerations Successive political regimes have administered Syria according to the necessities of the moment for so long that the name Syria has come to mean only a section of the natural region it constitutes. The fifth principle in Saπadeh’s national programme (the programme of the SSNP) re-established that often disregarded relationship between Syria the country and Syria the national entity. Indeed, Syria the country is the strongest element in Syrian nationalism. This element was expressed by Saπadeh as follows: The organic correlation between the nation and the homeland, or territory, is the only principle whereby the unity of life can be achieved. That is why we cannot conceive of a human community without an environment wherein the unity of life and the participation in its activities, interests and aims are attained, and wherein the development of the social character – that of the nation – is possible.52

The boundaries indicated in Saπadeh’s national programme coincide broadly with the limits of the region from the point of view of both physical and human geography. In the beginning, these boundaries were defined by Saπadeh in classical Nahda terms equivalent to the early pioneers of Syrian nationalism. According to this definition, the Syrian national homeland extends “from the Taurus Range in the North to the Suez Canal in the South including the Sinai Peninsula and the Gulf of Aqaba, and from the Syrian Sea (Mediterranean) in the West to the desert in the East until its junction with the Tigris”.53 [97]


To Saπadeh these boundaries make Syria “a country distinctly separate and independent from any other country”.54 It is the environment in which the nation has been shaped and it is this indivisible geographic unity that has “provided for the nation the basis for its persistence in the struggle for life”.55 Furthermore, the position of Syria at the crossroads of continents and civilizations does not need to constitute a point of weakness as in the past. With the well-integrated national organization that the party will give it, it will become a position of strength and will contribute to more beneficial relations between East and West. The boundaries indicated in the above definition followed broadly the natural limits of Syria as a geographic region but did not give enough weight to the geographic position of the country. Syria is a bridgehead and a land of transition: on the one hand, it belongs to the Mediterranean world because of its climate, its soil, its products and its mode of life; on the other, it merges into the Fertile Crescent and the desert. By itself, Syria would gravitate between these two poles of attraction and lack stability. But if it should anchor itself to one system, it could acquire the necessary strength and stability to coordinate it to the other. As long as Syria’s hinterland remains weak, it can maintain an individualistic status or link its life to the sea; but when the country inland comes to life, its individualistic or Mediterranean position becomes precarious. Every continental power seeks an outlet to the sea both for economic and strategic reasons and in order to participate in the life of the maritime area which offers greater opportunity for development. Against this surge from the interior, a coastal power can survive only if it is part of a larger maritime unit, such as the Mediterranean world under the Roman Empire. But even then, the boundaries of such a power lack compactness and are constantly threatened as groups in the hinterland grow in political consciousness and strength. It is a characteristic fact that ultimately the unification of modern states was invariably achieved by the ascendancy of the more determined and individualistic people of the land over the brilliant, polished and internationalized people of the coast.56 Here, then, we find an indication of the geographic function of Syria: it is the “front door” of the Arab East and with the awakening of those regions it seems destined to resume that role. If this be the function of Syria, what natural geographic barriers render Syria distinctly separate and independent from any other country? The stretch of deserted land which separates Syria from Iraq does not [98]


isolate Syria from these regions any more than the anti-Lebanon separate the coast from Damascus. Besides, a glance at a map will show that the desert does not reach the northern section of the Crescent: the transition from Northern Syria to the valley of the Tigris is unbroken and in general highly fertile.57 The old historical route to India is still alive, and modern transportation has made more southern routes very active and revived many an oasis. In fact, the character of Syria as a passageway would have no meaning if it were to end at the desert: Syria is just one end of that passageway, while Iraq is the other. For this reason, largely, Saπadeh went back to the above definition and changed it to include the eastern section of the Fertile Crescent: The Syrian homeland is that geographic environment in which the Syrian nation evolved. It has distinct natural boundaries and extends from the Taurus range in the north-west and the Zagros mountains in the north-east to the Suez Canal and the Red Sea in the south and includes the Sinai peninsula and the gulf of Aqaba, and from the Syrian sea in the west, including the island of Cyprus, to the arch of the Arabian desert and the Persian Gulf in the east. (This region is also known as the Syrian Fertile Crescent.)58

To Saπadeh, the natural boundaries of Syria housed the homogeneous southern and northern elements, which settled in it and became the channel of its life-circuit. The land provided them, at first, with the opportunity of contact and collision, and later, with that of mixture and fusion, “which resulted in the formation of the strong and distinct character of the Syrian nation and enabled it to survive in the struggle for existence”.59 Awareness of the internal unity and integrity of this land was strong from ancient times: the Chaldeans and the Assyrians sought to unify it politically, interested as they were in the idea of the territorial state. Similarly, all the other peoples who inhabited this region were conscious of that fact (that is, the internal unity of the country), and often sought to build up confederations and decentralized governments.60 The Arabs themselves, despite their superficial sense of observation, looked on it as one geographical unit, calling it the Fertile Crescent. According to Saπadeh, the secret of Syria’s persistence, as a distinct unit and an outstanding nation despite many invasions, lies in “its marvellous geographic unity and the variety of its natural environment, which consists of plains, mountains, valleys, sea and coast”.61 It was this [99]


geographic unity which ensured the political unity of the country from ancient times. This unity reached its peak with the formation of a Seleucid Syrian state, which grew into a powerful empire, dominated Asia Minor and extended as far as India. The Syrian nation’s loss of sovereignty as a consequence of the major foreign invasions and its subjection to foreign domination resulted in its partition into arbitrary political units. A turning point occurred during the Perso-Byzantine period: the Byzantines extended their rule over the western part of Syria and applied the term “Syria” to that part only, while the Persians dominated the eastern part (Mesopotamia, or the land of Assyria and ancient Babylon), which they called “Irah”, later Arabicized into Iraq.62 Saπadeh’s position on this matter is very clear: The partitioning of Syria between the Byzantines and the Persians into Eastern and Western Syria and the setting up of barriers between them, retarded considerably, and for a long period, the national growth and the development of the social and economic life-circuit of the country. This division resulted also in distorting the truth about the boundaries of Syria.63

The task of the historian is to study the conflicting foreign theories which purport to determine the boundaries of Syria before making sweeping judgements. After World War I, the condominium of Great Britain and France over natural Syria resulted in the partition of the country according to their political aims and interests. This partition was embedded in the Sykes–Picot Agreement secretly concluded in May 1916, during World War I, between Great Britain and France, with the assent of Russia, for the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. Although the Sykes–Picot Agreement conflicted with earlier pledges to the Arab leadership and was modified considerably in practice, it established a framework for the mandate system after the war and gave rise to the present political designations: Palestine, Trans-Jordan, Lebanon, Syria (al-Sham), Cilicia and Iraq. Thus Syria shrank into that limited part of the country known as “Bilad al-Sham”. Additional factors contributing to this distortion were: the incursion of the desert on the lower arch of the Syrian Fertile Crescent; the decrease in population; the recession of urban areas (by virtue of constant wars and invasions); and deforestation – all of which made vast areas of the [100]


country desolate. The lack of reliable studies pertaining to the cause of this ever-increasing drought, which has resulted in a deepening of the arch, has contributed to the view that the expansion of the desert has been a permanent phenomenon.64 Saπadeh’s political duties retarded his ability to explore these factors in greater detail, but his assessment turned out to be correct enough. While seemingly an inhospitable environment, the location of several highly fertile oases on the Badiyah has meant that it has been possible for successive societies to use the desert as an important east–west trade route. Some deserts, writes scholar and traveller Khristina Phelps, divide countries and civilizations; others unite them: “The Syrian Desert is one of those which unites adjacent land.”65 In a broad geographical sense, the whole area south of the Taurus–Zagros arc of mountains (that is, Syria and Iraq) is a unit. It is a huge mesa-desert in the lower section and fertile around the edges, especially on the east coastline and the north. As a result of this configuration there is a constant centrifugal movement of population towards the fertile regions, sometimes in momentous surges, more often in less conspicuous migrations.

Religious background and trends Even the most casual traveller is overwhelmed by the diversity of religious denominations in the Near East and by the jealousy with which the faithful of each creed guard their identity. Religious ties were, and still are in many parts of the Near East, the most common form of group allegiance, transcending any other loyalty. Saπadeh considered this “attachment of religious institutions to temporal authority” the greatest obstacle to national unity.66 It has bred divisions, religious fanaticism and, by its affiliation to religious authority outside of the nation, it has created anti-national institutions. In addition to its harmful effect of dividing the nation, a political life based on religion is of necessity traditionalist and reactionary and is opposed to the principle of nationhood “because it stands for the dominance over the whole of the community of believers by the religious institutions” regardless of political boundaries.67 This is the principle of pan-religious movements and it has never been realized because community of religion does not denote community of national interests which alone constitutes the foundation of the national state. It is for this reason that a return to [101]


the religious state of Harun al-Rashid – an ideal entertained by some since the downfall of the Ottoman Empire – is an impossibility. Saπadeh held that, as long as the concept of religious political communities is accepted in Syria, the country cannot be united into a nation or, if it is brought together on that basis, political rights can be enjoyed only by the dominant religious community. It is the fear of such domination that keeps the different denominations fighting for independence or autonomy and which drives them to ask their co-religionist foreign powers to protect them. The Lebanese issue is a good illustration of this fact.68 Instead, Saπadeh’s principle of discounting rights or interests of denominations and of recognizing equal rights to all removes that fear of domination. It also ensures unity in matters of national interest without preventing each one from worshipping the way he or she sees fit, for Saπadeh was by no means anti-religious.69 Religion recognizes no national interests, because it is concerned with a community of believers dominated by a central religious authority. In this respect, religion is transformed into a temporal, political and administrative affair, control over which is monopolized by a sacred religious body. This is the primitive aspect of religion which was suited to the barbaric or semi-barbaric state of mankind in olden times; but is no longer suited to modern civilized life. It is this aspect of religion that the Syrian Social Nationalist Party is combating, not the theological or philosophical ideals pertaining to the mysteries of the soul and of immortality, the creator and the supernatural.70

There is no doubt that Saπadeh was justified in asserting that the strongest single internal obstacle in the way of the unification of Syria is the difference in religious loyalties and the temporal power of the clergy. This is true not only because of the difference itself but also because of the traditions, institutions and classes it has created. This complete absorption of the life of a community into its religious beliefs characterized Western life in the Middle Ages and it took centuries of religious wars before rationalism and nationalism separated political, economic and social activities from faith and worship. The lag of the same process in the East is explained by its historical development. The Arabs recognized the Dhimmis (that is, Christians, Jews and Sabians) as believers in the true God and tolerated them instead [102]


of offering them to the sword as they did to other infidels. The Dhimmis paid a special tax but enjoyed a wide measure of toleration. Even in matters of civil and criminal judicial procedure, except where a Muslim was involved, these people were practically under their own spiritual heads.71 When the Ottoman Turks came, they took over the Arab system and, adding to it the Byzantine concept of an ecclesiastical state, completely institutionalized the government of their subjects on the basis of religion.72 The so-called Millet System drew together the members of the same creed, gave their religious leaders a political status as responsible heads of their communities and let each millet use its own religious law. Although the system did not directly apply to the Muslim community whose religious head was the Sultan-Caliph himself, it singled out the dominant element of the population and subjected it to the religious law of Islam, the Shariπah. As a result of this organization, the various communities developed their own way of living: they had their own system of education (usually organized by foreign co-religionists), their particular customs, traditions and social life. They just lived under Ottoman rule without being part of the state. This applied to Muslims as well as to non-Muslims, because throughout its history the Ottoman Empire never developed a sense of nationality or citizenship among its subjects and the only allegiance to its rule, besides force, was the Muslims’ loyalty to the Caliphate.73 Under these circumstances, the Near Easterner developed a strong sense of solidarity with his co-religionist and jealously organized his community against actual or potential threats by others. If we add the fact that the Muslim considered the non-Muslim as his inferior and that, in the later stages of the Ottoman Empire, the Christian countered by seeking protection from the Christian powers, we can see how strongly separated and hostile were the various religious groups in the Near East up to the end of the Ottoman rule. The intervention of the Western powers did not help to ease the situation. From the time of Francis I, France sought to set itself up as the protector of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire, and by the Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarja in 1774 Russia secured the right to protect the Orthodox Christians of the Empire.74 Without taking into account the ulterior motives of these diplomatic moves and without reviewing individual events, it is easy to conceive that such interference served only to accentuate discrimination and hostility among religious groups. [103]


After World War I ended in 1918, when the mandates were established, France and Britain not only maintained this antiquated system of administration but also improved on it. Even the Muslim sects were separated from the main body of Islam and given separate political status, and the country was divided into a Christian Lebanon, a Sunni Syria, a Druze Jebel Druze, a Nusayri state of Alawites and so on. Besides the spiritual leaders and their religious courts, which still kept jurisdiction in civil matters, political bodies were created on denominational bases: representatives were elected not by districts but by denominations, officials were appointed with due regard to their religious beliefs and great care was exercised to maintain a prearranged percentage of each religious community in public office. Under such circumstances, how could anyone forget his religious status, and how could he look on the members of other religions as essentially part of his own community and nation? But the strength of the nationalist revival has been more powerful than these age-old loyalties, especially among the educated elite and, along more theoretical lines, certain elements of the population. As far as religion is concerned, nationalism in the Arab Near East has manifested itself in three distinct movements. In the Peninsula, the Wahhabi movement has sought to realize a revival of orthodox Islam along the lines of a puritanical adherence to the original teachings of Muhammad, and rejection of all additions to and deviations from that body of doctrine. In the political field, Wahhabism stands for a theocratic state which is characterized by its reliance on religious allegiance, brotherhood and a keen sense of equality among the Brethren (Al-Ikhwan).75 As a historical process, it is a reaction against the infiltration of non-Arab and non-Muslim traits into the life of Islam – an infiltration which came about through close contact with the Byzantine, Hellenic and Iranian civilizations, and affected the character of the Umayyad and Abbasid Muslim states.76 Such innovations were sanctioned by the acceptance of interpretations professed by ijmaπ (consensus of opinion) in the early days.77 Since the beginning of the eighteenth century this movement has been trying to crystallize its religious and political reformation of Islam.78 At present it is at the height of its power with the rise of Saudi Arabia and, with the strength of all reform movements, it has truly begun to develop an inner life for the Peninsula more in conformity with the aspirations, concepts and traditions of its people and yet capable of adjusting itself to the requirements of modern times.79 [104]


The second movement, although not as distinct as the Wahhabi, is also a reform movement of Islam. It is an attempt to return to the early days to determine the nature of the Islamic state and adapt it to modern conditions; in a way, it is a theological rationalization of the movement of secularization which is taking place in Muslim countries. In 1925, Sheikh Ali Abd al-Raziq of al-Azhar University published a book entitled Islam wa usul al-hukm (Islam and the Principles of Government). In it he maintained that the Sunni doctrine of the Caliphate does not rest on the Qurπan or the traditions, that it is only the product of circumstances and consequently not an essential part of the doctrine of Islam. Accordingly, he held that the religious and national aspects of Islam are not inseparable. As for Qurπanic law, he asserted, it is a code regulating individual relationships, even if it provides for civil and legal obligations. He concluded by pointing out that the idea of a modern national state was perfectly compatible with the original doctrine of Islam. Although Sheikh Abd al-Raziq was condemned as a heretic by the Council of al-Azhar,80 his book inspired a new tendency among some Muslim liberals of separating Church and state. This tendency is quite recent and goes against the teachings of orthodox theology.81 According to the latter, Islam is not only a religion but also a political and social system. The source of legislation is the Qurπan and it embraces public as well as private life. Consequently, the Islamic state is by its very nature an ecclesiastical state. It was this concept of Islam which provided the religious appeal for pan-Islamism – that is, the ideal of uniting all the faithful under one political organization headed by the Caliph. It found able proponents in Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh (the two most prominent Muslim thinkers of the nineteenth century) and a political champion in Sultan Abdulhamid II, who used it preferably as a political weapon against Western powers.82 But although Pan-Islamism still holds an appeal for some, it has lost its significance as a political reality. Its strength (which was more publicized than real) was undermined by the secularizing influence of political nationalism. Secularization is the third movement by which nationalism has changed the religious communities of the Near East. Here the transition has been more pronounced and infinitely more rapid. The influence of Western ideas and the development of education have produced a large class of people (especially young people) for whom religion is entirely a personal matter, and not a decisive political force. In Turkey, the process of [105]


secularization was forced on the people by a government whose eyes were fastened on the West; in Egypt, Muslims and Copts voluntarily joined hands to fight the West with its own weapon of nationalism; in Palestine, Christian and Muslim Arabs made common cause in the name of Arab nationalism; even in Saudi Arabia, the home of intolerant Puritanism, the wisdom of the ruler made the Ikhwan accept the unorthodoxy of Hijaz for the sake of nationalism, and the Shiπite majority in Iraq accepted the Sunni Faysal for the constitution of a national state. This process of secularization is definitely of Western inspiration.83 It started with the cultural revival of classical Arabic in the last century – a revival which was mainly the work of men educated in the French and American missionary colleges in Syria.84 They were mostly Christians but they worked for a revival of the Islamic–Arabic culture; they preached religious tolerance and cooperation among Muslims and Christians, and ultimately succeeded in giving a truly Arab character to their movement by persuading Muslims, Druzes and Christians to participate in it. The only common ground for such cooperation was a non-sectarian attitude and these elite took the nationalist secularism of the West as an example. The contrast between the division and hatred bred by religious fanaticism in the East and the unity and progress brought about by the secularist tendency in the West was so striking that the desire to imitate the West became prevalent all over the East. The Young Turk Movement sought to remodel Turkey along Western secular lines; Egyptian nationalism and the efforts of Syrians to obtain a decentralized autonomy for the Arabs within the Ottoman Empire showed that loyalties were being regrouped on the basis of national rather than religious lines. The movement was stirred up especially by the example of France where the struggle for complete secularization was raging at the turn of the century.85 Characteristically enough, these Syrian liberals were influenced by the more left-wing elements in the West while the mass of the “Westernized” Syrians were brought up on strictly conservative ideals by the foreign religious missions, each of which sought to capture the intellectual and religious loyalty of their pupils. Thus, until World War I, liberal ideas of secularization were restricted to a select few and it is only in the years following the war that they found their way into the minds of the educated public. The progress of secular nationalism in that period can be traced to several factors. The prospects of independence which arose from the [106]


revolt against Ottoman rule and from the promises of the allies awakened the masses to national consciousness; newspapers and political speeches (which in the immediate post-war enjoyed considerable freedom) brought home the Wilsonian ideals of self-determination along national rather than religious or community lines; liberal emigrants who returned from the West as soon as the Ottoman regime ended came back with definite concepts of freedom and religious tolerance; their influence at home, like the contributions of those who stayed in the West, played a considerable part in bringing to the foreground the ideal of a national allegiance common to all sects and religions. In this regard, the spread of education to the middle and lower classes made the role of the priest or sheikh as a political power less important than before and the non-sectarian civic education of some institutions (especially the American University of Beirut) produced a sizable number of liberal leaders. Moreover, the impact of the social and economic penetration of the West which partly broke down the communal structure of the Near East contributed to the process of bringing together the various elements of the population. But one of the strongest incentives for the Near Easterner to disregard religious differentiation was the governing policy of the Mandatory Powers. That policy, by taking religion as the basis of its administrative system and by pushing religious distinction to extremes,86 emphasized the crippling influence of such differentiation. One cannot live under such a system without being overwhelmed by the futility of trying ever to accomplish anything under it and without yearning to change the situation. It is mainly this last motive which has brought the majority of the educated youth of the East to a secularized view of political life. Even French observers have pointed out this growing tendency,87 which has been manifest in the participation of all religious sects in most nationalist activities. Thus, the movement of secularization through nationalism has gained considerable ground since pre-war days when very few people agreed with G. Maaluf that “progress consists in transforming all governments into lay and secular bodies” and that “all the misfortunes of the East have their origin in religion and prophets are a scourge”.88 But as yet the movement is not generalized enough and has not pervaded the mores and institutions. The principle is accepted and forms the basis of political thinking, but practical politics is still largely conditioned by religious considerations, partly because patterns of behaviour have not kept pace with ideologies, partly because the clergy is still endowed with [107]


considerable temporal power, partly because of the persistence of traditionalism, and partly because of the pressure of vested interests (both foreign and local) which benefit from the maintenance of the present situation.89 There is only a slight exaggeration in the observation of the Frenchman quoted earlier when he adds: “As a set-off [to the theoretical acceptance of secularization], whenever masses are set in motion, religious phenomena reappear in all their importance.”90 This is due chiefly to the deep-rooted nature of traditional discrimination which practically always persists quite some time after discrimination itself has been condemned in theory; but it is also due – unfortunately often – to the agitation fomented by “special agents”. Reviewing the trend of religious evolution in the Near East during the last century we find that there was a movement towards a puritanical revival of Islam in Saπudi Arabia, an attempt to bring about a renaissance of Islam along rational, liberal lines and a rapidly rising tide of secularism. Are these trends reducible to a common denominator? Is there a hope of their blending into a harmonious settlement of the religious strife of the Near East? A rational interpretation of the Qurπan and the rejection of legal and political jimaπ – which were added for purposes of government during the expansion of the Arab Empire – would limit Islam mainly to the spiritual sphere and to the relatively few temporal laws (marriage, inheritance and so on) specifically designated by the Qurπan. In that capacity Islam, like Christianity, would become a complementary corrective of secularism. Near Easterners are very seldom atheistic and even those who profess irreligion often mean simply to protest against the temporal power of the clergy, so that a liberal Islamic revival and secularism, far from being mutually exclusive, are complementary movements both leading to a separation of Church and state, for the best of their respective interests. The foregoing survey shows that the principle of separation of Church and state advocated by Saπadeh is in complete harmony with the trend of enlightened religious and nationalist thought. It is still opposed by a reactionary religious fanaticism, the desire of the clergy to maintain their position and, on the part of some religious minorities, by a genuine fear of persecution by the majority.91 The survey also shows that a separation of Church and state is an urgent necessity to ensure national unity, to remove reactionary obstacles [108]


to progress and to stamp out the fear of persecution. The application of this principle would simply involve a hastening of the process of secularization which is steadily transforming the Near Easterner from a religion-conscious to a national-minded individual.

Linguistic, cultural and social factors In keeping with his interpretation of the history of Syria, Saπadeh anchored nationalism in the social community of the nation. He considered the latter as “the basis for true national unity, the index of national consciousness, and the guarantee for the life and continuity of the Syrian nationality”.92 The social life of a community is conditioned biologically by its environment reacting on the body and mind of the individuals.93 Consequently, participation in life generates participation in mentality and quality, for culture is not a natural, personal trait but an acquired and transferable quality. It is then this participation in life which constitutes the stable foundation of the social structure of the nation much more than common traditions and language.94 The latter do not determine the nation since they often transcend its boundaries, but they are essential in holding it together.95 Unfortunately, owing to alien domination, religious fanaticism, discordant systems of education and many other factors, the Syrian people have lost their community of traditions. They have no unified sentiment to cling to and their individual wills are constantly in discord with their wishes in anything that is connected with their general cause. That is why they cannot give expression to a representative will and that is why foreigners take them for a flock (closed easily-led community). But behind this seeming confusion there are distinct Syrian traits and traditions which are shared by all. They would immediately come forward and become visible if the barriers were let down. Saπadeh proposed to break down these barriers and to bring forth the personality of the nation.96 He believed in reviving for Syria that form of life which is a status inherent to the Syrian people and which is the result of the social evolution of that people. Consequently, he held that these internal social forces should be the guiding source for the determination of the destiny of Syria – and not group interests or foreign influences. Perhaps the most significant contribution of Saπadeh to the cause of Syrian nationalism is represented by his concept of the social community as the cornerstone of nationhood. [109]


In Syria, the social community has been divided and subdivided under the influence of religious and sectarian differentiation, of arbitrary administrative divisions and of foreign politics.97 Each group has developed its own interests, and considers its problems as its own distinct and separate from others. This peculiar form of isolationism has prevented the various sections of the population from developing a strong feeling of solidarity, from recognizing an allegiance superior to their immediate group loyalty. However, this situation is not an attribute of Syria alone; it extends to the whole of the Arab East and, in order to present a correct perspective, it must be studied in its wider aspect. The Arabic-speaking countries are bound together by their language and by their culture. For an understanding of the nature of this common heritage, it is essential to note that the so-called Arab civilization was not imported from the Peninsula and imposed on the conquered territories. “The purely Arabian contribution in it was in the linguistic and to a certain extent in the religious fields.”98 It was the outcome of the assimilation of the heritage of the old civilizations of the Near East and the contributions of the peoples brought together by the Arab Empire.99 It developed under the impetus of the community of life and language, as well as the political order provided by that Empire. Consequently, it represents the combined cultural heritage of the various elements which participated in its evolution and to date remains the guiding force in their life. Except for group-conscious minorities, the inhabitants of the Arab lands consider themselves as Arabs and have a real sense of kinship for each other. Although they present differences in the degree of Westernization, of urbanization, and, in their economic modes of life, the traditions, the institutions, the outlook and the way of life of the majority stem from a common Arab culture: “To deny or minimize this fact, and to lay emphasis on their differences, appears to me to be much more erroneous in point of fact, and much more dangerous in point of politics, than to go to the other extreme of ignoring the external differences altogether.”100 Yet this sense of kinship has not been a potent force in the past mainly because the people have not participated in a common life. It is only recently that a will to live together and to determine their natural life has become a growing preoccupation of the Arab mind. As this will to achieve community of life and to bring forth the individuality of the nation is an essential condition of nationhood, it is necessary to inquire [110]


whether Arab countries, in the state in which they are at present or with expectable adjustments, can and want to participate in a common life. Apparently, the Westernized Syrian seems to have very little in common with the Bedouin or the Najdi; the liberal cultural renaissance of Syria and Egypt seems to draw its inspiration from sources other than the puritanical religious fervour of the Wahhabis. But on closer examination – and when the petty separatist tendencies of culturally homogeneous regions (such as Alawi, Druze or even Lebanese isolationism) are discarded from the general picture – it becomes apparent that the real difference between the various sections is constituted to some extent by their degree of Westernization. The Peninsula and the inland portions of the Arab states have kept the Islamic Eastern tradition, while the coastal regions have been transformed by the industrial, modern culture of the West. Apart from the political evolution of the various states and religious differentiations, the degree of Westernization seems to be the main reason for which both the Arabs themselves and the foreign powers – which have had so much to say in the shaping of the life of Arab lands – draw lines of distinction between the peoples of the Arab East. Thus, Egypt feels itself Arab but a different nation from the rest of the Arabs.101 Iraq, the Yemen and Syria have manifested similar feelings. The tendency is more than evident in the stand taken by Saπadeh, which professes that Syria is one of the Arab nations and yet an independent and separate nation. It must be pointed out, however, that Arab nationalists and the less Westernized peoples of all these states deplore and are fighting this “separatism”.102 If then it is true that the degree of Westernization is the distinguishing factor in the socio-cultural life of the various Arab regions and that it stands in the way of their participating in a common life, it is necessary to determine the nature of the change which Westernization has brought and to see whether that change constitutes a permanent and fundamental line of distinction.103 To begin with, the process of Westernization is not confined to the peoples of Western Asia: it is worldwide. The older humanistic civilizations have been put face to face with the technological progress of the West and the rationalist humanism which brought that progress and was functionally influenced by it. Confronted with the material wealth and the political might of the industrialized West, as well as with its dynamic socio-cultural ascendancy, these older and stagnant civilizations [111]


have had to revise their scale of values in accordance with the values of the West. At present, the latter continue to be the governing force in reshaping the rebirth of nations and civilizations; Russia, Japan, China, India and Turkey have revised their traditional ways in order to assimilate Western methods of life. In the Arab East, the nature of economic resources and political conditions have impeded industrialization but the social and cultural traits of the West have greatly influenced the coastal areas and are rapidly penetrating further inland.104 In the second place, Westernization has assumed different characters in the several countries because it has had to be superimposed on different native civilizations. Obviously, the Westernization of Russia is very different from that of Japan, or China or Turkey. The original social and cultural character of each country – even when Westernization was adopted en bloc, as in Turkey – has made the new blend an individual one. For this reason the difference between a Westernized Turk and a Westernized Syrian, in spite of the fact they have shared centuries of political and religious life, is cultural and national and quite apparent, while the difference between the same Syrian and a Westernized Egyptian is merely regional. In the third place, Westernization has been a fruitful process only when it has been assimilated by an original culture. Except in the case of Russia, it was exported by Europe mainly as the “white man’s burden” and it resulted for the “native” regions in some economic change and the formation of a class of Europeanized natives, typified by “pidgin English”, petit nègre French and the cosmopolitan social groups of Shanghai, Saigon, Calcutta, Alexandria, Beirut, Constantinople and so on.105 In general, it constitutes a cultural extension of the system of extra-territoriality and has never laid the foundations of a culture to replace the local traditions. It could build up a certain veneer without ever affecting fundamentals. Even the extreme Levantine whose education makes him belong more to the West than to the East (and who, pathetically, seems to belong nowhere) has kept his Eastern mentality, outlook and sense of values.106 The role of Westernization, then, does not seem to be the stamping out of the original cultures but their adaptation to the requirements of modern conditions of living. On the whole, it works against rigid traditionalism but does not affect the living forces in the cultures involved.107 If these premises are correct, it becomes evident that the regeneration of [112]


national cultures is the only fruitful and permanent way of meeting the trend of Westernization. Obviously, such regeneration can only come from within a culture and is fostered by the free participation in life of the peoples concerned. It is their contribution through free and enlightened sharing in national affairs rather than a transplanting of a Western political order or economic management which can ensure a lasting revival of the nation and its culture. This theory seems to be the cardinal point in Saπadeh’s ideal of social community and is highly commendable. Modern transportation and communications are fast bringing the inland into closer contact with the periphery and are transforming its primitive economic life; the discovery of substantial amounts of oil in the interior and the east (Iraq and Kuwait) has brought a hitherto unknown prosperity to these regions and revolutionized their economic life; the spread of education and material prosperity have stimulated a greater degree of commercial practice; and social and cultural activity through modern communication networks have brought further contact between the Syrian coastlines and the interior.

Conclusion In short, Saπadeh’s idea of participation in a common life as a condition for regeneration from within is the key to the social and cultural integration not just of Syria, but of all that area of common culture: the Arab East. Therefore, it seems highly advisable that a common life be fostered in order to allow the people of the Near East to devise their own mode of life in conformity with their own socio-cultural heritage. Saπadeh was convinced that the only means to a healthy national life in Syria lay in the creation of a strong, unified national spirit to ensure the establishment of the necessary loyalty for cooperation in the cause of the rights of the nation and the defence of its welfare. This spirit is predicated not on socio-cultural factors, which are changeable, but on the “community of life” in the nation. It is thus societalist par excellence.

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NOTES 1 Saπadeh’s national programme consists of 13 principles. The first eight are the Fundamental Principles of Syrian nationhood and the remaining five are the Reform Principles of Syrian statehood. All 13 principles are outlined and discussed in Saπadeh’s Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956. 2 On Arab nationalism, see Sylvia G. Haim, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974; Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. 3 Saπadeh wrote: “We do not … derive the Syrian nation from one specific racial origin, whether Semitic, or Aryan, but rather to reveal the concrete actuality of the nation, which is the final outcome of the long history of all the peoples who have settled in this land, inhabited it, interacted with each other, and finally became fused in one people.” See the fourth Fundamental Principle. 4 Michel Bulus, History of Syria, Tripoli: n.p., 1936. 5 Fundamental Principle no. 4. 6 Ibid. 7 Fundamental Principle no. 3. 8 Saπadeh wrote in the preamble of his national programme: “Syria is one of the Arab nations, and indeed the nation qualified to lead the Arab world …” But he added a condition: “It is obvious that a nation with no internal cohesiveness to insure its unity and progress cannot help revive other nations and lead them along the path of progress and success. Syrian nationalism is the only genuine and practical way, the first prerequisite for the awakening of the Syrian nation and its ability to work for the Arab Cause.” 9 Fundamental Principle no. 7. 10 Fundamental Principle no. 5. 11 Antun Saπadeh, “The Opening of a New Way for the Syrian Nation”, Al-Jumhur, Beirut, June 1937. 12 In Saπadeh’s view, the Arab conquest of Syria constituted a turning point in historical evolution, not only because it gave the Fertile Crescent a new language and a new religion, but also because it imparted to other neighbouring societies the same results; it also led to the inclusion of all of these societies, including the Fertile Crescent, under the League of the Islamic state. As a result, these societies came to share a common political history until the fall of that state. 13 Philip K. Hitti, History of the Arabs, London: Macmillan, 1937, pp. 232–233, 360–361. 14 Ibid., p. 279 and chapter XXII. 15 Ibid. 16 Cf. Hans Kohn, Western Civilization in the Near East, London: Routledge & Sons, 1936, p. 49; Hitti, ibid., pp. 286–287. 17 See Colin Imber, The Ottoman Empire, 1300–1650, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Antoine Ignance Melling, Justin B. McCarthy, The Ottoman Turks: An Introductory History to 1923, New York: Longman, 1997. 18 Linda T. Darling, “Ottoman Politics Through British Eyes: Paul Rycaut’s the Present State of the Ottoman Empire”, Journal of World History, vol. 5, 1994. [114]


19 With regard to their policy towards the Near East, the preservation of the Ottoman Empire was the main preoccupation of the Powers at the Congress of Vienna (1815), for the Treaty of 1840, the Peace of Paris (1856), and the Treaty of Berlin (1878). 20 George Antonius, The Arab Awakening, Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1969, pp. 20–23; J.A.R. Marriott, The Eastern Question, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1924, pp. 10–13. 21 Kohn, Western Civilization in the Near East, p. 189. 22 See Vernon J. Puryear, France and the Levant, Berkeley, Los Angeles: 1941, passim, and id. International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, Stanford, London: 1935, passim; Edward Mead Earle, Turkey, The Great Powers and the Baghdad Railway, New York, 1935, pp. 12–13. 23 Ibid., p. 11; cf. Donald Christy Blaisdell, European Financial Control in the Ottoman Empire: A Study of the Establishment, Activities, and Significance of the Administration of the Ottoman Public Debt, New York: Columbia University Press, 1929. 24 Thus, according to Saπadeh, when power shifted from Arab to non-Arab hands, the national identity in Syria fell into a deeper crisis. Distinct Syrian feelings became embroiled with other national and parochial feelings, and provisional attachment inside the country sharply exacerbated until it ultimately superimposed itself on the entire life of the country. 25 “At that time,” says Saπadeh, “national debilitation was general to the extent that it came close to irreversibly destroying the nation’s personality. All that was left to the nation were a few institutions such as religious authority, places of worship, feudal order, extended clan system or the blood-tie of families.” Antun Saπadeh, Saπadeh fi Awwal Athar (Saπadeh on the First of March), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956, p. 20. 26 Three societies emerged. (1) The Syrian Society: founded in 1847, its aim was to spread knowledge and general information. (2) The Oriental Society: founded by the Jesuits in opposition to the growing influence of the Protestant mission, it encouraged discussion of Syrian history from a purely religious perspective. (3) The Syrian Scientific Society: established in 1867, this society attracted about 150 members from Syria’s various sectarian communities, including some of the country’s best intellectuals, who would later become the standard bearers of the national cause. However, there is no indication that any of these societies wished to engage directly in politics. 27 Wajih Kawtharani, Al-Itijahat al-Ijtimaiya wa al-Siyassiya fi Jabal Lubnan wa al-Mashraq al-Arabi (The Social and Political Trends in Mount Lebanon and the Arab East), Beirut: Bashoun Publications, 1986, p. 111. 28 The Ottoman Decentralization Party, founded at Cairo; The Beirut Committee of Reform; al-Qahtaniyyah, a secret society which advocated a Turco-Arab dual monarchy. See Antonius, ibid., pp. 109–115. 29 Ibid., pp. 95–100. 30 See “Declaration to the Seven”, Anglo-French Declaration of 7 November 1918, and President Wilson’s Doctrine of Self-Determination. 31 The congress was a national assembly composed of delegates from all regions of Syria and held credentials authorizing it to represent the Muslim, Christian and Jewish population. See Mary Shahristan, al-Muπatamar al-Suri al-Ome: 1919–1920 (The Syrian National Congress: 1919–1920), Beirut: Dar Amwaj, 2000. See [115]


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also Mundy Angus, The Arab Government in Syria: 1918–1920, MA Dissertation, American University of Beirut, 1965. Antonius, op. cit., pp. 440–442. See Elizabeth P. McCallum, “The Arab Nationalist Movement”, Foreign Policy Reports, May 1935; see also Report of the King-Crane Commission. Christian Science Monitor, 7 September 1943; New York Herald Tribune, 17 October 1943; The Times (London), 30 November 1944. See Albert Hourani, Syria and Lebanon: A Political Essay, Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1968. Elizabeth McCallum, “The Arab Nationalist Movement”, Foreign Policy Reports, May 1935. H.A.R. Gibb, “The Future for Arab Unity”, in The Near East, Problems and Prospects, ed. Philip W. Ireland, Chicago, 1942, p. 95. Cf. Maurice Barrès, Enque˘te aux Pays du Levant, Paris, 1923, passim. McCallum, “The Arab Nationalist Movement”, Foreign Policy Reports, May 1935. Fundamental Principle no. 4. Ibid. Saπadeh wrote: “The principle of Syrian nationhood is not based on race or blood, but rather on the natural social unity of a homogeneous racial compound. Through this principle, the interests, the aims and the ideals of the Syrian nation are unified, and the national cause is guarded against disintegration, disharmony and strife, resulting from primitive loyalties to blood-ties. There are some people who are ignorant of the principles of sociology and unacquainted with the history of their country, and so they protest against the truth and allege the purity of our racial origin and the superiority of the one-stock thesis over that of the racial compound. Those people commit a philosophic error and also a scientific error. For, to ignore deliberately, the reality of our temperament and character and to set up a fiction in its place is a sterile philosophy similar to the assertion that it is better for a body rotating around an axis to depart from it. The alleged purity of the race or the blood of any nation, whatsoever, is a groundless myth. It is found only in savage groups, and even there it is rare.” The Ten Lectures, 1976, p. 68. “It is not the purpose of this principle to derive the Syrian nation from one specific racial origin, whether Semitic or Aryan, but rather it aims to assert the concrete actuality of the nation, which is the final outcome resulting from a long history which involved all the peoples who have settled in this land, inhabited it, interacted on it each with the others, become intermixed and finally fused into a new racial compound.” Saπadeh called it “One Nation – One Society”. He went on to say: “This is one of the most important principles which every Syrian must retain, for it is the basis of genuine national unity, the mark of national consciousness, and the guarantee of the life and endurance of the Syrian character. The unity of the society is the basis of the community of interests and this, in turn, is the basis of the community of life.” See Fundamental Principle no. 5. Ibid. Fundamental Principle no. 4. At some points, considerable unrest, separatist movements and orientation towards foreign states had characterized the life of each one of these minorities. Allowing for the settlement of the political aspects of these disturbances by migration or [116]


48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64

65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74

secession, the argument still applies to the considerable number of minority elements who want to stay in the Arab countries as full citizens. Survey of International Affairs, 1934, p. 135. On Saπadeh’s concept of revival see Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995. For Saπadeh “Unity should also be the basis of citizenship, for only within it can equality of rights for all citizens be guaranteed.” Fundamental Principle no. 6. Hitti, op. cit. chapter XXVII. Fundamental Principle no. 3. Fundamental Principle no. 5. Fundamental Principles nos 2 and 3. Fundamental Principle no. 5. P. Vidal de la Blache, Geographie Universelle, VII, Paris: Librairie Armand Colin, pp. 54–56. Geographie Universelle, VIII, pp. 210, 215, 220–222; see also S.B. Himadeh (ed.), Economic Organization of Syria, Beirut: 1935, pp. 32–33. Fundamental Principle no. 5 (revised). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. The Syrian Desert (Badiyat Al-Sham in Arabic) extends north from the Nafud Desert in Saudi Arabia and comprises West Iraq, East Jordan, and South-East Syria. The famous Arabian horses are raised along the edges of the desert, which in the north is crossed by oil pipelines and by a road route from Damascus to Baghdad. Several nomadic tribes inhabit the desert. Palmyra and other oases served as staging posts on ancient Mediterranean-Mesopotamian trade routes. Christina Phelps, The Syrian Desert: Caravans, Travels and Exploration, London: A & C Black Ltd, 1937, p. 6. Reform Principle no. 1. Ibid. Suriya al-Jadida, 7 June 1941, p. 1. Niπmah Thabit, “Sectarianism and the Principles of the Syrian National Party”, Propaganda Circulars of the Syrian National Party, nos 3 and 4, 1 October 1937, p. 10. Reform Principle no. 2. Hitti, ibid., p. 233. Kohn, Western Civilization in the Near East, pp. 48–49. Caesar E. Farah, (ed.), Decision Making and Change in the Ottoman Empire, Kirksville: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1993. Most historians agree that the defining moment of modern Greek history was the Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarja in 1774. The conclusion of this treaty represents the beginning of the modern era of the history of Greece. The Ottoman–Russian war in 1768 resulted in a humiliating defeat for the Ottoman Empire. During the course of this conflict, the Russian navy destroyed the Ottoman fleet off the coast of Anatolia. The land battle proved equally decisive for the Ottomans. The war ended with the Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarja (1774), in which the Sultan was [117]


75

76 77 78 79 80

81

82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

90 91

forced to grant the Russians the right to construct an Orthodox church in Instanbul and to make representations to the Ottoman government on behalf of the Greek Orthodox. These provisions laid the foundation for Russia’s claim to be the protector of the entire Greek Orthodox millet within the Ottoman Empire. The term “Wahhabism” is not used by the Saudis themselves. The term they use is “muwahhidun”. “Wahhabism” is a term given to them by their opponents, and is now used by both European scholars and most Arabs. The name “Wahhabism” comes from their founder Abdu al-Wahhab. The term “muwahhidun” is Arabic and means “unitarians”. H.A.R. Gibb, Whither Islam?, London: Victor Gollancz, 1932, pp. 372–373. Hitti, History of the Arabs, pp. 398–399. For a comprehensive history of the Wahhabis see H. St. John B. Philby, Arabia, New York: 1930; and Arabia of the Wahhabis, London: Faber and Faber, 1928. Hans Kohn, Nationalism and Imperialism in the Hither East, London: Routledge and Sons, 1932, pp. 261–262. However, many Egyptians (including the intelligentsia and politicians) supported Abd al-Raziq, and mass demonstrations were held in protest against the condemnation. See Hans Kohn, A History of Nationalism in the Near East, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1929, pp. 218–219. See, however, Hitti, op. cit., p. 185. Hitti warns us “against the fallacy that the caliphate was a religious office”. He points out that: “Succession to Muhammad (Khalifah) meant succession to the sovereignty of the state. Muhammad as a prophet, as an instrument of revelation, as a messenger (rasul) of Allah, could have no successor. The Caliph’s relation to religion was merely that of a protector and guardian.” See Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (1798–1939), 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge Univeristy Press, 1983. See Nazik Saba Yared, Secularism and the Arab World: 1850–1939, London: Saqi Books, 2002, pp. 9–24. Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, pp. 34–67. In 1905, amid renewed anti-clerical militancy, the Third Republic decreed the separation of Church and state. See S.C. Dodd, Social Relationships in the Near East, Beirut, 1932, p. 267. R. Montagne, “Les Etats Nationaux Arabes”, in Entretiens sur L’Evolution des Pays de Civilisation Arabe (Institut des Etudes Islamiques de L’Université de Paris, Centre d’Etudes de Politique Etrangère), Paris: 1938. Kohn, A History of Nationalism in the East, op. cit., p. 272. D.L. Munby, The Idea of a Secular Society and its Significance for Christians, London: Oxford University Press, 1963; also, Mahmood Monshipouri, Islamism, Secularism, and Human Rights in the Middle East, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998. Montagne, op. cit., p. 25. Saπadeh’s pre-eminent adversaries came from anti-secular groups on both the Christian and Mohammadan sides. Each side opposed him from a strictly communal perspective but could not match his logical analysis of secularism: “We cannot achieve national unity by making the state a religious one, because in such a state rights and interests would be denominational in nature, namely, pertaining exclusively to the dominant religious group. Where such rights and [118]


92 93 94 95 96

97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107

interests are those of a religious group, common national rights and interests will not ensue, since those rights and interests presuppose that the members of the same nation possess the same rights and interests.” Reform Principle no. 1. Fundamental Principle no. 4. Antun Saπadeh, Nushu al-Umamπ (The Rise of Nations), Beirut, 1938, p. 143. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 144–145. In Saπadeh’s own words: “It is an indisputable fact that there exist age-old barriers between the various sects and denominations of our nation which are not of the essence of religion. There are conflicting traditions derived from the structure of our religious and denominational institutions, which traditions have exerted a tremendous influence on the social and economic unity of the people, weakened it, and delayed our national revival. As long as these traditional barriers remain, our call for freedom and independence will remain futile. It is useless to know the illness and ignore the cure.” Reform Principle no. 3. For a personal account of Syrian society see Edward Atiyah, An Arab Tells his Story: A Study in Loyalties, London: J. Murray, 1946. Hitti, op. cit., p. 174. Saπadeh believed that the spread of Arab civilization was shouldered mainly by Syrians whether through warfare or other means. See chapter 6 in The Rise of Nations. H.A.R. Gibb, “The Future for Arab Unity”, in The Near East, Problems and Prospects, ed. Philip W. Ireland, Chicago, 1942, pp. 70–71. See J.C.B. Richmond, Egypt, 1798–1952: Her Advance Towards a Modern Identity, London: Methuen, 1977. See Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: A Critical Inquiry, London: Macmillan, 1981. Cyril E. Black and L. Carl Brown, (ed.), Modernization in the Middle East: The Ottoman Empire and its Afro-Asian Successors, Princeton, NJ: Darwin Press, 1991. Ibid. See Bertrand Badi, The Imported State: The Westernization of the Political Order, translated by Claudia Royal, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. See Louay M. Safi, The Challenge of Modernity: The Quest for Authenticity in the Arab World, Lanham: University Press of America, 1994.

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4 Saπadeh and the Greater Syria Scheme Adel Beshara

On 11 November 1946, in a speech from the throne at the opening of parliament, King Abdullah of Jordan declared the inclusion of the “Greater Syria scheme” as a basic principle of his monarchy’s foreign policy.1 It was Abdullah who developed the concept of “Greater Syria” and formulated its programme. The Greater Syria scheme advocated the amalgamation of the states of Lebanon, Jordan and the Arab Republic of Syria, and mandated Palestine into a single kingdom under Abdullah with special provisions for the Jewish community in Palestine and the Christians in Lebanon. Abdullah’s declaration came at a time when nationalist sentiments were at their peak due to the problems in Palestine. The Arab League had only recently been formed, Syria and Lebanon were independent, and Abdullah was actively working for independence by a new treaty with Britain. At the time, the only political party in the Arab world with a national agenda akin to the Greater Syria scheme was the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) of Antun Saπadeh.2 Founded in 1932, the SSNP was a nationalist movement aimed at identifying the people with their nation, its past and its culture. It sought to lend cohesiveness to a people who had always been divided by race, class, sect and kinship. Its programme intended to create a true Syrian nation based exclusively on citizenship rather than primordial loyalties. Antun Saπadeh, its founder, was aware of Abdullah’s plan and sought from the outset to distance himself from it. While moving to affirm the intellectual and political independence of his movement, Saπadeh refrained from using the term “Greater Syria” even as a distinguishing device. Asked about his opinion of Greater Syria, Saπadeh replied: “We much rather prefer to stay in the context of Natural Syria.”3 Despite his best effort, Saπadeh did not escape the spectre of Greater Syria. He was frequently identified with – even mistaken for – Abdullah, [121]


and included in the tirade against the Greater Syria scheme. As rumours circulated about Abdullah’s scheme, Saπadeh found himself in the unenviable position of needing to defend himself against unconfirmed reports depicting him as, among other things, a handmaiden of distant European powers. The purpose was to discredit him in the public’s eyes as an agent of British interests in the Middle East. These unconfirmed reports, whipped up by the French and popularized by various elements in the pan-Arab movement, lasted well into the 1960s, then suffered a slow death. The purpose of this study is to shed additional light on these unconfirmed reports from several angles. Is it true, for instance, that Saπadeh was an agent of British imperial interests in the Middle East? Was the Greater Syria scheme a British concept? What was Saπadeh’s attitude towards the scheme? What was Britain’s attitude towards Syrian nationalism and, more specifically, Greater Syria? What was the reaction of the Zionist leadership to the scheme? The study will conclude with a synopsis on the main differences between the Greater Syria scheme and the Syrian national doctrine of Antun Saπadeh.

The origin and development of the Greater Syria scheme Abdullah’s interest in “Greater Syria” began in the autumn of 1920. Upon the expulsion of his brother Faisal from Damascus, he organized a military force of bedouins from the Utaybah tribe of the Hijaz and proceeded with them into southern Trans-Jordan. This operation was carried out on a train that “two months earlier, in Maan, had been seized at the point of a Syrian nationalist’s pistol to go and collect him”.4 His goal was to liberate Syria from the French occupiers. At Maan, Abdullah proclaimed himself to be viceroy of Syria and called on the members of the Syrian National Congress, the bedouin leaders, and the commanders and soldiers of the Syrian Arab force to come to Maan to re-establish the Syrian government. In his manifesto to the Syrian people published in Maan, Abdullah stressed that Damascus, the Umayyad capital, would not become a French colony and that the Syrians’ oath of allegiance to King Faisal I was being renewed through himself:5 To all our Syrian brethren, Greetings. The aggression of the French, who brutally destroyed your throne, is deeply felt by every Arab. We recognize that Syria is a pillar of the [122]

S A π A D E H A N D T H E G R E AT E R S Y R I A S C H E M E

Arab community, and that she will not tolerate oppression. Every Arab bears the call of Syria at this grave hour, and I am proud to join in your defence, and drive the aggressors from your shores. Let them all realize that the Arabs are one body; if one member suffers, the whole is affected. You cannot consent to your country becoming a French colony. I say without hesitation that I support the monarchy and the re-establishment of King Faisal. You must direct your own affairs, and possess your own country. We are ready to shed our blood for you, and I think we have given proof of loyalty to our race and country by exposing ourselves to danger in the past. We therefore call upon you to unite and defend your country, and to resist intrigues which might weaken your resolve and destroy your enthusiasm. May God help us all.6

With the separation of Lebanon and Palestine from the Syrian mainland, the name “Syria” had been reduced to a territory which comprised only a portion of geographical Syria. Abdullah was compelled therefore to frame the concept of “Greater Syria” in reference to the old undivided country. This development posed an acute problem for the British, who refused to recognize a Hashemite prince using a British-controlled territory for an attack on the French. The way out of this imbroglio was secured in four talks between the Colonial Secretary Winston Churchill and Abdullah. The provisional arrangement consisted of the following: •

•

•

that Abdullah would abandon the objective of attacking French Syria and maintain order in Trans-Jordan by preventing the nationalists from carrying out attacks on the French that Abdullah would renounce his rights and claims to Iraq in favour of the Emirate of Trans-Jordan under the British Mandate for Palestine, and that Britain would subsidize Abdullah’s financial requirements.

Abdullah accepted this arrangement on the understanding that Churchill would give him back the Kingdom of Syria within “six months” in return for his surrender of claims over the throne of Iraq. The British flatly denied this. Indeed, the British believed that Abdullah had abandoned the Greater Syria idea completely by accepting the provisional arrangement. Abdullah never really gave up the vision of a unified Greater Syria under his dominion. In 1933, he raised the issue again. Over the years he maintained that his country “was only the southern part of Syria”7 and [123]


his slogan was “all of Syria to come under the leadership of a scion of the House of Hashim; Trans-Jordan was the first step”.8 Abdullah, supported by the traditionalist elements of his society – the ulema (the learned) and tribal leaders – embarked on his campaign to revive the Syrian throne after the death in 1933 of his brother, King Faisal of Iraq. Faisal’s death created a power vacuum in the Hashimite family into which only Abdullah could step. He could now claim to be the most legitimate bearer of the Hashimite right to the Syrian throne. After the succession of King Ghazi to the throne of Iraq, Abdullah prepared a proclamation calling upon the Arabs to unite, and invited the National Bloc in Syria to visit Amman to consider his plan for a Syrian–Trans-Jordanian reunion with himself at the helm.9 He was keen on the Syrians because “if the National Bloc, most of whose leaders were republican, succeeded in achieving independence and became the indisputable ruling force, his own chances would drastically diminish”.10 Abdullah also sent a similar invitation to the French High Commissioner proposing the reunification of the two states under French and British spheres of influence. Abdullah’s efforts were to no avail. Both the French High Commissioner and the National Bloc reacted with resolute disapproval and his nephew,11 King Ghazi, displayed no interest and was highly irritated by Abdullah’s “paternalistic attitude” towards him. The British had too much on their hands in Europe to consider any changes to the territorial map of the Fertile Crescent. Abdullah resumed his advance when negotiations between the French and the National Bloc broke down in 1936, but without success. In 1938, the Woodhead Royal Commission into the Arab general strike of 1936 put forward a plan for the partition of Palestine into three parts: a Jewish state, an Arab state and a permanent British mandate. When news of the plan leaked to Abdullah, he prepared a memorandum to the Commission in which he gave his approval to the partition scheme in a roundabout way: he proposed the union of Palestine with Trans-Jordan with special provisions made for the Jewish community.12 In a simultaneous move, Abdullah instigated an anti-Saudi campaign in a bid to foil a French move to appoint one of Ibn Saud’s sons as King of Syria. He established contacts with prominent Syrian nationalists, including Dr. Abd al-Rahman Shahbandar and Sultan al-Atrash, and consolidated relations with certain leaders of the National Bloc, who felt deceived and humiliated by the Paris negotiations. [124]


The outbreak of World War II did not dampen Abdullah’s enthusiasm. He offered the British the support of his Arab Legion in the hope that it might persuade them of the expediency of his scheme. He also consolidated relations with his veteran supporters in the Palestine National Defence Party (otherwise known as the Nashashibi Party). More importantly still, Abdullah began to make semi-official contacts with the Jewish community in Palestine to further appease the British.13 He explained to the Jewish Agency that a Greater Syria would help to moderate attitudes among the Palestinian Arabs towards Jewish immigration and land settlement. His principal theory was that if he could obtain Jewish support through this argument, he could then use that support to convince the British that his scheme did not conflict with the Jewish issue. The response of the British High Commissioner for Palestine and Trans-Jordan and that of the Jewish Agency was “non-committal”.14 In July 1940, Abdullah sent two notes to London asserting that it was Trans-Jordan’s national aim to achieve Arab unity and requesting that a union between Trans-Jordan and Syria be effected. The British Minister of State, Oliver Lyttelton, visited Amman and told Abdullah to postpone any plans of that nature until the war was over. Abdullah ignored the advice. The appointment of Winston Churchill as First Lord of the Admiralty and member of the war cabinet was greeted by Abdullah with enthusiasm and praise. He regarded the return of Churchill to the forefront of British politics as an opportunity for the British to fulfil the “Churchill promise” of 1920.15 When France fell to the Germans in the spring of 1940, Abdullah was quick to issue a public statement indicating that the French mandate had come to an end and that his country would be reunited with Syria under Great Britain. He also prepared his forces to occupy any part of Syria proper from which the French might be ejected or evacuated. On 29 May 1941, the British issued a statement indicating a major shift in their policy on Arab unity. The statement, formulated in British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden’s Mansion House, stated: The Arab world has made great strides since the settlement reached at the end of the last war, and many Arab thinkers desire for the Arab peoples a greater degree of unity than they now enjoy. In [125]


reaching out towards this unity they hope for our support. No such appeal from our friends should go unanswered. It seems to me both natural and right that the cultural and economic ties between the Arab countries and the political ties, too, should be strengthened. His Majesty’s Government for their part will give their full support to any scheme that commands general approval.16

Meanwhile, on 8 June 1941, General George Catroux, Commander in Chief and delegate of the Free French in the Levant, issued a proclamation promising the Levant independence. Abdullah saw in these proclamations an opportunity to further his scheme. However, when the British and the Free French forces invaded Syria in June 1941, his hopes turned into disappointment. His Arab Legion took only a minor part in the invasion and virtually no part in the occupation of Syria. Still, in July of that year, Abdullah convened a meeting of the Trans-Jordanian Legislative Council and issued a resolution asserting that as “Trans-Jordan has shown in the past that it can provide leadership in the right direction to the Syrian people”,17 divided Syria should be re-unified into an independent state. He also instructed members of his cabinet to organize a demonstration in Amman as a show of support to the British and the liberation of Syria. He then sent a copy of the resolution along with a petition bearing the signatures of 844 Syrians to the British government, which chose to ignore him. However, patience was certainly not one of Abdullah’s natural characteristics. In his opening speech to the Legislative Council, on 6 November, he declared that he “would not allow anything or anybody to prevent the union of divided Syria into one great state”.18 Several months later, he reiterated this view in a speech he delivered in Jerusalem. Also, when the Free French regime in Syria agreed to allow free elections to be held in the territories under its control, Abdullah issued a statement inviting Syrian leaders “from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean and Upper Euphrates” to a conference in Amman. However, Nuri Saπid’s “Fertile Crescent Scheme”, which gave Iraq the political primacy in any union,19 and Egypt’s proposal for an Arab League, obstructed his efforts. In 1944, Abdullah tried in vain to advance his scheme at the Alexandria Conference, where Arab states had gathered to form the Arab League. He circulated a lengthy memorandum to all the participants (with the exception of Saudi Arabia) asserting that as a member of the Hashimite family which had led the Arab Revolt during the Great War, [126]


he was entitled to the Syrian throne. It got him nowhere. He was dealt another blow when Lebanon, Syria and several other Arab states signed the United Nations declaration. Undeterred, Abdullah declared that the Greater Syria Scheme would be inserted as a basic principle of Jordan’s foreign policy on independence. He also issued a 300-page Greater Syria Plan White Paper in 1947 outlining his scheme in writing for the first time. In it, Abdullah advocated the formation of a united Syrian state composed of Syria, Trans-Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon under a constitutional monarchy. The scheme also provided for the setting up of special administrations in parts of Palestine and Old Lebanon (that is, Al-Mutasarrafiyyah), and the safeguarding of the rights of the Jewish and Christian minorities respectively. The Balfour Declaration should be re-interpreted to relieve Arab anxieties “and this can be done if the present proportion of one-third [Jews] to two-thirds [Arabs] is accepted and Jewish immigration stopped. British and other foreign interests in Syria could be safeguarded by [a] treaty [along the] lines of the British treaties with Egypt and Iraq.”20 Abdullah then presented his own claims to the throne of Syria on the following basis:21 • • •

his legally established rights on the Trans-Jordanian Emirate, which is part of Greater Syria his being the first heir to the right of his late father King Hussein to watch over Syrian interests, and the desire of the Syrians for a constitutional monarchy in the event of Syrian unity.

After the release of the White Paper, Abdullah issued a proclamation calling on “the regional governments of all Syria” to convene a national conference at Amman to discuss and consider the union or federation of Greater Syria. He even dispatched his Foreign Minister to Syria and Lebanon, where political opposition to his scheme was strong, to deliver personal invitations to the presidents of the two republics.22 Syria and Lebanon, as well as the Arab League, condemned his action.23 In Syria, the proclamation was denounced as a “British-Zionist scheme” and an “imperialist plot”. Abdullah responded with another manifesto indicating his commitment to the scheme. Alarmed by this, the Syrian Chamber of Deputies issued a warning to Abdullah not to proceed any further with [127]


his efforts. On 14 October 1947, after intense political discussions with his political aids, Abdullah announced that he would refrain from pressing for Greater Syria until the Palestine problem had been settled.

Saπadeh’s attitude to the Greater Syria scheme The evidence suggests that Saπadeh’s attitude towards the Greater Syria scheme was one of strict neutrality. Saπadeh felt that King Abdullah’s scheme had some political benefit in that, apart from openly emphasizing the principle of Syrian nationhood, it acted as a political barrier against Egyptian advances in the Fertile Crescent. Apparently, Saπadeh was suspicious of Mustafa Nahhas, the Wafdist Prime Minister of Egypt, who was at the time actively working to promote Egypt’s open door policy to the Arab world. Saπadeh felt that if Nahhas had his way, Syria would have come under a direct Egyptian hegemony enabling future Egyptian governments to thwart any efforts to reunify the country into a single state. On face value, Saπadeh’s suspicion of Egypt was not unreasonable. Until the late 1930s the Egyptian identity of Iglimiyyah (Egyptian nationalism) took precedence over Egyptian Arab Qawmiyyah (panArabism). In 1911, when Shukri al-Asali, a Syrian nationalist leader, visited Cairo, he did not find any support in Egypt for a call for the unity of Syria and Egypt. Saπad Zaghlul, an Egyptian nationalist, told Arab leaders who approached him in 1919 with the idea of uniting their efforts in the Paris Peace Conference that “our case is an Egyptian and not an Arab one”.24 Following the 1936 Palestine Revolt, accentuated by the contiguity of Palestine to Egypt, the latter increased its involvement in Arab affairs. Mustafa Nahhas began to champion the Arab cause and show more interest in Arab unity as far as it could serve Egyptian interests. Nahhas favoured the promotion of economic and cultural inter-Arab relations. He believed that, if successful, such relations could lead to “political cooperation” by which each country retained its political identity in accordance with its special circumstances and needs.25 By the early 1940s, the Egyptian intelligentsia became more outspoken in favour of the “Arab idea”. A prominent Egyptian, Fuad Abadah, organized Al-Ittihad al-Arabi (the Arab Union) in 1942. Al-Ittihad called for closer relations among the Arabic-speaking people. Its members included prominent intellectual and political leaders. Nahhas Pasha, then Prime [128]


Minister of Egypt, wrote to the Union’s president in 1943 stating: “[T]he government takes great interest in the affairs of the sister-Arab-nations, and is always ready to defend their interests and rights. It also views with great interest the question of Arab unity.”26 Mustafa Nahhas Pasha stated the new position of the Egyptian government on Arab unity as follows: I have been long ago interested in the affairs of the Arab countries and in the cooperation for the realization of their aspirations towards independence and freedom … In this respect I have been able to reach some successful steps; one of them was that the system of government in certain Arab countries has been modified in order to fulfil their real national aspirations. Ever since Mr. Eden had made his declaration I have given [the problem of Arab unity] my consideration; and I thought that the matter should be undertaken by the official Arab governments themselves. I came to the conclusion that it would be better if the Egyptian government itself should take the initial official steps in this respect. First, the opinions of each Arab government would be sounded as to what would be its aspirations. Then [the Egyptian government] would endeavour to bring together and reconcile the various opinions as much as possible. [The Egyptian government] will then proceed to invite [Arab governments] to a friendly meeting in Egypt in order that the movement towards Arab unity would proceed to an effective agreement. Should such an agreement be reached, a conference will then be called in Egypt, presided over by the head of the Egyptian government, in order to continue discussions of the subject and to make certain proposals for the realization of the objects aimed at by the Arab countries. These are the best possible steps to be taken in order that the scheme would be successful.27

Confirming Saπadeh’s suspicion, Egypt’s pan-Arab policy after 1943 was framed with a specifically Egyptian focus. On the recommendations of Great Britain,28 Nahhas formulated a general scheme of unity with the view of preventing any union east of the Mediterranean to deter other Arab states from challenging Egypt’s leadership claim in the Arab world. His endeavour was backed by Saudi Arabia, a long-time adversary of Hashimite unity schemes north of its borders. On 25 September 1944, Nahhas presided over a preparatory committee of the plenary Arab conference at the Antoniades Palace in Alexandria, and succeeded in [129]


persuading the participating members to drop the Greater Syria and Fertile Crescent schemes. He also asked the various Arab governments to reject the notion of full union. The member states accepted his proposals because they felt that it would be unwise to found a league of which Egypt, the most important Arab state, was not an original member, for fear that it might be difficult later to induce Egypt to join. On the other hand, Saπadeh regarded the Greater Syria scheme as a “particularistic plan” motivated mainly by personal ambition and a general desire for territorial aggrandizement. He was discouraged by its overtly apolitical approach, which saw the question of unity as a political exercise wherein states are amalgamated from above, rather than as a process that involves formal transformation of prevailing social attitudes. In formulating its basic tenets, King Abdullah did not seriously question whether or not minority groups in Syria would submit willingly to his overlordship. He simply assumed that any opposition from below would evaporate once the matter was settled by international diplomacy. Saπadeh did not question the legitimacy of “Greater Syria”. He was more concerned about Abdullah’s character and the tactics Abdullah employed for realizing his ambitions. In an article entitled “Greater Syria”, published in the Argentine-based al-Zawbaπa in July 1943, Saπadeh describes Amir Abdullah as a “person loathed by the people because of his political vacillation and capriciousness”.29 In another part of the article he refers to Abdullah as the “Hashimite Arab Arabist” and accuses him of seeking to emulate the nationalist concepts of the Syrian social national ideology “with certain add-ons deemed necessary for his ambition to establish a throne in Syria for himself and his descendants”.30 Furthermore, Saπadeh did not consider Abdullah a Syrian but “an Arab person who constantly spoke of Arabism and regularly turned towards the desert, his native homeland …”31 Not being a Syrian meant that Abdullah had neither the national nor the legal right actively to promote the application of ideas which originated in the midst of the nation. That right is reserved strictly for Syrians: The Syrian Social Nationalist Party declares that it does not recognize the right of any non-Syrian person or organization to speak on behalf of Syria and its interests either in internal or international matters. The party does not recognize the right of anybody to make the interests of Syria contingent on the interests of other nations. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party does not recognize the right of [130]


any non-Syrian person or organization to thrust its own ideals upon the Syrian nation in substitution for its own.32

An internal memo from the British legation in Beirut to the Colonial Office in London on 13 March 1947, stated: There is widespread belief that the [Syrian] Popular Party enjoys British support, and there is no doubt that they would have been a useful counter to communist activities. The party may well split or they might be driven to cooperate with the Greater Syria supporters, although they do not much like either King Abdullah or the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty.33

The reason for this detestation of Abdullah is not difficult to discern. Abdullah’s agreeable attitude towards Zionism, his gravitation towards Turkey (the country which, in 1937, had annexed the northern Syrian provinces of Cilicia and Alexandretta), and his persistent willingness to cooperate with the British, even at the risk of antagonizing the national Arab leadership, were widely condemned as reckless and unpatriotic. Abdullah’s attitude, which helped to foster a stigma of foreign complicity in the Greater Syria idea, created a pattern of relationships that were more conflicting than cooperative. Given these premises, it was much more desirable for Saπadeh to distance himself from Abdullah than to risk damaging his national programme by associating himself with a project opposed by many sections of Arab opinion. Moreover, it was generally conceived that Abdullah had little, if any, knowledge about Syrian nationalism beyond the very basic principles laid down by the Syrian National Congress in 1919–1920. This inadequacy reflected itself not only in his political rhetoric but also in his bombastic methods. Abdullah approached the national question of Syria not as a nationalist, who understands nationalism to be an identification of the nation with the people – or at least the desirability of determining the extent of the state according to sociographic principles – but as an “Arab from the desert”, a member of a “family that, in two world wars, has answered its [Syria’s] call”. Saπadeh’s ambivalence towards Abdullah stemmed from this very point – that despite the obvious benefits of any form of union, the Greater Syria scheme had the potential to cause profound and lasting problems for Syrian nationalism. Abdullah’s low approval outside Jordan and his attempt to fulfil his ambitions on [131]


the basis of “British policies in the first place and Turkish amity in the second place”34 were deemed unacceptable by Saπadeh.

The Longrigg–Porath claim It has been alleged that in 1942, while Amir Abdullah was mobilizing support for his scheme, a minority circle, including Antun Saπadeh’s party, responded favourably to his cry for help and offered its cooperation. According to Brigadier Stephen Longrigg, an expert on Middle East politics: Varying attitudes but by large majority those of rejection were adopted in Syria and Lebanon towards a project initiated in 1945 by the Amir Abdullah of Trans-Jordan: the project of Greater Syria. This was to unify Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Trans-Jordan into a single state, to be ruled by the Amir himself and closely linked to Iraq. The plan, mistakenly supposed to enjoy British sponsorship, was approved by a minority in Syrian political circles, which for a time included the Syrian National Party and the League of National Action.35

Professor Yehoshua Porath is even more assertive in this regard. He claims that in July 1942, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party approached Abdullah and offered to unite their efforts for Syrian unity. “This party … expressed its readiness to regard Abdullah’s kingship of a Greater Syria as compatible with their own concept of government.”36 In return the party asked for permission to disseminate its propaganda freely and officially through certain ministries such as Internal, Propaganda, Education and Social Affairs. There is no evidence in Saπadeh’s writings or in his party’s political literature at the time to suggest that this approach to Amir Abdullah had taken place. On the contrary, the situation in 1942, when the alleged contact happened, casts a shadow of doubt on the authenticity of this claim. First, Saπadeh was in Argentina that year trapped by the circumstances of the war. He had no access to his party back in Syria or a channel to correspond with his senior aides except through travelling compatriots. His writings show not the slightest hint of him consenting to a request for contact with Abdullah. The only discernible reference to the Greater Syria scheme appears in the unenthusiastic article of 1943. [132]


Could it be, however, that Saπadeh had authorized the contact with Abdullah and then camouflaged it by discourteous descriptions of Abdullah in order to keep the French, who were so bitterly opposed to a Greater Syria, at bay? It is very unlikely that Saπadeh would have pursued such a double-standard policy, as he was generally open about his political activities. Whatever its short-range benefits, it carried the long-range political danger of serving as a pretext for the French to decimate his party. Second, in 1942 the leadership of the SSNP in French Syria were in prison en mass. Along with other nationalist organizations, bar the National Bloc, the party was dissolved in 1939 and its senior officers were incarcerated “to ensure the safety of the country”.37 With Saπadeh barred from returning to Syria, the party was virtually in political limbo and in real danger of physical disintegration. It was in no position to contact Abdullah about his scheme or to negotiate on the terms of cooperation with him. In addition, there was the danger of exposing the party to new French retribution at a time when the effort of every member was focused on securing their leaders’ release from prison. One further observation is in order. In 1946, four years after the alleged contact took place, the Supreme Council of the SSNP met in Beirut to discuss the Greater Syria scheme. In all probability, this meeting was held in order to mollify the Lebanese state, which was losing patience with Abdullah’s overtures to Lebanon to rejoin Greater Syria. It was called directly after King Abdullah had declared the inclusion of the Greater Syria scheme as a basic foreign policy principle in his opening speech to the first Trans-Jordanian parliament on 11 November 1946. It would be tedious to reproduce here all the details of the meeting; suffice to say that the Supreme Council adopted a resolution calling on the people of Lebanon and the Syrian Republic to boycott the Greater Syria scheme. The resolution stated: The Greater Syria scheme is a threat to the independence of the two states in the region it seeks to unite [namely, Syria and Lebanon]. It relinquishes the territories of Cilicia and Alexandretta, consecrates sectarianism in Lebanon and seeks to turn the country into a religious safe haven for a particular group. Conversely, it endeavours to establish a Jewish home in the heart of a dear sector, which has struggled hard to defend itself from the alien Jews. In addition to all of this, the scheme calls for a system of government that is inimical with the foundations of modern civilization and its [133]


concepts, as well as with all the values that every open-minded person cherishes.38

However, on re-assuming leadership of the party in 1947, Saπadeh ditched the resolution and reverted back to the Syria idea. Realizing the potential damage it might have on his own national programme, at the speculative level, he re-affirmed his neutrality vis-à-vis the Greater Syria scheme in the following fashion: “The Greater Syria scheme and the Fertile Crescent plan are particularistic plans. This may well be. However, the Syrian nation, the well-being of its homeland, and the fulfilment of its renaissance to glory and honour, is an all-inclusive national cause.”39 This was deemed to be a more desirable position because it underscored the basic weakness of the Greater Syria scheme without contravening the principle of Syrian nationalism itself. Since the Longrigg–Porath claim is based on a letter sent by the High Commissioner for Trans-Jordan to the Colonial Office rather than on a statement by Saπadeh himself or by the party on his behalf, the issue boils down to three possibilities. One is that the letter was authentic and the party’s leadership did, in fact, approach Abdullah and offer to work with him. In that case, Saπadeh cannot be held responsible for the view expressed in the letter, because the approach would have been made without his prior knowledge or consent – he was abroad at the time. The second is that Porath or the High Commissioner for Trans-Jordan might have mistaken the Syrian National Party of Antun Saπadeh for Hizb al-Watani al-Suri, which also translates into the Syrian National Party. The third possibility is that the letter is a forgery, fabricated by Abdullah to convey to the British that there was growing support for his plan in the French sector of Syria. It should be stated here that Abdullah did occasionally resort to tactics of this nature in order to give his scheme a greater sense of importance. For instance, on 29 March 1946 it was reported “from reliable sources” that Abdullah had discussed the Greater Syria project with Foreign Office personnel during a visit to London. The report was flatly denied by the Foreign Office on the same day. Similarly, responding to Abdullah’s claim that Britain would support the creation of a Greater Syria, on 17 December a British press release to the Arab countries denied the claim and announced that the British government regarded the question as one to be settled by the Arab countries alone.40 [134]


Saπadeh, Britain and Greater Syria Saπadeh and King Abdullah came to Syrian nationalism from different perspectives and arrived at different conclusions. Nevertheless, they did share certain general common characteristics. Both men were at least dedicated to the re-unification of Syria; both were shaken by the outcome of World War I; both propagated their ideas roughly during the same interval (1920–1950); both wished to see “Greater Syria” independent of foreign domination; and both regarded Syria’s re-unification as a stepping-stone for Arab unity. Moreover, Saπadeh and Abdullah faced insurmountable hurdles arising, on the whole, from a lack of political and national awareness. The vertical segmentation of the people into local communities, and the differentiation of interests within these communities themselves, made it difficult for both men to crystallize their national ideals or to develop national leadership and organization. The pair shared one other very significant common feature: both of them were often accused by their political adversaries of having been inspired by an old British dream to dominate “Greater Syria”. Certain circles, particularly but not only of pan-Arab orientations, went a step further in asserting that the idea of “Greater Syria” was originally a British scheme and that Abdullah and Saπadeh were the treasonous agents of this scheme. Developed during the 1930s, a period when Arab nationalism was convulsing the region, the theory stipulated that Britain had concocted the idea of “Greater Syria” not only out of a desire for domination but also to destroy Arab nationalism. The pan-Arab strategy sought to smear “Greater Syria” as a stumbling block to Arab unity and the Arab and Islamic umma (community). One of the most outlandish versions of this theory appeared in a demagogic monograph published after the coup attempt against the Lebanese regime of Fouad Chehab in 1961: The political designation for [Saπadeh’s] shallow “nationalist state” was “Greater Syria”, the same “state” as that of King Abdullah of Jordan. This idea was fabricated by the British in the inter-war years … [Greater Syria] was a dangerous plan which preoccupied the leading minds of Great Britain for a long time during those years so much that its Colonial Office put out a comprehensive dossier dealing with it.41

[135]


In an insightful newspaper article entitled “A madman … His name was Antun Saπadeh”, Muhammad Hage has demonstrated that this view, apart from the fact that it was based on an inaccurate interpretation of British policies in the Near East, is self-refuting and downright dangerous. Hage posited the following: What is peculiar is that those who propagate this theory that Britain was behind the project of Greater Syria, at other times voice the refrain that imperialism implements a policy of divide and rule. In response we ask how could Britain implement that policy and still divide the Arab countries, then pursue a unificatory scheme even with a very ill-grace when that would bring the Arab countries closer to each other.42

Al-Hage goes on to say that Britain has to be either an imperialist state that carried out a “divide and rule” policy or one that strived for a step that would contribute to the realization of Arab unity. He points out with perfect justice that to attribute “Greater Syria” to Britain would be tantamount to giving this once notorious colonial power credit for something it does not deserve. However, later-day Arab nationalists did retract. Asad told a Syrian-migrant gathering in 1983: When some of you migrated, there was no Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan. We all formed one political entity. The country as a whole was called Syria, or Bilad al-Sham. Colonialism came and sliced us up; in addition to the previous dismemberment of the Arab homeland, it also further tore up this part of the Arab homeland called Syria. It [colonialism] created Jordan, gave Palestine to the Jews and established Greater Lebanon.43

That those who live north of the Arabian desert form a nation, and that this nation should be independent and united are beliefs that surfaced well before the advent of the British in 1914. Under Ottoman rule, the term Suriyah, al-Sham (Syria) was popularly applied to a geographical area within the Ottoman Empire. During the second half of the nineteenth century, a movement began having as its goal the constitution of Syria as a state on the basis of nationality. The earliest expression of this movement took the form of three literary societies, two of which carried the name “Syria” in their title:

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• •

•

the Syrian Society: founded in 1847 with the aim of spreading knowledge and general information the Oriental Society: founded by the Jesuits in opposition to the growing influence of the Protestant mission; it encouraged discussion of Syrian history from a purely religious perspective the Syrian Scientific Society: established in 1867, it attracted about 150 members from Syria’s various sectarian communities, including some of the country’s best intellectuals who would later become the standard bearers of the national cause.

The key figure in this movement was Butrus Bustani. He first propagated the Syrian national idea in Nafir Suria (The Clarion of Syria), a broadsheet which he published in the wake of the sectarian unrest of 1860. Using “God belongs to religion but the fatherland belongs to everyone”44 as his motto Bustani was unequivocal about his “fatherland”: “Syria which is widely known as barr ash-Sham and Arabistan is our fatherland [watan] in all its diverse plains, rugged terrains, coasts and mountains. And the people of Syria, whichever their creed, community, racial origin or groups are the sons of our fatherland.”45 From then onwards, Syrian nationalism gained both in literary and political significance. A steady flow of books on Syria helped to crystallize this idea,46 the high point of which was the publication in 1893 of an eight-volume history of Syria by the Maronite Archbishop of Beirut, Yusuf Dibs. This was the first comprehensive history compiled about the country, and even though it was written from a Christian point of view, it referred to the existence of an exclusively Syrian national cause.47 The literary upsurge of this period was accompanied by a growth in political consciousness. In 1880, a secret group of intellectuals plastered the walls of Beirut with placards urging the Syrians to independence and revolution. The group demanded: • • • •

the granting of independence to Syria in union with the Lebanon the recognition of Arabic as the official language the abolition of all censorship and controls that hindered the spread of knowledge, and the use of the military solely within national frontiers.

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In evaluating the actions of this group, Wajih Kawtharani (a leading historian on Mount Lebanon) wrote: “What is striking about these placards, apart from their creative underground communication to the masses, is that they also bear new political concepts quite outside received thinking. For the first time in modern Arab history an appeal is specifically made to a Syrian homeland.”48 At about the same time a group of Damascene and Lebanese notables, impelled by “the growing national consciousness in Syria”,49 met at a secret location to “discuss what had to be done to spare the [Syrian] homeland the particularly tragic fate that a foreign occupation represents”.50 After a series of closed meetings in Beirut and Damascus the group decided to appoint Amir abd al-Qadir as chairman of the movement on the following grounds: • • •

the recognition of the Ottoman Caliphate as the Caliphate Muslims the abolition of all censorship and controls that hindered the spread of knowledge, and the use of the military solely within national frontiers.

Overshadowed by more dominant currents such as pan-Arabism and pan-Islamism, the Syria idea was kept alive by a number of intellectuals, both inside and outside Syria: Salim Bustani, Farah Antun, Shubli Shumayyil, Khalil Saπadeh, Jurji Zaydan, Amin Rihani, Gibran Khalil Gibran.51 Either through action or writing, these intellectuals fostered a sense of Syrian patriotism based on a geo-historical conception of Syria. Before long, groups began to form with a specific pan-Syrian focus. However, they were not able to formulate a workable blueprint for a national revival or to create new institutions to educate the people within a national perspective. It is interesting to note here that foreign support for these groups came not from Britain, which was now inclining towards Zionism, but from France and the United States. The Syrian Central Committee (Le Comite Central Syrien), for instance, was founded by the French Chamber of Commerce and Colonial Affairs. Headed by Shukri Ghanem, a Syrian emigrant in France, it expounded the idea of Syrian unity with encouragement and support from the Quai d’Orsay.52 Another group was the League of New National Syria (Nouvelle Ligue Nationale Syrienne). The most important feature of this group was that it argued for Syrian unity under an American-sponsored mandate. It claimed that the United [138]


States was admired by the international community and had shown a clear proclivity to help nations in distress “not for its own self-benefit but for the benefit of those it assisted”.53 A third group, the Party of Syrian Unity (PSU), argued for the complete independence of Syria under the auspice of the League of Nations. Numerous other groups with Syrian national orientation mushroomed during this period: National Society of Syrian Youth, Lebanese–Syrian Committee, Syrian Committee, Syrian–Lebanese Society, Syrian Unity Society, Syrian Society, Society for Syrian–Arab Unity, to mention just a few.54 In other words, the proposition that “Greater Syria” or the “Syria idea” was a British invention, developed and harnessed to Britain’s long-range ambitions in the region, has only to be stated to reveal its absurdity. It is an affront to the early pioneers of the Syria idea and to the political groups which carried its banner. No doubt ignorance rather than ill-will, muddle rather than foresight, had caused this. The proposition – no more than an apparition – was almost certainly fostered by Abdullah’s submissive attitude towards the British and by well-founded Arab ideas of Great Britain. The absence of a rigid British policy on Greater Syria was also a contributing factor. A closer investigation of the facts indicates that the rumour was probably started by the French in a deliberate attempt to discredit the idea as a foreign contrivance. This strategy was directed not only at Abdullah, for everyone in the Middle East was convinced that the British were behind the Greater Syria plan, but also at Antun Saπadeh, who was proving a bigger problem to the French than they anticipated.

Britain’s attitude to Greater Syria When Great Britain came into contact with the Arab world for the first time in the modern era, Syria was a province of the Ottoman Empire. In the mid-1800s, the divisions of religious communities in the country gave Britain and other European powers – notably France and Russia – an opportunity to pursue their rivalries in new ways. The rivalry of England and France was largely responsible for the conflicts of Druzes and Maronites in Lebanon, which ended in the civil war of 1860 and the establishment of an autonomous Lebanon. As British commercial interests grew, helped by the improvement of trade relations and communications and by the opening of the Suez Canal, Great Britain [139]


began to acquire direct political interests too. Its commerce, its position as a Mediterranean power and its Indian Empire became the cornerstones of its policy in the Arab world, particularly in Syria. When World War I broke out in 1914, Great Britain was already in contact with the various political forces at work in Syria: the disintegrating Ottoman authority, the incipient national movement; the rulers of the Arabian peninsula; French colonialists, who planned to make Syria part of the French Empire; and the Zionist movement, which aimed at turning Palestine into a Jewish national home. The needs of the war compelled Great Britain to formulate a coherent policy in regard to all these forces. In the years during and immediately after the war, its Colonial Office devised a policy for the Near East which aimed principally at the vindication of British imperial interests in Syria and beyond. The main pillars of this policy were: • • •

the division of the Fertile Crescent into two spheres, one French and the other British (The Sykes–Picot Agreement of 1916) observance of the Balfour Declaration (1917), and preventing the national movement in Syria from developing to a point where it might endanger Britain’s relations with France or its position in Egypt.

When the war ended, the British government pursued these target policies in Syria with vigour: the Fertile Crescent was divided into a northern zone under a French mandate and a southern under British, and again, each of these zones was subdivided; a mandate was established to facilitate the immigration and settlement of Jews in Palestine; and only in the Hejaz, the most backward of the Arab provinces, was Arab independence recognized immediately, and without conditions. From that point onwards, Britain’s imperial policy in the Fertile Crescent was dictated by the strategic importance of the region, concern about the security of British communications with India through the land and air routes between the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, and considerations of Zionist interests in Palestine.55 Contrary to widespread belief, the principle of Greater Syria did not feature in British political thought. Even though the movement for unity refused to recognize the mandate or the partition of Greater [140]


Syria, the British remained deeply committed to the post-war status quo: Palestine was opened to Jewish immigration, with the government working closely with the Jewish agency; Iraq was stabilized through Faisal and a treaty binding Iraq to Britain (the Anglo-Iraqi Treaty); and Trans-Jordan was transformed into an Emirate under Abdullah. British official records of the March 1921 Cairo Conference and the subsequent negotiations with Abdullah held in Jerusalem state: It was pointed out to [Abdullah] that if he succeeded in checking anti-French action for six months he would not only convince the French government that so far from being actively hostile to them the Sharifian family was prepared loyally to cooperate with his Majesty’s Government in protecting them from external aggression, and would thus reduce their opposition to his brother’s candidature for Mesopotamia, but he would also greatly improve his own chances of a personal reconciliation with the French which might even lead to his being instated by them as Amir of Syria in Damascus [my italics]. It was made perfectly clear to him that while they would do everything they could to assist towards the attainment of this subject, His Majesty’s Government could not in any way guarantee that it would be achieved.56

If the British had been interested in a Greater Syria or anything remotely resembling it they would have chosen a different course of action. Great Britain was in the Fertile Crescent because of its interests. In pursuance of these interests an attempt was made to please everybody to a certain point, to promise each party what it wanted, in the hope either that the conflicting demands would somehow in the end be reconciled, or that everybody would be satisfied with a fraction of what had been promised. In this scheme of things, the only important issue for the British, save their interests, was the pledge to create a Jewish national home in Palestine. Under those circumstances a divided Syria was more advantageous than a united Syria: it prevented the country from mounting a national resistance to the Zionist enterprise and left the Palestinian people on their own to fend for themselves. During the inter-war years, British policies were framed in total disregard of local political and national aspirations. In 1931, when Faisal resumed his initiative to unite the countries of the Fertile Crescent, or at least Syria and Iraq, under his crown, the British stepped in to thwart [141]


his endeavour. The issue was subsequently referred to the Standing Official Sub-Committee on Middle East Affairs of the Committee of Imperial Defence, which then decided to recommend that: • •

•

the outcome most likely to be to [its] advantage would be the constitution of Syria as a republic with a Syrian as President for a single individual to hold the crowns both of Syria and Iraq would be most undesirable and would be in any case likely to prove unworkable should the crown of Syria be offered to ex-King Ali no ground would exist for opposing his candidature.57

Consequently, Sir Francis Humphreys of the Colonial Office was instructed to advise and influence King Faisal in accordance with the Sub-Committee’s conclusions. It was made clear to him that any kind of amalgamation of Syria and Iraq would result in a weakening of Faisal’s position in Iraq, damage to the British position there, and the subjection of Iraq to Syrian, and thus to French, influence and control. It was also emphasized that Syria was then in a higher state of development, that its towns would attract the Iraqis and that the capital might be transferred to Damascus – all of which would result in the increase of French influence to the detriment of the British position.58 Again, when Nuri Saπid proposed in 1937 that a union between Iraq and Trans-Jordan be implemented as a first step in the direction of the broader aim of a unity scheme in which Syria, Lebanon and Palestine would be included, the British reaction was just as negative as it was towards Greater Syria. J.G. Ward of the Foreign Office commented: “From the narrow point of view of British imperial interests, a union of the two countries would be most undesirable, as it would bring across the Syrian Desert, and almost up to the walls of Jerusalem, the present rather offensive Iraqi nationalism, with its suite of pan-Arab intrigues.”59 G.W. Rendel, the head of the Eastern Department, approved his attitude and stated that “the present suggestion is ill-considered and inappropriate”.60 These remarks guided Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, when he despatched his instructions to Sir Archibald Clark-Kerr, the British Ambassador to Iraq, on how to react to Nuri Saπid’s activities. The British reaction to the Greater Syria idea was even more contemptuous. In the winter of 1936, the British Resident in Amman [142]


learned that Abdullah was engaged in the attempt to win over the leaders of the Syrian National Bloc to his plan of unity between Trans-Jordan and Syria under his crown. At first, the Resident thought that those manoeuvres were harmless, but after some time he reached the conclusion that Abdullah should be informed by the High Commissioner for Palestine and Trans-Jordan “that His Majesty’s Government do not wish him to proceed any further along the lines he has proposed toward the amalgamation of Syria and Trans-Jordan”. The reasons which the Resident quoted as warranting his moves were: first, Abdullah’s policy may cause annoyance to and elicit a protest from the French; second, the present Trans-Jordan government was the best the country had had, and the Amir was now seriously weakening its authority and strengthening that of his opponents; third, the Amir was wasting “a lot of money” in pursuance of his policy; and fourth, to remain silent would be interpreted as support for Abdullah’s claim that a union of Trans-Jordan and Syria, under the rule of His Highness, was not unacceptable to the British authorities, and could encourage the Amir and those working with him to persevere to that end. Sir Arthur Wauchope then sent a polite but crystal-clear letter to Abdullah “demanding that he stop his activities in Syria”.61 On the outbreak of World War II, Britain encountered a much stronger pressure on behalf of Abdullah who was now using a new argument, the alleged commitment of Churchill of March 1921. The Foreign Office’s reaction was totally negative. They proposed that Abdullah be told that Churchill’s promise of 1921 did not amount to a British commitment to support by all means Abdullah’s return to Syria. This position was maintained through the stormy years of 1939–1941, although the fall of France in June 1940 caused the Foreign Office to take less emphatic notice of the French negative position towards Abdullah’s scheme. About a month after the French capitulation, P.M. Crosthwaite of the Foreign Office minuted: “We have of course no intention of trying to bring about a union of various states west of the desert, under the Emir Abdullah or anyone else, though if the French were eliminated such a development would be reasonable enough.”62 Lacy Baggallay, his superior, initialled that minute without comment. Abdullah pressed on with his “Greater Syria” project but he was not able to official enlist British backing for it. He had no part to play during the British and Free French military campaign in June–July 1941 [143]


for the occupation of Syria, and was overlooked in the declaration made both by Free France and Great Britain promising independence to Syria and Lebanon. The British did not see “any justification for encouraging him [Abdullah] in respect of Syria”.63 They communicated their position to the Amir in a letter that re-affirmed Britain’s sympathy with the idea of Arab unity and independence, but pointed out that the matter is: “one for consideration by the Arabs themselves when the field is clearer than it is now and that any approach to the Syrian or other government, such as the Trans-Jordanian government has in mind, should in the view of His Majesty’s Government emphatically be deferred until the position is more stable.”64 The negative attitude of the British Foreign Office was resuscitated every time Abdullah raised the issue of Greater Syria. At one point, the British government contemplated the possibility of removing him from power if he continued his demand for the Syrian throne: “If it leads to trouble with the Amir, we may in the end have to get rid of him, which would remove one obstacle in the way of a satisfactory settlement in the Near East.”65 On 29 May 1941, the British issued a statement indicating a major shift in their policy on Arab unity. It transpired that the British were interested in Arab unity, but not in the form of a reconstituted Greater Syria. They preferred unity through the institution of a body that would look after the interests of the Arab countries without causing any significant disruption to the status quo. Underlying the new British attitude was the need to protect Britain’s interests in the Suez Canal and Middle East oil against the threat of Soviet infiltration. There was additionally the Palestine question, which the British were not willing to abandon. The interests of the Arab regimes and those of Britain thus met. This was a vital step in the formation of the Arab union which came to be the League of the Arab States. After that, the more far-reaching demand of Abdullah – for British support for his claim to the throne of a united Syria – no longer figured in the bilateral relations between Abdullah and the British. Yet some feeling persisted, mostly in Arab nationalist circles, that the British government was “behind the Greater Syria plan”.66

Arab and Zionist reaction to Greater Syria The Greater Syria scheme is one of those topics that the more one tries to explain, the more one is faced with incidental questions. Is it true, for [144]


instance, that Abdullah was a “secret ally of the Zionists” and that his “Greater Syria scheme” was a “British-Zionist scheme” concocted to advance the Zionist cause in Palestine?67 If so, when did this theory develop? Also, is the theory credible or was it just another botched attempt to smear Greater Syria as a foreign scheme? It should be useful to inquire into the background and substance of this theory because it created a stigma about Abdullah – and Saπadeh by implication – that remained embedded in the minds of many Arabs for quite a long time. It is apparent that the theory originated in the midst of Arab nationalism. It was invented principally by Saudi and Syrian detractors of Greater Syria. It is also known that the theory circulated intermittently in the 1940s and 1950s, and then suffered a slow death after that. Structurally, the theory was two-pronged: first, it argued that Greater Syria proponents were guided by the assumption that the establishment of a single Arab entity in the territory of Greater Syria could serve as a basis for settling the Arab–Jewish conflict in Palestine; and second, that such unity might satisfy Arab ambitions and that the latter would then ease their pressure with regard to the Palestine question. This second position was formulated by Eliahu Elath of the Jewish Agency’s Political Department when he met the leaders of the Syrian Nationalist Bloc in Bludan on 1 August 1936: If the nationalist aspirations of the Arabs would eventually lead to the establishment of a federative political regime in our area, we would not object to it in principle, on condition that this federation be based on harmony and understanding among all the parties.68

The supporters of the idea of a federation, in Syria and elsewhere, resorted to familiar arguments when they tried to explain the latent advantages of their plan to the Zionist leaders. A prime example of this was the plea made in 1940 by one of the leaders of the Syrian Nationalist Bloc to a member of the Political Department of the Jewish agency with whom he was on good terms: According [to that leader], some of the Syrian leaders consider the federation as a solution to the Palestine problem. As long as that problem exists, and the Arabs of Palestine stand opposed to the Jewish world, the greater is their fear of Jewish domination. If Palestine, Transjordan and Syria were to unite, this unity would safeguard the [145]


Arabs from Jewish domination, and they would therefore be more prepared to make concessions.69

The stigma of conditional Jewish support for Greater Syria, which emerged from this situation, dogged the Syrian nationalists for some time, including the Syrian national movement of Antun Saπadeh. In reality, though, a vast chasm existed between the Jewish and Arab perspectives. The Zionist leaders were merely buying time. Their ambition was to set up a Jewish state in Palestine, not a Jewish community in a Greater Syria. They saw Greater Syria as a process which was dangerous to their own project and a kind of a Syrian domination over Palestine in which destruction of the Zionist enterprise was the nub of the plan. The actualization of a Greater Syria (whether larger or more limited in area) was thus perceived to be a direct threat to the state territorial system of post-World War I, from which Syria could have graduated from being a fragmented country dependent on Egypt or the Arab Peninsula, to being an important nation in its own right. The Zionist leadership’s fear was that, with the realization of Greater Syria, the country would have more resources, a larger population, a stronger economy and so on, all making for a central position in the Arab world and, more importantly, one that might compete with their own enterprise in Palestine. The attitude of the Zionists was dictated by the perception that the real threat to a future Jewish state in Palestine would come “from the north not the south”.70 Eliahu Elath put it more forcefully: Even when Egypt had aspirations for territorial expansion, as in the days of Muhammad Ali, the Egyptians never excelled in long-term colonization ability. We know what happened in Palestine during the eight years of Egyptian rule in the last century (1832–1840), as well as the colonizing attempts made in the Arabian peninsula and in Africa. Egypt situated on the banks of the Nile, developed agricultural methods of its own over the generations, and the Egyptian peasant is the result of them. Those methods were not applicable to what Egypt found in Palestine and in other countries conquered by its armies. Egyptians defend their country in times of danger with devotion and faithfulness, but it is doubtful whether the Egyptian army would show the same devotion as a conquering and expansionist army.71

This was not perceived to be true of Greater Syria. Unlike Egypt, geographical Syria has a special status regarding the question of Palestine [146]


derived from the conception that Palestine is a principal part of its southern frontiers. The Zionist leadership did not take too kindly to this conception and, over the years, has sought to smear Greater Syria as an expansionist plan. This virulent campaign reached its peak in the mid-1970s when Zionist statesmen tried, with mixed success, to present Greater Syria as a component of a Syrian “hidden agenda” to dominate the region: “The Syrian leaders only decided to revive the idea [of Greater Syria] in the mid-1970s – either as a plan of action, or as an attempt to drum up ideological legitimacy for an expansionist foreign policy.”72 A modern-day crusader of this hypothesis is the self-confessed American-Jew activist Daniel Pipes, who has produced a full-scale study entitled Greater Syria to try to demonstrate the danger that lurks behind the idea.73 In a nutshell, the portrayal of Greater Syria as a “Zionist plot” is a tremendous simplification of the Syria idea whether in the form presented by King Abdullah or in the ideological formulation of Antun Saπadeh. It is a pathetic testimony to the existing confusion in the pan-Arab perspective. Perhaps the most astonishing and appalling aspect of it is that the allegation was concocted by politicians of the Syrian old guard. It was then ascribed to the true proponents of Greater Syria in an attempt to discredit them in the public eyes. In the midst of this confusion, both Abdullah’s and Saπadeh’s image suffered, although Abdullah suffered much more because of his subtle connection with the British and the Zionists.

The difference between the GSS and the SND As noted earlier, Abdullah and Saπadeh shared certain general common characteristics with regard to Greater Syria. Certainly, the essence of their work had been an insistence on Syrian nationalism, based on but by no means identical to the national conception developed in the second half of the nineteenth century. Both Abdullah and Saπadeh postulated the idea of Syrian unification as a distinct possibility outside, but not necessarily in opposition to, the mainstream revival proposed by the pan-Arabists. Naturally, therefore, both regarded the present-day Republic of Syria as only a desert edge of the area originally known as geographical Syria. Moreover, both regarded the present division of Syria as unnatural and unacceptable, and therefore advocated the elimination of Syria’s artificial division and its re-unification into a single nation. [147]


However, looking more closely at the two respective models, several crucial differences can be extracted. First, the Greater Syria scheme was basically a political plan with a very specific goal: the re-unification of all of Syria (in its historical meaning) under Abdullah’s rule and federated with Iraq, circumstances permitting. An upshot of World War I politics, the scheme was not a doctrine, a national agenda or a programme of action by any stretch of the imagination. It did not give any attention to social and economic problems, and assumed that unity can be superimposed from above and that everything else would follow suit after that. There was no clear vision for the country beyond this objective. The greatest weakness of the Greater Syria scheme is that it borrowed its political concepts, limited as they may be, from outside sources instead of the authentic experience and real conditions of Syrian life. From the outset it was a reflection of the prevailing puritan lifestyle of the Arab Peninsula – its tribal values, religious zeal, tradition and nomadic culture. As an attempt to fit Syria into this narrow closed framework, the scheme represented a reactionary move for Syrian nationalism because Syria, even at that point in its history, was at a higher evolutionary and progressive stage in political and social organization than the Arab Peninsula. In contrast, the Syrian national doctrine is a complete package. It is: an all embracing [doctrine], directed toward the examination of the foundations of national life in all its aspects, of the basic problems of the Social Nationalist Society: economic, social, political, spiritual, moral and of the final, lofty ends of existence. It also comprises the national ideals, the significance of independence and the establishment of a healthy nationalist society. This in turn implies a new intellectual moral outlook and a new theory of values.74

It is clear from this that national revival is the central theme in the programme of the Syrian national doctrine. It is not restricted to the treatment of a particular political form but affects the very foundations of the state and the basic principles of national life. The idea of a Syrian nation, and of a state which would embody the interests and common welfare of that nation, is a supreme goal in the Syrian national doctrine. In both its vision of Syrian history and of the nature of Syrian society, it is a reflection of Syrian conditions, values and outlook. Thus, unlike the Greater Syria scheme, the Syrian national doctrine takes a longer and more direct view of the national crisis in Syria, [148]


as follows. Centuries of foreign subjugation created an atmosphere of confusion in which the population lost all comprehension of nationalism and national identity. After a protracted period of national torpor, a backward and highly static social system gradually emerged, and the Syrian mentality became fossilized under its crippling influence. The situation was aggravated when the country became cut off from its own cultural heritage. In this regard, the Arab conquest of Syria constituted a turning point in historical evolution, not only because it gave the Fertile Crescent a new language and a new religion, but also because it imparted to other neighbouring societies the same results. When power shifted from Arab to non-Arab hands, the national identity in Syria fell into a deeper crisis. Distinct Syrian feelings became embroiled with other national and parochial feelings, and provisional attachment inside the country sharply intensified until it ultimately superimposed itself on the entire life of the country. Thus, when the spirit of nationalism finally permeated the social fabric of the Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century, Syria, of all the Arab states, found itself the country least prepared for what lay ahead. In those circumstances, the task of change remained with the traditional institutions and some individuals who built their theories and derived their political philosophies from them. Another difference is scope. In a 300-page Greater Syria Plan White Paper issued at the peak of his political campaign in 1947, Abdullah identified the natural boundaries of Greater Syria with the “old historic territorial framework of Al-Sham”.75 Accordingly, Syria constituted in his view the “area ranging from the Gulf of Aqaba to the Mediterranean Sea and from there to the Upper Euphrates”.76 Saπadeh had initially adopted the same definition, but later changed his mind. He realized that while the northern and western boundaries were more or less definite and clear, the southern and eastern frontiers varied from one author to another, the final line of demarcation depending on the political arrangements that prevailed in Syria, as well as on the movements of the nomadic peoples living in these parts of the country. Judging this discrepancy as a dilemma of national proportion, Saπadeh set out to investigate the issue, describing it as “almost equivalent to an exploration into historical archaeology … [and] a kind of search through the layers of history as painstaking as that which the archaeologist conducts when he searches through the strata of the earth”.77 On the completion of his investigation, Saπadeh proclaimed a second definition which heralded [149]


a new direction for Syrian nationalism. Syria’s new boundaries now coincided with those of the Fertile Crescent, thereby merging into a single nation Bilad al-Sham and Mesopotamia. This meant that Iraq was no longer an entity politically separate from Syria, but part of it. The incorporation of the eastern part of the Fertile Crescent also brought into the Syrian orbit, in addition to Iraq, the regions of Kuwait and Shat-al-Arab. The other significant change was the incorporation of Cyprus in the west. Abdullah did occasionally sound out the Iraqi monarchy about the possible federation of Iraq and Trans-Jordan, but this only occurred when union with Syria seemed unlikely. His advances in this regard must mainly be seen in terms of his ambition for a larger princedom for himself rather than national conviction. A third difference is motivation. In his article “King Abdallah’s Concept of a Greater Syria”, Israel Gershuni claims that, although “King Abdallah’s plan for the creation of ‘Greater Syria’ was essentially political” whose revival in the 1940s was “intended as a Hashimite response – Abdallah style – to the political conditions arising out of World War II”, the scheme did, nevertheless, have a “fully developed ideological base”.78 This ideological base, according to Gershuni, is reflected in Abdullah’s refined vision of Syria’s national, geographical and historical dimensions. Gershuni’s argument is that by identifying Greater Syria with the historical territories of Bilad al-Sham, and by recognizing that “Syria constitutes a single geographic, historical and national unit”,79 Abdullah thus gave: “Greater Syria (Suriyah alkubra) both a natural dimension (that is, natural Syria – Suriyah al-Tabiπiyah) and a geographical dimension (geographical Syria –Suriyah al-Jaghraphiyya) as well as a historical dimension (characterized by the name Bilad al-Sham)”.80 Furthermore, this recognition of Syria’s national wholeness emanated from “a deep emotional commitment”81 on Abdullah’s part towards Syria. At the root of this commitment was “the perception of injustice, the result of the sad plight the homeland Syria found itself in”82 – a plight that was both “painful and tragic”83 to Abdullah. Thus, according to this point of view, Abdullah was not a political opportunist, as he has often been depicted, and his conception “was not confined to a particular time span and it was not solely based upon favourable political conditions”.84 Yet, the evidence suggests that Abdullah was largely inspired by a personal lust for territorial enlargement: patriotic commitment to Syria, [150]


if it existed, was only a subordinate factor. To begin with, Abdullah did not march into the Maan in 1920–1921 to reclaim the throne of Syria because he felt a sudden patriotic urge for Syria, but because the British decision to compensate Faisal with Iraq, after his ejection from Syria, deprived Abdullah of the Iraqi throne for which he had set himself. Next, after setting himself up for the Trans-Jordan crown, through the good offices of the British, Abdullah failed to demonstrate any firm commitment to Syrian nationalism beyond bombastic demands for the country’s throne – he abandoned the Syrian nationalists after luring them to Trans-Jordan, accepted the British terms for a ceasefire with the French and the Zionists, unconditionally recognized British authority over Trans-Jordan, quashed the anti-French resistance from the territory under his control, and collaborated with the Zionists. Third, contrary to the patriotic spirit, Abdullah was prepared to concede part of Palestine to the Jews and to consider a Greater Syria without Mount Lebanon, Cilicia and Alexandretta, in exchange for endorsement of his scheme. Abdullah has been described as a “realist who fully appreciated what was practicably attainable and what was sheer imagery of fantastic objectives ever to be postponed”.85 But this does not alter the fact that he had no national agenda. Nor does it add ideological substance to his scheme. Rather, he was enthused by the prospect of a princedom of which he, as the oldest of the Hashimite family and the remaining leader of the Arab Revolt, would be head: nothing really resembling a national state, in the modern sense of the term, ever came into being under this consideration. In contrast, the main thrust of the Syrian national doctrine is directed towards Syrian nationalism as a practical and theoretical construct. This construct was conceived not in antithesis to specific events, as Abdullah’s scheme, but as a necessary preliminary step; the object being first to create a satisfactory national sentiment and a strong and peculiar sense of solidarity. What is at stake here is “not political independence or political accommodation but the national integration of the Syrian people whose unity was fragmented”.86 This is judged unobtainable without first making the people genuinely and deeply aware of their existence as a distinct national group. In fact, Antun Saπadeh, the articulator of the Syrian national doctrine, was only tangentially concerned with political unification, despite the intensity of his commitment to political action. Rather, he was consumed with the more immediate ideological issues and the endeavour to construct a national philosophical discourse directed [151]


towards restoring the theoretical unity of Syrian nationalism. Whatever its flaws, Saπadeh’s intellectual project was an attempt to carry out a kind of ideological revolution – a revolution in thought made conceivable by the sense of disapproval that Saπadeh had come to express towards past and existing doctrines. In other words, Saπadeh wished to go beyond cosmetic schemes, such as Abdullah’s, and carry Syria into the realm of national revival. Fourth, the two models stood at two distinct sides of the territorial disputes inside Syria. With respect to the loss of Cilicia-Alexandretta to Turkey in 1939, the position of the Greater Syria scheme was one of complete indifference. No reference to either province is made in the scheme and there is no evidence that Abdullah had ever broached the issue with the Turks. In contrast, Saπadeh regarded the annexation of Cilicia-Alexandretta as a breach of international law and continually re-affirmed Syria’s sovereign right over the two territories. He even enshrined Syria’s claim over them as a fundamental principle of Syrian statehood. The disparity is even more striking in relation to Palestine. In his repeated efforts to raise and press the Greater Syria plan in exchange for Jewish support, Abdullah was prepared to grant the Jews autonomy, even statehood, in that part of Palestine allocated to them under the Palestine Royal Commission. The Premier of Iraq, Hikmat Sulaiman, was so opposed to this that, in a public condemnation of the partition plan and, obviously meaning Abdullah, he declared: “Any person venturing to act as head of such a state would be regarded as an outcast throughout the Arab world, and would incur the wrath of Muslims all over the East.”87 In the same way as Sulaiman, Saπadeh deemed any form of territorial dispensation to the Jews in Palestine, or any part of Syria, as a violation of Syria’s national and territorial integrity. The conciliatory bent in the Greater Syria scheme is thus annulled in the Syrian national doctrine: There is one large settlement which cannot in any respect be reconciled to the principle of Syrian nationalism, and that is the Jewish settlement. It is a dangerous settlement which can never be assimilated because it consists of a people which, although it has mixed with many other peoples, have remained a heterogeneous mixture, not a nation, with strange stagnant beliefs and aims of its own, essentially incompatible with Syrian rights and sovereignty ideals.88 [152]


The difference is basically methodological: whereas Abdullah believed that an Arab entity in the territory of Greater Syria could serve as a basis for settling the Arab–Jewish conflict in Palestine, Saπadeh posited Syrian re-unification as a national necessity in the face of Zionism. Even with respect to Lebanon, the reaction of the two models is very dissimilar. The Greater Syria scheme advocated a two-dimensional solution to the Lebanese question: first, that the regions annexed to Greater Lebanon in 1920 are returned to Syria; and second, that a canton akin to the mutassaraffiyya is re-established to mollify the local Christian inhabitants of Mount Lebanon. However, there were occasions when Abdullah seemed nonchalant towards Lebanon: “I believe that when union between Trans-Jordan and Iraq is realized, other countries will follow our example. I am working for Syrian unity comprising not Lebanon but the Syria of King Feisal.”89 In contrast, the Syrian national doctrine is less conciliatory. It conceives of Syrian nationalism as a basic principle over and above all provincial tendencies, including Christian Lebanese. Accordingly, it contains no special condition for the Christian inhabitants of Lebanon, as in the Greater Syria scheme, or provision for any kind of autonomy. Another difference is in connection with Arab unity. In the Greater Syria scheme the Syrian question is defined in broad Arab–Islamic terms to reflect the Arab Revolt of the Hashimites, Abdullah’s ancestry. Reading the 300-page Greater Syria Plan White Paper, one is left wondering whether the purpose of Adbullah’s scheme was Syrian unification, Arab unity or the Islamic umma. There are simply no clear demarcation lines between these concepts. What is certain, however, is that Abdullah regarded Greater Syria as a stepping-stone to a wider Arab–Islamic union. Whether Syria should remain an independent nation or not after that is an open question. Whether Syria should be part of the “Arab nation” or would itself be the “Arab nation” is equally unclear. Whether Syria should ultimately become part of an “Islamic nation”, whatever that means, is more ambiguous than both. In contrast, the Syrian national doctrine regards the Syrian cause as an integral national cause completely distinct from any other question. This signifies, in political terms, that “all the legal and political questions that relate to any portion of Syrian territory, or to any Syrian group, are part of one indivisible cause distinct from, and unmixed with, any other external matter which may nullify the conception of the unity of Syrian [153]


interests and of the Syrian will”.90 Saπadeh did not identify with the Arab cause, as Abdullah did, but regarded it as a setback because it subsumed Syria’s nationality within a wider and more inclusive entity. Also in this context must be seen his determination to draw a sharp distinction between Syrian nationalism and the Arab cause: “Those who believe that the Syrian Social Nationalist Party seeks Syria’s withdrawal from the Arab world, because they do not distinguish between Syrian national awakening and the pan-Arab cause, are grossly mistaken.”91 Furthermore, the ambiguity over Syria’s position in an Arab union, which typified the Greater Syria scheme, is absent in the Syrian national doctrine: “We shall never relinquish our position in the Arab world nor our mission to the Arab world. But we want, first and foremost, to be strong in order to accomplish our mission more adequately. Syria must forge ahead in its national revival so that it can fulfil its great mission.”92 While not averse to Syria’s Arab identity, the Syrian national doctrine is very clear about where Syria should stand in an Arab union: nothing should be allowed to jeopardize its independent national unity and form of government. Finally, the two models differed in regard to a system of government. From the time he laid his foot on Trans-Jordan soil in 1920, Abdullah carried with him the dream of re-creating a Greater Syria kingdom, over whose destiny he, as an important member of the Hashimite family, would preside. This vision of a Syrian kingdom stretching over the lands of Bilad al-Sham was constantly presented in the form of a monarchy with Abdullah at the helm. In fact, Abdullah would have it no other way. When Nuri al-Said proposed a scheme for a Fertile Crescent union in 1942, Abdullah opposed it because the scheme, apart from not recognizing his claim to the throne of Syria, stipulated that the system of government in the proposed union “whether monarchical or republican, whether unitary or federal” should be decided by the people themselves. The issue was discussed in the general Arab conferences of 1943 and 1944 and, again, Abdullah was unrelenting. His representative, Abu al-Huda Pasha, responding to a call by his Syrian counterpart for a republican system in Greater Syria, suggested that reunification should “adhere to the original plan of a constitutional monarchy, in accordance with the resolutions of 8 March 1920”.93 The following dialogue then transpired between the conference chairman and the Jordanian delegate in one of the sessions:

[154]


Chairman: (Egyptian delegate): What form will this unity between Syria and Jordan assume? Jordanian delegate: The form of this unity will be determined by majority opinion. Chairman: But what is your opinion? Jordanian delegate: I believe it should be a monarchy. Chairman: But Syria is a republic. Jordanian delegate: A republican system may be replaced by a royalist regime. I say this because I know that many Syrians prefer a royalist regime. I also believe that the present leaders of Syria are genuine patriots who will not allow this question of monarchy versus republic to stand in the way of their country’s prosperity. If they find that it is to the interest of their country, I am certain they will change their form of government.94

Abdullah had in mind a monarchy in the traditional sense. Only one month before his death, in the spring of 1951, in reference to a proposal for a loose federation between the kingdom of Iraq and his own, he wrote: “The Royal Family shall be given similar rights in both kingdoms so that, if a king dies without heirs, he shall be succeeded by the most suitable from amongst the descendants of the Great Deliverer Husayn Ibn Ali.”95 In this conception the state is seen as the private estate of a single family ruled at the discretion of the monarch and passed down from father to son throughout eternity. It is a system where the monarchy (rather than, say, a parliament or a dictator) is the centre of the government apparatus. In the Syrian national doctrine, the creation of a “Greater Syria” is based on the principle of a secular democratic state. It is anti-monarchy and anti-theocracy all at once: The truth is that the greatest battles in the history of man’s liberation have been fought between the interests of the nations and those ecclesiastical bodies, which laid claim to govern the people by divine right. This dangerous claim has led to enslavement of the people at the hands of ecclesiastical authorities. However, it was not only ecclesiastical bodies which usurped this divine right, but monarchies which claimed to have received their authority from God.96

The monarchy question in Greater Syria was broached with Saπadeh during an interview held with him by the French news service:97 [155]


Q In what initial form do you perceive the future Syrian nation? A A democratic parliamentary republic with a bent to the left and above all secular. Q Is there a relationship between your ambitions and the Greater Syria scheme? A The [Syrian] National Party has fought Amman’s scheme for an ideological reason. We do not want a monarchy because we prefer to avoid the confusion that King Abdullah, who is overambitious on interfering in Arab affairs and returning to Mecca, has created.

Saπadeh rejected monarchism because, in his view, it is inimical to true national existence. Nationalism, he wrote, “ultimately marches toward the objective that justifies its existence which is that true sovereignty rests in the people and that the people is not found for the state but the state for the people”.98 He goes on to describe the national state (al-dawla al-qawmiyya) as an institution that aims to “encompass the whole national society with its own all-comprehensive economic cycle, a state that represents the whole and complete interests of the people”.99 The state, as perceived here, is based on two fundamental principles: first, that such a state is the highest of all states, not only in terms of the political and institutional values, but in terms of man’s own nature; and second, that the national state is tantamount to the democratic state.100 In other words, there is a reciprocal relationship between the state and the society in the Syrian national conception, whereas this relationship is one-dimensional in the Greater Syria scheme.

Conclusion It is hoped that the preceding discussion has made clear that the Greater Syria scheme was not the brainchild of British diplomacy or a “Zionist plot” against Arab nationalism. Rather, the scheme was a figment of Abdullah’s imagination and of his desire for a large kingdom with himself at the helm. In the pursuit of this goal, Abdullah identified with Great Britain and the Jewish agency in the hope they would support his plan of a Greater Syria in exchange for significant concessions to the Jews in Palestine. Mistakenly construed as a British–Zionist ploy, the Greater Syria scheme became a means of ridicule to not only Abdullah, whose desertion of the Arab cause at critical moments aroused the suspicion of [156]


Arab nationalists, but also to Syrian nationalism in general. In the process, Antun Saπadeh’s national ideology suffered, and Saπadeh was often forced to defend himself and his ideas against unsubstantiated claims. In the absence of scholarly work and common sense, these claims refused to go away even after Saπadeh’s death in 1949. Even today, when Syrian and Arab nationalism clash they resurface with a momentum of their own.

NOTES 1 The country had just gained independence after almost 26 years of British rule. In 1948, under a United Nations mandate, the borders were redefined between Palestine and what was then called Trans-Jordan so that there would be a predominantly Jewish state in the west (Israel) and an Arab-controlled state in the east (Jordan). Included in Jordan’s territory was the portion of Palestine west of the Jordan River, known today as the West Bank (including Bethlehem, Jericho and portions of Jerusalem). 2 The name of the party is definitively the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and not the Syrian Socialist Nationalist Party. 3 Antun Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 14, 1947, p. 115. 4 A. Dearden, Jordan, London: Robert Hale Limited, 1958, p. 43. 5 Munib al-Madi and Sulayman Musa, Tarikh al-Urdaun fi al-Qarn al-ishrin, Amman, 1959, pp. 132–136. 6 P.P. Graves (ed.), Memoirs of King Abdullah of Transjordan, London: Jonathan Cape, 1950, p. 191. 7 Quoted in Benjamin Shwadran, Jordan: A State of Tension, New York: Council for Middle Eastern Affairs Press, 1959, p. 223. 8 Ibid. 9 He even made a rapprochement with members of the “Istiqlal Party” and allowed them to draft their own plan for an inter-Arab union. 10 Yehoshua Porath, “Abdullah’s Greater Syria Programme”, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 20, April 1984, p. 175. 11 The French High Commissioner was highly critical of Abdullah’s plan because he regarded it as a British ploy to aggrandize their sphere of influence in northern Syria. 12 When the Woodhead Report was released, Abdullah gave it his full approval hoping that his support would lead to the annexation of the Arab part to his emirate. See Shwadran, op. cit., p. 230. 13 This orientation towards the Jewish question may have also been prompted by the decision of the Arab nationalists at the University of Damascus to proclaim King Ghazi of Iraq as King of Syria. 14 The British refused to commit themselves because the scheme was not necessarily altogether anti-French, and the Jewish Agency refused because it was not confident of Abdullah’s abilities to deliver on his promises. See Porath, op. cit., p. 179. [157]


15 In his congratulatory message, Abdullah asked that Churchill be told “I am still waiting the outcome of his promise”. Porath, ibid., p. 180. 16 Hussein Hassouna, The League of Arab States and Regional Disputes: A Study of Middle East Conflicts, New York: Dobbs Ferry, 1975, p. 4. 17 Shwadran, op. cit., p. 233. 18 Ibid., p. 233. 19 Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics 1945–1958, London: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 11. 20 Graves, Memoirs of King Abdullah of Transjordan, p. 265. 21 Ibid. 22 The purpose of the conference was twofold: (1) to draw up a plan for unity or federation within the limits of international treaties and national aspirations; and (2) to define the position of Palestine in relation to the union programme. 23 G.E.K., “Cross Currents within the Arab League: The Great Syria Plan”, The Arab World, January 1948, p. 19. 24 Ahmad M. Gomπa, The Foundation of the League of Arab States: Wartime Diplomacy and Inter-Arab Politics 1941–1945, New York: Longman, 1977, p. 31. 25 Tawfiq Y. Hasou, The Struggle for the Arab World: Egypt’s Nasser and the Arab League, London: KPI Limited, 1985, p. 3. 26 Anwar Chejne, “Egyptian Attitudes Toward Pan-Arabism”, Middle East Journal, vol. 11, no. 3, summer, 1957, p. 256. 27 Quoted in Abdel-Rahman Azzam, Mudhakarat Abdel-Rahman Azzam, Cairo: Mtabaπt al-Ahram al-Tijariyyah, 1977, pp. 262–263. 28 Ibid., p. 263. 29 Antun Saπadeh, “Greater Syria”, al-Zawbaπa, no. 63, 1 July 1943. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: Fikr, 1979, p. 157. 33 A.L.P. Burdett, Arab Dissident Movements 1905–1955, vol. 4 (1947–1955), London: Archive Editions, 1996, p. 154. 34 Ibid. 35 Stephen Longrigg, Syria and Lebanon under French Mandate, Oxford University Press, London, 1958, p. 352. 36 Porath, op. cit., p. 185. 37 Albert Hourani, Syria and Lebanon: A Political Essay, Beirut: Librairie du Liban, 1968, p. 230. 38 Fayez Sayegh, Mashruπ Souria al-Kubra (The Greater Syria Scheme), The Syrian National Party (Information Bureau), Beirut, 6 December 1946, p. 26. 39 Antun Saπadeh, Marahil al-Masπala al-Filastiniyyah (1921–1949) (The Stages of the Palestine Question), SSNP Publications, 1977, p. 126. 40 Clarence E. Dawn, The Project of Greater Syria, PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 1948, p. 107. 41 Amin al-Awar, Hadha Huwa al-Hizb al-Qawmi, Beirut: An-Najah Printers, 1962, p. 8. 42 Muhammad Hage, “Majnoun … Kena Ismahu Antun Saπadeh” (A Madman … His name was Antun Saπadeh), Al-Raπye al-Ome, Kuwait, 17 June 1981. 43 Gayth Armanazi, “Mashruπ Souria al-Kubra” (“The Concept of Greater Syria”), An-Nahda, Sydney, 17 December 1987, p. 3. [158]


44 al-Jinan, 1, 1870. 45 Nafir Suriyya, 25 October 1860. 46 See Youssef Choueiri, “Two Histories of Syria and the Demise of Syrian Patriotism”, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 23, no. 4, October 1987, p. 499. 47 According to Albert Hourani, this upsurge in intellectual interest in Syria “may have been owing in part to the influence of the Belgian Jesuit Henri Lammens, a great historian of Islam, who taught at the Jesuits University in Beirut throughout his career, and who was a staunch believer in the entity called Syria; his dislike of Islam and Arab nationalism is obvious in all his writings, and he drew the sharpest possible distinction between Syrians and Arabs.” Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 1798–1939, London: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 276. 48 Wajih Kawtharani, Al-Itijahat al-Ijtimaiya wa al-Siyassiya fi Jabal Lubnan wa al-Mashraq al-Arabi (The Social and Political Trends in Mount Lebanon and the Arab Orient), Beirut: Bashoun Publications, 1986, p. 111. 49 Ibid., p. 121. 50 Ibid. 51 Adel Beshara, “The National Idea in Gibran’s Thought”, Kalimat, no. 5, Sydney, December 1999. 52 See Issam Khalifa, Ibhas fi Tarikh Lubnan al-Muπassir (Studies in the Modern History of Lebanon), Beirut: Dar al-Jalil, 1985. 53 Ibid., p. 82. 54 A brief description of these and other groups with Syrian orientation can be found in George Adib Karam, Ahzab al-Lubnaniyyin wa Jamπiyyatihum fi al-Rubaπ al-Awal min al-Qarn al-Ishreen (The Political Parties of the Lebanese and their Societies During the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century), Beirut: Dar An-Nahar, 2003, pp. 119–151. 55 George M. Haddad, Revolutions and the Military in the Middle East: The Arab States, vol. 2, Santa Barbara: University of California, 1971, p. 5. 56 “Report on Middle East Conference Held in Cairo and Jerusalem (Secret), 12–30 March 1921”, p. 8, FO 371/6343. 57 FO 371/15364. 58 Ibid. 59 Quoted in Yehoshua Porath, In Search of Arab Unity: 1930–1945, London: Frank Cass, 1986, p. 216. 60 Ibid. 61 Wauchope to Colonial Office, with enclosures (copy), 22 April 1936, FO 371/20065. 62 Porath, In Search of Arab Unity, p. 207. 63 Ibid., p. 209. 64 Ibid. 65 FO 371/27044. 66 G.E.K. “Cross-Currents within the Arab League: The Great Syria Plan”, The Arab World, January 1948, p. 24. 67 Ibid., p. 23. 68 E. Elath, “Antun Saπadeh – Portrait of an Arab Revolutionary”, Zionism and the Arabs (Hebrew), Tel Aviv: 1974, pp. 422–429. 69 CZAS/25-3500, report of 31 March 1940. [159]


70 See Lee I. Levine (ed.), The Jerusalem Cathedral, Jerusalem: Yad Izhak Ben-Zvi Institute, 1982, p. 281. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid., p. 270. 73 Daniel Pipes, Greater Syria: The History of an Ambition, New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. 74 http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3577/aim.html (16 June 2004). 75 Israel Gershuni, “King Abdallah’s Concept of a Greater Syria”, reprinted in Sinai and Pollack, The Hashimite Kingdom of Jordan and the West Bank: A Handbook, American Academic Association for Peace in the Middle East, New York, 1977, p. 139. 76 White Book, p. 252. Historically, this region was called Bilad al-Sham – an area which covered the territories of the present-day states of Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan and the Arab Republic of Syria. This definition of the natural boundaries of Greater Syria was considered by Abdullah as legitimate because it rested on the resolutions of the Syrian National Congress of 2 July 1919 and 8 March 1920. 77 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, 1979, p. 75. 78 Gershuni, op. cit., p. 139. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 Ibid., p. 140. 82 Ibid., p. 142. 83 Ibid. 84 Ibid., p. 140. 85 Shwadran, Jordan: A State of Tension, p. 221. 86 L.Y. Zuwayya, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969. p. 82. 87 Quoted in Arnold J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs 1937, London: Oxford University Press for the Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1938, I, p. 551. 88 Ibid. 89 New York Times, 12 February 1946. 90 http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/3577/aim.html (16 June 2004). 91 Ibid. 92 Ibid. 93 Shwadran, Jordan: A State of Tension, p. 228. 94 Ibid. 95 Quoted in Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, “Jordan and Iraq: Efforts at Intra-Hashimite Unity”, Middle Eastern Studies, vol. 26, no. 1, January 1990, p. 66. 96 Ibid. 97 See Antun Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 14. 98 Antun Saπadeh, Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1938, p. 130. 99 Antun Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, 1979, p. 140. 100 “Nationalism,” wrote Saπadeh, “ultimately marches towards the objective that justifies its existence which is that true sovereignty rests in the people and that the people are not found for the state but the state for the people.” He added: “This is the democratic principle upon which nationalism rests. For the democratic state is inevitably a national state because its legitimacy does not rest on extrinsic beliefs or a metaphysical will, but on a General Will arising from a collective awareness in a single socio-economic life.” Ibid. [160]

PA RT I I I

P OLITICAL H ISTORY


5 Saπadeh and the Recovery of Antiquity: The Evolution of Nations in Macro-History Dennis Walker

This chapter reviews exploration by Antun Saπadeh of periods in antiquity that formed and enduringly defined the pan-Syrian or Fertile Crescentic nation (also termed by him Suraqiya). In these sectors of his works, Saπadeh also discussed the macro-history of the peoples of the Mediterranean basin and even West Africa. His accounts of negative and positive interactions between the Syrians and Europeans in antiquity offered his people confidence for struggles for independence from the Western powers in the twentieth century, and also patterns for future humane civilizational relations between free nations once the world will be purged of aggression. Saπadeh was not the only writer in the Fertile Crescent or in the Arab world in his period who read ancient history as one key to define a nation and to understand and restructure its twentieth-century relations with Westerners. Our study both (1) places Saπadeh within the period context of the range of Lebanese-Syrians who were celebrating and discussing the nation’s pagan ancient history in the 1930s and 1940s and (2) assesses his originality as a macro-historian who was able to trace how interactions with wider units and empires could stimulate or retard the growth of nations. While our main focus is Saπadeh’s contribution to the demarcation of the Syrian nation from the other peoples of Islam and Christianity through the depth that his restored pagan antiquity brought out, he also has to be considered as a macro-historian with wider reach. Major broad-gauge studies of Saπadeh’s nationalist ideology have been mounted by Labib Zuwiyya Yamak and Adel Beshara, but these could not decisively assess the outcome of his attempt – declared by him early in Nushuπ Al-Umam (The Rise of Nations) – to match Ibn Khaldun as a macrohistorian for the Arabic language. Accordingly, this chapter will somewhat locate Saπadeh in broader issues of the rise and collapse of international [163]

ANTUN SAπADEH: POLITICAL HISTORY

economies, empires and multinational religious states. The nation throughout history was crucial for him, but is not the sum total of his contribution to historiography. This chapter should contribute to the assessment of Saπadeh as a macro-historian.

Geographical homeland in the formation of nations The historical view of Saπadeh places great stress on economic development as a key factor in the formation and development of nations. The geographical homeland works to frame within itself a single and discrete economy over centuries. The basic bond of society is the economic bond.1 A society evolves upward according to the success of economic interest … As a community becomes further developed in its material culture, those interests that improve and adorn the good life multiply in the same measure.2 A nation is strong or weak, advanced or backward, in proportion to the possible resources of its economic environment, and to the nation’s capacity to utilize these resources. The existence of enough resources to meet external interchange and to achieve parity in exchanges with the outside world – or, even, to make exports exceed imports – are the requirements that define if a given environment would foster the emergence of a nation.3

Saπadeh had lived in both Latin America and the USA: he had a good understanding of the futuristic operation of new economies to melt diverse origins together into a new huge nation defined by one new homeland. Race does not determine nationhood: each of the nations of the Americas are formed out of diverse races; it is the unity of life in a country over generations that amalgamates a nation sometimes perceived as a race.4 The Phoenician Syrians and the establishment of supra-national economy As a liberal, radically secularist intellectual, Saπadeh did not just analyse the Syrians’ relationship with the West in antiquity in terms of conflict [164]

SAπADEH AND THE RECOVERY OF ANTIQUITY

between nationalities (archetypes of colonialism and national resistance). A certain trans-national cosmopolitanism qualified his nationalism. This is as true in Saπadeh’s analyses of ancient history as of the Syrian nation’s struggle in modern history. His accounts of ancient history in The Rise of Nations registered fully the violent expansion and ruthless imperial exploitation by Rome that prefigured modern imperialism. But in the very same 1938 work, Saπadeh took generous account of positive exchanges between the ancient Syrians and the Greeks and Romans, what in the long term became the cooperative construction by these Mediterranean peoples of a new cosmopolitan civilization. For both Lebanonist and the Saπadehist pan-Syrian particularists in the 1930s and 1940s, military prowess had no inherent value in its own right and was subordinate to transformation of the economic process, the dynamic progression towards an economically self-sustaining nation state participating in an international modern economy. The first, or for Saπadeh at least, the decisive breakthrough in this was traced back by both factions to the “Phoenicians” of ancient coastal lands, most of which had now been brought together in General Henri Gouraud’s Greater Lebanon. Socio-economic modernization was the main issue at stake for both movements in the twentieth-century particularist state venture; and for both, the development of militarism and empire building could even be deleterious to socio-economic/technological transformation. Saπadeh’s main interest in the ancient period is clearly in technological and intellectual innovations: “the Syrian revolution” that constituted “humanity’s decisive step towards civilization” and “created a new beginning for human culture” in which “the plough went into action to meet [nutritional] needs through agriculture”. By replacing the hoe cultivation, this revolution freed a large part of the farming agricultural population for other activities, fostering the emergence of towns, hand industries, medicine, the birth of regular armies and so on.5 Yet for Saπadeh, although regular armies developed as one consequence of this Suraqiyan socio-technological revolution in antiquity, they were an emblem of its interim insufficiency and indeed sometimes obstructed its further unfolding. True, Saπadeh’s images of Canaanites and invading Hamite Egyptians clashing in the Sinai desert over natural resources that he believed were situated in Syrian ground there may have fuelled particularist ill-feeling between modern Arabic-speaking Egyptians and Syrians. More important, though, was the twist that Saπadeh gave to the [165]


longer-term creative society that even such passages held up: Saπadeh saw Egypt’s incursions into Asia for minerals (Sinai copper) or the cedar-wood of Mount Lebanon – but also Suraqiyan Chaldea and Assyria’s military expeditions to levy tribute – as a use of “organized warfare” to “compensate” for the insufficiencies and bottlenecks of a technological-economic and cultural impasse.6 The stage of civilization that had preceded the development of an international commerce by the coastal Syria-Phoenicia showed a growth in the socio-economic system based on three classes: the nobles, the free craftsmen and the slaves. The system of the self-sufficient tribe had long been replaced by the monarchical and then the republican state. But the resources of this culture were confined within its environment: thus, it was unable to continue its progression because the resources of every environment are inherently limited. War could not form a regular compensation or a socio-economic instrument for a continuation in upward cultural evolution. “We do not say that commerce was nonexistent, but it was not an organized economic factor.”7 The agricultural stage of the Syrian revolution had freed a large section of the workforce from the labours of cultivation: this opened the way for increased specialization in trades and crafts and stimulated the growth of cities but “with all the socio-economic consequences being confined within the environment, save resources that could be won by way of war and hence were uncertain/irregular”.8 “The means to set the intellect at liberty were as yet insufficient”: the hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts were too complex to popularize among the general population and were a cumbersome means to record or read facts. Their scope was confined to the recording of the events and external campaigns in the reign of the monarch, the laws that became necessary with the birth of cities, specific gods and the rites of pagan religions: “[B]ut they could not express many necessary intellectual concepts nor serve as an instrument for those complex [economic] exchanges between peoples and states that the growing specialization of professions and internal exchange of commodities within given land states had made a possibility.”9 Hence, for Saπadeh, the true historical significance of the Canaanites does not lie in such incidents as their invasion of Egypt and their establishing an empire there (the Hyksos), though that provided impetus for Egypt’s own development of military technology. Rather, it is “amid those wars and in contrast to this socio-economic insufficiency (al-naqs [166]


al-πimrani) of most states in the region to attain a developed level of human culture that the Canaanites took a new direction” which they would not have taken had they simply established yet another militaristic land empire. “They did not become bogged down in wars, [and] instead directed their thought to the overcoming of the difficulties posed by socio-economic needs by organizing their economic culture”:10 intensive agriculture in Palestine linked into an international trade by the Phoenicians on Suraqiya’s north-west coast and so on. Of course, the Phoenician development of an international seaborne trade in the Mediterranean and beyond with Africa and Northern Europe was well understood by Saπadeh to have developed into a problematic of power. It would seem accurate to say that Saπadeh visualized the Phoenicians as representing two separate phases of human experience and communication. The first phase was that of the coastal Phoenician sea-going city states that organized international commerce for the first time in human history, and thereby released humanity from the stage of plough and garden agriculture and set it in movement towards the interim stage of an international “commercial production, the culture based upon the large-scale cultivation of crops and the establishing of large-scale industries, creating the needs that produced the machine economy of modern civilization”.11 In its initial stage, though it established colonies of its citizens at strategic points of the Mediterranean, Phoenician commerce was not imperialist or militaristic as in a sense it became in its second period under the expansion of Carthage. Saπadeh summarizes a passage of Herodotus which, although it dealt with Carthaginians, no doubt represents the methods by which the Phoenicians generally dealt with less culturally developed peoples in the pacific period of their commercial expansion. The Canaanite (Phoenician) Syrians who built Carthage were experienced in the techniques of the method of trade known as the silent exchange. In their trading enterprise in West Africa, they used to unload the goods on the shore and arrange them in order, then return to their ships and send up black smoke so that the inhabitants of that place might see it and come to the shore, place gold in exchange for the goods there and then withdraw some distance from the commodity. Then the Carthaginians would come down to the land a second time, examine the quantity of gold so that, when they found it sufficient to compensate for the goods, they would [167]


take it and set sail. If not, they would return to their ships and wait until those people could return to place another quantity of gold – and so on until the owners of the goods were satisfied. None of the parties wronged the others in any way: the Phoenicians did not touch the gold before it met the value of the commodity and the people of the land did not touch the goods before the other party took the gold.12 Saπadeh’s data here is in accord with the later-formed ideology of the Kataπib (“Phalangists”: founded in 1936) that “since antiquity … our ancestors have sown the seeds of Mediterranean civilization … at the same time as they exchanged material goods with their neighbours as well as the tribes of remote continents” – or as Pierre Gemayel, leader of the Kataπib Party in Lebanon, put it in 1958: “[E]ven while they were only Phoenicians, the Lebanese already showed … liberal traditions and a generosity of spirit so great that it enabled them to love and understand even the most remote peoples.”13 The main difference between Saπadeh’s view of even this first pacific mercantile character of the Phoenician expansion, and the view of the Kataπib, the various writings in al-Bashir and in a sense of Saπid ∏Aql who in Qadmus (1947) spoke of the Lebanese who “grow tall in giving”14 is that for Saπadeh there were no emotions involved in whatever transactions took place. For Saπadeh the Phoenician Syrians were just when trading because it was in their (as the other party’s) interest to be so: he may not have conceived the sea-going Syrians to have derived any cultural benefit from such less developed peoples as the Greeks or Africans with whom they had those sea-borne exchanges. Although he does say that commerce is one of the great factors for the interaction of cultures, it is clear that Saπadeh here means the influence of the Phoenicians on Greek culture.15 The Kataπib sought a “constructive” resolution in regard to the West, and to the imperial might of France on the ground. More than the later Saπid ∏Aql and the Kataπib, who tended to contrast the mercantile but also idealistic quasi Phoenician-Lebanese with other more war-bent nations, Saπadeh stressed the second stage of the development of the Phoenician experiment: that of empire-building. His use of the term “the Western Syrian empire” for Carthage suggests that he believed this to be a qualitative change most characterized by the Carthaginian state alone. In his analysis, the coastal Syrian states represented the first “commercial phase”16 of the Phoenician revolution, while Carthage effected the culminating imperialist development of the second colonizing phase. [168]


One reason for Saπadeh’s sustained interest in Carthage was that it represented international economic organization and power crystallizing into political power – the imperial state. His fascination with this aspect of “power” that Carthage represented was to come to the surface more than a decade later. Then, in rejecting the Islamophile Christian Rashid Salim al-Khuri’s argument that “the sword of the Prophet [Muhammad] was the appropriate means with which to achieve national emancipation”, Saπadeh replied that: “[T]he sword had been unsheathed by states and nations in their wars and their conquests before Muhammad and before Christianity. The sword of Hannibal sliced down through Italy from its north to its south in a conquest the like of which history had never witnessed, about eight centuries before Muhammad.”17 Relative standing with non-Syrian Muslims in regard to wide conquests was thus among the concerns that pushed Saπadeh to his paganist review of ancient history, although the modern West loomed larger in his mind as he wrote. The achievement of imperial power by a group of people of Syrian origin resident in North Africa no doubt met a psychological need of Saπadeh in a period in which the modern Syrians of his day had been partitioned and colonized by two great imperial states – Britain and France. Even though the Carthaginian conquests in which Saπadeh was most interested were those to which West Europeans fell victim, he also had a tendency at the emotional level to endorse the Carthaginians’ subordination of the autochthonous North African population as proceeding from the cultural and racial collective spirit of North Africa’s Syrians. Analytically, however, he does recognize that this failure to incorporate the autochthonous population into the in-group was self-defeating in terms of practical politics. Moreover, it does not accord with his general proposition that a state’s success is measured by the amount of rights it extends to its citizens and his observations elsewhere that in the pre-modern, pre-nationalist period one historical function that the state has served has been to weld disparate peoples into a new national entity where they share a common homeland. One could argue that Saπadeh’s interest in Syrian power, economic or political, and Syrian supremacy as illustrated by the subordination of the non-Semitic North Africans, was incidental to his main intellectual concern – organization. That is to say, he is interested in the impetus both the Phoenicians of coastal Syria and the Carthaginians gave to the development of compound organization, social, political (that is, [169]


internal institutional) and economic, an evolutionary process inherently international because of the nature of the technological breakthrough that “the Canaanite Syrians” effected. Although attracted by Carthaginia’s prowess, at the same time Saπadeh is interested in its development of internal liberalism, the progression towards a society internally complex as a polity. Here his shading somewhat differs from the focus of Young Egypt (Misr al-Fatat) in the same period. When Misr al-Fatat turned to ancient Egypt for guiding patterns for the political reorganization of modern Egypt into a polity with the military capacity for independence, it sought monolithic, totalitarian organization and the sanctification of the king-ruler. Saπadeh saw the integrative function of monarchs as arbiters for change as temporary, and he focused more on those underlying economic changes in which the Syrians carried humanity through to a new stage. Thus, the Phoenicians (including the Carthaginians) excited Saπadeh at two levels. One level, the emotional and more national, was that of their racial and cultural Syrianness. Although their economic activities, and their expansion through colonization, took them outside the sphere of the hinterland Syrian watan that was his theoretical frame of nationality, Saπadeh emotionally endorsed the Mediterranean economic and cultural unit they created – unlikely as it is that this truly met his usual exacting criteria for a normal nationality – because they were ethnically Syrian and because, in either the economic or military sense, they conquered widely. But the most important level at which he responded to the Phoenicians was undoubtedly his intellectual, much more analytical, excitement at their innovative contributions to “compound cooperation” among the nations which “created a new beginning for human culture”18 – “the culture of commercial production” that made possible “the art of knowledge of the world and the resources it contains”, “the development of sea-navigation to link the sites of raw materials to the centres of the new commercial culture”.19 Commerce is an intellectual work par excellence; thus, intellectual work in this period necessarily came to preponderate over other forms of labour. To make it possible for the widest section of the population to participate in such labour, Saπadeh argued, the Phoenician Canaanites were obliged by the needs of the economic system they were creating to invent the alphabet, the basis for modern civilization.20 The Phoenician Canaanites invented capital in its true sense to meet the complex needs of trading with the nations: “The [170]


most important of the characteristics of this culture is that it creates a masterly symbiosis between affairs of sea navigation and matters of an agriculture that demands care more than effort.”21 The hinterland Syrian “plough agriculture” and the more West Syrian-Lebanese “garden agriculture” had liberated the human mind to an extent and then, by making an improved distribution of labour possible, had enabled the West Syrians to create the coastal trading city state. For Saπadeh, the Phoenician Canaanites had originated all the preconditions for modern urban mechanical civilization: the alphabet on which a literate civilization could be based; an international trade that “organized labour in common units”; and capital in its true economic sense.22 The agriculture that now could effectively meet all needs of the population while employing only a small workforce set the greater part of the population free to direct their energies “to other cultural activities … producing that highly developed specialization that is the most distinctive quality of the social life of civilized society … and the most [economically] effective method to gain the greatest result from the principle of cooperation”.23 Thus, this Syrian revolution had found its true fulfilment with the modern industrial Western “culture of commercial production” based on the establishment of a large-scale agriculture and large-scale mechanized industries truly international in both the sources of their raw materials and their export markets.24 The ancient pagan civilization of the Syrian nation could prescribe thorough-going Westernizing excision of traditional customs in the Fertile Crescent that cited Islam and Christianity. Saπadeh dismissed “moralists” (there had been many among the Maronites in the 1920s and still among Muslim Arabs) who deplore the disintegration of family and blood ties that the spread of modern Western civilization produces, or who champion the conservative “Eastern woman” for her “modesty and sense of shame” against the “veilless energy and extremism” of “the contemporary woman”: those conservatives did not understand “the momentous economic factors” that determine social change.25 In both Saπadeh and ∏Aql, Phoenicia’s origination of economic enterprise justifies modern Syria or Lebanon’s venture of modernization – some kind of association with the West in at least the patterns of its civilization and in trade – as inherent in the character that the nation had acquired so long ago when in its first formative period. The remote pagan past of the nation justifies, whether this be its function or not, its new modernization enterprises that the secular West patterned. [171]


Syrian–Western collaboration in antiquity As a liberal secularist thinker, Saπadeh’s reach of interest passed beyond conflict relationships between the Syrians and the West, important though ancient foci of resistance to imperialism were in his discourse for morale building. Saπadeh traced positive exchanges of technologies and thought between the ancient Syrians and the Greeks and Romans in which he is a Westernist, even almost one of the Arab-acculturated liberals of his era, to the extent that he sees civilization as cumulatively constructed by many parties, with the modern West a culmination that still has in it many traces of ancient Syria. Saπadeh’s writings on the ancient history of the Syrians and Europe in the 1930s and the 1940s have to be assessed in relation to the sharp reaction against the West and its ideologies, or at least its political dominance, that occurred in Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and so on in that period. This anti-Western reaction rejected not just the political imperialism of the Western powers but, in some writers’, positive West-developed civilization as such, in the name of separate Eastern identity. Saπadeh’s writings on ancient history avoided the latter pitfall, self-defeating where it psychologically sapped those Arabic countries’ modernization drives, although for the most part it was shadow-boxing and elite control. Saπadeh normally denied the duality of East and West and emphasized that at any rate Syria belonged to an East the culture of which was incompatible with modern Western civilization. Antun Saπadeh’s pan-Syrian ideology paralleled the “Mediterraneanist” world view of some Lebanese particularists to the degree that Saπadeh’s cosmopolitanism recognized patterns of relations in antiquity that worked for a joint “civilization of the Mediterranean sea and the West”.26 The various Syrian and European states and communities in antiquity had certain sharp differences and violent conflicts at times, to be sure, but also shared elements for a common “Euro-Syrian civilization” that increasingly differentiated these ancient cultural states from the primitive/barbarous world of Asian nomadism in those ages. Like the Lebanese particularists, when Saπadeh did this he traced the influence of the Syrians – particularly the Lebanese whose land in this context he termed “coastal Syria” – on the development of classical European civilization. A late example of influence cited by him was the extension by Carcalla, the ethnic Syrian emperor of Rome, of Roman civil rights or citizenship to the empire’s subjects in the Constituto Antonina of ad 213. Saπadeh then moved [172]


from that instance to see the final fulfilment of this process of the development of an impartial law in Mediterranean civilization in the Code of the (Byzantine) Emperor Justinian, which he seems to suggest gained some of its impetus from the School of Bayrut.27 In such motifs and formulations, Saπadeh did tend to veer an iota from homeland towards quasi-international cosmopolitan empires where those allowed careers that paid off, and opportunities to contribute, to individuals from the Suraqiyan Nation. On the whole, though, his odd images that the pan-Syrian nation was able to contribute in antiquity or in Muslim-headed empires while without strict sovereignty should be read in terms of his orientation to real history, and of his moderation. Exchange, collaboration and synthesis between nationalities is a fact of history. At most points, Saπadeh avoids the hostile and apologetic attitude one senses in some Egyptian neo-Pharaonic particularists who dismissed Greek and Latin culture as simply derivative from the Pharaonic. Saπadeh rather caught the dynamic interrelation between a range of Syrian, African and West European cultures. Rome, for instance, took from the Syrians but also developed and improved. Still, he reflected that “it was in the Syrian city state, and especially the sea-going city state” in which “was laid the basis of civil rights that developed in Carthage and reached their peak in Rome”.28 Thus, Syrian–European cosmopolitan collaboration in antiquity developed through and after an earlier period in which the Europeans (Greeks and Romans) were very dependent on borrowing from the Syrians who were, at that time, infinitely more developed. The dependence was inevitable because the Iraqo-Syrians were among the originators of civilization like the Pharaonic Egyptians and the Chinese. Saπadeh showed the necessity in which the Greeks initially stood before they became intellectually innovative to borrow from the Middle East. The “Syrian revolution … constituted the beginning of modern civilization”.29 Describing the Phoenician achievement in threading the whole Mediterranean basin through trade and colonization into a single new cultural region, Saπadeh extrapolated from Homer that the circumstances of the Greeks at that time compared with the culture the Phoenicians had attained had been “like the condition of the barbarians of Africa when they encounter the modern commercial peoples”.30 Saπadeh then objectively detailed the manufactures that the Phoenicians brought from their homeland to Europe, and the raw materials and [173]


primary products they received in return for them, “after the merchants bought the approval of the [local] ruler”.31 Saπadeh’s accounts of the initial impetus that the ancient Syrians gave to Europe’s first steps in civilization gave modern Syrians the self-confidence essential to face the West. But he put Europe’s ancient debt to Syria very firmly within the context of the supra-national, cosmopolitan nature of civilization in ancient and modern times. Survival dictated that the modern Syrians assimilate the modern West’s strength-conferring civilization but also its constructive secular values. Here Syrians would, to some extent, be recovering developments of elements that their ancient forefathers had supplied to Europe, as some liberal pan-Arab nationalists of the era also argued with somewhat different motifs in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent in this same post-1930 period. Saπadeh’s was not a funereal nationalist thought like those of some pan-Arabs or some in West and East Europe who wove a myth of a sovereign golden age of the nation in antiquity that founds most human civilization: then, after the nation loses its sovereignty, humanity’s development – or at least the nation’s – is then arrested, until the nation wrests it back in modern history, as such thought runs. For Saπadeh, humanity’s development through exchange and collaboration continues even after this nation or that ceases to be sovereign.

Conflict between the West and the Syrians in antiquity Saπadeh was open to civilization developed in the West, fostered by cosmopolitan collaboration between Westerners and Syrians to develop the joint stock of their cultures and technology. He parted company with some Catholic Lebanese “Mediterraneanist” particularists in that he viewed such civilizational collaboration and any violation of the Lebanese’ or Syrians’ sovereignty as inherent incompatibles. Some writers in Lebanon who collaborated with the French mandatory had thought it no bad thing that Lebanon’s populations in antiquity at various times passed under the rule of Greece or Rome, that Lebanon’s status as a province in ancient European empires fused and integrated the Lebanese ever more fruitfully together with the Europeans. In contrast, Saπadeh underscored the murderous, destructive violence of ancient Greece and Rome in their expansionist periods, along with the grave harm their conquests caused to Syrian Civilization and also to [174]


civilizational collaboration in the Mediterranean Basin. He mentioned many episodes of open warfare between Greece or Rome and the Syrians in ancient times. In his discussion of the development of law, which he sees as having began with “the most ancient law in the world”, “the Syrian law of Hammurabi”, Saπadeh regrets that we cannot now follow the further development of this Suraqiyan law by the innovative Phoenician states because “the destruction by the Roman and Greek barbarians of the Phoenician capitals regrettably must have been devastating and complete”.32 Saπadeh cited Alexander the Great’s destruction of Sur (Tyre) and Scipio Africanus the Second’s razing of Carthage. However, Saπadeh’s language and thought here as he evaluates the respective merits of the law as successively developed by the Syrian peoples, by the Greeks and by the Romans – “Roman law is the most precious thing Rome bequeathed to humanity” – demonstrate sobriety and appear undistorted by nationalist emotions.33 Another area in which Saπadeh visualized a relation of hostility between the community of Syrian peoples and the Graeco-Roman world was ascendant Rome’s inordinate development of the institution of slavery. The Syrians fell victim to the Romans’ slavery: Slavery developed on such an enormous scale in Rome that it caused revolutions to explode forth, the most wonderful of them being one that broke out in Sicily in the wake of the third Punic war. Its hero was a Syrian man called in Greek Eunus who sought from the gods of Syria the inspiration to arouse the slaves, claiming that all Syria’s gods had called upon him to assume a kingdom. And indeed Eunus did establish his kingdom in 135 bc, then unleashed his army upon the armies and towns, slaughtering many in them, so that he crushed the land into submission and proclaimed himself king with the name Antiochus to evoke anew the fortune of the great Seleucid Syrian emperor, and called his followers Syrians. But his kingdom was short-lived and his liberatory movement succeeded only for a short period.34

The colonized Saπadeh thus clearly identified with Syrian slave insurgents living outside the Suraqiyan homeland as they inflicted severe loss of life and property on the Romans in Sicily. This 1936 reaction by Saπadeh had a dimension independent of nationality questions: it perhaps stemmed from his social radicalism, his consistent solidarity with the oppressed whoever they were and his occasional (moderately) socialist stances. But [175]


the Syrian nation’s struggle for decolonization and unity when Saπadeh wrote, the nationalist cause in his day, clearly did in part motivate his 1936 celebration of this Syrian slave uprising against a Western European people (the imperial Romans) in classical times. The French mandatory had repeatedly depicted itself as a Latin successor of Latin Rome in Lebanon and hinterland Syria. To some extent Saπadeh in his turn in 1936 projected the violent hostilities between France and the Lebanese/Syrians/Suraqiyans in his twentieth-century era of decolonization backwards into classical history with Latin Rome and colonialist France in archetype. But Saπadeh was no militarist when imperialism did not provoke him. Syrian military might and violence against Romans or other Westerners in antiquity built confidence for the current twentieth-century struggle for independence against “Latin” France. By and large, though, Saπadeh’s writing on ancient history was scholarly exploration in the discipline for its own sake, and fact-determined. He was not chauvinistic. In regard to the Syrian slave rebellions in antiquity, for instance, Saπadeh’s intellectual soberness and clarity strongly asserted themselves. He did not play on the sense of historical grievance about Rome’s enslavement of Syrians, recognizing that slavery was a stage of humanity’s evolution and hence a general phenomenon in classical times. The Phoenicians themselves had taken slaves, some of which they set to work in agriculture though mostly they used them for the purposes of manufacturing and commerce. “The Romans had first learnt the usefulness of slaves in agricultural labour from the Phoenicians in Africa although they used slave labour there on a new scale and although the form of enslavement the Phoenicians practised was more merciful since they directed a widespread trade and to utilize slaves in commercial matters is less demanding [on them] than in agricultural pursuits.”35 Saπadeh’s 1936 accounts of relationships between Syrians and Westerners in antiquity on one plane were the exercise of his scholarly intellect. On another plane, they clearly had some relation to the tempestuous era his contemporaneous Syrian compatriots were passing through as they fought colonial rule by France and Britain. But Saπadeh also sought in the Syrians’ ancient history patterns for future human relations, civilizational collaboration, with Europeans. These could come fully only after imperialism was eliminated from human relations. Saπadeh analysed as progress-delaying and dysfunctional for cosmopolitan civilization imperialism by Greece and Rome in antiquity. [176]


He celebrated some ancient Syrians’ struggles against European (Greek, Roman) imperialist conquests and racist slavery. His liberal humanist responses to Syrian slave uprisings in Sicily against Roman slavery were not violent or racist, unlike the Egyptian Dr. Ahmad Farid Rifaπi’s 1938 call for Egyptians and Syrians to slaughter the British and French as Toussaint L’Ouverture and his black rebels slaughtered the white French who had enslaved them in Haiti.36 Sober and scholarly, the liberal Saπadeh noted that the Syrian Phoenicians too had owned slaves in antiquity. He opposed political imperialism by some Westerners but as a means for Syrians to win through to cosmopolitan, civilizational collaboration with Westerners in general.

Monarchy in the development of the state and civilization in antiquity A good deal of dust has been raised for decades, and still continues to beat up, in which Saπadeh was charged by his Lebanese or Arab critics, and now by some Zionist publicists who surely know better, that he was influenced by the despotic thought of Mussolini and Hitler. No one could deny that Saπadeh was a nationalist as both a macro-theoretician and in transformatory politics, but did he proffer images of antiquity that would legitimize a supposed thrust from his part to make himself a Fuehrer-like totalitarian “leader” over the Lebanese and Suraqiyans? What value do his writings on ancient history place on despots, monarchs, emperors and absolute rulers in the ultimate, long-term design he wanted to give Syro-Iraqi history? As well as the single geographical homeland, Saπadeh highlighted the amalgamating power of the state to form nations in antiquity. “Peoples win coherence as entities most crucially through states. Indeed, we may find a given state itself start to form and mould society: as when it moulded Semites and Sumerians in Babel in East Syria, or as it moulded Northerners and Easterners together in Western Syria.”37 The development of wide states in Suraqiyan antiquity came through a stage of absolute monarchy. Babylonia’s centralization of power and administration in the hands of a despot king38 established “the roots of modern democracy” because it gave a decisive blow to the dominance of the nobles and other sectional interests: the person of the absolute king offered the people direct access to the source of political [177]


power in any matter great or small. In this, “monarchy paved the route to democracy”.39 In the subsequent stage following on absolutism, “in the Syrian sea-town” (the coastal city states of Phoenicia) “blind submission to the king early ended; monarchy lost that divine stamp that had not left the king and the royal family in the land empires. Later the king came [under law] to be elected for life – the origin of democracy and republicanism. Capitalism was increasing so that real power came to be exercised by the wealthy class.”40 But it was in the “immortal Syrian colony” Carthage that, in the continuing process of progression, hereditary monarchy early ended and was replaced by electoral monarchy. Although monarchy [still] united in itself the sacerdotal, juridical and executiveadministrative functions, the separateness of military command and authority weakened its standing and origin. The monarchy itself deteriorated early in the fourth century bc to a condition of yearly election through the Electoral College. Thus we find the Carthaginian state slowly developing towards political democracy.41

Saπadeh’s analyses of the evolution of monarchies in antiquity brings out the by-and-large liberal and progressive character of his thought in the face of the old canards that he was an authoritarian who seized concepts and patterns from Mussolini and Hitler. There are important differences between the application in Saπadeh’s thought of ancient history to the mounting of a sort of critique of Western capitalist-liberal parliamentarism and the politically much more absolutist use made of ancient monarchy by writers around Ahmad Husayn’s Young Egypt (Misr al-Fatat) movement in the same post-1930 era. Misr al-Fatat and Saπadeh both positively evaluated at least some roles of authoritarian monarchical rule in the ancient history of the particularist nation. However, whereas Misr al-Fatat in the process laid a reactionary and conservative stress on continuity that held the authoritarianism of Pharaonic divine monarchy to be politically prescriptive for the particularist nation in the twentieth century also, Saπadeh does present government as something fluid, changing and developing away from individuals towards the collective. There was neither scope nor desire for his pan-Syrian nationalist movement to duplicate the monarchist loyalism of one or two parties in the quite different political system of post-1930 Egypt. For Saπadeh, the nation moves in the progression of history away from despotism towards democracy, [178]


although authoritarianism had been justified at one or two junctures. If monarchies had sometimes played a historically positive and indispensable role in antiquity, this had been in the first formative part of the histories of the pagan Suraqiyan nation. In the historical state on its emergence, the exclusive (royal) power of al-tafarrud fil-mulk (individuals) in Babylon and Egypt, especially in Babylon, played the main part in organizing the state and regulating the empire. Monarchy prevented the nobles from manipulating resources to build advantages and power for themselves. “The truth is that we find the roots of modern democracy in the authority of the individual [monarchs] which rescued government from the ambitions of the privileged minority.”42 For Saπadeh, “individual authority rescued the people from the despotism of class everywhere it existed except in India”.43 Unlike Misr al-Fatat’s (Young Egypt’s) Pharaonist-monarchical thinker Muhammad Ghallab, the radically secular Saπadeh did not always see monarchy and religion as two harmonious forces acting together in the interests of order and effective government in either ancient or modern history. For Saπadeh, religion is an irrational force that can come to obstruct the development of effective administration. At the stage of the elementary state, “religious beliefs and delusions (magic and superstitions) play an important role in obstructing the development of the administration; the authority the sorcerers have over the common people is so great that the head of state in the [proto-]democratic stage adopts the function of sorcerer in his own right and derives from it substantial administrative influence. But not all heads are qualified for magical works and thus the clergy remains intact, taking for itself such functions of state as the drawing up of part of the laws.” In this stage, religious taboo is used as an instrument of mystification by “the strongest classes” to impose respect for the property and resources they monopolize on the masses.44 For the period of the historical state, Saπadeh does make clear, in agreement with Ghallab and other Misr al-Fatat leaders, that there is an association of religious awe or feeling with the person of the monarch: “with the transition from a tribalist organization to the territorial state … the local chief [amir] with magico-mystical power” is transformed into “a king who is the god or his high priest … According to Egyptian mythology the gods founded the Egyptian state as they created the world.”45 Saπadeh quoted from an ancient Egyptian middle kingdom text of a father’s counsel to his sons to “glorify the king [179]


in your hearts for he is the god of wisdom whose eyes sees what is in the hearts; he is Ra … who illuminates Egypt more than the sun”. And Saπadeh adds: “[A]s the gods created the Egyptian kingdom, so the gods founded the kingdom of Hammurabi and his predecessors: it shall not end until heaven and earth pass out of their existence as the king himself says.”46 In so far as religion increased the effective authority of the king, it may have played an historically positive role: but in its organized form, the priesthood, religion was a force rivalling the monarchy and threatening its authority. In Egypt, Saπadeh surveyed, the priests occupied positions of state. Hence, a severe conflict broke out between the temporal force of the state and the authority of the priests in the age of Akhenaton (Ikhnaton). But the reformative attempt propounding the unity of god that the monarchy launched failed, and the return of the ancient worship indicated that the power of the priesthood outweighed that of the king who henceforth bore only the name of government, while Amon handed decision upon the most important matters over to the chief priest.47

Saπadeh thus placed religion apart from monarchy: at best irrational and retrogressive, it can be an instrument for a sectional interest – that is, the priesthood – to gain effective power in the state. Here the absolute and worshipped divine monarch is his hero because he believed that in this historical stage the absolute monarch played a historically indispensable role: it was he who “uprooted vengeance and assumed the direction of penal law [al-huquq al-jazaπiyyah], and established the army and directed it as it moved out to conquer and plunder”.48 The central state ruled by the individual organized the administration and army.49 Saπadeh believed that the East Syrian (that is, Mesopotamian) monarchy was more successful than the Egyptian in disengaging itself from the ideological influence of religious irrationalism and from the practical power of a sectional priesthood: “[A]lthough Hammurabi answered the call of the gods to establish justice among people, his famous law-code that immortalized his memory is all temporal, secular/worldly injunctions”: the priesthood did not enjoy in Babylon the standing it had in Egypt.50 Whatever the historical reality, the strength of character and authority of the royal individual was, for Saπadeh, decisive in the birth of [180]


the effectively governing state and its territorial fortunes in both Egypt and hinterland Syria,51 and he defines the historical state in this first – as it were pre-Phoenician – stage as “at the beginning of its emergence imprinted with a quality of despotism”.52 “In Babylon and Memphis, power and administration became so centralized that the will of the royal individual became everything in the state.”53 The tone of reservation that Saπadeh adopts here to a temporary despotic monarchy in the nation’s pre-Phoenician states is not the same as Misr al-Fatat’s views that Egypt’s most successful periods from Pharaonic times must always be those in which monarchy had been most absolute. Thus Dr. Muhammad Ghallab argued that: “Egypt has never been able from the first periods of history to this hour in which I write … to live a valuable, respected and quiet life favourable to [its] progress without two things: religion and the monarchy.” Ghallab painted two comparative canvases of Egypt’s condition “from the purely social aspect”: the first of “the age of the ninth and tenth dynasties” and the second of “Egypt in the age of Amenemhet I, founder of the twelfth dynasty”. In the first period, Ghallab claimed, Egypt was afflicted with chaos, poverty and devastation because the age was one of doubt, insurrection and atheism. “In the second period, in contrast, the Egyptian state enjoyed confidence, happiness, prosperity, wealth and power, solely because the age was one of Belief and loyalty.”54 To some extent, Saπadeh also assessed that strong monarchies had – at least in ancient history – prevented class disorders by providing the impartial justice that most accepted. However, Ghallab went further than the pan-Syrian thinker in identifying the person of the positive absolute monarch with religion, and approving this as prescriptive for the particularist nation not just in its ancient history but for modernity as well. While Saπadeh does agree with Ghallab that “the historical state itself relied at its beginning upon a religious basis”,55 he sees the Mesopotamian “Syrian” historical state in contrast to Egypt as having disengaged itself from control of religion or the priesthood and as then having come to function in a proto-secular way. Saπadeh criticized the priesthood in Egypt for using religion to intervene in administration and to undermine the monarch’s authority: in Saπadeh’s view this disrupted effective government to a level that was already feasible in antiquity. Although Saπadeh also recognized that, to a great extent, absolute monarchy in antiquity derived its legitimacy and authority from its linkages to the divine – that is, from the monarch’s association [181]


with religion – he believed (unlike Ghallab) that the state was most administratively effective and rational the more it moved towards secular patterns of action without input from religious considerations. Non-Islamic Pharaonic Egypt, with its imaged synthesis of strong monarchy with mass religion, prodded Misr al-Fatat (Young Egypt) towards fascism for a time. In one communication, Ahmad Husayn, the leader of Misr al-Fatat, thought that Hitlerite Germany’s cry of “one Reich, one people, and one leader” was not strange to the Egyptian mind since “they are the ones who since the dawn of history knew always how to unite their world around one man and one king and one party”.56 Western scholars, though, have established that influences from Mussolini’s Italy and Hitlerite Germany on such political youth-mobilizing movements were limited, and that Hitlerite Germany despised rightist authoritarian nationalism in the post-1930 Arab world. Misr al-Fatat had, of course, extended the validity of the Pharaonic institution of a divine and absolute monarch into Egypt’s contemporary history by holding it up as a nationally prescriptive alternative to the party divisions of parliamentary politics. Even when Saπadeh argued that monarchical absolutism had been a positive force at the pre-Christian threshold of modern history and in post-Roman Europe, he awarded some agency to the masses as a main actor in their own right. As the expansion of towns and economic change undermined medieval feudalism in the West and a sense of common interest began to produce proto-nationalism “the common people … began to incline towards the king because the king represented the unity of the state … and of the interest of the people … against the interest of the enslaving, dominant, exploitative feudal aristocracy which was a powerful obstacle before the emergence of the general will that was starting to grow and become self-aware”. Monarchs were locked in a secret or open dispute with feudalist classes over power. “In every clash between these two institutions, the people took the side of the monarchy until monarchy overcame feudalism and took on absolute power.”57 But then Saπadeh does record the clash that followed between increasingly oppressive absolute monarchy and the people/nationalism which ended in nationalism establishing that sovereignty derives from the people, and that the state is for the people rather than the reverse, in the process reducing kings to constitutional monarchy or abolishing monarchy altogether. Here Saπadeh establishes that absolute monarchy and nationalism are incompatible over the long term. [182]


The main difference between Saπadeh’s thought and that of Misr al-Fatat is that whereas those Egyptian particularists regarded the development of absolute monarchy in the ancient period of the country’s history as having set a prescriptive pattern that had to be followed in the modern period, Saπadeh stressed the changing nature and socio-economic context of absolutism. The forces whose development monarchical absolutism made possible or speeded up ultimately made it outdated.

Saπadeh’s analyses of Carthaginia Given that 1930–1950 was the era of the weakening of the Western states and the decisive thrust by the Arabic-speaking peoples to win qualified independence from them, Saπadeh meant his celebrations of Carthage in ancient history to firm up the political resistance of his people. Yet his engagement with that ancient Semitic polity and empire had more reflective reaches as well in which it stands within and furthers the ongoing development of internal forms and institutions of government by the twentieth-century populations with which Saπadeh identified. What was the nature of the entity with which Saπadeh was now getting to grips? The Sicilian historian Timaeus recorded that Phoenician Tyre founded its colony of Carthage in North Africa in 814 bc. Close political relationship between Carthage and Tyre did not last; Tyre was content to have religious ties with its daughter city and let it govern its own affairs by annually electing two judges or suffetes, a system of government that was followed in other Phoenician colonies.58 But even on the West Syrian coast, the Phoenician cities were long a politically decentralized community of interlocking city statelets. Carthage always to its fall kept up close cultural, social and religious ties with Tyre and with Phoenician West Syria in general. Whichever way one reads it, Carthage does seem to constitute a problematic for Saπadeh’s thought. The period of time from its independence to its fall is a long one: (as previously mentioned) Carthage had originally been founded by Tyre in 814 bc, although archaeologists today would set it at 750 bc; by 600 bc Carthage had declared its formal independence from Tyre without any struggle; and Rome’s destruction of Carthage occurred in 146 bc. Hence a period of around 600 years is involved over which Saπadeh as a pan-Syrian nationalist contends that Carthage remained a part of a Suraqiyan nation that had formed or was [183]


forming. This city empire thus seems somewhat different to his view, for instance, that natural and economic environment incorporated Syria’s Arab conquerors into the Syrian national community almost overnight (with Muπawiya an instant Syrian statesman once he shifted to Damascus). That such a late Carthaginian leader as Hannibal (d. 183 bc) is held up as a hero for Syrians or Suraqiyans down the ages although not born in West Asia, seems to move in an opposite direction from the geographical homeland determinism that usually had the most weight for Saπadeh towards ethnic/linguistic nationalism. But Carthage and Hannibal take us to rich, open, fluid margins on Saπadeh’s nationalist and macro-historical thought that have bearing on the resolution of a range of problems such as how long and with what methods Fertile Crescentic and Arab world movements and governments should aid the transmission of original identity among successive generations of migrant communities that settled in modern Western states. Down the length of Carthage’s history, some processes were underway whereby the autochthonous Hamitic population and the racially Semite element of West Syrian provenance might coalesce into a new national community under the unifying influence of a common state and homeland. While Saπadeh related this tendency to a number of social and institutional issues, it brings us to a more economic and technological dimension of his thought that does not view geographical homelands as the only thing that distinguished and built nations in antiquity. Apropos of Carthage at least, Saπadeh stressed factors that were progressively integrating West Syria’s coastal Phoenician cities and at the same time binding Carthage to them and to the wider Syrian nation despite its geographical location in Africa. The Phoenician coastal Syrians innovated – and then progressively developed to a very high level – patterns of commerce that bound tightly together all Phoenician city states on the West Syrian coast and all along the Mediterranean sea, making the latter “the Syrian Sea” (al-Bahr al-Suri), to apply Saπadeh’s term. Nor is it the case that Saπadeh was so geographically deterministic that he could not perceive will and choice as among the influences on whether possible homeland nations might be constructed in the short term at least. He caught the refusal of the Carthage-resident Syrians for a fair time to grant citizenship to the autochthonous Hamitic residents – the reluctance of generations of Carthage’s Syrians to merge into a Berber African political nation or some blend of the two identities. [184]


The Phoenicians revolutionized the relation between place, community and political power. In their development of overseas city colonies, and projections of a new economic power “extending to far-off places and taking over their resources”, they finally originated “the sea empire”. The Phoenicians happily combined trade and sea navigation, and political and economic power or strength. Saπadeh dilated on the brilliance with which the Phoenician city states of Lebanon developed their capitals on sea rocks which, being removed from the land, were difficult to attack and which, in the case of Tyre (Sur), “made the rock empire safe from the armies of Babylonia and Assyria”. This “act of genius” was possible because “the sea empire was supported by trade and communications more than possession of extensive territories on land”.59 In Saπadeh’s macro-historical overview of the evolution of Syrian nationhood, the coastal Syrian-Phoenicians contributed modes of economic organization and certain cultural instruments (for example, the alphabet) that were pre-conditions for the Syrian political nation. But states founded from hinterland Syria and Iraq actualized the unitary pan-Syrian states. However, both hinterland Suraqiya’s despotic monarchical states and the politically divided Canaanite coastal Syria with its technologies were only stages in the development of institutions for Syrian political nationhood that continued to unfold in Carthage. It was in the “immortal Syrian colony Carthage”60 that in the continuing process hereditary monarchy was replaced by electoral monarchy. Saπadeh traced in detail the constitutional development in Carthage in which the council of the 104 became the effective supreme authority over state bureaucracy, army commanders, the senate and the annually elected kings or suffetes, but still represented in the main, although partially elected from the people, “the class rule” of the rich. Whatever imperfections Saπadeh recognized as having existed in the Carthaginian system of government, he examined it in detail in The Rise of Nations quite simply because he believed it to have been the nearest approach of all the historical systems of antiquity that he examined to the ideal or good state. Despite the dominance of the rich, rule by oligarchy, Carthaginian government was still a wide stride towards democracy since the stratum of the wealthy did not form a distinct class self-sufficient and separate from the masses of people, but rather linked to them through its commercial [185]


dealings and intermixing with the wider population. This was a positive attribute of the ruling class in Carthage: classes in the Syrian sea states were not as sharply defined as we observe to have been the case elsewhere.61

The “immortal Syrian colony Carthaginia” thus “demonstrated great political flexibility that placed it above all states and empires that preceded it or were its contemporary”.62 Saπadeh believed Carthage should have been a middle-way model to repair the damage wrought in Greece by “Greek republicanism which came so close to abolishing the state”.63 For, the Syrian political style reformed the method after which the state has achieved development in history: it “evolved in Carthage to democracy” by granting clear personal and civil rights “while the state remained a thing distinct from the people”.64 The failure of the Greeks stemmed from their attempt to produce a participatory democracy. Saπadeh voiced horror at the right casual individuals of the public enjoyed in the golden age of Pericles to hold officials to account for their acts on imprecise grounds: “[T]he practical Syrian mind … was content to remain a spectator to the Greek experiment of popular rule by the whole of the people.”65 Saπadeh tersely observes that: “[I]t is a wonderful concept in the eyes of others and a foolish speculation in my view that every individual of the recognized individuals of the city be an actual partner/participant in the administration of the state. The Syrian city continued to preserve a clear distinction between politics and society – the distinction that enabled the state to further develop.”66 Clearly Carthage as seen from Saπadeh’s Syrian nationalist viewpoint constitutes a negation of some ancient Greek concepts of and experiments in participatory democracy, or images of such to which some Western movements and governments have paid regular tribute since the Renaissance in disregard of the huge proportion of slaves in ancient Greece. Despite his positive attitude to many aspects of modern Western capitalist civilization, then, Saπadeh here again is implicitly rejecting at least what the recent West has often claimed itself to be in its political self-romanticization. Thus, Carthage could become an anti-Western entity in more than a military sense in Saπadeh’s writings.

[186]


Carthage as community problematic By Saπadeh’s account, the political bonds that the Phoenician colonies established along the North African and European shores retained with their original “Canaanite” mother cities in West Asia gradually thinned out. Geographical separation from a homeland of provenance operated on them as on Arab armies and settlers who spread through diverse lands in the early Islamic empire, which Saπadeh argued altered nationality in the case of the Arabs. But apart from the geographical separation from Syria, were the Phoenician colonies, of which Carthage constituted the most brilliant example, amalgamating with non-Syrian groups to form new natural communities? Saπadeh also observes in passing that the new Carthage community situated in Africa was influenced by a neighbouring state, Pharaonic Egypt. “Carthage was able to borrow large sums from the Egyptian Ptolemies and Hannibal built up a strong army equipped on Ptolemaic lines with elephants.”67 Western archaeologists take further the modifying influences of Egyptian culture and techniques on Carthage that passed beyond those on Phoenicia proper, radical as the impact of Egyptian civilization had been there. Pharaonic culture and religion maintained a tenacious life in Carthage even after Greek art had overwhelmed the entire Phoenician world by the fifth century bc. Greeks had come in great numbers as slaves and settlers to Carthage and the Hellenistic age brought what seemed a final victory for Greek culture in the Middle East. Yet, at Carthage, Egyptian influence in religious art still remained strong until the destruction of the city by the Romans. The Carthaginian priests understood the purposes of Egyptian magic and could read the hieroglyphs until the last days of the city. The impact of Carthage’s nearest important neighbour on its economic structure, technology, culture and religion was profound and continuous. The influence of the autochthonous North African populations amid which Carthage and the Phoenician-speaking colonies along North Africa’s coast were situated – the native North Africans made up an element of the 700,000 inhabitants of the city itself – may obviously have been even more radical than that of neighbouring Egypt. How far would the Carthaginian Semites stay Syrian and part of a wide Syrian nation? Whether Saπadeh laid his Syrian nationalist thesis open to any danger from pan-Arab nationalists when he defined Carthage’s Phoenicianspeaking population as (though not situated in the land of Syria) a [187]


constituent part of an ancient Syrian nation-in-construction is a moot point. Certainly, exaltation of Carthage somewhat like this appeared at the same time in the historiography of the Arabo-Islamist nationalists around the reformist ulema in Algeria, but there treating Semitic Carthage as a historical precursor of the later induction of the Maghrib’s native Berbers after Islam into Arabism and the wide Arab nation. Thus, in his book Tarikh al-Jazaπir fil-Qadim wal-Hadith (2 vols, 1928–1932) the Algerian reformist ∏Alim, Mubarak al-Mili, held that Carthage had never attempted to conquer a mighty kingdom like the Romans, for the Semitic race is above bloodshed and reneging on promises: because the people of Carthage had been content to win the hearts of the Berbers, the Numidians aided Hannibal and through them he was victorious in Europe. In his 1932 work the Kitab al-Jazaπir, Ahmad Tawfiq al-Madani similarly denied that Carthage was an aggressive garrison state, defining it rather as a well-ordered constitutional commonwealth – towards which Saπadeh does indeed argue that Carthage was developing when overthrown by Rome. The Arabist thesis of the racial and cultural fusion of Berbers and Carthaginian Phoenicians into a new linguistically unified national community was most pertinaciously argued by ∏Alal al-Fasi in his 1948 History of the Independence Movements of Arab North Africa, more than a decade after Saπadeh published his monumental The Rise of Nations. In al-Fasi’s view then: [T]he Maghribi family of peoples quickly forgot the coercion entailed, and coalesced with Carthage … This is why Carthage was able to hold out for so long … The second Punic war [against Roman imperialism] was a national struggle in the most modern sense of the word, and Hannibal’s victory was celebrated all over North Africa. Even after her destruction, Semitic influence survived in the area for 600 years.68

Countering any impression of cultural and racial fusion between the dominant Semitic element and the autochthonous Hamitic population in Carthage, Saπadeh observes in a number of places that the Phoenician minority carefully, as a policy, maintained a distinct community. He notes that: “Diodorus divided the subjects of the Carthaginian state into four categories: (i) the Phoenicians of Carthage; (ii) the Phoenicians of Libya; (iii) the Libyan subjects and (iv) the nomads.” Saπadeh concludes that “Carthage made a distinction between her Phoenician subjects and [188]


her Libyan subjects”. Although Carthage subjected to its rule other West Mediterranean Phoenician towns with which it had originally been allied, and denied its sons equality of political rights, it did grant them, as Phoenicians, equal civil and personal rights with its own Phoenician citizens, awarding non-Carthaginian Phoenicians rapid promotion to the highest ranks in the armed forces. They thus enjoyed with the Carthaginian Phoenicians “an equality of status vis-à-vis the subordinated Hamitic peoples”.69 Still, the Carthaginians, or at least Hannibal, look remarkably successful in moulding effective fighting forces out of nationally heterogeneous human raw materials, and it is interesting to speculate to what degree a new integrating proto-national loyalty might account for the capacity of, in origin, diverse people to fight so well together against Rome. However, Saπadeh’s projection of the possibilities opened up by Hannibal’s “democratic reform” – “all that remained before Carthage for the recovery of her imperial vitality was to extend central political rights to the Phoenician towns subject and loyal to her, to raise the level of personal and civil rights among the Libyan peoples which remained loyal to her, and to reorganize the army on a national basis instead of the mercenary army which formed the most important part of the fighting forces” – shows that he did not expect that the Phoenician element could cease to be the distinct dominant political community even at that late stage of the empire, despite possible improvement of the status of the subordinated peoples.70 (At the same time, Saπadeh conveys here that the institution of the armed forces at least was not organized on ideal national lines in Carthage.) Thus, Saπadeh’s general view of the national division of Carthagian society is that: “[I]f there was pressure, those who felt it were the slaves and Libyans with whom the Phoenicians found it hard to intermix and incorporate into their community. For this reason, Carthage did not grant these people the right her [Phoenician] sons enjoyed.”71 Carthage was a military imperial power that, in Saπadeh’s view, had “set up a most far-extending empire” and “administered this vast empire over centuries. For Carthage subjected all the Hamitic peoples in Tunis and Morocco, exercised dominion over the neighbouring nomads, annexed the Phoenician towns on the African coast and monopolized the Southwest of the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.”72 In minimizing the merging and coalescing of races and any linguistic and cultural assimilation of the Hamites to the Phoenician community, [189]


in suggesting the political and racial distance of the Semitic from the Hamitic strata of what he did see as an order and stratified society ruled by a strong central state, Saπadeh seems far from the views of the AraboIslamic nationalists of Tunisia and Algeria who at the time wanted to see cultural synthesis and racial and linguistic fusion under way between Semites and Hamites in antiquity. But in his thesis of the hierarchical nature of Phoenician–Hamite relations and the imperial-cum-militarist nature of Carthage, Saπadeh is close to the non-pan-Arab, purely Maghribi Berber particularist-nationalist M. Sahli, who in 1947 described Carthage as “the cancer of imperialism in the Maghrib”, arguing that Carthage “imposed on [the Berbers] a heavy tax burden, forcibly conscripted them into the army, stationed garrisons in their cities, took hostages from among the populace, etc. The Berbers waged a national struggle against her and the Numidian King Masinissa joined the Romans in order to first get rid of Punic imperialism and then turn against Rome.”73 Although Saπadeh does not mention a national struggle of the Berbers he, as a particularist, believing (like Sahli) in the geographic regional (partly racial) nation and in view of his intellectual identification with strong central states capable of undertaking elaborate forms of social and economic organization, also allows the subordination of the Berbers. But Saπadeh in his denial of much progress towards blending Berbers (“Libyans”) and Phoenicians together into a new nation state community added contortion to his need to get the experience of Carthage and Phoenician Africa somehow into the frame of his geography-framed Syrian nationhood: Although the Phoenicians (the Canaanites) created the naval empire, their spread was a national one by virtue of the establishment of settler communities that were to remain linked to the motherland and in solidarity with her in weal and woe. This was the spread of a people more than that of a state. This [Phoenician-“Canaanite”] diffusion accompanied by the continuity of participation in a common life through social, blood and national ties was the first national phenomenon in the world. To it is due the credit for the spread of civilization in the Syrian Sea, the fire of which was extinguished before it could attain completion because of the attacks of the Greek and Roman barbarians that descended upon it. Among indications of this phenomenon which the Phoenicians peculiarly realized is their failure to integrate the Western peoples whom they subjected by conquest, such as the Libyans, ancient [190]


Spaniards (Iberians), etc. into their system of political and civil rights. Although that was one source of their weakness vis-à-vis Rome’s progress, it was a sign of their national spirit and their preservation of the unity of their society. 74

Like Sahli, then, Saπadeh maintains that the Phoenicians and the Berbers met but did not coalesce in North Africa, and that the Phoenicians imposed an alien rule by force on a disenfranchised population and maintained a separate settler community in the lands they ruled over for 600 years in North Africa. Did not the impact of a different geography, distant from the homeland Phoenicia and the proximity of other people operate to modify these Semites as radically as the Arabians who conquered far-flung and diverse lands under the banner of Islam? Saπadeh argues the opposite. It seems clear, he concedes, that political links with Phoenicia (even Tyre) were tenuous: he first speaks of a Phoenician “naval empire” in the Mediterranean but then defines the diffusion of the Phoenicians as “the spread of a people more than that of a state”. A frame of a single state entity was not decisive since he is writing about a period of transition for Syria in particular and nationality in general. Rather, he argues that the Phoenicians, who established the model of the city state that Greece and Rome were to imitate,75 expressed a unity of peoplehood that transcended the independent city state structures. However numerous the states they established, “they never fought each other and continued to preserve the stamp of a single people maintaining mutual solidarity in life”.76 The area of difficulty lies in an aspect of al-wijdan al-qawmi (national sensibility) that Saπadeh argues the Phoenician-Canaanites seem to have originated: homeland, “the most powerful factor in the emergence of the ummah (nation), its most important element”;77 the “homeland … where man opened his eyes to the light and inherited the temperament Nature produces”.78 We have argued that Saπadeh’s attachment to Carthage had an anti-Western connotation in both politics and polity. This deepened with a historical consciousness the relation of political conflict with European powers controlling Syria in his day, but also in a more profound sense validated Saπadeh’s rejection of the current West’s political discourse traditions of an imaged participatory political pluralism symbolized by the name and era of Athens. How far this concretized a parting of the ways from the West on the structure of prescriptive polity as well as in shorter-term international relations is another moot point, given that [191]


Saπadeh seems at junctures to have hedged his critiques of parliamentarism in the Greater Lebanon state that he lambasted. Moreover, his macrohistory of antiquity at points brought out a constructive society-building side of Saπadeh that was far from enamoured with conquests or military glory even when it hit imperialistic Westerners. We saw that Carthage as a model or pilot experience of the particularist nation’s quest for viable polity had a certain liberal – secularizing – significance. Saπadeh was well aware that the territorial expansion of early Near Eastern divine monarchies was inherently linked to internal absolutism at home. The earlier democracy of “the primary groups” who had not achieved an expanding territorial state indicates pursuit of a way of life remote from war, conquest and expansion. War is probably the thing most likely to favour the emergence of the autocratic form: “petty monarchy probably emerged at the hand of the victorious war hero”.79 “The historical state marched forward to empire under the factor of the principle of power. The expanding state represented the triumph of the idea of power in politics over the idea of justice in it. The state abandoned the democracy of earlier primary societies.”80 Absolutism made possible the first organization of the state and administration which initially was necessarily so centralized that Hammurabi, for instance, had a council of advisers but no true ministry, handling all large and small affairs of government down to details of the administration of irrigation and other agricultural works himself.81 But human civilization is to be measured not by the power of the state but by the rights which it bestows upon its citizens: “the state in itself is no criterion for measuring intellectual culture but rather the rights that state can provide.”82 While we may interpret Saπadeh through the symbol of Carthage as rejecting extreme Greek participatory pluralism as an attempt to abolish the state, it is also clear that Carthage in particular and the Phoenicians in general represented for him an economic liberalism and a plurality of power centres incompatible with any kind of totalitarianism. It is clear from Saπadeh’s comments on Carthage (and around the overthrow of absolute monarchy in West Europe by nationalism) that, first, he believed hereditary monarchy not to constitute an ideal form of government, and second, he was critical of a class that, gaining wealth through commerce, then sought to control the political process. Although the impression that his account of the development of the Carthaginian polity leaves is one of great fluidity, he seems to believe [192]


that the “recognized” principle of “the sovereignty of the people” should have been implemented. He condemned the action of the nobility/ oligarchy controlling the council governing Carthage for not supporting or supplying Hannibal and his army during their campaign in Italy against Rome during the Second Punic war.83 He thus approves of the popular unrest led by the democratic element in the wake of the loss of that war and approves as quite a satisfactory “democratic reform” Hannibal’s abolition of the re-election of members of the council of 104, made possible by the unrest – a reform that prefigured the Gracci reform in Rome in the second century bc.84 Saπadeh visualized “the greatest political problem” that faced Carthage as having been “the silent but intense struggle between the class holding the reigns of power and the imbiratur al-jaysh – the Emperor [that is, commander-in-chief ] of the army”. Clearly, Saπadeh believed that the solution to this problem was to abolish the oligarchy from politics, though he believes that, as an economic entity, the class it represented was not wholly isolated from the people. Although he believed Carthage to illustrate the ability of economically powerful classes to manipulate representative institutions, he does not believe the experiment itself to have been a meaningless one. Saπadeh believed absolute monarchy itself should have been abolished, although it had once been a step in the right direction back in West Asia. His grievance is that “this dispute was the chief cause of the loss of the Second Punic war with Rome”.85 Probably Saπadeh regarded Hannibal so highly simply as a military-cum-national leader to tide Carthage over a specific situation – its military struggle against Rome. Alternatively, he may have thought that a commander-in-chief of the armed forces, proclaimed such by the army itself at the age of 26 (although this was a field appointment quickly ratified by the Carthaginian government), could have been an effective ruler even in a normal situation: that Saπadeh in fact was favourable to a unification of the functions of military and national leader. Saπadeh was undoubtedly proud of Carthage’s ancient military prowess. Whether he would have favoured a populist military form of authoritarian government, however, is hard to decide in view of the fluidity of the Carthaginian political institutions he portrays, and his apparent desire that formal representative institutions should function properly to give the widest possible group of Carthage’s citizens effective control over government. He seems, despite his recognition of the [193]


oligarchy’s manipulation of representative institutions, to have approved more measures to make them work rather than abolish them. Of course, we should not underestimate the recognition Saπadeh’s teachings accorded to the idea of power, although this can be separate from crude force and conquest. Quwwah (Power) over non-Syrian areas of the Mediterranean basin did accompany the economic activity of the Phoenicians; and apart from his description of relations between these “Syrian Canaanites” and such barbarians as the Africans86 and the Greeks, elsewhere Saπadeh does speak somewhat differently of “the new orientation” in international economic life being inspired by “the birth of the principle of substituting for the mobilization of armies over long extended lines and in numerous expeditions to subdue rebels or guarantee domination and tax-collecting, the setting up of dominating central points, namely colonies … to guarantee communications and the movements of trade”.87 Somewhat militaristic Lebanese and Syrian-secular particularist writings of the 1930s and 1940s celebrated contests against those nations of antiquity that were precursors of the modern West. This selectivity suggests that this aspect of particularist paganism in Lebanon was stimulated by the concrete modern circumstances – direct colonial rule or less open forms of military and political control by Western powers – to which these writers had to respond. Their interest in the military prowess and empire-building of the pagan ancestors in antiquity was in part their highly wrought rejection of, or response to, the West’s denial of self-determination and sovereignty in modern history. As well as struggles, antiquity is prescriptive more generally for the present because it establishes the “essential” character of the particularist people that crystallized in its definitive cultural period. Sovereignty and a greatness that even in terms of concrete military power rivalled that of the (ancient) West, a role that was international in scope and created empires, are characteristics of basic national character or originating in the formative period of the nation that particularist historiography as it touched on the ancient period established. In terms of what it revealed about both the archetypal sovereignty and independence of the particularist people at the time of its formation in ancient history, and about its concrete military capacity, this view implicitly prescribed a militant struggle for national independence from the foreign occupier and, logically, armed struggle. It was a vision of one’s ancient history that created an image of [194]


self for which the framework of mandate could not be anything but constrictive and galling.

Saπid ∏Aql vis-à-vis Saπadeh on indigenous antiquity Of all the Lebanese writers who, after 1930, championed an orientation that was Mediterraneanist as well as at least in its imagery neo-pagan, the poet Saπid ∏Aql (born in 1912 in Zahlah) came the nearest to attaining universality in his art. ∏Aql had initially been in the Syrian Social Nationalist Party of Saπadeh, whose concepts often continued to provide some starting points for even his mature Mediterraneanist thought, although it had its own Catholic and Latinist features. ∏Aql’s myths and analyses set in antiquity showed at least some impress from the systematic historiography of Saπadeh, especially in his earlier and most successful volumes of verse. A comparison of the thoughts of these two writers on and around ancient history helps to locate Saπadeh in a wider tradition of neo-pagan nationalist writing in Lebanon while bringing out his stricter anti-imperialism. Perhaps the most decisive statement ∏Aql made about his Mediterraneanist Lebanonism was the dense, allusive introduction he wrote to Qadmus, marked by what Egyptian left-nationalist Anwar ∏Abd al-Malik termed “un hermetisme esoterique”.88 Like most religious Muslim Egyptians of the post-1922 period, the Catholic Lebanese traditionalists who wrote for al-Bashir in the first decade of the Mandate had been highly conscious of the gulf that separated the “East” (in which they placed Lebanon) from the secular West. Annihilating this dichotomy, after 1940 ∏Aql increasingly saw the littoral countries of the Mediterranean as constituting a cultural camp, a distinct civilization or net of civilizations, and for him the question of the difference between the East and the West therefore thinned. Somewhat similarly to Taha Husayn and Salamah Musa in Egypt in the same period, ∏Aql traced Lebanon’s cultural unity with the West back to the remotest ancient history to the formative period of both. The very title of the collection to which he prefixed his manifesto, Qadmus, underlined this central historical argument, since in Greek mythology Cadmus was the son of Phoenix or Agenor, King of Phoenicia and brother of Europa, and it was he who in that classical tradition had first brought the alphabet to Greece. This neat symbol for the essentially Phoenician, or Lebanese, origin of Western civilization [195]


implied that the Lebanese of ∏Aql’s time had to maintain membership in that culture and bloc as pan-Arabs called for the links to be loosened. Saπadeh condoned alternating exchanges between Syrians and Westerners throughout history with fewer ambivalences than acculturated Muslim pan-Arabs in the era. But ∏Aql came to take acceptance to an extent that sometimes lost Saπadeh’s insistence that the particularist nation remain politically sovereign through history. ∏Aql was not by the late 1940s, as an Arabist or a Lebanese-Syrian particularist more critically disposed to the West might have done, attempting to score a point about the originality of the Orient and the culturally derivative nature of the West to make its at least cultural hegemony in the present more palatable. True, it is an important implication of the preface to Qadmus that the Lebanese could feel no reluctance to adopt the civilization and values that Paris, “the spiritual capital of the world and the one repository of its intellectual heritage”, was transmitting to them in view of their having anciently been originated by or near Lebanon. Rather, ∏Aql was arguing that, far from being accidental or occasional, or even in accord with some immediate specific interest of Lebanon, cultural borrowing, as a reciprocal process, had historically formed Lebanon and its character. Lebanon had a dual character: “a community of persons living on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean”, it was “a quivering in the body of the Orient” but also “a word of truth addressed to the world”. Some determinants of community that Saπadeh highlighted hold more weakly for ∏Aql. Because Lebanon had been formed within an “unusual framework” at the margin of two worlds, the Mediterranean and hinterland Asia, ∏Aql preferred to define its emergence and crystallization less in terms of the factors of defined territory, linguistic unity, racial kinship or “the unity of no matter what history” that had produced other “political” nations than in terms of its constituting a “truth”. Lebanon had come into being as a companion for existence for consciousness and reason. It was not a conjunction of the usual geographical, linguistic or racial factors, but “rather a conglomerate of endeavours upon the ascending road from the stupidity of matter (abhar) to the consciousness of reason” that had over centuries moulded the Lebanese together in a distinct nation.89 Because Lebanon derived its constituent élan from this quest for rationality in contrast to the nations moulded more by abhar material factors – “we search for thought while [other] peoples are purely enthusiasm for a history, attachment to a soil, [196]


or agglomerating around matter” – “it has been impossible, at once physically and metaphysically” for Lebanon to cease to associate itself with progress.90 It was precisely the quality of partnership in Lebanon’s involvement over all the length of time in the great departures in humanity’s progress that inherently transcended any fragmented national framework and involved a plurality of peoples in common enterprises, which had stamped the Lebanese with unique national purpose and character: “[W]e migrate ever upwards while others go straight forward.”91 This Mediterranean partnership of nations that had distinguished all Lebanon’s history had two, inseparable, aspects: Lebanon as the creator or originator for others, and Lebanon’s openness to what others, reciprocally, had to offer it. In making its founding irreplaceable contribution to the “four nodes of mental convergence whose activity has, over the ages, formed civilization”, Lebanon had not simply creatively originated for others: it had, “equally”, been open to the corollaries of these nodes in the rest of the world – had acted as a receptive “link between their elements” and thus contributed to the synthesization of “an important part of the common spiritual heritage that paves the way for that creative, receptive being Man”.92 ∏Aql defined Lebanon in terms of the four “nodes” represented by Sidon, Jerusalem, Antioch and Damascus, which represented the idea of economic enterprise, abstract thought, Christian love, the incarnation of truth in the Church and the art of politics perfected by the Umayyads. Here ∏Aql gave his own Catholic and Francophone twists to Saπadeh’s sense of continual back-and-forth exchanges between Westerners and Suraqiyans in the Mediterranean basin. These developments by those Lebano-Syrian cities passed on from them to Egypt, Greece, Rome and modern Europe, to be transmitted from Europe back to Lebanon by way of Paris. The locations of three of these cities fit into Saπadeh’s Syrian nationalism rather than the Lebanese particularism under construction. It is an interesting feature in the “nodes of mental convergence” argued by ∏Aql in his Qadmus preface that he was defining them in terms of ancient cities that were mostly outside rather than in modern Lebanon. While Sidon presents little difficulty to a strictly Lebanese particularism, we see remnants of his old pan-Syrianism in ∏Aql’s proud self-identification with Jerusalem – capital of Palestine after the West’s post-World War I San Remo partition of geographical Syria – Damascus [197]


and the Syrian city of Antioch (after 23 June 1939 a part of Turkey). For ∏Aql, these three (non-Lebanese) cities with Sidon produced the four great clusters of values that lie behind every Lebanese individual “from the moment that his eyes open to see the figure of his mother and father”.93 In 1947, Lebanese particularism still had an improvised and provisional nature after more than a decade of French mandatory rule and a functioning Greater Lebanon entity. ∏Aql’s citing of Jerusalem, Antioch and Damascus beside Sidon as the historical sources of Lebanon’s “truth” might provide more historical depth for a Greater Syrian consciousness rather than one confined within the borders of Gouraud’s 1920 Greater Lebanon. For a sometimes misty poet, ∏Aql could manifest acute attention to technologies and their products. It is probably on the subject of ancient, pagan Phoenicia (Sidon or ∏Aql’s first node in the formation of the national values of Lebanon) that the most interesting convergence in ∏Aql and Saπadeh’s respective thoughts occurs. For ∏Aql, man before Sidon was dependent on nature for shelter (caves) and casual sustenance (“an earth which gave but in measure”): only man’s minimal needs were met and “destiny was the master of man”. Then “man defied fate, giving birth to the tentative; he scanned the realm of the tangible giving birth to abstraction. This is what happened at Sidon.” ∏Aql seems to have envisaged the origination of systematic agriculture as the first step to the Sidon revolution: “humanity had remained with bare hands before earth” dependent on primitive food-gathering, but “an inventor then created the agricultural tool, thereby forcing the earth to give yet more”. Similarly, Antun Saπadeh visualized the development of agriculture as a first precondition of “the Great Cultural Revolution” in Syria that was “the decisive step forward by civilization” and which “established a new beginning for human culture”.94 But he regards the development of a plough agriculture as the achievement of hadhihi al-biqaπ al-Suriyyah (the whole Syrian homeland) rather than of just Lebanon. However, Saπadeh does recognize that in contrast to the general socio-economic development of the rest of Greater Syria, Phoenicia developed its agriculture in a new and still more intensive and productive direction: “orchard cultivation combining fruit trees, vegetables and grains”.95 When he describes this development on “the fertile coast” “to the West of [Mount] Lebanon”, Saπadeh is reluctant to award the region a specific name that would differentiate it from other areas of Canaanite Syria – even the [198]


name “Phoenicia” he hints to have been applied to it by later Greek writers.96 Saπadeh was not eager to award historical depth to French mandatory Greater Lebanon as a valid national unit. Lebanese particularists could probably not have maintained ∏Aql’s position that the development of elementary agricultural implements, including the plough, was really a discrete achievement by any precursor-community of the twentieth-century Lebanese nation: the Phoenicia area here was merely an operating component of the common technology of the Fertile Crescent as a whole, much as Saπadeh argued. But it is equally clear that, despite his cautious avoidance of contentious linguistic terms, Saπadeh himself has established markedly individual later development of agriculture in the area that was to become twentieth-century Greater Lebanon. Saπid ∏Aql and Antun Saπadeh assessed the development of international trade by the Phoenicians somewhat similarly. Both agree that through it the area that became Greater Lebanon in the twentieth century became part of an economic-cum-human unit or network that was Mediterranean rather than Lebanese or pan-Syrian. For both thinkers, the birth of this unit that was knitted together by sea communications rather than land routes was a turning point in the economic history of humanity. ∏Aql reflects: “[A] trunk of cedar was thrown upon the sea, bearing Lebanon’s products to the North Sea and carrying back to Lebanon the tin of the North Sea, thereby rendering the imbecilic Earth capable of reasoning in the distribution of its bounties. That day man became the master of destiny.”97 For Saπadeh the significance of the development of highly specialized and productive forms of agriculture in “West Syria” and the consequent creation of a non-agricultural urban population free to engage in a sea-borne capitalist trade with littoral regions of the Mediterranean was that “the sea was not for the Syrians what it was for the peoples of other lands, a border at which one must halt”.98 The most important of the characteristics of the Phoenician coastal sea-trading city state “is that it produced a wonderful balance/ complementariness between sea navigation and the tasks of an agriculture which demands care more than muscular effort”. The Canaanite West Syrians “early grasped the possibility of expansion and obtaining the maximum quantity of economic luxuries through a method other than that of invasion and imposition of tribute tax – [that is to say] through trade”.99 [199]


Trade was the first stage of the Syrian cultural revolution … Their ships sped across the surface of the sea to discover in its West and North peoples still in their period of savagery or barbarism, setting up with them peaceable commercial relations from which there resulted material profit to the discoverers and a cultural gain for the discovered … Trade is one of the great factors in the interaction of cultures … Trade enabled the Syrians to compensate for their land’s poverty of minerals and the shortage of the raw materials that their growing and evolving urban society needed [the exchange by the Phoenicians of their manufactures for the raw materials that local Greek chieftains could offer being an instance of this trade with less developed peoples. Such trade was not a simple exchange of goods] … It was rather based on the emergence and growth of numerous industries such as textiles, dyeing, glass-making, etc.100

The coastal Phoenician city state “became the model followed by the nations that entered within the sphere of Syrian civilization like the Greeks and Romans”.101 The intensive garden agriculture of the coastal, Phoenician Syrians, which combined fruit-bearing trees, vegetables, grains and vines, “was borrowed by the whole of the Mediterranean world from the Syrian coast between Tripoli and Mount Carmel”.102 For Saπadeh, the common economic activity headed by the Phoenicians had bound together the littoral peoples of the Mediterranean materially and to some extent culturally as “the Syrian Sea”. But Saπadeh’s Mediterraneanism differs fundamentally from ∏Aql’s, and that of other purely Lebanese particularist groups on two points. First, Saπadeh differs to a significant degree from ∏Aql’s concept of the Lebanese as a mercantile but peaceable people who “grow tall in giving while the other nations are but agitation, the noises of swords and wars”103 – what Pierre Jumayyil termed in 1958 the “liberal” generosity of the ancient Lebanese to the most distant peoples. Like Kataπib ideologists later, Saπadeh believed that the trade the Phoenicians conducted with the inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin was not simply a commercial but also a cultural transaction: material profit for the Phoenicians was balanced by the cultural gain for the discovered peoples who acquired some Phoenician technology, etc. Saπadeh agrees with the Kataπib ideological view that the Phoenicians thereby laid the first foundations of Western humanism, and the art, science, religion and material progress of a Mediterranean civilization. But in comparison to ∏Aql’s and the general Kataπib’s stress on the pacific, reciprocally stimulatory nature of the [200]


relations that the Phoenicians had with other Mediterranean and European peoples, Saπadeh stressed more the inferiority of most of the peoples they came in contact with – that the earlier, non-political, trading activities of the Phoenicians quickly developed into a “second stage” of Syrian “sea empire”, of “colonization which brought the whole Mediterranean sea into the sphere of this new Syrian culture which is the start of modern civilization”.104 This second, colonial stage of Syria’s Phoenician (“Canaanite”) experiment established “a power of a new kind emerging on the Syrian coast and extending to far-away places to seize their resources. The Phoenicians united two elements that are wholly reconcilable: commerce and sea navigation, political power and economic power.” This new orientation was made possible by substituting for land-based military power new forms of sea-borne activity. Thus (1) the old mobilization of armies over long lines and in numerous campaigns, to subdue rebels, and to assure domination and the activities of tax-collecting was replaced with (2) the setting up of strategic central points – that is to say, the colonies established as specified points to guarantee communications and trade movements: “a new method of expansion using new means”.105 In The Rise of Nations, the peoples with whom the Phoenicians traded are sometimes depicted as being a lower level of civilization and as technologically and culturally profiting in return for the economic benefit that the Phoenicians gained from the goods they offered. The Phoenicians maintained their national connections and solidarity with their motherland in Western Syria. For Saπadeh, the failure of the Phoenicians to integrate the peoples they conquered such as the Libyans and Iberians was one cause of their downfall, but he also can approve it as “a sign of their national spirit and their preservation of the unity of their society”.106 In comparison to ∏Aql, who emphasized the two-way cultural interaction of the Phoenicians with the peoples with whom they traded, and the rhetoric of the Kataπib leaders, Saπadeh focused more on their empire-building, their subjugation of other less-developed Mediterranean peoples, and their wars with the Greeks and Romans. More than ∏Aql, Saπadeh is at the level of logical thought most immediately interested by the sheer rationalization and expansion of economic activity that the Phoenician sea-faring merchant city state brought by effecting an exchange of commodities between widely scattered geographical regions. But he anticipated ∏Aql again in his [201]


conceptualization of the change in the nature of human thought that accompanied this change in the nature of the world’s economy. For ∏Aql, before Sidon, “reason” in its true sense did not exist: “[T]he tangible, object of the preoccupations of reason, did not submit to the reason of reason.”107 At Sidon, man “prospected the realm of the tangible, giving birth to abstraction … to attain thousands and thousands of thoughts through scarcely more than 20 or so words”.108 Saπadeh is equally definite that the “West Syrian” coastal state represented an advance towards “compound” thought and organization that was revolutionary in the context of what the monarchical land empires of hinterland Greater Syria had hitherto achieved. Writing pointed the change and the contrast. In hinterland Greater Syria, as in Pharaonic Egypt, Saπadeh reviewed, intellectual life remained elementary and inescapably bound to affairs of society because the instruments for realizing the intellect were as yet deficient. Although the growth of economic activity and the expansion of the scope of vocational specialization raised the level of living, the hieroglyphic or cuneiform script fell far short of representing numerous intellectual concepts and – able to record or to be read only with great effort – could not be generally popularized. Such a writing-system thus performed its necessary and glorious service by recording the most important events of the ruler and his campaigns, the most important laws of the state … and the rites of religious worship. At that point the utility of such writing ended, for it could not popularize knowledge and sciences nor facilitate [economic] dealings, or contact between one people and another.109

It was in the Phoenician “sea city” which had special cultural characteristics that intellectual labour began … to predominate over other types. For trade is an intellectual activity par excellence … Those who originate the new economic culture had to devise the practical technique for an intellectual life and lay a new, firm foundation for human culture. Syria had to perfect its cultural revolution and open a new pathway for cultural improvement. Thus the Phoenician Canaanites invented the alphabet. The basis of modern civilization was then complete.110

It is “by virtue of the alphabet” that “the peoples ascended in the life of indirect experience, and sciences proliferated and their materials [202]


accumulated”.111 The decisive achievement of the alphabet, and the development of indirect thought and activity that accompanied it in Phoenicia, in Saπadeh’s view enabled man to end his dependence on nature – that is to say, to end the determinism of the immediate environment that up to then, even in the cradle of civilization, the Greater Syria, had constricted and distorted his development. Saπadeh’s portrait of the superstitious terror in which primitive man lived in an environment he did not understand112 is similar to the bold colours with which ∏Aql in Qadmus paints the same stage of human existence when “fate was the master of man”.113 Saπadeh had articulated from the macro-history of antiquity a cosmopolitan openness to the West and modernity that in 1947 ∏Aql then extended into a readiness for political alliance with the imperial powers of the twentieth century that Saπadeh had ruled out before. Both thinkers characterized the conjunction of widened alphabet literacy with trade with other nations as a source of freedom. ∏Aql’s 1947 account ran that at Sidon “man defied destiny, giving birth to the tentative”.114 Saπadeh had argued (in The Rise of Nations) in 1935 that through the Phoenician experiment “the alphabet led the world along the road of knowledge and science and the triumph of intellectual energy over the difficulties of nature – to the economic machinery of modern capitalism”.115 More conscious than the poetical and much more idealist ∏Aql of the importance of “economic factors”,116 Saπadeh was still arguing in 1935 that capacity for general, pure or abstract thought is a factor in its own right that confers a type of freedom on human beings: “[F]rom the period in which the alphabet appeared at the side of trade, and the two factors united in socio-economic interaction, human society has been orienting towards the intellectual life and the mastery by the mind of the treasures and resources of nature.”117 Thus the coastal towns of West Syria set humanity on the road to modern industrial urban civilization. But for Saπadeh, as against some later Lebanonist-particularist discourses around motifs of Phoenicia, the “Canaanite Syrian” venture showed a path of “Reason” able to free his people from not merely geographical but geo-political determinism. The Phoenicians had shown, argued Saπadeh, that the earth offers only possibilities, not necessities or inevitabilities: Syria might be a link region joining East and West but its geographical position and limited resources need not determine its history: the argument of “many Syrians that Syria was a bridge between [203]


East and West whose historical destiny would therefore be determined by stronger invaders from outside” was, he declared, a reflection of “the ages of national lethargy/weakness” (aπsur al-khumul al-qawmi).118 Some Lebanese particularists such as ∏Aql were sometimes liable, as champions of a small national unit that felt insecure, to support a presence of the protector of the Catholic community, France. Generally, then, Saπadeh and ∏Aql both view “Sidon”, the Phoenician experiment, as the most decisive, definitive experience in the process that ended with the creation of the Lebanese or the Syrian nations respectively. For both ∏Aql and Saπadeh, as for all Lebanese and Greater Syrian particularists, Phoenicia also founded the modern civilization that reached its mature expression in the modern West. Both ∏Aql and Saπadeh endorsed the modern mechanical-industrial West to a large extent: Saπadeh has the least reservation about its patterns, hailing it as the “value” and long-term “[greater] meaning of the Syrian revolution”, a “magnificent edifice that periodically scores some new victory by man over the secrets of nature”, and which is not merely adorned with an endless array of beaux arts such as drawing, sculpture, engraving, architecture, painting, music, etc.” but also with “ethics and all that they mean for the personality of the individual and the personalities of the peoples”.119 The age of “the industrial machine” has “given intellectual culture the widest scope and developed social interaction to a highly advanced degree”. “In this new life, the civilized nations participate”; through it, millions of humans around the world can grasp the vital humanitarian and social problems facing the world and thereby “participate in a general humanistic culture as astoundingly diverse as the nations and environments of which it is constituted”.120 There was more to Saπadeh than a drive to realize the interests of the nation! ∏Aql and Saπadeh both wrote in a period of crisis of political and social order in the West that emboldened many in the Arabic East to critique the civilization of the states that had long pushed them around. Saπadeh’s writings on ancient history voiced some hostility to Western violence both ancient and modern, and some criticisms or relativization of the Greek and Roman precursors of the modern Westerners. The Phoenician Canaanites had, for Saπadeh, originated all the preconditions for modern urban mechanical civilization: the alphabet on which a literate civilization could be based, an international trade that “organized labour in common units” and capital in its true economic sense.121 While not [204]


compromising on political independence, he thus does endorse modern Western polities and a restructured world comity of nationalist states in which Western polities would still have some centrality as fulfilling the antiquity of his pan-Syrian nation. ∏Aql is laxer about the sovereignty of states, and stresses international trade somewhat more than Saπadeh. Sidon formed the first node of the Lebanese national consciousness through Lebanon’s economic enterprise of trade that enabled man to defy destiny by making the imbecilic earth as though capable of reason in the distribution of its wealth.122 ∏Aql’s depiction of the need to bring together commodities impoverished within separated geographical regions could validate Lebanon’s entrepôt role as an appendage of French imperial power. But does not ∏Aql, too, sound only half-enthusiastic about certain aspects of the modern West? Through the West, two enterprises that the Phoenicians began have reached completion in the preceding 50 years: “to attain to reason, and to penetrate the essence of matter [the material].” However, this double success of the modern West has been achieved at a cost, constituting “two orders of exhaustion” under which “the map of the world seethes” – “the revolutions, wars and upheavals that have marked the last two centuries”.123 More than Saπadeh, ∏Aql critiqued modern nationalisms when he rebuked peoples who know but “enthusiasm for a history, attachment to an earth and activity around matter” – “agitation, sounds of swords and wars”.124 ∏Aql could still have been like Saπadeh when in Qadmus he obliquely critiqued the cynicism with which anti-clerical France constructed the modern Lebanon polity on a sectarian distribution of spoils: Lebanon could not be a nation in the sense of sinking, in the name of the honourable science of taking charge of human beings, to the level of the “production of Machiavellians”.125 In 1947, ∏Aql was still not very happy with Lebanon’s post-1920 political elite as it was developing following World War II: he was in a way carrying forward something like Saπadeh’s old protests. International alliances or no, ∏Aql’s acceptance of Paris as the intellectual capital of the world for modern history remained highly critical of the extreme revolutionary intellectual, political and social upheavals of the preceding two centuries of Western history. He was cautious about allowing them to become central to the Lebanese national soul. Research has to examine the degree to which ∏Aql in fact stayed committed throughout his political permutations to a conservative religious Catholic [205]


world view or traditionalism, and how far that may have kept his consciousness outside the sphere of a real neo-pagan particularism, and therefore of the modern Western secular civilization that his category of Mediterraneanist particularists – not only in Lebanon but also in Egypt – believed to have descended from Phoenician (Pharaonic) civilization through classical Greece and Rome. Certainly, his thought tends more to historical idealism and awards a more central place than does Saπadeh’s to the contribution of Christianity and the Church to the moulding of the particularist nation. Of the “four nodes of mental convergence” that ∏Aql conceived to be innate to every Lebanese – (1) the trade, economic enterprise and abstraction achieved at Sidon; (2) Judaeo-monotheism and the Christian love that originated the principle of the abstract, absolute justice of true law at Jerusalem; (3) the embodiment of truth in the Church at Antioch; and (4) the art of practical politics developed by the Umayyads in Damascus – two, Jerusalem and Antioch, seem purely religious and Christian. ∏Aql also seems to regard these four nodes, heavily religious in their totality, as of more than a relative national or historical value by virtue of having “through their activity over the length of time constituted civilization”.126 He implies that the particular blend of these highpoints in human development that forms the Lebanese national character remains of universal necessity when he describes the Lebanese as “a level-headed people at a time when the globe has gone mad”.127 This seems to be the language of a religious idealist or conservative appalled at the divisive conflict and materialism of the modern world. In contrast, a certain contempt for religion in some of its senses had been obvious in Saπadeh’s 1938 book on the emergence of the nations. For example, in the opening passage of the first chapter of The Rise of Nations, Saπadeh explains the development of the concept of a supreme all-powerful god, and the traditional “religious explanation” for the creation of life in terms of a purely human “religious evolution” of thought. True, Saπadeh’s concept of “a complicated compound creation” might theoretically leave some scope open for a divine creator, and he seems most critical of the account of creation carried by the “Torah of the Jews”, a Jewish scripture he does distinguish from “Christianity” to some extent. Still, it is clear that Saπadeh holds that all three great monotheistic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – have obliged all believers to accept a Hebrew concept of the creation of life that is [206]


wrong, and which he subjects to “criticism” and “refutation”. “The scientific school has discovered that the relation of man with animal and of animal to plant is closer than religion has defined,” notes Saπadeh, who then proceeds to argue that the findings of modern astronomy, geology, zoology, botany and natural history have established the Darwinian theory of evolution.128 A notable feature of this opening section of Saπadeh’s macro-study of nations is the relish with which he uses the findings of modern science to prove that “languages were not handed out among humanity in the tower of Babel or its myth; that stars are not merely ‘stars’ nor does the sun revolve around the earth even if this fact should disagree with the glory of Joshua Ben Nun”129 – stabbing phrases that tear the Hebrew Bible to pieces. Yet, although most dismissive of Judaism – he mentions that the Hebrews borrowed their Mosaic law from the Canaanites as evidence of “South Syria’s” “politically well-developed character at the time”130 – he considers all religions to have merely a relative value. The concept of an independent creation of man and of an afterlife was “loftily imaginative”131 and “has greatly influenced us”. Yet, as but “an outstanding step in the development of thought”,132 the concept of Hereafter itself faces radical modification: man has begun to “adopt this idea [of a God] itself to make of religion a beautiful ideal devoid of [previous] forms of awe and terrorization and stripped of doctrinal inducements (al-mushawwiqat al-madhhabiyyah)”.133 In the modern age, only someone “greedy for selfish immortality” could pay any attention to the scientifically discredited notion of afterlife.134 As a radical secularist nationalist, Saπadeh was militantly anti-clerical and opposed to any variety of religious universal states. And here he is criticizing not merely a specific ruling group or specific institutions that claimed religion as their title to govern: he makes it clear that such institutions do authentically express the nature of religion. Thus, the medieval Catholic Church with its potentate popes is for him just a later instance of a recurring problem inherent in the nature of religion itself, that “religion had never surrendered its claim to supreme authority and temporal power: the fall of Carthage and then of Rome restored to it its erstwhile prowess with Christianity and … Islam”.135 “The authority of the popes was derived from the principle of the general will as expressed in the total submission of the believers to the successor of the Messiah” (Khalifat al-Masih: a phrase that also dismisses the Caliphs of Islam). [207]


Saπadeh welcomes the Reformation which, by shattering the unity and authority of the Church, ended the “chaos” of the struggle between feudal monarchs and the political papacy and, by ending the viability of a theocratic universal state, opened the way to the birth of the democratic, nationalist state in the West.136 In Saπadeh’s thought, the attempt to construct a universal religious state was socio-economically linked to the condition of political disintegration (the rise of feudalities) and generally retrogression that resulted from the fall of Rome (which he takes to represent the urban internationally trading civilization pioneered by Carthage in the West). Conversely, it was “only the growth of towns in the West, their industrial activity and commerce” that “rescued the state from this chaos” by creating a favourable climate for “freedom of work, and the exchange of ideas and information” in which a centralizing political life leading to a strong state, and the democratic idea which the monarchical state pursued with a protective framework, could be born – following the withering away of “the spiritual and temporal religious bond/community”.137 “While the Christian Church in the West was attempting to establish a general/universal religious state on the ruins of the Roman Empire, to be headed by the Pope, the religious state reigned undisputed in the East in the form of the [classical Arabs’] Islamic Empire.138 However far Saπadeh intended it, his definitive pagan antiquity in which the nation formed does marginalize from political community the tradition of the three religions once set in train by Abraham. For Saπadeh it would have been inconceivable to recognize religion, Islamic or Christian, as a constituent factor or force in Syrian particularist nationalism. In contrast, ∏Aql and other Lebanese particularists did leave substantial roles to Catholicism and its clergies. Yet both opposed groups agreed in awarding great importance to the influence of geography, region and material resources in expanding and demarcating nations, although Saπadeh is much more of a geographical determinist and materialist. Saπadeh had a strong tendency to brush aside the Hebrews and the Jews: he voiced intellectual disdain for the Hebrew Old Testament and argued the South Syrian, Canaanite origins of their Mosaic Law, and with sharp and impatient language refuted the claim of Israel Zangwill (the Anglo-Jewish writer, born in 1864, who was the author of many ghetto studies, ghetto tragedies and ghetto comedies) that the Jews, though lacking a homeland, had in the diaspora preserved their nationhood [208]


intact. Both Saπadeh’s political movement and the populations it served had an objective conflict with the Zionists, although he must, out of the sheer centrality of a shared geographical homeland to the viability of a nation in his ideology, have rejected such a claim as Zangwill’s from any quarter.139 It all contrasts with ∏Aql’s more sympathetic attitude to Judaism, the Hebrews, the Bible and the Jewish contribution. Of course, ∏Aql is speaking in vague, suggestive generalities when he makes Jerusalem one of the nodes of the Lebanese soul. But for him Jerusalem is the symbol of the old monotheistic Jewish religion, or its culmination, founded by David to fulfil the teaching of Abraham and Moses who were not literally in their lifetimes of it. Also in Christian theology, it is the city of God and the Church, and ∏Aql’s next node is Antioch which for him is the incarnation of truth in the Church (albeit in its Syriac tradition). Yet, while he felt a cognate closeness of language, race and general culture of Phoenicians with the nearby Hebrews, he does feel obliged to imply some specific Phoenician-Lebanese contribution to Hebrew monotheism, which stemmed from a direct revelation from God according to Christian orthodox belief. In this neo-pagan impulse, he speculated that a colony of Sidonians who “founded the most beautiful quarter of Memphis” (in Pharaonic Egypt) might have contributed something to the atmosphere in which Moses would grow up to his maturity,140 that infant humanity already in Egypt and Babylon was “stammering the language of monotheism” when the first revelation was given to the Hebrews.141 In contrast, the yet unregenerately polytheist Athenians were “primitives who worship multiple gods”142 – not an urgent concern for Saπadeh. It is notable that here (Babylon) ∏Aql may be close to Saπadeh’s own demarcation of the Syrian geographical homeland: since ∏Aql implies that the monotheist speculations in Egypt were the result of the presence of Phoenician colonists, credit for the intellectual environment within which monotheist Moses was formed is claimed for a unit stretching from the Phoenician Mediterranean coast to Babylon. While appreciative of Hebrew monotheism, a further breakthrough for ∏Aql was Jesus’ ending of hate for those beyond the tribe, which fostered endless wars. When Jesus said “love your enemies” making “Love the law between people … the relations between people trembled to their foundations … and universality began”.143 ∏Aql’s idealist view here that a (god-)man’s moral teachings could change the course of history runs counter to the teachings of Saπadeh, [209]


who ridiculed “those moralists who see morals as the basis for everything” and “who do not understand the important economic factors operating under every one of society’s manifestations/aspects (mazahir)”.144 To a great degree, then, Saπadeh is an economic and historical determinist and tends to view morality and social codes as a superstructure manifesting deeper economic and social realities, although he also recognized like ∏Aql the capacity of thought and enterprise (Sidon) to evade the determinism of immediate environment. For Saπadeh, the tribe had crumbled before Jesus: “[I]n the Syrian sea city, which imprinted its culture upon the whole Mediterranean, the ancient tribal bond was transformed into the wide social bond”,145 although that had not been the full extent of the “universality” for which ∏Aql yearned in 1947.

Celebration of Carthage by other Lebanese particularists As their relations with one-time patron France deteriorated, some particularist Lebanese writers followed in the footsteps of Saπadeh when, implicitly as the means to achieve independence from France, he had exalted Carthage as the inspiring proof of Lebanese-Syrian capacity to achieve military strength vis-à-vis the imperialist West. Lebanese Christian writers in the 1940s followed this path shown by Saπadeh even in the pages of the Jesuit-founded, once very pro-French, al-Bashir. For instance, Fadil Saπid ∏Aql in an important article titled “Our National Army” argued the “realistic” point that “no nation can realize [independence and dignity] unless it supports its demand with some [military] force to make its execution seem politic and stamp the said demand [to others] with the imprint of inherent justice rather than pity or charity”.146 Some particularist interpretations of ancient history had, for many years, located Phoenicia’s contribution to the emergence of civilization in its pacific and equal exchange of goods, ideas and techniques with the peoples of the ancient world with whom it created an international trading community. This portrayal of the pacific, trading Phoenicians in antiquity enabled Lebanese nationalists to, via a contrast with ancient Roman imperialism, mount a moral critique of its modern violent French successors in the Middle East. But amid the militarist international atmosphere of the late 1930s and 1940s, we find ∏Aql stressing Lebanon’s ancient involvement in the military expansionism of Carthaginia. He depicted the struggle of the Phoenician colonies in Punic North Africa, [210]


Spain and Sicily against Rome as founding a tradition of Lebanese military prowess. ∏Aql traced this tradition since the first Phoenician Lebanese took up arms against Rome’s soaring towers, thereby smashing the foundations of her empire, setting forth from Eastern shores in a cedar vessel, pursuing the routed remnants of Rome’s armies as they fell back from Africa’s Sahara battlefields to Spain – crossing the straits [of Gibraltar] and over the Alps, a veritable miracle he [Hannibal] worked by this passage over its snow-swathed peaks on his elephant! – reaching finally the gates of the capital that had ravaged the world.147

∏Aql’s glorification and exaltation of this Carthaginian militarism closely followed the details given in the writings of the pan-Syrian nationalist Saπadeh who exalted Carthage, which nearly conquered Rome, as an extension of a Phoenicia (but the latter as itself a part of the ancient Syrian nation). ∏Aql traced the military prowess and fighting spirit of the Lebanese from Carthage in antiquity through to the Ottoman period and the twentieth century. Thus for the Ottoman period, he gloated, surveying the development of the Lebanese martial tradition in the period in the exploits of the jabal Amirs, that “the great Amir [Fakhr al-Din] al-Maπni united Lebanon by the blade of the sword. He triumphed at the head of the 40,000 Lebanese conscripts [who] cast terror among their troops.”148 ∏Aql traced the Lebanese–Syrian fighting spirit forward through the Amir al-Shihabi “who used to raze forts to the ground, storm towns, who raised our flag high above the battlefield of the enemy”. ∏Aql traced the antiquity-originated Lebanese-Syrian military capacity through to the First World War when the Lebanese fought on the allied side “in the most violent of battles in the defence of the cause of truth, freedom, justice and humanity, paying the cost in Lebanon’s blood, offering the flower of its youth as martyrs at the gallows” of its Turkish oppressors. Pro-French at that point, he nonetheless then called for the numerically small indigenous military units in Lebanon to be completely detached from the control of the foreign powers exercising suzerainty over his country, as Lebanese President Albert Naqqash had asked allied Commander Henry Maitland Wilson and French High Commissioner George Catroux. ∏Aql then demanded that the units be expanded into a strong national army, as Misr al-Fatat was demanding for Egypt’s small army that Britain starved and controlled. [211]


The parallels with Misr al-Fatat in the article are several. ∏Aql’s glorification of military conquests of al-Maπni and al-Shihabi in terms of the pagan ancient past resembled Misr al-Fatat’s earlier linked glorification of Muhammad ∏Ali’s and the earlier Pharaoh’s expansionist campaigns in the Sudan and West Asia. Ancient Latin-speaking Rome had ruled most lands bordering the Mediterranean in a vast empire. Some collaborating Catholic Lebanese writers in the 1920s had echoed France’s argument that it was natural for it to rule Lebanon in some neo-Latin neo-Mediterranean community or bloc. By the 1940s, however, most Catholic Lebanese writers stressed Carthage and wars with Westerners of the PhoenicianSyrian nation in antiquity, and the necessity for the nation to achieve its sovereignty (implicitly from French colonial rule), through military strength. The Catholic Lebanese writers who exalted Carthage always had to stress the tightness and closeness of the economic, cultural, religious and political bonds that never ceased to knit Phoenician-Syrian Carthage in North Africa to coastal Syria (Lebanon) despite some political decentralization. Carthage had to demonstrate the capacity of twentieth-century coastal Lebanese to win and defend sovereignty through military force: that was the key. Al-Amir Muris Shihab, then curator of the Lebanese National Museum, enthused in 1938: Carthage – and who among us is ignorant of Carthage? Carthage which ruled North Africa and possessed Sardinia. Carthage which ruled Spain and produced Amilcar and Hannibal; Carthage whose elephants trampled the peaks of the towering Alps; Carthage which on one day almost strangled Rome. Carthage was naught but a daughter of Phoenicia who with all her greatness paid obeisance at the feet of her mother Sur (Tyre) and did not cease for even one day to send gifts and delegations to present offerings at the temple of Melkarth [patron] deity of Tyre.149

Shihab’s speech preceded the French military collapse before Nazi Germany and no doubt reflects the anti-Westernism spreading among the Lebanese, although less strongly than among other more heavily Muslim countries of the Arab Middle East, in the 1930s and the 1940s. The new vulnerability that the debacle of French arms in Europe brought home to many Maronites further encouraged them to think that a final militant or violent struggle might be able to oust the French for good. [212]


Even the Syrian littérateurs and thinkers had long neglected and some had forgotten Syrian Carthage. From the early 1930s, Saπadeh had reinstalled Carthage and its glory firmly back in the Lebano-Syrian national psyche. Many Catholic Lebanese literati readily followed Saπadeh’s lead and developed the celebration of militarily strong Carthage as a motif that pointed forward to a twentieth-century liberation from French colonialism. Even in the more sectarian Catholic circle that most collaborated with France, Carthage’s might was salient in a shift of consciousness towards anti-colonialist protest. However, some Lebanese journalistic intellectuals’ new apprehensions of Carthage were bedevilled by superficiality in comparison to Saπadeh’s committed and historically solid reconstruction.

Significance of Carthage in particularist discourses Carthage was, in some ways, a problem for both pan-Syrian and Lebanese particularist nationalisms. Both pan-Syrians like Saπadeh and the Catholic Lebanese particularists underscored the geographical homeland – wide Syria or Grand Liban – as the frame that determined and defined the national community. From this territorialist ideological viewpoint, the city Carthage was geographically outside the sphere of the homeland and the central interests of a modern Syrian or “Lebanese” nation that territorial homeland framed. For the Orthodox post-Christian Saπadeh and the Catholic Lebanese belletristic journalistic intellectuals, a possible tenuousness of what political and social links Carthage kept up with mother Phoenicia counted less for the time than its international prowess. But the interest of those writers in Carthage was not just antiWestern. Their territorial national criteria were not inflexible or rigid. Saπadeh in particular did have a sharp eye for all developments of antiquity that could get around or at least delay geography and geographical determinism. He was alert to this for antiquity and in his own age when a migrated Syrian community showed some will to maintain its identity and contribute from outside the strict territorial homeland. The ideological frontiers of the sharpening pan-Syrian, pan-Suraqiyan and Lebanonist nationalisms that were becoming increasingly articulated in the 1930s and 1940s had to take account of the modern period’s overseas populations of diaspora Lebanese and Syrians geographically separated from the homeland of provenance in other continents. Not only modernity’s new [213]


technologies of communications and relations but also the emblem of Carthaginia could provide structure and resolve to transmission of culture and political solidarity between racial Lebanese-Syrians across continents and down generations, and make dual citizenship actual. Saπadeh long laboured to maintain the Syrian national identity of mainly Christian Lebanese-Syrian communities in the diasporas of the Americas. Still, Carthage, although situated beyond geographical Syria, had a relation to the homeland’s Syrian nation stronger than these modern diaspora communities’ in that it was politically sovereign, as they were not, and nearer, although modernity was now annihilating distance in Saπadeh’s era.

The patterns of historical perception Saπadeh was aware that he wrote in a print language that had been originated, and parts of it carried forward, long before by classical Arabs outside the Fertile Crescent. In his 1967 De la grammatologie (Of Grammatology) Jacques Derrida defined Jean-Jacques Rousseau during his assaults on classicism and its ideas in French as typical of the author who “writes in a language and in a logic whose own system, laws and life his discourse by definition cannot dominate absolutely”.150 Saπadeh’s conscious attempt to match Ibn Khaldun as a macro-historian had a sense that he and the modern Suraqiyans had some positive linkages of culture and thought to the classical Arabo-Islamic system from which he aimed to define a separate history for the nation he and his colleagues were constructing. Saπadeh, though, offered a recovered pagan national history and macro-history that does have extensive separateness from those in the body of classical Arabic literature. Thus, I would not assess the patterns or content from the pre-existing supra-national Arabic language as imposing too many impasses on Saπadeh’s thought. Probably Arabic’s nature and the wide classical Arabs – but also his links through acculturation to the extent of Western civilization from its beginnings – did make Saπadeh’s intended nationalist meanings richer and more fruitful by tugging his mind out more to macro-history, which it was his intellectually muscular bent to pen, in any case. At all points in his writings Saπadeh insisted on determinism by geography in the development of nations. His works, though, did not define a consistent prescriptive political pattern taking shape throughout all periods of the nation’s history. There are indeed some loose ends on [214]


this in his reviews of the successive ages of the nation’s evolution, and this means he could not be fitted into fascist-like ideologies stressing a unique individual leader, and his instrumental state, as the form of government needed for the future even more than the past. In his fears of the disorder that excessive electoral democracy could bring even in antiquity, Saπadeh did draw away somewhat from the liberal democratic forms of government from the West that some were implanting after a fashion in the Arab world of his era. In the writings on antiquity that we reviewed, though, he does seem to have regarded strong leaders or despots – but here he was thinking of “monarchy” as also the ruling stratum around the strong leader – as a stopgap to overcome a given impasse, or to maintain the state’s sovereignty from attack. But as development of society, the economy and the nation then proceeds, the monarch who had in a way enabled it can become a drag or an impediment. Saπadeh’s thought on antiquity does not quite fit with radical nationalisms in Europe, such as the Italian or German traditions where a state welds a nation, simply because for the state private enterprise by individuals out of supervision by any government was so crucial in the Suraqiyan nation’s achievement of its first high civilization. It is true that Saπadeh was dominant – extolled as “the leader” – in the pan-Syrian nationalist movement that he conducted. However, the historical record is of his acute awareness of how shaky, ill-integrated and needy the populations of the Suraqiya of his day were before the imperialists and Zionists. A concretizing leader could focus the nation, get it on the move and make it activist in just such a crisis of out-gunned non-coherence. But Saπadeh had not seen the extolled leader as a political form that could transform realities, especially not over the long term. If a quasi-religious worship was directed by some followers to Saπadeh, this may place him within a problematic like that of Hasan al-Bannaπ (assassinated February 1949) and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Like Al-Bannaπ in Egypt, Saπadeh seems privately to have thought the absolutist drive from some of his young followers to overthrow the corrupt liberal-parliamentarist system that legitimized itself by sub-ethnic particularism, to be foredoomed and also wrong. Discontinuity in the forms of government, economy and social structure of the nation down its evolution are very important in Saπadehist historical thought. For Saπadeh, that the nation continues to evolve and develop in its history rules out a single binding pattern in government, although he was attentive to [215]


present-day realities and to stages. Like Al-Bannaπ he might have given the local parliamentarist system a go as a positive system-challenger but also reformer from within that system and become constructive, except that the political bosses did not always welcome the entry of new blood and ideas. While Saπadeh rejected extreme Greek participatory pluralism that could abolish the state, Carthage and the Phoenicians in general imaged for him an economic liberalism and a plurality of power centres – he was no totalitarianist ideologue. A powerful state for Saπadeh was the embodiment of neither the nation nor human civilization but an instrument to foster the forward movement of each and to deliver rights to its citizens. Parts of The Rise of Nations were hastily penned notes that Saπadeh never won time to revise and systemize properly, but his comments on Carthage read to have been inherently exploratory. He was feeling around in this glorious apex of the ancient history of the Suraqiyan nation for patterns for the long-term construction of a good society and polity for the Fertile Crescent. Saπadeh wrote in a stormy period and from a rough neighbourhood, but he comes across as a sort of flexible if discreet liberal in his ultimate wishes for his people. Clearly, he believed that hereditary monarchy had become obsolescent as a form of government in Suraqiyan history, even in the ancient period. He was alert to the danger that a class that gained wealth through commerce could apply it to seek to control the political process and twist development to direct an even greater proportion of wealth to it. Thus, had Saπadeh stayed in the United States of America he might, in his old age, have become a left-Democrat who would have denounced the Republicans’ conservative revolution of the 1980s. He wanted “the sovereignty of the people” as he identified malfunctions in ancient Carthage. The oligarchs on the governing council did not properly support Hannibal and his army during their campaigns against Rome. Serious modern issues of the relationship between (1) electorally determined governments of civilians, and (2) the militaries that are supposed to take their orders are brought into play by Carthage here. Clearly, Saπadeh believed that the solution to this problem was to shrink the roles of the oligarchy in politics, but that came via a “democratic reform” made under pressure from the populace in general. I believe that Saπadeh’s attraction to a strong military leader whose defence of the Carthage homeland made him an “emperor” through army was in part [216]


fed by the context of imperialist occupations of the Fertile Crescent of his day. Saπadeh prized Hannibal as a defender called into being by the specific situation of Carthage’s military struggle against Rome. But perhaps he himself did not decide how wise it was to unify the functions of military and national leader.

Conclusion: potential for micro-nationalism? Saπadeh’s recreations of ancient history could perhaps be read with his various comments on the evolution of societies in the Americas after European conquests. For 600 years the Phoenicians of Carthage maintained their distinct Syrian culture and nationhood in another continent outside of their homeland in some tension with Saπadeh’s usual stress on the power of geographical homelands of residence to determine nationhood. Carthage here is another interesting margin that gives print-language, and inter-generational ethnic-cultural transmission by minorities, more importance vis-à-vis homelands than in the common run of his writings. Saπadeh caught sharply the geographical determinism with which homelands of residence weld nations out of groups far-removed from where they originally came. Yet he did also believe that implanted groups, especially if they had political power, could delay their amalgamation into autochthonous populations. Additionally, he clearly believed that immigrant minorities with no political power – or at least their ideological vanguards – could also sidestep for a time some aspects of homogenization by environment working to submerge them into the host-majority. Individuals, political cliques, but in particular minorities with some numerical weight and proximity or ability to communicate within the group (via the Internet?), could in some cases hold back the operation of geographical homelands of residence to determine nationality, which would not always be an automatic process in the short term at least. Let us assume for a moment that Saπadeh and his colleagues had been able to capture political power in one of the Fertile Crescent’s post-World War II states. How might these not strictly territorialist margins to Saπadeh’s geographical-nationalist thought have influenced the policies of such a government towards the USA and the states of Latin America and their internal societies? I believe that a Suraqiyanist government would have urged and equipped the Lebanese-Syrian-Iraqi [217]


diaspora communities in those states so that many among them could have qualified and delayed or sidestepped assimilation into their host nations for more than two generations and then migrated back to Suraqiya with some of their Arabic still intact. Saπadeh showed a meticulous grasp of the difficulties of maintaining Arabic between generations involved in a diaspora given the gap between the elaborate language of the printed page and the dialects that Suraqiyans spoke, and that those governments of the Americas were promoting only their national languages in public space. Saπadeh was adaptable and inventive in getting around those situations. He grasped in Brazil that his party’s weekend schools were not enough: he accordingly mainly spoke classical Arabic with his daughter Sofia. Her resultant literacy in print-Arabic equipped her to play crucial roles in public life and the party after her return to Lebanon. It is true that Saπadeh in this case was culturally manoeuvring for a narrow purpose that would have a short timeframe: to equip his offspring and perhaps those of other Syrian nationalist cadres exiled with him in the Americas for repatriation to the homeland. The purpose was within the frame of one generation or, one might say, one-and-a-half generations. Yet beyond such individual cases, Saπadeh, his colleagues or his heirs may in time have been able to extend much more manipulation of the tensions between languages and of the natural processes towards assimilation. He was always very alert to new developments in technologies and communications. How would he have greeted the rise of African-American, post-Zionist Jewish, Slavic, Celtic, Latin and Hispanic enclave-nationalisms or micro-nationalisms in the far-extending USA state after 1967? I believe that the aged Saπadeh would instantly have grasped that the widening circulation of books and of instruments that convey languages, and of data carried by the Internet and satellite television across continents, had all created the possibility for pocket Carthages, enclave-nationalities, to develop on the margins of the US system – or installed within it? – and to last for generations or indefinitely. He and his officials would have advised “Arab-Americans” on procedures to lift their lacklustre performance and institutionalize into a skilled lobby to end the influence of Israel, the Zionists and the post-Zionist Jewish-American micronationalists on US policies in the Middle East.

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NOTES 1 Antun Saπadeh, Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: SSNP Publication, 1938, p. 143. 2 Ibid., p. 145. 3 Ibid., p. 156. 4 Ibid., p. 157. 5 Ibid., p. 79. 6 Ibid., p. 80. 7 Ibid., p. 83. 8 Ibid., p. 82. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid, p. 81. 11 Ibid., pp. 73–74. 12 Ibid., p. 75. 13 John P. Entelis, Pluralism and Party Transformation in Lebanon: al-Kataπib 1936–1970, Leiden: Brill, 1974, p. 14. 14 Saπid ∏Aql, Qadmus, Beirut: n.p., 1947, p. 437. 15 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 82. 16 Ibid., p. 82. 17 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih al-Masihiyyah wal Muhammadiyyah, (Islam in its Two Messages), 5th edition, Beirut: Al-Rukn, 1995, p. 93. 18 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, pp. 74, 79. 19 Ibid., p. 82. 20 Ibid., p. 83. 21 Ibid., p. 81. 22 Ibid., p. 83. 23 Ibid., p. 74. 24 Ibid., p. 73. 25 Ibid., pp. 84, 85. 26 Ibid., p. 123. 27 Ibid. 28 Ibid., p. 113. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid., p. 82. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., p. 120. 33 Ibid., pp. 119–122. 34 Ibid., pp. 95–96. For the background of such slave revolts see K.R. Bradley, Slaves and Masters in the Roman Empire: A Study in Social Control, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. 35 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 95. 36 Ahmad Farid Rifaπi, “Hawla Batalin Zinjiyyin ∏Azim, Rasul al-Wataniyyah Toussaint al-Fatih” (On a Great Negro Hero: The Messenger of Patriotism Toussaint the Conqueror), al-Hilal, 1 March 1930, pp. 553–560. al-Hilal was a partly Syrian-Christian publication. 37 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 110. [219]


38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

Ibid., p. 107. Ibid., p. 108. Ibid., p. 113. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 108. Ibid., p. 109. Ibid., p. 103. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid., p. 106. Ibid., p. 107. Ibid., p. 106. Ibid., p. 108. Ibid., p. 107. Ibid., p. 109. Ibid., p. 105. Ibid., p. 107. Misr al-Fatat, 10 February 1938. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 105. Misr al-Fatat, 14 April 1938. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 130. Article “Carthage”, Encyclopaedia Britannica, vol. 4, 1973, pp. 976–977. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, pp. 112–113. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 115. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 114. Ibid., p. 97. Pessah Shinar, “The Historical Approach of the Reformist ‘Ulama’ in the Contemporary Maghrib”, Asian and African Studies, 7, 1971, pp. 194–195, 181–210. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, pp. 95, 120. Ibid., pp. 117–118. Ibid., p. 116. Ibid. Shinar, “The Historical Approach of the Reformist ‘Ulama’ in the Contemporary Maghrib”, op. cit., p. 195. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 167. Ibid., p. 166. Ibid. Ibid., p. 167. Ibid., p. 168. Ibid., p. 101. Ibid., p. 107. Ibid., p. 109. Ibid., p. 91. [220]


83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

Ibid., p. 117. Ibid. Ibid., p. 116. Ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 111. Anwar ∏Abd al-Malik, Anthologie de la Litterature Arabe Contemporaine: Les Essais, Paris: Editions de Seuil, 1965, p. 436. ∏Aql, Qadmus, p. 437. Ibid., pp. 436–437. Ibid., p. 437. Ibid., pp. 437–438. Ibid., p. 437. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 79. Ibid., p. 81. Ibid. ∏Aql, op. cit., p. 438. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 110. Ibid., p. 81. Ibid., p. 82. Ibid., p. 81. Ibid. ∏Aql, op. cit., p. 437. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 82. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., p. 167. ∏Aql, op. cit., p. 438. Ibid. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 80. Ibid., p. 83. Ibid., p. 99. Ibid. ∏Aql, op. cit., p. 438. Ibid. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 85. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 110. Ibid., p. 85. Ibid. Ibid., p. 83. ∏Aql, op. cit., p. 437. Ibid., p. 436. Ibid., p. 437. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 19. Ibid., p. 20. [221]


130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149

Ibid., p. 112. Ibid., p. 19. Ibid. Ibid., p. 99. Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 123. Ibid., pp. 123–124. Ibid., p. 123. Ibid., p. 125. Ibid., p. 155. ∏Aql., op. cit., p. 440. Ibid., p. 438. Ibid. Ibid., p. 439. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, 1980, p. 85. Ibid., p. 113. al-Bashir, 25 January 1941. Ibid. Ibid. “Al-Muhajaratu fi ∏Ahd al-Finiqiyyin – Khitab al-Amir Muris Shihab, Hafiz al-Mathaf al Watani” (Migration in the Age of the Phoenicians – Speech of the Amir Muris Shihab, Curator of the National Museum) al-Bashir, 25 May 1938, p. 2. 150 For Derrida on this resistance of a formal language to substitution of another ideology into it, see Jonathon Culler, On Deconstruction: Theory and Criticism After Structuralism, London: Routledge, 1993, pp. 217–218.

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6 Saπadeh and Lebanon: A Historical Perspective Edmond Melhem

Antun Saπadeh regarded the establishment of Lebanon as a separate state in 1920 as a breach of the territorial integrity of geographical Syria. The “Lebanese question”, he argued, was superfluous because it was contingent on ideological and sectarian considerations that had ceased to be relevant. “It is clear,” he wrote, “that the Lebanese question has insufficient justifications. The Lebanese question is not based on the existence of Lebanon as something independent, or on the existence of a separate Lebanese homeland, or even on an independent Lebanese history. Its only basis is religious partisanship and theocracy.”1 Nonetheless, Saπadeh respected the peculiar historical circumstances that led to the creation of Lebanon: “We respect the existence of Lebanon … as a political existence which has been necessitated by religious and political considerations.”2 Several questions arise here. Did Saπadeh really respect the existence of Lebanon as an independent state? Is there any contradiction between what Saπadeh declared about the existence of Lebanon and the aim of his party? These are just two of the questions that this chapter will attempt to answer. It is concluded that Saπadeh did not pose a danger to Lebanon but was grossly misunderstood or misrepresented by his political foes for propaganda or other political ends. Saπadeh and the Lebanese national idea The creation of Lebanon as viewed by Sa πadeh According to Antun Saπadeh, Lebanon had never existed in the shape we know it today. He claimed that “in history there was nothing called the Lebanese nation or the Lebanese state. It was created after the First World War.”3 Stirrings of a specifically “Lebanese” identity can be traced in the writings of some Maronite historians of the first half of the nineteenth [223]


century. However, Lebanon as a territorial state did not come into political existence until 1920. “Before that time,” writes Salibi, “there was a political entity called Mount Lebanon which was constituted as a privileged administrative unit of the Ottoman Empire under international guaranty; but this mutasarrifiyyah (district government) of Mount Lebanon, as it was called, had no existence before 1861. Earlier on, ‘Mount Lebanon’, or ‘the Lebanon’, was a geographical expression, which did not acquire internationally recognized political usage until the 1830s.”4 Saπadeh adopted the common view that the European mandate over Syria resulted in the partition of the country according to British and French political aims and interests. He also thought that both mandatory powers, especially France, adopted policies that were in opposition to the interests of the people and designed specifically to prevent national unity – a point later accentuated by Nicola Ziadeh: “The interests of the people themselves were a matter of secondary importance.”5 The creation of Lebanon, observed Saπadeh, was not decided by popular will: “The State of Lebanon was not announced by a Lebanese institutional council elected by the people. It was announced by the leader of an occupying foreign army [General Henri Gouraud], in conspiracy with some religious institutions, feudalists and self-seekers.”6 But was there really a conspiracy? The answer to this question is twofold. First, it can be said that France responded positively to Maronite demands for an independent Lebanon separate from Syria. The Maronites, particularly leaders of the Maronite Church, representatives of the Central Administrative Council (CAC) and some intellectuals who escaped to Cairo, Paris and New York during World War I,7 had actively solicited the help of France to extend Mount Lebanon to its “natural and historical boundaries” and to achieve their independence from Syria.8 The prototype of what they claimed as the historic Lebanon existed during the Maπni imarah (princedom) period (1590–1697), particularly under the dynamic leadership of Fakhr al-Din II, whose princedom consisted of various parts of present-day Lebanon, Syria and northern Palestine (as far south as Safad). In 1919, the Maronite Patriarch Elias Huwayyik told the American King-Crane Commission9 that “Lebanon demanded full independence, but that if assistance was to be extended to the country it must come from France”.10 Maronite aspirations were then detailed in a memorandum presented to the Peace Conference on 27 August.11 It included the following: [224]

SAπADEH AND LEBANON

• • •

recognition of the independence of Lebanon with full sovereignty, internal and external restitution of her natural, historical and economic frontiers, and help and support of France for the achievement of (these) aspirations in the light of the tradition of friendship which the Lebanon had always maintained towards France.12

The French had had a special relationship with the Maronites from the time of the Crusades. Their concern for the sect, and for the Christians of the Levant in general, showed itself not only in educational and religious missions, but also in continuous assurances of protection.13 Acting as protector of European commercial interests in the Ottoman Empire, France sought, in 1535, capitulatory privileges14 from the Ottoman Sultan, and consequently came to be recognized as the guardian of Catholicism in the Sultan’s realm.15 After 1639, France claimed the right to protect Ottoman Christian subjects – especially Catholics – throughout the Asian provinces. Hence, the “adoption” of the Maronite community in Lebanon by Louis XIV in 1649.16 France’s concern for the Christians of the Levant further manifested itself in the Treaty of Berlin of 13 July 1878. This treaty granted formal international recognition to French protection over the Catholics in the Holy Places.17 On 10 November as the Peace Conference was being held in Paris and the Maronites were actively working for Lebanese independence under French protection, Georges Clemenceau told the Maronite Patriarch Elias Huwayyik: “France was in full agreement with the Lebanese aspiration and would give them the full support.”18 The French government considered this letter “a binding agreement which the government intended to carry out”.19 Second, “When Greater Lebanon was created in 1920, only the Maronites were consulted. The Druzes were taken for granted, because they had already been living quietly in the Lebanese mutasarrifiyyah since 1861, without voicing any special political demands or grievances. The Shiites at the time were not yet in a position to express an opinion on the matter. Where the Sunnis were concerned, the new Lebanese state was actually created against their declared wishes.”20 The report of the King-Crane Commission was even more explicit: “In Mount Lebanon … the Druzes and the Greek Orthodox desired union with Syria because they were afraid of Maronite domination and also feared [225]


France. But so did the Protestants and some other Christians, who sincerely believed in Syrian nationalism … Finally the [Muslims] of Mount Lebanon, like those of Syria proper, desired union.”21 In their final report, the commissioners indicated that the people of Syria preferred national independence; but that if this were not possible, they preferred to have their country assisted by or placed under an American mandate or, failing that, under a British mandate, but on no account did they want a French administration.22 Sa πadeh’s refutation of Lebanese nationalism After Lebanon’s creation in 1920, Maronite Christians embraced “Phoenicianism” and “Mediterraneanism”, notions that “were encouraged and fostered by the French”. Theorists of “Phoenicianism” propagated the idea that the Lebanese were “racially and culturally Phoenician in origin and different from the Arabs”.23 Mediterraneanists, on the other hand, theorized that Lebanese culture is “Mediterranean” rather than Arab. They claimed that the Lebanese originated from the same racial groups that inhabited the Mediterranean basin and, consequently, share with the Mediterranean peoples a number of characteristics which they may not share with their nearest neighbours.24 “Phoenicianism” and “Mediterraneanism” developed at the same time and seemed to complement each other. A more extreme form of Lebanese nationalism developed in 1936 with the appearance of Al-Kataπib al-Lubnaniyyah (Lebanese Phalanges). Its founder, Pièrre Gemayel, regarded Lebanon as a separate and distinct nation with a special mission that is “incompatible with that which the Arabs aspire generally to realize”.25 Lebanon, he argued, “is a soul, a spiritual principle. It would be materially possible to absorb it into a Syrian or Arab empire temporarily; it is spiritually impossible to unite it to a world which does not share its state of soul, its spiritual principles.”26 Saπadeh rejected outright the ideas of Lebanese nationalism. He labelled its propagandists, particularly the Phalangists, “isolationists” and “separatists” and accused them of being psychologically deranged.27 He argued that their ideas were at odds with the reality and the social fact of Syria, and aimed to isolate the Lebanese Christians from Syrian life.28 To Saπadeh, it would have been more reasonable had the “isolationists” requested political or administrative separation from Syria, but in no way could a national separation be countenanced. [226]


Saπadeh was clearly aware of communal Maronites’ concerns – their fear of Muslim engulfment and their image of Lebanon as a refuge and haven for freedom. It is evident in many of his articles on the Lebanese question: “It is a well known fact that the causes behind the creation of a Lebanese state were the religious wars and massacres which were the outcome of sectarian divisions. These events led the Lebanese Christians to demand an independent administration which would protect their interests.”29 But as far as he was concerned, these causes do not justify the existence of a “Lebanese nation”. He asserted: “One must distinguish between the entity of Lebanon and its safety on one hand, and sociological facts on another. To respect an entity because of historical circumstances does not mean isolating ourselves and continuing to accept those excuses forever. The entity has to be a springboard for the Lebanese and not a grave.”30 For Saπadeh, the nation is a social fact, historically evolved through continuous interaction between a group of people who share a common life within the confines of a specific geographic environment. Accordingly, it is not logical to classify Lebanon as a separate nation because it had not evolved naturally in a specific and well-defined environment. One cannot separate the history of the Lebanese from the history of ethnic and religious groups in other parts of Syria. Neither can one separate the social and economic factors that unite Lebanon with other countries of the Fertile Crescent. Saπadeh clearly distinguished between the nation as a social community or a “natural” society31 and the state as a “political entity”.32 The nation, he argued, can coincide with the state, but this may not always be the case. A nation can be divided into several states, as had happened countless times to Syria, or it may co-exist with other nations under one state or empire. On this basis, Saπadeh could tolerate the existence of the Lebanese state without contradicting his belief in the Syrian nation. He declared: “We respect the existence of Lebanon … as a political entity necessitated by religious and political considerations. However, we believe that the Lebanese are Syrian nationals and form an indivisible part of the original Syrian nation … its history, life, community, social and economic cycle, and ethnic composition.”33 Some Lebanese felt that Saπadeh was contradicting himself. How could one respect Lebanon and at the same time insist on Syrian unity? Some Maronite clerics and politicians even accused him of being an [227]


enemy of Lebanon. Saπadeh saw the confusion and suspicion that his position on Lebanon aroused, but dismissed it as the subject of deliberate false propaganda. Lebanese separatists, he claimed, committed a grave error confusing a “political question” with a “national cause”. Lebanon constituted a political question arising from circumstantial factors, whereas the life and unity of the Syrians formed a national cause arising from natural, socio-economic and historical factors. Saπadeh denied that he wished to demolish the Lebanese state. He considered himself and those members of his party in Lebanon as Lebanese citizens entitled to exercise their civil rights within the state and in the best interest of all Lebanese.34 He also made this point: Our Social Nationalist doctrine is a social thing and the Lebanese entity is a political thing and we do not confuse the two. If utility or political conditions necessitated the establishment of the Lebanese entity, the question from this aspect remains a purely political one and there is no justification for turning it into a national issue. Because of this, those who consider the [Syrian] Social Nationalist Party a party that exists solely to demand Syrian unity err or misunderstand its cause. Those who try to panic the ultras among the Lebanese by saying that the party wants to annex Lebanon to Syria are deliberately making false propaganda.35

In other words, the special reasons for a separate Lebanon cannot prevail forever. Lebanon remains bound to Syria by natural and historical factors. Saπadeh’s acknowledgement of these special reasons and his acceptance of Lebanon as a political existence was, therefore, a momentary factor. He believed that the day will come when the Lebanese themselves will seek the abolition of their political entity and the present artificial borders with Syria. On this day, the “genuine will” of the Lebanese people will re-assert itself, reflecting the people’s awareness of their social and historic reality and their common unity and destiny with Syria. This stands in marked contrast to the “spurious will” represented by the separatists. Maronite writers and Syrian nationalism Saπadeh supported his arguments against Lebanese nationalism from within the literature of well-known Lebanese nationalist writers, clerics and ardent separatists. He quoted Maronite writers, like Gibran Khalil Gibran and Sulayman al-Bustani, who identified themselves as “Syrian”, [228]


to support his claims. “When Gibran saw the creation of the Lebanese political entity,” Saπadeh wrote, “he could not let the occasion slip by without writing an article the title of which was ‘You Have Your Lebanon and I Have Mine’.”36 A successful writer and leading figure in the literary movement in North America, Gibran played a remarkable political and cultural role in the second decade of this century in order to maintain the unity of geographical Syria and the freedom of its religions.37 Another figure cited by Saπadeh was the Maronite Bishop of Beirut, Yusuf Dibs (1833–1907), who “wrote the history of Syria and regarded Syria as his nation”.38 Saπadeh also referred to the Maronite Amin Rihani (1876–1940) who, though born in Mount Lebanon, regarded the Lebanese mountain enclave as part of Syria. Rihani was among those who objected very strongly to the decision to separate Lebanon from Syria after World War I. Rihani described himself as: “Syrian first, Lebanese second, and Maronite third … I am Syrian born in Lebanon, and respect the source of my Arabic language … I am a Syrian-Lebanese who believes in the separation of religion from politics, because I realize that the main obstacle to national unity is religious partisanship.”39 Rihani was also among the staunchest opponents of the sectarian group whose members wanted to create a country on the basis of the “Lebanese idea”: “[T]he Lebanese idea – i.e., the national sectarian idea – is an old and impotent idea. If we go by it, it will be a devastating blow to us. It was the cause of our defeat and misery in the past, and will be, if it prevails, the reason for our misery in the future … What a narrow conception of Lebanon.”40 To the Maronite figures mentioned by Saπadeh a few more could be added, such as Elias Farhat, an émigré poet, and Khalil Karam, the chairman of the “Association of Syrian Unions in Brazil”. The first wrote a letter from his residence in Brazil on 25 June 1933 to Muhammad Jamil Bayhum41 of Beirut, appealing to him to form a political party in Lebanon that would work for Syrian unity, or rather, “the fundamental purpose of which would be the endeavour to achieve Syrian unity”.42 Karam wrote a similar letter in the same year to Muhammad Jamil Bayhum declaring his support for the cause of Syrian unity. In his letter, he said: “This who is writing these lines is Lebanese born, belongs to the Christian Maronite sect and is from a village in Kisrawan [Mount Lebanon]. A Lebanese [I am] seeking Syrian unity embracing Lebanon.”43 [229]


Saπadeh found even stronger evidence to support his case from within the literature of the Lebanese separatists themselves.44 For example, Shukri Ghanem, self-appointed leader of the separatist movement during the 1910s and a French citizen, never acknowledged the existence of a Lebanese national entity.45 Ghanem was the founder of Le Comité Central Syrien (The Syrian Central Committee), in Paris in 1917. The Committee aimed for “the deliverance of [Syria], and its accession to independence under the aegis of France”.46 At no time did the committee regard Lebanon as a separate country from Syria. It favoured “a Lebanese expansionist policy into the areas of Biqaπ and Baπalbek, which would become an agricultural preserve capable of stopping emigration”,47 but nothing beyond this.48 At the Paris Peace Conference, in 1919, Shukri Ghanem was outspoken in his support of Syrian unity. He remonstrated against the presence of Amir Faysal as spokesperson for Syria pointing out that there were no affinities “between the nature of the Hedjazi and the Syrian, the nomad and the settler on the soil”.49 Ghanem then went on to appeal for foreign help to Syria to accustom “the eyes of its inhabitants to the light of liberty”.50 Next on Saπadeh’s list were the theorists of Phoenicianism – Yusuf Sawda, Charles Corm and Michel Chiha. According to this group, modern Lebanon could be traced back to the time when Phoenicia existed along the coast of Greater Lebanon, in the ancient city states of Tyre, Sidon and Byblos. These cities, it was claimed, never lost their ancient Phoenician characteristics, despite all the invasions and conquests to which they were subjected. Even when the Phoenician cities fell under full Arab control, the characteristics and nationality of the Phoenicians were carefully maintained and reasserted in the mountains of Lebanon. Therefore, the modern Lebanese nationality “was the direct and legitimate descendant of the ancient nationality of the Phoenicians”.51 According to Charles Corm,52 Lebanon is “the heir of Phoenicia” and “the modern Lebanese are descendants of the Phoenicians”.53 It is Phoenicia resurrected in modern Lebanon. Moreover, to Corm, Lebanon, like Phoenicia, “is part of the world of classical Mediterranean civilization and can only live by immersion in it”.54 Saπadeh and the Phoenician theorists had opposite visions of Lebanon’s history. Their divergent interpretations of this history constituted an open-ended debate. This debate was not only over Lebanese history [230]


but also over geography. And it was a debate not only over Lebanon’s past but also over its present and its future. Saπadeh had this to say: If we are to accept the validity of this theory, which is based on [the idea of ] Phoenician origin, then we are obliged to regard the Lebanese and Palestinians as one people, for Palestine was a centre-home for the Phoenicians. The latter were the same group that lived in Palestine and were known as the Canaanites, and Palestine was known as the “land of Canaan”.55

It was the Greeks, Saπadeh claimed, who called the Canaanites “Phoenicians”56 – a claim supported by Salibi: the Greeks “certainly knew them by that name, and called their coastlands Phoenicia”.57 Philip Hitti also stands for this claim: “[T]hose of the Canaanites who traded with the Greeks were named by them Phoenicians.”58 Another argument of Saπadeh’s is that, contrary to the Phoenicianist view, the Phoenicians were not confined to Mount Lebanon or the coastal cities of Greater Lebanon. Rather, they settled along virtually the entire Syrian coast, including Palestine and Latakia in present-day Syria. He added that between 1929 and 1932, most archaeological finds about the Phoenicians were discovered in Ugarit (Ras Shamra).59 Indeed, the excavations at Ugarit, undertaken in 1929 by the French archaeologist Claude Schaeffer, revealed that this ancient Syrian city was built by the Phoenicians.60 Saπadeh referred to the New Testament to prove that ancient Phoenicia was not confined to Lebanon. He wrote: “Phoenicia did not appertain to Lebanon but to Syria. If the Christians refer back to their scripture, the New Testament, they will find that it is defined as Phoenicia of Syria, not Phoenicia of Lebanon.”61 Saπadeh also put forward two additional arguments in an attempt to discredit the Phoenician theory. The first, based on a historicalanthropological perspective, aimed to dismiss the claim that the ancient Phoenicians were the ancestors of the Maronites of present-day Lebanon. The Maronites, he asserted, were followers of Yuhanna Marun, a monk who lived near Antioch in Syria before he fled to the Mountains of Lebanon. They were Arameans and they spoke Aramaic.62 Indeed, the Maronites held to the Monothelite doctrine and spoke Syriac, which was a literary form of Aramaic. They continued to use their national language for more than three centuries after the Arab conquest of Syria. However, [231]


by the fifteenth century Arabic had replaced Syriac.63 Today, their clergy still use Syriac liturgies in the mass. Around the end of the seventh century, they escaped with their Patriarch, Yuhanna al-Sarumi, who was called Yuhanna Marun after their fifth-century saint, from the valley of the Orontes in the Syrian interior, where “they had always been on poor terms with the Byzantine Church and its Syrian followers, the Melchites”.64 They took refuge in Mount Lebanon. According to Salibi. “[T]he available evidence indicates that the final exodus of the Maronites into Mount Lebanon occurred at some point between the tenth and eleventh centuries. This was the time when the Byzantines, from their base in Antioch, maintained sporadic control over the Orontes valley, the original Maronite homeland.”65 Some accounts maintain that the local people in Mount Lebanon, the Maradah, “received Yuhanna Marun well because they shared his religious ideas”.66 Others, particularly the theory advanced by Patriarch Istifan al-Duwayhi in his study of Maronite origins, make no distinction between the Maradah and the religious refugees coming from the interior of Syria, considering them one people.67 Whatever the historical case may be, the history of the Maronites cannot be separated from the history of the Syrian interior, particularly the Orontes valley, their original homeland. A Maronite community, though small in number, still exists in Aleppo.68 To Saπadeh, the connection between the institution of the Maronite Church and the Syrian interior has always been strong. “The Maronite Patriarch,” he wrote, “is the religious authority for the Patriarchate of the historical Syrian capital, Antioch, as well as the entire Orient, and not for Lebanon only.”69 He added: “The Maronites are bearers to a Syrian cultural heritage, and their history is an integral part of the history of Syria.”70 Salibi came to a conclusion that weakens the Phoenician theory and strengthens Saπadeh’s argument: Not a single institution or tradition of medieval or modern Lebanon can be legitimately traced back to ancient Phoenicia. One must bear in mind, above all else, that the history of ancient Phoenicia was set along the coast, while that of modern Lebanon had its small beginnings since early Islamic times in the mountains, where it remained fixed until the creation of the State of Greater Lebanon in 1920.71

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The second argument brought by Saπadeh was based on paleoecology and biological anthropology.72 He argued that the outcome of the intermixing of three main groups of people (the Phoenicians-Canaanites, the Arameans-Chaldeans and the Hittites), who had settled in natural Syria and interacted with each other over a long history, was a new Syrian personality.73 This means that the origins of the present-day population of Lebanon cannot be traced back to the Phoenicians only.74 Moreover, to prove that there was no physiological connection between the present-day population of Mount Lebanon and the Phoenicians, Saπadeh referred to some biological and anthropological studies undertaken at the time by the Dutch scientist Ariens Kappers in association with the American University of Beirut. These studies showed that most inhabitants of Mount Lebanon belonged to the “flat-headed” biological “race” (or stock).75 Two forms were distinct in this race: the Aramean and the Hittite. It was the latter form that prevailed in Lebanon, especially among the Maronites.76 “The Phoenicians,” Kappers concluded, “belonged to the long-headed ‘biological race’ and their descendants were very rarely to be found in Mount Lebanon.”77 In accepting Kappers’ findings, Saπadeh seemed to have adopted a decidedly nineteenth-century approach. In retrospect, it can be said that these findings could be held valid during the nineteenth century and up to the early twentieth century, when scientists tended to classify races on the basis of outward appearance. These days, such findings as those of Kappers have no scientific value. We are told by biologists and anthropologists that racial classification on phonotypical traits is no longer practical.78 Saπadeh’s debate with the religious authorities A conspiracy against religion! On 25 July 1936, Maronite priest Louis Khalil, with the approval of the Maronite Patriarch Monsignor Arida, published a confrontational booklet against Antun Saπadeh called Al-Hizb al-Suri al-Qawmi Muπamarah ∏ala al-Din wa al-Watan (The Syrian Nationalist Party [SSNP] is a Conspiracy against Religion and Country).79 In it, Father Khalil wrote: “This is the Syrian Nationalist Party, a secret sect endeavouring to dismantle the Holy Church and every religion as well as ethics and Lebanon.”80 He also argued: “The principles of the Syrian Nationalist [233]


Party are against the Lebanese homeland and religion, especially Christianity.”81 Father Khalil then turned on the reform principles of the SSNP. He argued that the SSNP was a conspiracy against religion because it advocated in its first reform principle separation of religion and state: “Separation of religion and state is not only a sin against God, but also a crime against the state, a cause of its destruction.”82 He went on to accuse Saπadeh of blatantly conspiring against Lebanon citing Saπadeh’s “socialist” inclinations. “In our country, we do not have feudalism,”83 the priest maintained, adding: “We would like to draw the attention of Christians to the fact that the Church has declared the principle of socialism as corrupt and contradictory to natural and divine laws.”84 Taking a narrow sectarian line, the cleric claimed that Saπadeh wanted to establish a strong army so he could disobey the legitimate civil authorities.85 He asserted that “the authority of the mandate is genuine. It has been founded by the allies who have liberated us with their blood and resources. Thus, this authority is a legitimate one and should not be challenged.”86 Saπadeh’s “horrible sin” was that he challenged the mandate authorities by reclaiming the sovereignty of the nation.87 The Cleric’s last words of wisdom were: “Any Christian, or rather any man endowed with reason, should not join this party [the SSNP].”88 Father Khalil published his booklet with the approval of the Maronite Patriarch, Monsignor Antoine Arida, as if a spokesman for the Maronite clergy and Lebanese nationalists. His voice was later echoed by the Patriarch, other Maronite clergymen,89 the Jesuits90 and the Maronite sectarian political parties, like the Kataπib. They formed a united front against Saπadeh. The Cleric continued his campaign against Saπadeh for a number of years through al-Bashir, a paper of the Jesuits which on many occasions engaged in squabbles with the SSNP’s only news organ, An-Nahda.91 According to Salim Mujaπis, the Jesuits and the Maronite clergy had even organized a propaganda campaign against Saπadeh’s party in their schools.92 They used their political influence and their relations with the French to resist the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and harass SSNP members in various institutions and companies. For example, in the autumn of 1937, the Maronite Bishop Antoine al-Abd pressured a cement company in the town of Shikka to expel employee members of the SSNP.93

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Saπadeh and the Maronite Patriarch On 6 December 1937, the Maronite Patriarch Monsignor Arida attacked the SSNP and the Communist Party and called on the Lebanese government to protect the population from such parties, whose aim “is the destruction of the independence of Lebanon”.94 Saπadeh’s response was swift. He published a long rebuttal in An-Nahda, starting on 8 December 1937.95 He acknowledged the Patriarch’s piety and praised his stances on significant issues in the past,96 but he did not think the Patriarch was qualified to deal with political, economic or social issues, even with the help of his advisers.97 Saπadeh challenged the Patriarch’s temporal power, reminding him of his religious duty to the people and of the need to confine himself to preaching. He then challenged the Patriarch’s assertion that he had been asked by the Lebanese people to protect them and to give them temporal as well as spiritual guidance. He asserted that the Syrian Social Nationalists in the Republic of Lebanon had not asked the Patriarch to deal with their temporal matters.98 He also doubted that other religious non-Maronite communities, even educated Maronites, had asked the Patriarch to represent them and be their speaker.99 “The principle of the temporal power of the clergy,” he wrote, “is outdated, dangerous, and breeds division and fanaticism, especially in a country like Syria, where [members of ] so many religions have to live together.”100 Nor did Saπadeh agree with the Patriarch that Lebanon had been granted “complete independence” under the custody of the League of Nations.101 His view was that Lebanon was still under the mandate system and that, in any case, real independence is achieved, not granted: “Whatever comes as a grant will be denied as an original right.”102 Saπadeh reminded the Patriarch of the SSNP’s firm opposition to the French mandate, a pre-condition for independence, pointing out that the SSNP was the only party in Syria that established the foundation on which the unity and interests of the nation should rest.103 Saπadeh’s secular principles The priesthood’s campaign against the SSNP leader can be explained in the light of Saπadeh’s secular reform principles and the challenge they represented to the vested interests of clergymen and religious institutions in general. The point is that Saπadeh, unlike any of his contemporaries, advocated full secularization of state and society. His secular principles directly challenged the political power of religious leaders in Lebanon [235]


– a daring stand when we consider that religious institutions, especially the Maronite Church, constituted the most powerful political and economic force in the Lebanese state.104 Today, the confessional political system in Lebanon allows all religious leaders to assume political roles and intervene in politics. It respects their long-accepted position and recognizes their right to defend the prerogatives of their followers. In fact: “Ecclesiastic heads of the communities are often consulted by the president in the formation of cabinets and in making appointments to the bureaucracy. Often bishops and shaykhs are asked to submit lists of candidates from their communities to fill a vacancy in the bureaucracy.”105 The prestigious position of the religious leaders is also endorsed by zuπamaπ (plural of zaπim) – that is, feudal and traditional political leaders. Both religious leaders and zuπamaπ often work together closely within their respective communities. Thus, Maronite zuπamaπ cultivate the friendship of the Maronite Patriarch; Sunni zuπamaπ cultivate the Mufti of the Republic; and Shiπite zuπamaπ cultivate the Shiπite Imam. This role of clergymen and ecclesiastical bodies in Lebanese politics dates back to the millet system of the Ottoman Empire, which recognized the religious leader of each non-Muslim community as a representative of his community vis-à-vis the Ottoman government. The Maronite religious establishment came into its own in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The establishment of the “Maronite Order of Monks”, around 1700, in emulation of the European Catholic orders, and the introduction of various other reforms gave the Church hierarchical organization and a social and political leadership that enabled it to assert its power and become an important factor in Lebanese politics. Ultimately, the Maronite Church developed an efficient bureaucracy that was able to spread new ideas, mobilize the peasantry, enrich itself economically, and consequently “pose a challenge to the iqtaπ [feudal] system and contribute to its downfall”.106 As social and political leaders of their communities, the Maronite clergy maintained close contacts with the common people, demonstrated concern and understanding of their problems, and articulated their interests and demands. By means of their religious organization and societies, their schooling system and their missionary work in association with Catholic missionary schools, “they instilled in the people a consciousness of themselves as a community and strengthened their ties with the Church organization”.107 [236]


The formation of an independent Greater Lebanon was largely due to the successful efforts of the Maronite higher clergy. According to Meir Zamir, the Maronite clergy were “the first to develop the idea of a Maronite state, claiming that Mount Lebanon had for centuries been an independent or autonomous Maronite homeland”.108 Through their historiographic writings they gave voice to an ideology aspiring to political autonomy – that is, Maronite nationalism.109 After 1920, the Maronite higher clergy continued to assume political roles and exercise authority over their followers. It was probably on the basis of the Maronite Patriarch’s traditional role that the Patriarch Monsignor Arida asserted his right to give his opinion on temporal matters. Whatever the case, Saπadeh’s ideology was undoubtedly a threat to the political influence of the Maronite clergy and their temporal power. Cleric Khalil’s campaign against Saπadeh and the Patriarch’s call for the Lebanese government to resist the SSNP must be seen as a reaction to this threat, not as an objective criticism of his reform programme. It was also due to Saπadeh’s doctrine of Syrian nationalism and participation in the “Conference of the Coast” in March 1936, which demanded that the areas added to Lebanon in 1920 be returned to Syria. Saπadeh and the Zionist–Lebanonist alliance The schism between the Maronite clergy and Saπadeh was also precipitated by their differences over the Palestine question. Whereas Saπadeh rejected any special rights for the Jews in Palestine, and repeatedly maintained that that country is an integral part of natural Syria, the Maronite clergy – most, but not all – welcomed the prospect of a Jewish state on the southern frontier of Lebanon and saw in Zionism a kindred movement. On 5 August 1947, the Maronite Archbishop Ignatius Mubarak of Beirut sent a memorandum to the United Nations Conciliation Commission on Palestine in which he demanded that “Lebanon as well as Palestine should remain permanent homes for the minorities” in the Arab world and, thus, requested the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine and a Christian state in Lebanon.110 Once the content of Archbishop Mubarak’s memorandum was known, a storm of protest erupted throughout Lebanon. His outspoken remarks in favour of a Zionist state in Palestine provoked a great wave of popular discontent, demonstrations and condemnation. Saπadeh was among the [237]


first to condemn Mubarak’s attitude.111 A number of Maronite deputies issued a joint communiqué denouncing Mubarak’s narrow vision of a Christian Lebanon and rejecting the establishment of a Jewish state.112 However, Mubarak stood by his memorandum and continued to call for the creation of a Jewish state, making the argument that “the civilized, Westernized Jews and Christians shared a similarly precarious position in the Middle East and that the best defence for a Christian Lebanon lay in a Jewish Palestine”.113 Mubarak believed that positive relations between “the two progressive peoples of the Middle East”, namely the Jews and the Christians, would benefit the whole Eastern Mediterranean.114 Almost ten years earlier, Maronite Patriarch Antoine Arida, and later Lebanese President Emile Eddé, had met the Zionist leader (and later first president of Israel) Chaim Weizmann in Paris.115 According to the memoirs of the first Israeli ambassador to the United States, Eliahu Elath (Epstein),116 the Maronite Patriarch had expressed his desire to see friendly relations established between Lebanon and the Jews. The Patriarch, judging the presence of a Jewish state in Palestine as a necessary valve for the security of Lebanon,117 also expressed the conviction that “Jews and Christians would share a similarly unhappy fate under Muslim domination”.118 No wonder the Jewish Agency regarded Patriarch Arida as a genuine friend and one of the Zionists’ staunchest supporters in Lebanon.119 Another person who saw the Zionists as logical allies of the Maronites was Patriarch Arida’s economic adviser and close friend Albert Naccache, an engineer and industrialist in the private sector. Naccache became an ardent supporter of the Zionist movement. When Elath first met him, he found him “eager to use his resources to further friendly relations between Lebanon and the Yishuv”.120 Naccache was an important contact for the Zionists not only because of his own prestige, but also because he opened doors for them to other important personalities. It was he who introduced Elath to the Patriarch; to Alfred Naccache, later a president of Lebanon (1941–1943); to George Naccache, editor of the French-language newspaper L’Orient; and to the poet Charles Corm, with whom Naccache founded the “Society of Young Phoenicians”.121 The closest friend of the Jewish Agency in Lebanese political circles was Emile Eddé, president of Lebanon from 1936 to 1941. In his memoirs, Eliahu Elath highlighted the support given by Eddé to the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine. At the time the partition of Palestine [238]


was being recommended by the Royal (Peel) Commission,122 President Eddé was meeting Dr. Weizmann in Paris. He was the first person to offer his congratulations to Weizmann, saying: “I have the honour of greeting the first president of the Jewish state that is about to be born.”123 Another Maronite clergyman who advocated cooperation between the Maronites and the Jews was Bishop Abdullah Khuri. A vehement opponent to any union between Lebanon and Syria, Khuri confided to Eliahu Elath that the Maronite Church would reject any attempt to incorporate Lebanon and Syria into one state or to unite them with other Arab states.124 He furthermore told Elath that the Maronite Church would make every effort to preserve the Christian character of Lebanon and expressed his desire for cooperation between the Jews and the Maronites.125 Similarly, the memoirs of Eliahu Sasson126 provide interesting details concerning his contacts with Beshara Khuri. Apparently, Khuri saw in the presence of the Shiπites of South Lebanon an obstacle and a continuous danger for both Lebanon and the envisaged Jewish state. He suggested that the Shiπites be forced to leave this area and be replaced by Maronite Lebanese immigrants from the USA.127 Saπadeh was pained to see this “spiritual–political” alliance128 between a clique of Maronite clergymen and Lebanese separatist groups and Zionism: “Strange indeed are the acts of [representatives of the] isolationist mentality in Lebanon, based on the concept of a theocracy. There is even a warm welcome, awfully stupid, to the rise of the Jewish state alongside the Christian state, [a concept] which still entices the thoughts of the isolationist reactionary faction in its dreams.”129 Saπadeh warned that “Lebanon was the closest among the Arab states to the ambitions of the Jews,”130 adding, “Zionist propaganda endeavoured to create disputes between Lebanon and the other Syrian states by nourishing the idea of theocracy and encouraging its propagandists.”131 Saπadeh was angered to read the Kataπib newspaper labelling the Palestinian refugees who came to Lebanon as “strangers”.132 When he learnt that the leader of the Phalanges, Pièrre Gemayel, had paid a visit to the Wadi Abu Jamil area and congratulated the Jewish community on the occasion of a Jewish religious day while many Palestinian refugees dispersed in all Syrian states were trembling from cold and feeling the pains of illness and starvation, he condemned Gemayel in very strong terms. He considered the Kataπib Party a confessional organization [239]


entering into an agreement in spirit and direction with the Maronite clergymen and politicians who had a mutual understanding with the Jews. Claiming that about 600 Jews were members of the Kataπib Party,133 Saπadeh wrote: The Phalanges of isolationist reaction are incapable of understanding national aims and major social issues. Hence they insist on working with all their strength toward amassing the forces of sectarianism and rallying them around the concept of the religious state, based on mutual understanding with the enemies of Lebanon, or entering into an accord with them in anticipation of their success in building up Israel and then annexing Lebanon to its dominions.134

The extent of the Kataπib Party’s cooperation with the Jewish community in Lebanon has now come to the fore. Shula Arazi-Cohen,135 who was in charge of a spy network in Lebanon,136 revealed in her memoirs137 that there was strong cooperation between the Kataπib Party and the Jewish community of Beirut138 and that the Phalanges participated with local Jewish defence groups in the protection of the Jewish community in Beirut during the 1948 war in Palestine as well as during the 1958 civil war in Lebanon.139 In a recent study based on archival research, Laura Eisenberg writes: “[T]he Jews of Lebanon found their closest friends among the Phalange.”140 The Jewish community, she added, “came to a financial arrangement with the Phalange, whose militia assumed responsibility for defending the Jewish quarter … [and] Jewish boys enrolled in Phalange sporting clubs and scouts, where they trained in the use of firearms”.141 According to Frank Stoakes, in 1948, the Kataπib Party “adopted special measures for its [the Jewish community’s] protection, on the principle that the very idea of Lebanon demanded parity of regard for all her citizens, and no doubt also because of the unfavourable reaction of Israel and the West if her Jewish citizens were molested”.142 In return for this, the Kataπib received financial and military aid from Israeli and Zionist leaders.143 In a separate study based on declassified documents published by the Israeli Foreign Ministry,144 Benny Morris revealed that “initial contacts involved Israeli-Zionist assistance to Maronite public relations efforts in the US and discussion of possible Israeli aid for a Phalange (or a wider Christian) revolt against the pro-war Beirut regime of Prime Minister [240]


Riyad al-Sulh”.145 In the autumn of 1948, Morris added: “[A] four-man Phalange delegation, headed by Elias Rababi – the party’s number two man and editor of its daily, al-Amal – toured the United States and Latin America to mobilize support from the Lebanese-American diaspora for the Maronite party.”146 At the request of Rababi to meet Israeli officials and discuss possible political-military cooperation and the prospects for a Christian revolt to overthrow the Beirut government, a meeting was arranged for him to take place in Paris on his way back to Beirut.147 In early October, Rababi met in Paris with Tuvia Arazi (a senior official of the Arab Affairs Division of the Agency’s Political Department) and Elias Sasson (director of the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East Affairs Department).148 Although Sasson, as he revealed later in 1950, did not believe in the abilities of the Phalangists or any Christian opposition force “to carry out a revolt or to attempt to take over power by force, even if the Israeli army will reach as far as Sidon or even farther [north]”, he gave Rababi “a little” money as a “loan” and wrote to the Foreign Ministry urging follow-up operations with a budget proposal.149 The idea of a Maronite revolt in Beirut was followed up with the Israelis in the course of another set of contacts in early 1949. On 24 February 1949, three emissaries of Archbishop Mubarak, equipped with Israel Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence passes, met in Haifa with Shmuel Yaπari, who was in charge of the Syrian and Lebanese desk in the Middle East Affairs Department.150 One of the three emissaries, Tewfiq Samaπan, was Mubarak’s confidant. He told Yaπari that he had been sent “to find out the Israel government’s position regarding a plan for revolution in Lebanon”.151 He also told Yaπari that in his mission he represented only Mubarak, but Pièrre Gemayel and ex-president Eddé were at one with Mubarak about the plan for revolution, and that because of security reasons he was the liaison for Mubarak with the Phalange and other Christian political parties.152 The news of these emissaries and their subsequent travels between Galilee and Lebanon with IDF intelligence passes eventually reached the SSNP branch of Palestine, and were duly reported to Saπadeh. The latter then wrote a letter to his representative in Palestine instructing him to obtain, if possible, these or similar passes as evidence of secret contacts being made between Mubarak together with the Phalanges and the Israelis.153 Additional Israeli–Phalanges contacts took place in 1950 during Rababi’s second visit to the USA. Rababi sought and obtained Israeli [241]


funding for the Kataπib election campaign of 1951.154 He was quoted as affirming that the Phalanges were intent on “taking Lebanon out of the Arab League” and “making peace and re-establishing economic relations with Israel …”155 Rababi added: “[T]here is only one state in the Middle East we can trust and live in friendship with – Israel.”156 Similarly, Gideon Raphael, who met with Rababi in New York on 12 December 1950, reported in his subsequent report on the meeting that Rababi had said: “The leaders of the Kataπib have always been convinced that the destiny of Lebanese Christianity is linked to the existence of friendly ties with the State of Israel. Lately, the Kataπib newspapers have dared to express the idea of peace and cooperation with Israel more energetically.”157 The pro-Zionist orientation of Maronite religious and political leaders stood in complete contradiction to Saπadeh’s strong anti-Zionist position. To this group of people, Saπadeh represented an extremist, anti-Lebanese position. Saπadeh, in turn, dubbed them “isolationists” and “enemies” of Lebanon. He believed that an isolated Lebanon based on the concept of theocracy or sectarianism would not survive. It can prosper only by strengthening its internal social unity and its national ties with geographical Syria. The way to achieve this is through the instrumentality of “national consciousness” – that is, by fostering people’s understanding of Syrian nationalism as really a “deep, living and cognizant feeling”.158 Saπadeh and the independence of Lebanon Saπadeh’s conception of independence Whenever Saπadeh talked about independence, he meant national independence and, more specifically, the independence of the Syrian nation, the central theme of his thought. He distinguished national independence from political independence. National independence is “actual” and “complete” because it embraces all spheres of life. Political independence is an “incomplete” form of independence, though it can admittedly constitute a decisive step towards national independence. Saπadeh spoke of economic and spiritual independence and saw that true independence should be based on social, economic and political foundations.159 Actual independence, according to Saπadeh, is achieved through the will of the people, and is a result of resolute determination and [242]


struggle. It does not come as a gift from another country. Nor can it be an announcement by the leader of an occupying foreign army. Actual independence is achieved only by the nation itself.160 From this perspective, Saπadeh could not regard the state of Greater Lebanon as truly independent because it was granted, not won. To him, the independence of Lebanon meant its independence from France but not from Syria. Actual independence, as perceived by Saπadeh, is contingent on the following three conditions. • •

•

Self-reliance: that independence depends on action, not words; on unity, not division; on one’s self, not others.161 Struggle: “The nation that concedes the right to struggle concedes freedom, because freedom is struggle.”162 In another place, Saπadeh wrote: “The time has come for the Syrian people to understand that independence will not be realized spontaneously, but depends on the ability of the people to liberate themselves and resist those who want to colonize and oppress them.”163 Strength: “Independence is only achieved through the application of effective tactics and the use of the entire force [of the nation], regardless of how small it is. Force is the basic natural weapon of defence.”164

Thus perceived independence meant the sovereignty of the nation over its homeland and resources. It concerns national life in all its aspects. Saπadeh repeatedly said that protest to international bodies like the United Nations is pointless unless it is predicated on the abovementioned conditions. Such bodies could not bring real independence to peoples because they represent the interests of the powerful nations. Independence comes only through national struggle, which is “the most effective means of securing national rights and attaining freedom”.165 Saπadeh and the struggle for independence from the mandate The first political encounter between Saπadeh and the central mandatory authorities occurred on 16 November 1935. This was the day when the SSNP was discovered, and Saπadeh and several of his senior aides were arrested and jailed. At his trial on 23 January 1936, the charges against Saπadeh were enumerated by the French prosecutor as:

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• • • • •

establishment of a secret association conspiracy against the Lebanese state and the integrity of the Lebanese territories attempting to change the form of the Lebanese government preventing the Lebanese from exercising their civil and political rights, and creating an atmosphere of turmoil and disorder.

Saπadeh transformed his trial into a moral and political confrontation with the French. When charged with conspiracy against the Lebanese state, he retorted that it was the French themselves who were the conspirators, since they had partitioned Syria according to the Sykes–Picot Agreement; when charged with violating the geographical integrity and territorial unity of Lebanon, he launched a furious counter-attack, accusing both the British and French of being guilty of the very violation of which he was accused. Saπadeh denied that his party was plotting against the internal security of the Lebanese state. He argued that since its establishment in 1932, the party had never been involved in any disturbances or unruly behaviour.166 He added that although it was necessary, and indeed one of his party’s objectives to change the form of government, the party had made no decision or taken any action on this issue.167 The hostility between Saπadeh and the mandate authorities took another sinister turn in May 1936 when he was arrested and sentenced to a further six-month prison term.168 On 20 February 1937, the Lebanese authorities tried first to prevent and then to disband a gathering by the SSNP in the town of Bikfayyah.169 Violent clashes ensued and the Lebanese security forces were encircled by the SSNP members.170 Saπadeh, who was at the gathering, issued a public statement in which he attacked the government and the ruling sectarian class. He argued that the Social Nationalists were not foreigners in Lebanon, but citizens of the Lebanese state with the right to express their opinions in regard to its destiny. He then warned: If Lebanon has an entity, then it is the entity of the Lebanese people as a whole, unless the ruling class in Lebanon regards itself as Lebanon and the Lebanese people as nothing but the ruled community; [if this be the case,] then we have the honour to declare that one of the most important goals of the SSNP is to eliminate this unhealthy [244]


image of our national life – the image of the ruler and the ruled – and to put an end to civil privileges in the state.171

The Lebanese government reacted angrily to Saπadeh’s statement. According to observers, “a vast and well-organized campaign of persecution against the party” ensued and Saπadeh was apprehended on 9 March 1937.172 Saπadeh also engaged the Mandate authorities over the question of Alexandretta. The Republic of Turkey was claiming rights to this Syrian district and to the historic city of Antakya (Antioch), and was exerting pressure on France to cede the territory. Saπadeh publicly denounced the complicity of the mandate authorities in Turkish schemes, and appealed to the League of Nations, the French government and the various Syrian governments to protect Alexandretta. He even proposed to enlist the entire membership of his party in a national army in order to defend this northern part of Syria. Neither his warnings and appeals nor his calls and proposals for action were heeded. Eventually, the sanjak (government or province) of Alexandretta was annexed by Turkey in 1939.173 The battle for independence in Lebanon Under the French mandate, Greater Lebanon had two parallel governments: one French, headed by a High Commissioner, and one Lebanese, appointed by the former and entrusted with internal responsibilities outside French interests. When the State of Greater Lebanon was consecrated as the Republic of Lebanon through the promulgation of a constitution, the basic structure of the government remained the same, but the French High Commissioner was replaced by a Lebanese president. The modifications were cosmetic and Lebanon in essence remained a mandated territory, its government controlled by a special administrative body, the Sérvices Speciaux. Between 1926 and 1943, the Lebanese demanded greater autonomy, but the French were unyielding. Overzealous French officials provoked conflicts with the Lebanese on many occasions. One such occasion was in 1932 when they opposed the possible election by Parliament of a Muslim candidate, Muhammad al-Jisr, as president. The High Commissioner, Henri Pensot, believed that a Muslim should not be chosen for the presidency of the Lebanese Republic, even though there was nothing in the Lebanese constitution preventing a Muslim from being the chief [245]


executive.174 Pensot suspended the constitution and dismissed Parliament. A similar incident took place in 1939.175 Ultimately, the French came to realize that the Lebanese would not accept their mandatory control. In June 1941, a force of British and Free French troops invaded Syria and Lebanon from Palestine. Their aim was to regain control of the mandated territories from Vichy, and reverse “the grim prospect of being outflanked by pro-German regimes in Iraq as well as in Syria and Lebanon”.176 Allied aircraft dropped leaflets proclaiming the independence of Syria and Lebanon in the name of Free France. With the completion of the entry into Lebanon of allied troops, General Georges Catroux was appointed by General Charles de Gaulle to be the “Delegate and Plenipotentiary of the Chief of the Free French for the states of the Levant”. On 26 November 1941, Catroux issued a proclamation in which he announced his government’s intention to grant Syria and Lebanon independence after the war. In spite of this solemn declaration, the Free French refused to implement their promise. Their attitude gave the impression that they were far more interested in perpetuating their presence in the Levant. Finally, after a long delay it was agreed that elections would take place in Lebanon as a step towards the restoration of parliamentary life and the transfer to the native government of services hitherto directed and controlled by the French.177 The elections took place in the summer of 1943. They resulted in a victory for the Constitutional Bloc of Beshara Khuri over the National Bloc of Emile Eddé. The latter was an ally of the French,178 whereas Beshara Khuri was pro-British. He stood for a Maronite–Sunni de facto alliance in the interest of independence.179 This alliance manifested itself when Beshara Khuri was elected president of the Republic on 21 September 1943, and Riyad Solh was appointed prime minister. The new government declared the principles of the “National Pact”, which came to serve as the basis of the Lebanese state. It also declared that Lebanese independence should be achieved through the revision of the Constitution of 1926 and the abrogation of all articles referring to France as a mandatory power. The modification of the constitution was vehemently opposed by the French.180 They reacted by ordering French and Senegalese troops to arrest the president, prime minister and other members of the cabinet. Simultaneously Helleu suspended the constitution, dissolved the parliament and appointed Emile Eddé as president of the Republic. In [246]


the meantime, Vice-President Habib Abu Shahla, Defence Minister Majid Arslan and two cabinet ministers who had escaped arrest, fled to the mountain village of Bshamoun, declared themselves the legal authorities and carried on the business of government while the president, prime minister and other cabinet members were under house arrest in Rashayya Fortress. The Lebanese people reacted swiftly to the French actions. Strikes and demonstrations were organized throughout Lebanon and riots erupted in many places. Religious and political leaders as well as representatives of unions representing doctors, lawyers, engineers and journalists visited the British and US Legations demanding intervention, illustrating the unanimity of the anti-French protest.181 After much diplomatic pressure from Britain, the USA and the Arab states, France reversed its policy and released the internees.182 The latter were reinstated in their positions and a schedule was drawn up for Lebanon to have full independence by 1946. The SSNP played an active role in supporting the independence movement in 1943. The Syrian Social Nationalists were at the forefront of the movement and one Saπid Fakhr al-Din, an SSNP member, was the only fatality in the seminal Battle of Bshamoun: he was later declared a martyr by President Beshara Khuri.183 The Social Nationalists also played an important role inside the fortress of Rashayya, passing valuable information to the Lebanese president and his Cabinet who were being held there. They were inside Rashayya as political prisoners having being detained by the French for “their hard-line opposition to the mandate”.184 After independence, the Lebanese government set them free and granted the SSNP a permit to operate legally in Lebanon. Another way the SSNP contributed to Lebanese independence was through its student body. Despite an official ban between 1938 and 1943, the SSNP held its ground in “student societies and later the Student Council”, which orchestrated strikes and demonstrations on many national occasions. During the struggle for Lebanese independence in 1943, “students, led by members of the Student Council, staged demonstrations against the French and they were fired on by the Senegalese soldiers sent by France to keep order. Some were wounded, and arrest warrants were issued against others.”185 Yet, despite all of this, Saπadeh was hounded by the accusation that he was against the independence of Lebanon. These accusations originated with the propagandists of Lebanese nationalism, who rejected [247]


any doctrine that aimed to incorporate Lebanon within a wider Arab or Syrian nation. They came also from certain religious quarters. In either case, the intention was to drive a wedge between the Lebanese state and the SSNP leader. The return speech In his return speech of 1947,186 Saπadeh praised the Social Nationalists for their efforts in the battle for Lebanon’s independence. He went on to say that, although Lebanese independence was an important and useful first step towards the real and full independence of the nation, it was an incomplete achievement.187 This remark and the monster welcome with which Saπadeh was received caused an uneasy feeling in the Lebanese government, which was preparing for elections.188 It promptly issued a warrant for Saπadeh’s arrest and outlawed the SSNP. In reality, Saπadeh did not say anything negative about Lebanon or attack the regime in any direct form. He expressed delight at the absence of foreign flags: “Today, our flags flutter triumphantly in the wind without the flags of the occupying foreigner present at their side. If it is our flags that are today unfurled, the credit for this is due to your teachings, your faith, your work, and your unified struggle.”189 Perhaps it was this next remark which irritated the government: “Today, we are in a state of independence. We do not believe it constitutes the utmost limit to our progress in life. It is a step among others initiated by this great and powerful nation. [Nevertheless], it is a decisive step. I repeat, its achievement was due to your ordered labour and struggle.”190 The intention of the government was to paralyse Saπadeh politically and restrict his freedom of action until after the elections.191 Another was to “drive a wedge between the SSNP and the Lebanese population”.192 Saπadeh responded with four successive declarations to the Lebanese people in which he sought to clarify his position vis-à-vis independent Lebanon. It would be worthwhile to look at what he said. In the first declaration,193 Saπadeh sarcastically asked: “Is it conceivable that I, the son of Lebanon, would deny the sovereignty of my own country when everyone else is acclaiming it? … I have not returned, after an absence of nine years, to fight Lebanon’s sovereignty but to help build this country, so that it may grow stronger and stronger.”194 Addressing the people, he added: “Those who seek particularistic solutions and care little about your destiny cannot separate [248]


between us or [discourage me] from working for your future and wellbeing.”195 In the second declaration he flatly denied that “there was a campaign against the Lebanese entity”.196 Again, addressing the Lebanese people directly, he stated: “Your independence rests on your sovereignty and freedom and everything in Lebanon is yours. You are the title-holders of everything and you hold the right to dispose of anything.”197 In the third declaration, Saπadeh defended himself and the party against claims of treason: “There is no one in Lebanon more sincere towards its independence than the leader of the [Syrian Social] National Party and its members.”198 He added: “The principles of the [Syrian Social] National Party and its policies reflect the needs of the Lebanese people and their well-being.”199 In the fourth declaration, Saπadeh took advantage of the rigged elections and tried to turn the table on his political foes. His critique in this declaration would serve as a springboard in the campaign that finally toppled the Beshara regime in 1952.200 The road to revolution The SSNP and the Lebanese elections of 1947 Antun Saπadeh entered the Lebanese parliamentary elections in 1947 from his hiding place. His party fielded candidates in most electorates of the country. All of them ran on one platform formulated by the leadership of the party – that is, Saπadeh and his advisers.201 It was composed of basic political, economic and social policies and aimed to introduce change and reform at all levels. The substantive issue at stake was the independence of Lebanon – how to turn it into “a reality, not a new type of colonization”.202 Thus, at the political level, the party’s programme stressed the necessity of supplementing the first step of political independence with other steps in order to achieve “true independence”.203 In this context, Saπadeh said: “Political independence [must be] built on national consciousness, national will and socio-economico-political bases. Otherwise it will not be true independence.”204 Hence, the programme detailed the economic and socio-political bases for true independence and the numerous reforms needed in various aspects of life. The SSNP also sought to keep Lebanon as a nitaq daman (safety sphere) for freedom of speech and thought.205 [249]


The outcome of the elections was disappointing for the SSNP and other political parties. The government was accused of abusing the electoral processes by just about every group and institution in the country, including the press.206 In Jacob Landau’s words: Although it is customary for the opposition – as in this instance [that is, the elections of 1947] – to charge the government with intimidating the electors and stuffing the ballot boxes, as well as with other misdeeds, one finds also, sometimes, that fairly independent Lebanese newspapermen sorrowfully acknowledge large scale bribery and corruption in their national elections, along with foreign observers.207

The SSNP failed to win any seats despite a vigorous campaign.208 The result was a wider split between Saπadeh and the government culminating in actual physical confrontation between the SSNP and the authorities: “SSNP members were dismissed from government offices and pressured out of civil service posts. Party meetings and large gatherings were proscribed on flimsy excuses of ‘maintaining law and order’. Party publications were intermittently banned or confiscated.”209 From then on, the dispute between the two sides spiralled out of control. Military coup in Syria On 30 March 1949, following the disastrous war in Palestine, Colonel Husni Zaim led a bloodless coup d’état in Syria against the Quwwatli regime. The Arabs’ ignominious defeat had resulted in popular discontent, as well as much resentment and indignation in the armed forces, the upper echelons of which were blamed by certain members of Parliament for the defeat in Palestine.210 The coup, the military’s first intervention in the politics of Syria, expressed the soldier’s frustration with the politician, whose corruption and incompetence he blamed for the Palestine humiliation.211 It is claimed that Zaim engineered the coup aided by a handful of officers212 some of whom were either members or sympathizers of the SSNP, like Major Adib al-Shishakli.213 This was a discomforting prospect for the Lebanese government. When Zaim announced his first communiqué, drafted by an SSNP member and consisting of words culled from Saπadeh’s writings, “it seemed that the Lebanese government’s worst fears would be realized”.214 In reality, Saπadeh was not involved in [250]


the coup. Although the performance of the civilian government in Syria during the Palestine Catastrophe was appalling, he remained faithful to the concept of national revival. However, Zaim’s coup may have inspired Saπadeh to seize power in Lebanon. On 27 May 1949, he visited Zaim to congratulate him and was promised unlimited support by the Syrian strongman.215 Alarmed, the Lebanese government then convened an urgent meeting of the Lebanese Council of Security. The Council comprised the prime minister, Commander of the Army, Commander of the Gendarmerie, Chief of Police, and the Director of the Intelligence Forces. According to Sabri al-Qabbani, at this meeting a decision was taken to raid all SSNP offices in Lebanon and to arrest Saπadeh and his senior aides.216 On 9 June 1949, the Kataπib Party (hizb al-Kataπib), in collusion with the government, burnt down the printing press office of the SSNP in the Beirut district of al-Jummayza. The Kataπib was getting anxious at “[Saπadeh’s] growing power and militancy”.217 It is possible, therefore, “that the authorities deliberately incited the Phalanges to launch an armed attack on their newspaper offices and printing works in an attempt to destroy [Saπadeh]”.218 Labib Zuwiyya Yamak, then a member of the SSNP, recounts: “The police force usually stationed at the police station near the press was withdrawn at least two hours before the attack, and no force responded to the urgent telephone calls of the SSNP members, who were already under attack, until after a fire broke out in the building.”219 Indeed, the government arrested the victims of the incident instead of the perpetrators.220 Hundreds of SSNP members were rounded up within a few days, SSNP offices were raided, and party publications were confiscated. The government claimed to have seized documents indicating secret contacts between the SSNP and Israel. The documents were later proved in a court of law as forgeries and withdrawn to the embarrassment of the government.221 As for Saπadeh he survived the attack unharmed and fled to Syria where he again met with Zaim. The latter offered Saπadeh financial and military assistance and unrestricted access to the SSNP along the Syrian–Lebanese borders.222 He even presented Saπadeh with his own pistol as a token of his friendship and commitment.223 Declaration of the revolution On 25 June less than three months after his coup, Husni Zaim engineered his election as president of the Republic of Syria. He also promoted [251]


himself to field marshal. Diplomatically, Zaim settled some outstanding differences with the Lebanese government and obtained its recognition. At the same time, pressure was brought on him to rein in Saπadeh and the SSNP lest he precipitate another crisis with Lebanon.224 According to Qabbani, Zaim, in a sign of acquiescence, began to avoid Saπadeh.225 He apparently told Qabbani, then secretary of the Presidential palace, that “the Lebanese authorities were seriously looking for Saπadeh and I have already denied that he is in Syria. Therefore, I cannot see him. Apologize on my behalf and give him my regards and best wishes.”226 Back in Lebanon, some 2,500 party members were arrested and many detained in camps. The government also issued a decree dissolving the SSNP.227 On the diplomatic front, Prime Minister Solh solicited outside help from Great Britain228 and King Faruq of Egypt, who sent his personal envoy, Luπay Muhammad Yusuf, to Syria. Afterwards, the Syrian Prime Minister (and brother-in-law of Lebanese prime minister Riyad Solh), Muhsin al-Barazi, whose hatred of Saπadeh and his party was well known, and after secret consultation with the Lebanese and Egyptian governments, set about convincing Zaim to deliver Saπadeh to the Lebanese authorities.229 In the meantime, Saπadeh, who was absorbed in the party’s situation in Lebanon, was organizing a rebellion against the Lebanese government. Two military units of SSNP members and sympathizers were organized and stationed along certain points on the borders with Lebanon: Lieutenant Assaf Karam was appointed commander of one force, which infiltrated into Lebanon from the direction of Mashghara; the other unit, led by Zaid al-Atrash, advanced towards Rashayya al-Wadi in the southern Biqaπ. The plan was to gain control of the whole region of al-Biqaπ al-Gharbi (the western Biqaπ) and then declare the “Syrian Social Nationalist State” in Lebanon.230 But the plan fell apart. The SSNP combatants found Lebanese army units waiting for them. Apparently, the Lebanese government and security forces had been alerted to the plan by al-Barazi.231 On 3 July 1949, a major battle which lasted about four hours occurred in the plain of Sohmor. The Lebanese army killed unit commander Assaf Karam and arrested a number of SSNP fighters. On the following day, Saπadeh proclaimed the “First Social Nationalist Revolution” against the Lebanese government.232 Armed groups of the SSNP launched attacks on a number of gendarmerie posts near the frontier and in some areas of the southern Biqaπ (Rashayya and [252]


Mashghara) as well as in the mountains overlooking Beirut. The government decided to take action against the village of Bshamoun in view of the large number of SSNP fighters thought to be based there. On 6 July Zaim invited Saπadeh to his palace for a meeting. When Saπadeh arrived, Zaim had him arrested and delivered to the Lebanese authorities. Within less than 48 hours, Saπadeh was tried and executed before a firing squad.

Conclusion This study has attempted to show the following. First, that Saπadeh distinguished between the political reasons behind the establishment of Lebanon and the sociological facts that render Lebanon, in his view, a part of natural Syria. Second, that Saπadeh did indeed accept the existence of Lebanon as a political entity. This does not necessarily mean that he contradicted himself by remaining faithful to the Syria idea. There are two reasons for this: (1) Syria is, for Saπadeh, an “ethno-historical as well as a geographical reality”, whereas Lebanon is a political matter contingent on certain religious and historical circumstances; (2) Syria is, for Saπadeh, a basic and continuous fact, whereas Lebanon is a temporary existence that will ultimately disband once the circumstances that necessitated its establishment are removed. Third, that Saπadeh did not believe in a coercive merger between Lebanon and geographical Syria. The SSNP, he asserted, “has not been founded to pull down Lebanon, but to establish the true social national doctrine which eliminates the fears that were behind the creation of the Lebanese entity. The party believes neither in annexation nor in separation, but acts for national unity on a social nationalist basis rather than on a religious basis.”233 Finally, that Saπadeh placed value on Lebanon’s unique freedom and wished to see it spread to other parts of Syria. As Saπadeh once said: What do the Lebanese want of their entity? Is it to have light unto themselves while the surrounding region remains shrouded in darkness? If there is light in Lebanon, it is only to be expected that this light should spread itself throughout the whole of natural Syria. Could we accept that we in Lebanon could have light without all compatriots in our nation having a share in it?234

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NOTES

1 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP, 1976, p. 183. 2 Quoted in Nadim K. Makdisi, “The Syrian National Party: A Case Study of the First Inroads of National Socialism in the Arab World”, PhD Dissertation, American University of Beirut, 1960, p. 74. 3 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Inπizaliyyah Aflasat (1947–1949) (Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt), Beirut: SSNP Publications, p. 115. 4 Kamal Salibi, “The Historical Perspective”, in Nadim Shehadi and Dana Haffar Mills (eds), Lebanon: A History of Conflict and Consensus, London: The Centre for Lebanese Studies, in Association with I.B. Tauris, 1988, pp. 3–4. 5 Nicola A. Ziadeh, Syria and Lebanon, New York: F.A. Praeger, 1957, p. 50. 6 Antun Saπadeh, Mukhtarat fi al-Masπalah al-Lubnaniyyah (1936–1943) (Selections on the Lebanese Question), Beirut: SSNP, 1976, p. 181. 7 Lebanese intellectuals living abroad founded societies with the aim of pressing their demands on the Western powers for the establishment of an independent Lebanese state. The New York-based League for the Liberation of Lebanon and Syria and The Lebanese Union in Cairo are just two examples. 8 Kamal Salibi, A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988, p. 25. 9 The idea of a commission was proposed by Dr. Howard S. Bliss, President of the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut (now the American University of Beirut) and by US President Woodrow Wilson, who held the principle that all the peoples of the world had the right to national self-determination. Initially, this idea was accepted by France and Great Britain, but both refused to join the commission afterwards. The commission ended as a purely American body composed of two commissioners (Dr. Henry C. King and Mr. Charles R. Crane), and three advisers. For more details on this commission see Zeine N. Zeine, The Struggle for Arab Independence, Delmar, New York: Caravan Books, 1977, pp. 90–202. 10 Ziadeh, op. cit., p. 48. 11 The French government claimed to have received numerous petitions from Lebanese organizations and individuals appealing for French assistance in achieving the extension of Mount Lebanon’s territories. See William I. Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East: The Failure of Policy in Syria and Lebanon, 1900–1914, London: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1976, p. 112. 12 Quoted in Zeine N. Zeine, The Struggle for Arab Independence, New York: Caravan Books, 1977, p. 112. 13 Fahim L. Qubain, Crisis in Lebanon, Washington, DC: Middle East Institute, 1961, p. 10. 14 Under the “capitulations” system, Western powers concluded commercial treaties with Middle Eastern and Asian states in which Western nationals were declared subject to the laws of their home governments and immune from those of host governments. 15 France was the first of the maritime states of Western Europe to seek capitulatory privileges from the Ottoman Empire.

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16 For an English text of this letter, see J.C. Hurewitz (ed.), The Middle East and North Africa in World Politics – A Documentary Record, 2nd edition, vol. 1, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975, p. 28. 17 For an English text of this treaty, see ibid., pp. 413–414. 18 Zeine, The Struggle for Arab Independence, p. 112. 19 Ibid., p. 133. 20 Salibi, “The Historical Perspective”, p. 11. 21 Quoted in Tabitha Petran, The Struggle over Lebanon, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987, p. 29. 22 Shorrock, op. cit., p. 114. 23 Qubain, op. cit., p. 17. 24 Quoted in Labib Zuwayya Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966, p. 51. 25 Pièrre Gemayel, “Lebanon”, in Kemal Karpat (ed.), Political and Social Thought in the Contemporary Middle East, New York: Frederick Praeger, 1968, p. 108. 26 Ibid. 27 Saπadeh, Isolationsim Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 128. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid., p. 129. 30 Ibid., pp. 119, 126. 31 Saπadeh adopted the notion of “natural society” from Pascal Mancini. See Nushuπ Al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: SSNP, 1976, p. 150. 32 Saπadeh viewed the state as a cultural manifestation of human society, its function being to tend to the politics of society and to organize the relationships between its parts into a system of government that designates the rights and duties of citizens. See The Rise of Nations, p. 90. 33 Quoted in Makdisi, “The Syrian National Party: A Case Study of the First Inroads of National Socialism in the Arab World”, p. 74. 34 Ibid., pp. 47–48. 35 Saπadeh, Selections on the Lebanese Question, p. 48. 36 Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 125. 37 See Adel Beshara, “Syria in the Thought of Gibran Khalil Gibran”, Kalimat, no. 3, September 2000, pp. 21–29. 38 Ibid., p. 125. 39 Quoted in Halim Barakat (ed.), Toward A Viable Lebanon, London: Croom Helm, 1988, p. 367. 40 Quoted in ibid. 41 Muhammad Jamil Bayhum was one of the Sunni leaders of Beirut who wanted reunion with Syria. In 1919, he attended the General Syrian Congress in Damascus as a delegate from Beirut. In 1932, he became the chairman of the Islamic Youth Union, and in 1942, the president of the Islamic Bloc. See Hassan Hallaq, Al-Tayyarat al-Siyasiyyah fi Lubnan 1943–1952 (The Political Currents in Lebanon), Beirut: Maπhad al-Inmaπ al-Arabi, 1981, pp. 28–29. 42 Ibid., p. 79. 43 Quoted in ibid. 44 Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 129. 45 Ibid. 46 Shorrock, French Imperialism in the Middle East, p. 7. [255]


47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61

62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

Ibid., p. 107. Quoted in ibid., p. 7. Zeine, The Struggle for Arab Independence, p. 68. Ibid. Salibi, A House of Many Mansions, p. 171. Charles Corm’s major literary work was La Montagne Inspirée: Trois étapes de la vie du Liban, Beirut: Editions de la Revue Phènicienne, 1934. Albert Hourani, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1981, p. 176. Ibid. Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 121. Ibid. Salibi, A House of Many Mansions, p. 176. Philip K. Hitti, A Short History of Lebanon, London: Macmillan, 1965, p. 2. Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 123. Ahmad Marzouk, “Ugarit”, Middle East Quarterly, Melbourne, vol. 1, no. 1, winter 1993, pp. 47–51. Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 124; a reference to Phoenicia is made in the New Testament in describing a woman as being “a Syro-Phoenician by nation”. Moreover, two well-known Phoenician cities, Tyre and Sidon, are described in many parts of the New Testament as cities in Syria. Ibid., pp. 122–123. Iliya F. Harik, Politics and Change in a Traditional Society: Lebanon, 1711–1845, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968, p. 18. Salibi, A House of Many Mansions, p. 13. Ibid., p. 13. Iliya Harik, “The Maronite Church and Political Change in Lebanon”, in Leonard Binder (ed.), Politics in Lebanon, New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1966, p. 39. Salibi, A House of Many Mansions, pp. 82–85. Ibid., pp. 90–91. Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 124. Ibid. Salibi, op. cit., p. 177. Paleoecology is concerned with eco-systems of the past. Biological or physical anthropology constitutes a sub-discipline of general anthropology and studies changes in physical form and means of adaptation over long periods. Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 122. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 65–66. The term “biological race” is used here to mean a group of people sharing observable phonotypical traits. See Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 122. Ibid. Kappers quoted in Saπadeh, ibid. Conrad Phillip Kottak, Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity, 4th edition, New York: Random House, 1987, p. 46. Louis Khalil, Al-Hizb al-Suri al-Qawmi Muπamarah ∏ala al-Din wa al-Watan (The Syrian National Party is a Conspiracy Against Religion and Country), Beirut, n.p., 1936. [256]


80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109 110 111

Ibid., p. 130. Ibid., p. 113. Ibid., p. 115. Ibid., p. 122. Ibid., p. 123. Ibid. Ibid., p. 126. Ibid., p. 125. Ibid., p. 127. Ignatius Mubarak (Bishop of Beirut) and Archimandrite Fakhouri. A French-supported Catholic religious order. See Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, pp. 24–25. Ibid., p. 39. Salim Mujaπis, Antun Sa πadeh wa al-πIklirius al-Maruni (Antun Saπadeh and the Maronite Clergy), USA: n.p., 1993, p. 39. Ibid., pp. 137–149. Saπadeh, Selections on the Lebanese Question, pp. 117–150. Ibid., p. 121. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 127–128. Ibid., p. 128. Robert Dasho Sethian, “The Syrian National Party”, a PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1946, p. 22. Saπadeh, Selections on the Lebanese Question, p. 134. Ibid. Ibid., p. 137. Ibid., p. 119. Elie Adib Salem, Modernization Without Revolution: Lebanon’s Experience, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973, p. 66. The Church challenged the iqtaπ system through participation in activities in the intellectual and educational fields. These activities undermined old loyalties and displaced the traditional views of the peasants in Mount Lebanon. Moreover, the Church struck at the very foundation of the iqtaπ political system by participation in political activities aimed against the privileges of the ruling class, and by propagation of new political ideas that emphasized religious ties and communal bonds. See Abdo I. Baaklini, Legislative and Political Development: Lebanon, 1842–1972, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1976, pp. 37–44. See also Harik, “The Maronite Church and Political Change in Lebanon”, pp. 31–55. Ibid., p. 46. Meir Zamir, The Formation of Modern Lebanon, London: Croom Helm, 1985, chapter 3. Ibid. Yamak, “Party Politics in the Lebanese Political System”, p. 151. In an article published in a Beirut newspaper, Al-Shams, issue no. 296 of September 1947, Saπadeh condemned the confessional attitude of Archbishop Mubarak and his interference in politics. He stated: “The danger facing the Christians [of Lebanon] stems from the confessional politics which oppose nationalism. It stems from this wavering ideology which sometimes wants a [257]


112 113 114 115

116

117 118 119 120 121

122

123 124 125 126

greater state based on a confessional majority, and at other times wants a mere small state protected by a foreign country.” Badr al-Haj, Al-Judhur al-Tarikhiyyah li al Mashruπ al Sahyuni fi Lubnan (The Historical Roots of the Zionist Project in Lebanon), Beirut: Dar Musbah al-Fikr, 1982, p. 34. Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, My Enemy’s Enemy: Lebanon in the Early Zionist Imagination, 1900–1948, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994, pp. 62–63. Ibid., p. 31. Popular farewell parties were held in Lebanon for the Maronite Patriarch before he embarked on his trip to Rome and Paris. In one, organized by the Jewish community of Lebanon in the Wadi Abu Jamil area of central Beirut, the Patriarch delivered a speech in which he declared his support for Jewish settlements in Palestine and identified the Jews as “brothers of Lebanon’s Christians”. See Al-Haj, op. cit., p. 49. A Russian immigrant to Palestine. He studied at the American University of Beirut from 1931–1934, while earning money as a freelance reporter for Reuters, the Hebrew daily Davar, and the Palestine Post. Between 1934 and 1945 he was in charge of the Middle and Near East Section of the Political Department of the Jewish Agency in Jerusalem. He visited neighbouring Arab states and developed a wide range of contacts with statesmen and intellectuals. In 1937, he arranged the two separate meetings between Weizmann and both the Patriarch and President Eddé. Elath later became Israel’s ambassador to Britain and a President of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 1949, he changed his name from Epstein to Elath. See Eliahu Elath, Shivat Tzion Veπarav (Zionism and the Arabs) [Hebrew], Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1974. Al-Haj, op. cit., p. 47. Eisenberg, op. cit., p. 62. Most of the Zionist leadership, including Eliahu Elath, visited him at the patriarchal seat and were emboldened by their friendship with him. See ibid. Yishuv is used here to refer to the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine. Ibid., p. 64. This society advocated close relations between Lebanon and the Yishuv. In Corm’s words: “[T]he Jews and the Lebanese must find a way to mutual understanding and regular relations and we are ready for this.” Quoted in Laura Zittrain Eisenberg, op. cit., p. 65. Moreover, Corm invited individual Jewish speakers to address the Society of Young Phoenicians and even proposed the establishment of a society to draw Jews and Maronites closer together. See ibid., p. 73. This Commission, headed by Lord Robert Peel, was appointed on 18 May 1936 to investigate the causes of unrest in Palestine. It recommended the partition of Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state. See Sydney Nettleton Fisher, The Middle East, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1960, pp. 440–442. Al-Haj, op. cit., p. 68. See also Eisenberg, op. cit., p. 100. Al-Haj, op. cit., pp. 127–128. Ibid. Sasson belonged to a prominent Damascene Jewish family. After immigrating to Palestine, he headed the Arab Affairs Section of the political department of the Jewish Agency, which orchestrated relations with the Palestinians. In 1943, he assumed responsibility for Agency activities in Lebanon and Syria. [258]


127 Al-Haj, op. cit., p. 24. 128 Maronite–Jewish mutual understanding reached its apex in 1946 when a formal, secret agreement was concluded between the Maronite Church and the Jewish Agency. This agreement was negotiated and signed on 30 May 1946, by Joseph Bernard and Tewfik Awad for Chaim Weizmann and Antoine Arida, respectively. It reciprocally recognized the Jewish right to establish a sovereign state in Palestine and the independent Christian character of Lebanon. Later Patriarch Arida denied the existence of such a treaty and of having had any dealing with the Zionists. See Eisenberg, op. cit., pp. 138–148. 129 Saπadeh, Marahil al-Masπalah al Filastiniyyah: 1921–1949 (The Stages of the Palestine Question), Beirut: SSNP, 1977, p. 112. 130 Ibid., p. 112. 131 Ibid. 132 Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 169. 133 Ibid., p. 170; by the late 1930s, Lebanon’s Jewish population numbered about 6,000. 134 Saπadeh, The Stages of the Palestine Question, p. 112. 135 She was married to a Lebanese Jewish merchant, Joseph Cohen-Kishik, who owned a large textile shop in the Sursuq market of Beirut. 136 Her network was also involved in illegal border crossings between Lebanon and Israel smuggling Jewish refugees from Iraq and Syria. 137 Aviezer Golan and Danny Pinkas, Shula: Code Name The Pearl, New York: Delcorte Press, 1980. 138 Arazi-Cohen pointed out that Pièrre Gemayel attended a party held at her house at Wadi Abu Jamil in celebration of her son’s bar mitzvah. 139 “Young Maccabi Hatzair” was one such group. See Golan and Pinkas, op. cit., pp. 37–38, 250. 140 Eisenberg, op. cit., p. 83. 141 Ibid., the enrollment of Jewish boys in Phalange sporting clubs and scouts as well as the mutual cooperation and understanding between the Phalanges and the Jewish defence groups of Wadi Abu Jamil would explain Saπadeh’s assertion that 600 Jews were members of the Kataπib Party. At any rate, by 1970, John P. Entelis asserts, 2 per cent of the nearly 70,000 members of the Lebanese Kataπib Party were Jews. See John P. Entelis, “Structural Change and Organizational Development in the Lebanese Kataπib Party”, in The Middle East Journal, vol. 27, winter 1973, p. 21. 142 Frank Stoakes, “The Supervigilantes: The Lebanese Kataeb Party as a Builder, Surrogate and Defender of the State”, in Middle Eastern Studies, 11, no. 3, October 1975, p. 230. 143 Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars, New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1991, p. 553. 144 Benny Morris, “Israel and the Lebanese Phalange: The Birth of a Relationship, 1948–1951”, Studies in Zionism, vol. 5, no. 1, spring 1984, pp. 125–144. 145 The American Zionist Emergency Council provided Father Joseph Awad, a Lebanese–American Maronite priest from Waterville, with funds for a month-long visit to Lebanon in April–May 1948, to sound out opinion among Maronites opposed to war with Israel. During his visit, which was monitored by the Jewish Agency, Awad met with leading Lebanese Christian figures, including Patriarch [259]


146 147

148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168

169 170

171 172 173

Arida, Beshara Khuri and Pièrre Gemayel. The Phalange leader “pointed out to Awad that the dispatch of the Lebanese army to the border with Israel was a golden opportunity for a Christian uprising in Beirut, but the Christians required arms and financial support before such an insurrection was possible”. See ibid., pp. 125–127. Ibid., p. 129. Father Awad turned to the American Zionist Emergency Council for aid. He was referred to the Israeli government to which he reported that Rababi, who was “pro-Zionist no less than himself and Archbishop Mubarak”, wanted to meet Israeli officials. Thus the Paris meeting was arranged. See ibid., pp. 129–130. Ibid., p. 130. Ibid. The three emissaries were Suleiman Shakkur (of Nazareth), Farid Houri (of Biram) and Tewfiq Samaπan (of Lebanon). See ibid., p. 131. Ibid. Ibid. Sabah el-Kheir al-Binaπ, issue no. 587, 11/7/1987, p. 30. Morris, “Israel and the Lebanese Phalange”, p. 132. Ibid., p. 133. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 134–135. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 167. Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 49. Saπadeh, Selections of the Lebanese Question, p. 202. Antun Saπadeh, Marhalat ma Qabl al-Taπsis (1921–1932) (The Stage Prior to the Formation [of the SSNP]), Beirut: SSNP, 1975, p. 26. Antun Saπadeh, “Haqq al-Siraπ Haqq al-Taqaddum”, (The Right to Struggle is the Right to Progress), Kull Shayπ, no. 107, Beirut, 15 April 1949. Saπadeh, The Stage Prior to the Formation, p. 16. Ibid. Ibid., p. 175. “Muhakamat Zaim al-Uwla”, al-Thaqafah, no. 4, November 1981, p. 26. Ibid., p. 22. Some party members, led by Abdullah Gemayel, physically clashed with the editor of al-Masaπ newspaper, Aref al-Ghurayyib, and the editor of al-Rabitah al-Sharqiyyah, Ibrahim Haddad. The two newspapers published reports in which Saπadeh was dubbed a “fascist agent”, despite the absence of any connection between his party and the Axis powers, a fact established at his earlier trial. See John Dayeh, Saπadeh wa al-Naziyyah (Saπadeh and Nazism), Beirut: Fajr an-Nahda, 1994, pp. 25–28. See Gibran Jurayj, Min al-Juπbah, vol. III, Beirut: SSNP, 1988, pp. 162–163. Violent clashes erupted when the Lebanese security forces, led by the local governor (Qaπimmaqam) Fuπad al-Baryyidi, attempted to seize the flags raised in the rally and disperse the participants. SSNP members disobeyed orders to quit the place unless ordered to do so by Saπadeh. Ibid., p. 159. Saπadeh, Selections on the Lebanese Question, p. 43. Yamak, op. cit., p. 58. Arnold Toynbee, “The Hatay (Autonomous Sanjak of Alexandretta)”, Documents on International Affairs, 1937, p. 471. [260]


174 See Pierre Rondot, “The Political Institutions of Lebanese Democracy”, in Leonard Binder (ed.) op. cit., pp. 136–137. 175 Shereen Khairallah, This is Lebanon, Beirut: Khayats, 1965, p. 74. 176 Wade R. Goria, Sovereignty and Leadership in Lebanon: 1943–1976, London: Ithaca Press, 1985, p. 24. 177 Khairallah, op. cit., p. 76. 178 Eddé argued that “Lebanon’s best hope for a secure and stable future rested in its being a permanent French protectorate”. See Goria, op. cit., p. 20. 179 Ibid., p. 24. 180 The French insisted that their responsibilities, as a mandatory power, could only be terminated with the approval of the League of Nations. They also insisted on negotiating a treaty which would safeguard their cultural, economic and strategic interests in the area. Only after concluding such a treaty would they relinquish the special prerogatives they enjoyed. See George Lenczowski, The Middle East in World Affairs, 4th edition, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980, p. 325. 181 Ibid., p. 442. 182 Khairallah, op. cit., p. 78. 183 Decree no. K/9377, 1946. In Gibran Jurayj, Haqaπiq ∏an al-Istiqlal Ayyam Rashayya (Truths About Independence During the Days of Rashayya), Beirut: Dar al-Fan, 1965, p. 33. 184 Ibid., p. 42. 185 Halim Barakat, Lebanon in Strife: Student Preludes to the Civil War, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1977, p. 152. 186 Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, pp. 23–28. 187 Ibid. 188 The number of SSNP members and supporters who gathered to welcome Saπadeh is estimated by Salim Mujaπis to be over 50,000. See Antun Sa πadeh wa al-Iklirus al-Maruni, p. 79. 189 Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 23. 190 Ibid. 191 Ibid., p. 59. 192 H.A. Kader, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: Its Ideology and Early History, Beirut: 1990, p. 101. 193 Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, pp. 29–30. 194 Ibid., p. 29. 195 Ibid., p. 30. 196 Ibid., p. 31. 197 Ibid., p. 32. 198 Ibid., p. 35. 199 Ibid. 200 Ibid., 42. 201 The organizational structure of the SSNP provided for the existence of two councils: a supreme council as the policy-making organ, and an executive council composed of functional administrative officials. 202 Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 46. 203 Ibid., p. 47. 204 Ibid., p. 48. 205 Ibid., p. 46. [261]


206 George Akl, Abdo Quadat and Edward Hunein, The Black Book of Lebanese Elections of May 25, 1947, published by the National Lebanese Bloc in Arabic (Beirut) and in English (New York: Phoenicia, 1947). 207 Jacob M. Landau, “Elections in Lebanon”, Western Political Quarterly, vol. 14, no. 1, 1961, p. 141. 208 Abdullah Qubursi, a political adviser to Saπadeh in the 1947 elections, asserts that a certain number of candidates supported by the SSNP were elected. One of them was the Minister of Interior, Gabriel al-Murr. See Abdullah Qubarsi, Taπassis al-Hizb al-Suri al-Qawmi al-Ijtima wa Bidayit Nidaluhu (The Formation of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and the Beginning of its Struggle), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1982, p. 174. 209 Kader, op. cit., p. 106. 210 George Haddad, Revolutions and Military Rule in the Middle East: The Arab States, vol. 2, Santa Barbara: University of California, 1971, p. 197. 211 Patrick Seale, The Struggle for Syria: A Study of Post-War Arab Politics 1945–1958, London: Oxford University Press, 1965, p. 45. 212 Robert W. Olson, The Baπth and Syria, 1947 to 1982: The Evolution of Ideology, Party, and State, from the French Mandate to the Era of Hafiz al-Asad, Princeton, NJ: The Kingston Press, Inc., 1982, p. 22; see also Miles Copeland, The Game of Nations: The Amorality of Power Politics, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969, pp. 28–46. 213 Major Shishakli led the infantry units that marched on Damascus to surround the presidential palace and other government installations. See Haddad, op. cit., p. 197 and Patrick Seale, op. cit., p. 44. 214 Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Saπadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995, p. 63. 215 Sabah al-Khair al-Binaπ, No. 639, 8 July 1988, p. 54. 216 In his memoirs, Zaim’s political adviser, Sabri Qabbani, contends that Adel Arslan, Syria’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, visited Lebanon immediately after the meeting between Saπadeh and Zaim. The ostensible purpose of his visit was to discuss bilateral relations and the border dispute between the two countries. But the underlying aim of the visit was Arslan’s intention to inform Prime Minister Riad Solh of a dangerous plot being hatched against Lebanon by Saπadeh and Husni Zaim. Qabbani’s memoirs were originally published in al-Dunya (a Syrian magazine) in 1949. They were later re-published in book form with the title Saπadeh wa al-Hizb al-Qawmi 1932–1950 (Saπadeh and the Nationalist Party, 1932–1950), published by al-Dunya magazine, Damascus, 1950. 217 Seale, op. cit., p. 69. 218 Ibid. 219 Yamak, op. cit., p. 66. 220 Kader, op. cit., p. 106. 221 Abdullah Saπadeh, Awraq Qawmiyyah (National Papers), Beirut: 1987, pp. 45–46. 222 “Madha Hadath Qabl al-Thamin min Tammouz” (What Happened Before July 8th), Sabah al-Khair al-Binaπ, op. cit., p. 46. 223 Ibid. 224 Zaim had had frequent quarrels with Lebanon since he came to power. The crisis that led to a worsening of relations between the two countries was that of Kamel Hussein, accused of being an Israeli spy involved in trafficking food products to [262]


225 226 227

228 229

230 231 232 233 234

Israel. On 10 May 1949, Syrian police patrolling the Syrian–Lebanese border entered Lebanese territory chasing Kamel Hussein and shot him to death. As a result, the commander of the Syrian border patrol, Akram Tabbarah, was arrested by the Lebanese authorities. Sabah al-Khair al-Binaπ, no. 743, 7 July 1990, p. 46. Ibid. Qadiyyat al-Hizb al-Qawmi (The Case of the National Party) published in Beirut by the Lebanese Ministry of Information (in Arabic), 1949, pp. 106–109. In his interpellation to the government, Junblatt spoke about the illegality of this decree. See Istijwab Junblatt al-Tareekhy Lil Hukouma Hawla Istishhad Sa πadeh Aam 1949 (Junblatt’s Historical Interpellation to the [Lebanese] Government Over Saπadeh’s Martyrdom in 1949), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1977, pp. 27–29. Bailey to the Commonwealth Governments, 25 July 1949, in FO 371/75320/88, PRO. At this stage, Husni Zaim dissolved all political parties and began to persecute the press and independent political parties. Some members and leaders of the SSNP in the region of Latakia were arrested and jailed on orders from Muhsin al-Barazi. Moreover, the house of Najib Shuwayri in which Antun Saπadeh had taken up residence was placed under 24-hour surveillance by the internal intelligence forces. Information about the SSNP’s activities was reported to Muhsin al-Barazi who in turn sent secret reports to the Lebanese government. See Qabbani, op. cit., p. 81. Sabah al-Khair al-Binaπ, no. 743, 7 July 1990, pp. 46–47. Ibid., p. 47. See the “Communiqué of the Supreme Command of the First Social Nationalist Revolution: On the Revolution, its Procedures and Objectives”, in Saπadeh, Selections of the Lebanese Question, pp. 202–207. Saπadeh, Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt, p. 48. Ibid., p. 25.

[263]


PA RT I V

S ECULARISM


7 Some Distinguishing Aspects of Saπadeh’s Thought Adel Daher

Antun Saπadeh’s thought occupies a unique position in the context of contemporary Arab social thought. Its uniqueness derives from several features, but I can only single out three of them in this chapter. The first pertains to the fact that, unlike his contemporaries among Arab social thinkers, he gave both philosophy and social science a prominent role in his attempt at developing a social ideology to replace the traditional one. In this attempt, he linked knowledge of what is to knowledge of what ought to be by means of philosophy. Philosophy, for him, was the middle term between social science and revolution. The second unique feature of his thought has to do with the way he understood nationalism. As is well known, Saπadeh embraced nationalism as a starting point. But what is often ignored is the revolutionary potential he saw in nationalism. It was not nationalism per se that was of importance for him, but nationalism as a tool for transforming traditional society into a dynamic and progressive society. The latter gives nationalism its rationale. But if nationalism without a social content – that is, with a social philosophy – is blind patriotism, social philosophy without nationalism is empty and even dangerous theorizing. The third source for the uniqueness of Saπadeh’s thought derives from the way he approached the question of secularization. Unlike most Arab thinkers, his approach to this question went beyond the socio-political aspects into its philosophical dimensions. He saw the secular outlook not only as something necessitated by human progress, but also as something necessitated by a true philosophical understanding of the nature of religion and human values. Let us turn now to a more detailed analysis of the above three features.

[267]

ANTUN SAπADEH: SECULARISM

Social nationalism The first, we saw, has to do with Saπadeh’s attempt at utilizing both social science and philosophy in developing his ideology of social nationalism. Saπadeh thought that what was needed first was an empirical understanding of social reality and of the historical laws that govern the evolution of human societies in general in preparation for achieving an empirical understanding of Syrian society, of its identity, its place in history, its potential for development and so on.1 The knowledge required here is not for its own sake. In fact, Saπadeh never looked at knowledge as something of intrinsic value.2 Knowledge is not only knowledge of something, but also knowledge for something. And social knowledge, for him, was an instrument of revolution. He wanted to identify his society and understand its structures, its potentialities (and so on) through social science only for the purpose of transforming it. If the aim is to transform, we have to identify first the object to be transformed. Second, we have to identify the present structures of this object and their necessary and sufficient conditions as well as their limiting conditions and the way they affect their susceptibility to change. And since the object in this case is of a social nature, then naturally social science is the tool to be used to accomplish the latter two objectives. But there is a third objective, and that is to determine the ends to be fulfilled by transforming the social object in question. But it is not through social science alone that such ends can be discovered and their rationale established. For this we have to turn to philosophy, Thus, we see how social science and revolution became integrated in Saπadeh’s thought, how social knowledge, guided by philosophy, becomes knowledge for something and not merely knowledge of something. This aspect demarcates Saπadeh’s thought not only from his Arab contemporaries, but also from Marxist as well as neo-liberal thinkers in the West. Marxism collapsed the normative into the tactual, the “ought” into the “is”. Philosophy, for Marx, is ideological, a mask for the dominant class ideology. It can only hamper true science. Therefore, using it as a link between what is actual and what transcends the actual results in the injection of ideological elements into the body of science and the distortion of our perception of the facts. But how do we, then, transcend the actual? The actual, as a true Marxist would put it, contains within itself its own transcending elements. The question “What ought to be the case?” is not, then, a genuinely normative question, for it reduces itself to the factual question. What are the transcending potentialities contained [268]

SOME DISTINGUISHING ASPECTS OF SAπADEH’S THOUGHT

in the actual that will fulfil themselves in human praxis?3 Saπadeh, however, saw things differently. The latter question, for him, can give the full meaning of the former only within a deterministic position. But since Saπadeh rejected determinism,4 it became imperative for him to view knowledge of the actual in all its transcending potentialities as knowledge of the ultimate limits of action but not of how to proceed within these limits. The actual contains within itself a set of conflicting potentialities. What we choose to realize out of these potentialities does not only depend on our knowledge of the bare facts, but also on our philosophical perspective. It is only through a comprehensive social philosophy that we can determine what ends to seek and the relative position of each in normative space.5 And it is only in the light of such ends that we can determine how to proceed within the bounds of social reality made accessible to us through social knowledge. Saπadeh’s stance also differs from that embedded in recent liberal thought. Liberalism is, in the main, a methodological rationalism.6 On the latter, reason has no substantive normative functions; it determines means but not ends.7 Thus philosophy, as a form of reason, has no substantive normative functions either. Philosophy is to be reduced, as it has in fact been reduced by positivists into a handmaiden of science. Its main function is to clarify scientific concepts, and uncover the logical structure of scientific thought and its methodology. It cannot, therefore, utilize any transcending concepts, or act as a guide for action or produce any comprehensive normative theories. This is true of philosophy, because it is, on the present view, true of reason in general. Reason can tell us what the facts are and how to utilize them to fulfil some already given ends. But these ends remain outside the scope of reason unless they are of extrinsic value. However, if they are to be viewed as having intrinsic value they become non-rational. In either case, they are outside philosophy’s domain. For if they are of extrinsic value then their determination is a job for technological rationality and not philosophical reasoning. But if they are of intrinsic value then it is not for reason, whether technological or philosophical, to determine their ultimate position in normative space. Thus, philosophy, as a form of reason, cannot take on the task of mediating between what actually is and what ought to be. It is stripped of its transcending role. Saπadeh, being a revolutionary, could not settle for this concept of reason. Reason, for him, can combine scientific theorizing on the nature [269]


of social reality with philosophical reflection on the ultimate meaning of that reality to construct a transcending model into which this reality can be made to fit through human efforts. Reason’s transcending role lies in its manifestations on the philosophical level. It is only on this level that transcending concepts and their rationalizations make their appearance. But the transcending aspect of philosophy cannot remain rational, if it is transformed into an attempt at transcending what Saπadeh calls “existential realities”.8 Philosophy, as a transcending form of reason, cannot be a total transcending of the realm of existential realities but a transcending within that realm. It has to be anchored in these realities and focused on the real possibilities hidden in them. Its main function is to provide us with the general theoretical framework within which we can determine which of the possibilities hidden in existential realities to convert to actualities. Therefore, philosophy, as a transcending activity, has to maintain a dialectical relationship with science. In the context of such a relationship, scientific knowledge sets the upper maxima on the transcending activity of philosophy, and that activity, in return, converts that knowledge from knowledge of something into knowledge for something.

Nationalism Let us turn now to the second aspect that gives Saπadeh’s thought a unique position. This, we saw, has to do with his view of nationalism. Saπadeh could be described as the philosopher of nationalism par excellence. Nationalism, for him, is to be understood and justified from the perspective of a comprehensive social theory which is in part descriptive and in part normative. Within such a theory, the descriptive and normative elements are balanced and integrated in such a way as to point to the conclusion that liberation, for a society like that of geographical Syria, from internal as well as external oppressive and exploitative conditions, is to be premised on nationalism. Let us briefly examine now how Saπadeh arrives at the latter conclusion. Saπadeh begins with what he takes to be obvious social facts – namely, that the existence of a nation is a complex socio-historical fact and that facts of the latter type are sui generis; they are neither the product of man’s free choice nor a mere extension of his biological nature.9 Neither the existence of nations nor an individual’s membership in a national group is the result of man’s free choice. Nations are the products of a [270]


long historical process which was necessitated at the beginning by the division of our planet into different physical environments.10 This geographical division made it inevitable for different groups to form, each forming within a separate geographical area and cementing its life by the bond of common interests and culture. Some of these different groups were transformed into nation states as a result of certain profound changes in the material conditions of each that facilitated the generation of a national consciousness on the part of each group. The emergence of nation states is, then, a culmination of two factors: first, the existence of national groups, each with a life and identity of its own; and second, the acquisition of each of these groups of a collective awareness of its separate identity. Nation states made their appearance first in Europe where the profound transformations on the economic, social and cultural levels brought about by the Industrial Revolution shook the system of feudalism to its foundations.11 The latter was ultimately negated in favour of a system more in tune with the rapid advance of new forms of social consciousness. The new emerging nation states reflected these new forms of consciousness in several ways. On the political level, they instituted a new system of government embodying the principles of liberal democracy, where the state became separate from the Church. On the social level, they succeeded in abolishing sectarian barriers and in creating forms of social cohesion and solidarity unknown before. And on the international level, they pursued vigorous expansionist and colonial polices, competing with each other and each seeking hegemony for itself.12 For Saπadeh, the emergence of nationalism made the world what it is today: a composite of rival nation states. But within the structure of human reality, what we find today is not a community of equal nation states with equal opportunities for all. On the contrary, the international community is, in his own expression, “an international caste system”,13 where some nations dominate and exploit other nations and deprive them of their nationhood and the ability to free themselves from the former’s tutelage. The nations that occupy an inferior status within this “international caste system” cannot hope to achieve an equal status with the other competing nation states except through nationalism. The role of nationalism on the level of the “international caste system” is to be, from the perspective of exploited nations, analogous to that assigned by Marx to class consciousness within a class society.14 Inasmuch as the latter solidifies the exploited and transforms them into an agency for the [271]


restructuring of exploitative relations within class society, analogously, nationalism solidifies the exploited nation and transforms it into an agency for the restructuring of exploitative relation within the “international caste system” – one difference between the two cases is that whereas it is feasible to end exploitation within a class society by abolishing classes, it is not feasible to abolish exploitation on the global level by abolishing nations. Nations, for Saπadeh, are more deeply anchored in social reality than classes. They are, after all, the product of a long historical process and not dependent on social relations, like property relations which can be instituted or abolished at will. However, Saπadeh did not think that nations were permanent social realities. There might come a time, for him, when humanity ceases to be divided along national lines and when nationalism ceases to be a force in history.15 Nationalism, for third-world nations, is not merely a tool for revolutionizing relations on the global level. It is also a tool for revolutionizing social relations. Nationalism, as we saw, served as some such tool in the hands of Western nation states. Saπadeh, however, saw profound differences between the conditions under which nationalism operated in Europe and effected new forms of social relations and the conditions under which nationalism is to operate in a third-world country like Syria and effect new forms of social relations. In the West, nationalism advanced under conditions of rapid technical, scientific and economic progress in societies that were relatively free from external domination. Nation states emerged in Europe as a natural outcome of certain historical conditions where the radical transformations of the material conditions of life culminated in the emergence of nationalism. With the emergence of the latter, there emerged also a general will which, at the beginning, politically expressed itself in the support of the monarchy in its struggle against the feudal nobility and later, when the monarchy established itself and acquired an absolute character, turned against the latter, playing an effective role in abolishing it or in transforming it into a constitutional monarchy. Thus, nationalism, for Saπadeh, was an effective factor in Europe in abolishing feudalism and establishing a new system of social relations, as well as in gradually democratizing the state.16 It must be noted, however, that not everything went so well for nationalism in the West. Having emerged alongside capitalism, it could not, within the system of capitalist relations of production, succeed in transforming the democracies of the West into social democracies.17 [272]


Nationalism, no doubt, ushered in an era dominated by secularism and democratic institutions and paved the way for political equality. But capitalism in the West with all the social divisions and imbalances that it created impeded nationalism from coming to its full social fruition. It was not possible for nationalism in the West to exclude capitalism in the way it excluded feudalism, for capitalism initially was necessitated by the tremendous strides on the scientific, technological and economic levels – the same factors that made the advance of nationalism possible. Second, the advance of nationalism was impeded by feudalism and not by the emerging system of capitalism which constituted the only viable progressive alternative to feudalism. Under the latter condition, it was necessary to combine nationalist and capitalist forces in the fight against what was perceived to be a common enemy – namely, feudalism. Third, the development of capitalism in Europe did not occur under a system of the type that could lend itself to one nation state or a combination of such states dominating the others in a way that would make capitalism in the latter subservient to the interests of the former. Thus capitalism in any one nation state could not be perceived as contrary to the national interests of that state in the way it would be if it were subservient to the interests of the capitalist systems of rival states. Fourth, the full implications of capitalism, its potential for generating social tensions as well as its exploitative character could not be seen until capitalism took hold and national problems ceased to be the dominant problems. If we turn now to the conditions under which nationalism was making its appearance in an underdeveloped country like geographical Syria, we see, according to Saπadeh, that nationalism in this case has a far greater potential for the restructuring of social relations than the one it had in the West. But what are these conditions? First, nationalism in the third world advances under conditions of backwardness and external subjugation reinforcing that backwardness.18 Second, it advances under an international system dominated by a few nation states, each bent on securing for itself the greatest advantage and the widest sphere of influence possible in the world. Third, nationalism advances in a third-world country like Syria under conditions of instability and revolutionary upheaval. Society is torn between two main alignments of forces, the alignment of progressive forces and that of reactionary and conservative forces – the latter being an alignment of feudalists, capitalists and anti-secularists. [273]


Given the first two conditions, nationalism in a country like Syria cannot be but a force against backwardness if it is to have any meaning at all as a motive for national liberation. It is quite obvious, according to Saπadeh’s 1935 speech in which he systematically dealt for the first time with the basic strategy of his movement, that a national liberation movement is doomed unless it makes internal liberation the most basic ingredient in the process of national liberation.19 But internal liberation means, negatively, the removal of social, economic and cultural impediments indigenous to the internal objective conditions in which the society to be liberated finds itself. However, it is not enough to direct one’s efforts against such impediments without being clear about what will fill in the vacuum created by their removal, and to be clear about the latter is to be clear about the ultimate social ends that internal liberation ought to realize.20 Therefore, nationalism under such conditions ought to acquire a positive social content expressing itself in a comprehensive social philosophy that is at once scientific and revolutionary (scientific in the sense that it ought to anchor the process of liberation in an objective understanding of the social facts pertaining to the society to be liberated). We have to understand in an empirical way the identity and nature of the society to be liberated, its potentialities, the conditions impeding its development, its weaknesses as well as its points of strength. And it is revolutionary in the sense that it ought to make the understanding of the objective conditions of the meant society a necessary step towards a comprehensive transformation of these conditions. Nationalism, then, in a country like geographical Syria cannot be nationalism, pure and simple, but has to embrace right from the beginning a revolutionary social philosophy. It has to be, in Saπadeh’s own expression, “a social nationalism”.21 If we look now at the third condition under which nationalism makes its appearance in a country like geographical Syria, we see immediately that the social content of nationalism cannot be limited to the embracing of those values and principles, the implementation of which is necessary for overcoming backwardness on all levels. For in such a society there is a newly emerging force, the force of capitalism, which does not make its appearance in our midst, as was the case in Europe, under conditions of rapid social and technical progress on the one hand, and conditions of sweeping nationalism on the other. Nor does it make its appearance as again was the case in Europe, within a society free from external [274]


domination. Rather, it makes its appearance first, in a backward agricultural society which is at the mercy of the advanced industrial societies of the West.22 Second, it makes its appearance within a society that lacks any real awareness of its national identity.23 Third, it makes its appearance within a society that is politically dominated by conservative and reactionary forces, feudal and otherwise, and economically dominated by international monopolism.24 Under such conditions, capitalists cannot be expected to align themselves with the newly emerging nationalist and progressive forces within the society in question. For, on the one hand, being motivated only by their immediate and narrow interests, they cannot turn their backs to a system which, due to its anarchic character, permits them to thrive and prosper free from any legal and social constraints. Nor can they turn their backs to the system of international monopolism which, due to its domination of the economic system in their society, exacts loyalty from them in exchange for its benefits to them. Capitalism in a country like Syria, then, cannot but align itself with the forces of reaction and conservatism and cannot but tie itself to international capitalism. Thus as a matter of objective fact, the newly emerging forces of nationalism within such a society cannot but perceive capitalism as a basic impediment in the way they perceive feudalism and sectarianism.25 There is another factor, for Saπadeh, which is crucial in creating tension between nationalism and capitalism within a newly emerging nation like that of geographical Syria. This has to do with the exploitative nature of capitalism.26 We saw that such a tension did not exist in Europe, because, among other things, the full implications of capitalism did not become clear in the West until after capitalism reached its fruition and national problems ceased to be the dominating problems. But a newly emerging nation, like Syria, has the whole experience of the West with capitalism to examine and learn from. And now that the full implications of capitalism have become quite clear, we can see that capitalism and social nationalism cannot coexist within the same society, for one inevitable consequence of the system of capitalism is exploitation.27 But, for Saπadeh, exploitation is objectively contrary to social cohesion and solidarity which are the most basic ingredients of the concept of social unity. In Saπadeh’s view, a nationalism with a social content cannot be consistent if it aims at abolishing social relations like those contingent on a system such as feudalism and sectarianism and leaves untouched social relations of the type emanating from a system like capitalism. For seeking to abolish [275]


social relations of the former kind derives its rationale from the principle of social unity which is as contrary to social relations of the latter kind as it is to relations of the former kind. Thus, it is clear from Saπadeh’s perspective that a nationalism with a social content such as the one that must inevitably emerge in a country like Syria must embrace principles and values that are at once necessary for instituting a system that has the real potential to progress on all levels and a system that is free from all forms of exploitation, free from what Saπadeh calls negative relations. Although Saπadeh’s ultimate social aims roughly coincide with those of Marxism, Saπadeh never wavered in his opposition to Marxism in general and to Marxist forces within his society in particular. Why was that? The answer is threefold. First, Saπadeh was opposed to the Marxist strategy of social liberation. Second, he was opposed to the internationalist aspect of Marxism. Third, he was opposed to its materialism. Consider the question of strategy, first. In their strategy for social liberation, communists operating within geographical Syria follow the classical Marxian line and consider class struggle to be the basic vehicle for restructuring society. But this makes class consciousness rather than national consciousness the most basic component in the process of social liberation. Saπadeh believes this strategy to be mistaken and even dangerous on several counts.28 First, this strategy obliterates the fact that the root problem in a country like Syria is the lack of national identity. This society is in its present state of fragmentation and national division not because of its economic system, but rather because its evolution during a long history of external domination could not take its natural course and culminate, as it would have most probably culminated had it taken its natural course, in its emergence as an advanced nation state.29 The unnatural conditions under which this society evolved make it what it is today: a society lacking any awareness of its national identity and common interests and consequently socially polarized and fragmented, nationally divided and lacking any self-confidence as well as any control over its destiny. Therefore, the most basic and urgent question facing this society is how to overcome its loss of national identity and self-confidence, its social fragmentation and national division. And the answer to the latter question is: through nationalism. The communist strategy, by focusing on class struggle and thereby on generating class consciousness, poses a double threat to our society: it adds a new divisive factor to the situation while leaving untouched the root cause of other social divisions. [276]


Not only does it leave untouched the root cause of other social divisions, it also denies its existence giving us to understand that nationalism belongs to a much earlier phase in history and has no place in our lives today. The second reason for Saπadeh’s opposition to communist strategy is that it is one that does not square with the ultimate meaning of social liberation. What is this ultimate meaning? It is to create a totally secular society, free from exploitation, free from contradiction, forward-looking, imbued with vitality, in control of its own affairs, confident in itself and capable of withstanding external pressures threatening its existence. If so, then the first question that must pose itself to the agent of social liberation is what is the identity of the society to be liberated and within which the above ends are to be fulfilled?30 The latter question is of extreme importance for Saπadeh, because a liberating agent cannot, for objective reasons, take on the task of liberating a society other than its own. It cannot simply select a society at random and target it for liberation. Naturally, such an agent has to be one for the liberation of its own society. But when the situation is of the type in which Syria finds itself, there is no clarity among the people as to whether they constitute one single entity with its own separate identity or are part of a more inclusive entity. And without such clarity as to their identity, there can be no clarity among them as to what constitutes their vital interests.31 But to have any meaning at all, social liberation must ultimately aim at those ends in whose fulfilment the interests of society as a whole are maintained and protected. But obviously to determine what these ends are the agent of liberation must be clear about what the interests of society as a whole are, and to be clear about the latter it must be clear about the national identity of that society. Its starting point, then, must be a comprehensive national perspective. But within the framework of a communist strategy, such a comprehensive national perspective is totally absent and even deplored, which makes it impossible to reconcile this strategy with the ultimate meaning of social liberation. For if social liberation is necessarily the liberation of a particular society with its own identity and interests, then the social ends sought by liberation are necessarily the ends of that particular society and thus are national ends.32 Therefore, the only strategy commensurate with the fulfilment of these ends is a national strategy. Nationalism, then, and not class consciousness, is the proper agency for transforming the Syrian society. Herein lies the crux of Saπadeh’s social nationalism. [277]


Third, the communist strategy, not being guided by a comprehensive social national philosophy, in effect reinforces the national divisions within geographical Syria.33 This can only have the effect of keeping Syria weak, lacking any confidence in its potentialities, incapable of freeing itself from the shackles of economic backwardness and recovering its lost rich territories. In short, it is a strategy that unwittingly favours an inferior status for Syria. If it were to succeed, it could only succeed, as Saπadeh put it in his Labor Day Manifesto of 1948, in equally distributing poverty and not riches.34 To conclude, the communist strategy, for Saπadeh, is paradoxical and dangerous. Paradoxical, because, although it is a strategy for social liberation, by divesting the concept of social liberation of its national content, it makes itself irreconcilable with the true meaning of social liberation. And dangerous, because it could only hamper the full national development and strengthening of the Syrian nation, thereby leaving it an easy prey for the external powers bent on dominating it. Another factor that alienates Saπadeh from Marxist groups is the internationalist character of the latter.35 Marxism gives us to understand that the basic conflict in the world today is that between socialism (that is, communism) and capitalism, between the camp that allegedly represents the interests of all the workers in the world and the camp that represents the interests of monopoly capitalism. Therefore, workers in the whole world are called on to join the forces of socialism led by the former Soviet Union in its struggle against international capitalism. For Saπadeh, this is a call on Syria’s producers – the majority of our people – to align themselves with the socialist camp in its struggle against capitalism and thereby engage in a struggle whose internationalistic orientation can have no effect other than that of diverting the efforts of the producers – the backbone of our society – from their national direction. Now, keeping in mind that our problems are, in the main, national problems, it becomes immediately evident, for Saπadeh, that being diverted from our national path amounts to being diverted from the only path that could “lead to our salvation, as a nation”.36 Moreover, the internationalist Weltanschauung of communism pictures the struggle on a global level, not as a struggle between nation states, each having its own interests and bent on securing them at any cost its people are willing to bear, but as one divested of any national connotation. It merely reflects the conflict between two systems: one [278]


communistic and expressing the interests of producers, regardless of their nationality; and the other capitalistic and expressing the interests of international monopolism. But, according to Saπadeh, such a view of the world is fundamentally mistaken. It is so blind to the reality of the world which has not yet reached that phase where criteria that cut across differences in national interests are paid more than lip service in matters concerning the ways in which nation states relate to each other. In short, national interests are still the basic motive behind the global policies of nation states, regardless of whether they are socialist or capitalist.37 Thus, it would be no less than naive to believe, as communists in our midst would want us to believe, that our salvation lies in siding with international communism. Not only would it be naive to believe that, but also dangerous, for if such a belief were to take effect in our society, it could only result in making our interests subservient to those of communist Russia and in transforming us into a tool for its use in its struggle with Western capitalism.38 In light of the above, we can now have a better understanding of Saπadeh’s call on Syrian producers, in his Labor Day Manifesto of 1948, to engage in a “dual struggle”,39 a struggle against the social forces that weaken us from within – namely, the forces of feudalism and capitalism in our midst – as well as a struggle against the forces that are at work on a global level, and that are bent on keeping us weak and divided to dominate us and use us for their own purposes. The latter reduce themselves to two main forces: that of a communism, which, in Saπadeh’s words, is a system of “political feudalism” on an international scale; and that of international capitalism, which, in his words, is a system of economic imperialism.40 Syrian producers, then, cannot find their salvation in merely focusing their collective consciousness on their common interests which are negated from within by the presence of feudal as well as capitalist relations of production. They must expand their collective consciousness so as to encompass their national interests which are systemically endangered by the presence of exploitative relations on a global scale. They must become aware not only of the exploitative nature of their social system, but also of the exploitative nature of the “international caste system” within which, due to their inferior status as a nation, they can have neither the will nor the power to manage and direct their own affairs in their own way.41 It is obvious, then, that within the context of Saπadeh’s argument, an ideology with an internationalist orientation can only serve, depending on its specific [279]


content, either as a tool in the hands of the system of international communism or as a tool in the hands of economic imperialism to maintain the “international caste system” in its present state, where nations like Syria are bullied into acquiescing in their inferior national status and their subordinate role. So far, we have examined Saπadeh’s opposition to communism in the light of his doctrine of social nationalism. There is, however, a third important reason for this opposition to communism – namely, its materialistic philosophy. Our latter claim might come as a surprise to readers of Saπadeh’s book the Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations). After all, he made it clear in that book that man, as a form of life, is a product of evolution, and even went as far as claiming that thought itself is not ontologically independent from matter.42 Moreover, he made it clear that the historical evolution of man is grounded in the evolution of the material conditions of his life. Each society, Saπadeh observes in The Rise of Nations, is composed of a material base and a mental structure, and no transformations can take place in its mental structure unless its material base reaches an appropriate level of maturity.43 And what Saπadeh understands by material base and mental structure is roughly what Marxists understand by infrastructures and super-structures respectively. If the above captures Saπadeh’s view of the nature of man and historical development, then how is one to extract from this view an antimaterialistic philosophy? It must be noted, first, that Saπadeh’s acceptance of the theory of evolution and the precedence of matter over thought does not express a philosophical thesis but a scientific one. The view that the latter embodies is that of scientific materialism which considers life in its various forms as well as thought as ultimately reducible, in so far as they are objects of scientific explanation, into the microstructures of inorganic matter. But the ultimate source of the latter structures themselves is not a subject for scientific inquiry. However, philosophical materialism, as opposed to scientific materialism, goes one step further and considers the microstructures of inorganic matter as ultimate in the metaphysical sense, meaning there is no source for matter beyond matter. Material existence exhausts all there is; it is self-sufficient, self-contained, self-explainable and all-inclusive. No doubt Marxists accepted scientific materialism and many even accepted philosophical materialism. But that cannot constitute the philosophical bone of contention between Saπadeh and Marxism, for Saπadeh, as we saw, was sympathetic to scientific materialism and [280]


indifferent to philosophical materialism. The only pronouncement he made on the latter was that its denial was consistent with scientific materialism, but he neither affirmed nor denied it.44 There is, however, another form of materialism – normative materialism – that Saπadeh rejected. This form is not a theory about the ultimate source of existence, but one about the ultimate criteria that ought to define the meaning of human progress. Human progress, on this theory, ought to be measured by its material achievements alone. To determine the level of man’s progress is merely to determine the extent to which he has succeeded in achieving a technical mastery over nature to meet his material needs. Normative materialism, from Saπadeh’s point of view, is essential to the philosophy of Marxism.45 And since Saπadeh adopts a spiritualist– materialist position on the normative level, he could not see a way of achieving a philosophical reconciliation with Marxism. It is puzzling to me why Saπadeh interpreted Marxian materialism as a normative materialism. Marx’s writings lend no support whatsoever to such an interpretation. In extending the use of materialism as a body of heuristic principles and as a theoretical explanatory tool to the domain of social science, Marx, indeed, found himself producing within social science a historical counterpart to the general thesis of scientific materialism which he called “historical materialism”. On the latter thesis, the dynamics of social life are the expression of the objective interplay of economic factors, and the spirit of a society embodied in its super-structures is merely an epiphenomenon of its material existence, of its modes of economic production. The materialism embodied in this thesis is not a normative materialism that sets material progress as the only goal worthy of man’s efforts, but a historical counterpart of the general thesis of scientific materialism that seeks to reduce the complex cultural phenomena of a society into their elemental forms which are embedded in its material structures. In fact, Marx, on the normative level, upheld the antithesis of normative materialism. He, like Saπadeh after him, adopted a materialist–spiritualist position within which material progress ought not to acquire an intrinsic value. It ought to be made subordinate to the fulfilment of man’s needs but only in so far as fulfilment contributes to humanizing society and preparing the way for its spiritual development. The ultimate criterion for human progress, therefore, is the extent to which man’s technical mastery over nature, in his attempt to meet his [281]


pressing and evolving needs, has furthered his spiritual development and fulfilment.46 It might be wondered now as to what basis is left for Saπadeh’s opposition to Marxian materialism. Saπadeh himself gives us some clues on how to answer the latter question. He makes it clear that his materialist–spiritualist doctrine does not merely express a normative stance but also embodies, on a different level, a social theory for the explanation of social evolution.47 Additionally, he makes it clear that within such a theory there can be no role for the principle of economic determinism.48 If you combine the latter two points, you are bound to come up with the basic theoretical and methodological reason for Saπadeh’s opposition to Marxian materialism. For combining them yields the methodological principle that the economic variables do not constitute in the socio-historical equation the independent variables Marxists think they are. The relationship between economic and non-economic variables is one of interaction and not determination. Thus, such a relationship cannot be captured by process laws depicting any change in the values of non-economic variables as requiring only a change in the values of the economic ones. But how is the above to be reconciled with Saπadeh’s view in The Rise of Nations referred to earlier and which makes any changes in man’s mental structures contingent on his material base reaching an appropriate level of maturity? Saπadeh, no doubt, did not view the mental structure as originating in an autonomous collective spirit. The disembodied spirit of G.W.F. Hegel – that logical abstraction – was for him the very life of a culture, the expression of its organized energies. Here we see his affinity with left-Hegelians. The spirit of a society at a particular time has no autonomous history for it to have an independent casual influence on cultural development and change. It varied from place to place and period to period. It is itself something to be explained by culture and not an explanation of the latter.49 It is not the independent variable Hegel thought it was. He, like Ludwig Feuerbach, attributes the works of the spirit, embodied in the mental structures of a community, to the presence of social needs. Outside of nature and society, there was neither human consciousness nor spirit. But unlike Feuerbach and like Marx, man’s nature for him is not only social but also, and because it is social, historical. Talk about human needs is not talking about something fixed by man’s nature, but talk about something that arises and evolves [282]


in history. Human needs, then, are the middle term between man and history.50 That said, man’s material needs are at the basis of all his other needs, which explains why the material basis of his life conditions his mental structures. But it conditions rather than determines the latter. It sets the ultimate limits within which the mental structures are to develop. Thus, it is obvious on this line of reasoning why any changes in the mental structures must be signalled by certain changes in the economic structures. However, the point that distinguishes Saπadeh from Marxism is that changes in the latter do not necessarily signal in one fixed direction but in several, and sometimes, conflicting ones. Therefore, how the mental structures develop as a result of these changes is not dependent on these changes alone but also on how society chooses from the different options made available by the changes in question.51 And how society chooses depends on the state of its spirit, on the level of its spiritual needs, moral and aesthetic, as well as on the level of its intellectual aptitude and psychological motivation. In a nutshell, then, Saπadeh’s view is that the material structures limit the alternatives in which the mental structures can be changed but do not determine the necessity of choosing one alternative to the exclusion of the others. Thus, although the economic base of society S might be structurally isomorphic with the economic base of society S2, the way S develops in reaction to changes in its economic base need not be parallel to the way S2 develops in reaction to similar changes in its economic base.

Secularization Let us now turn our attention to the third aspect that gives Saπadeh’s thought a unique position in the Arab East. This has to do, as we saw at the beginning of this chapter, with the way he approached the question of secularization. Perhaps no issue other than social nationalism occupied Saπadeh as much as secularism did. Three of his five reform principles were devoted to questions pertaining to secularism and its implementation.52 Many of the articles he contributed to the various newspapers published by his party throughout the 1930s and 40s were meant to tackle matters of a secularist nature and of importance to the advancement of the cause of secularism.53 [283]


Further, there is no problem pertaining to secularism and its implementation in his own society that he did not tackle, whether it is posed by the nature of religion or the natures of values, whether it arises on the level of theory or the level of practice, whether it is of a sociopolitical or philosophical nature. More fundamentally still, his approach to the question of justifying secularism, unlike that of secular Arab thinkers in general, combined philosophical considerations with sociological and historical considerations. He saw secularization not only as a prop for social and spiritual unity in a multi-religious society, but also as something sanctioned by philosophical reason. It is, on an intellectual level, a necessary outcome of a true philosophical understanding of the nature of religion, the nature of values and the nature of the socio-political dimension of man’s existence. This makes his approach to secularization of a very high level of complexity. In this approach, one finds the factual combined with the conceptual, the practical intertwined with the theoretical, and the sociological and historical almost collapsing into the epistemological. But one thing remains the main focus of his treatment of secularization – namely, how to extricate practical knowledge from “religious knowledge”, how to drive a wedge between religion and values, between the metaphysical and theological and the worldly. The latter issue is what constitutes the centre for our discussion in this chapter, for it is in his treatment of this issue that one can best delineate the philosophical considerations in which his secular outlook is grounded. But let us focus first on the way Saπadeh conceived of secularism. In the three reform principles dealing with its various aspects, he embraces a narrow form of secularism that merely has to do with the separation of the sphere of politics and law from the sphere of religion.54 The state is to be free from any interference from any religious group to conduct its affairs in any way it sees fit, be they of a political, legal or educational nature. A corollary of the latter is that the state ought to be neutral vis-à-vis conflicting religious creeds or religious groups vying for political influence. Not only must it be neutral and refrain from making any religion its official religion, but also it must take on the task of actively fostering religious tolerance and combating sectarianism.55 It is obvious that Saπadeh was mainly concerned in these reform principles with the problem of sectarianism in a multi-religious society such as his own, and how to overcome it and secure social unity. He saw [284]


that the situation in his society was such that every religious sect was transformed into a socio-political entity vying for political influence and for economic benefits and that the sectarian system, as a result, was tearing his society apart. The conflict between one sect and another was no longer of a theological nature but one that acquired a socio-political character and threatened the very fabric of society. In his reform principles he was merely seeking to determine the practical basis for dealing with the threat of sectarianism and of politicizing religion, and obviously there is not much room for philosophizing here. However, in his other writing on the question of secularism, he does not stop at the narrow conception found in the reform principles. He makes it clear that the sphere of religious influence must be absolutely confined to what he called Ash-Shuπun ar-ruhiyya (spiritual matters). It is not sufficient that religion should have no influence within the sphere of political matters; it must also be banished altogether from the realm of worldly affairs. Religion should not concern itself except with matters pertaining to man’s spiritual salvation (that is, the salvation of man’s soul). And the clergy should have no function other than addressing those questions that have to do with spiritual salvation and providing spiritual guidance to those who seek it from them. Broadly speaking, what this conception of secularism requires is that practical knowledge, in its normative and factual aspects, be viewed as being independent from religion and that man be totally autonomous, vis-à-vis religion, in the way he handles “the affairs of his body”. He says: For the clergy to deal today with the social, political and economic problems of nation states would be like the clergy attempting in times past to cure physical and psychological ailments … But as the advance of the art of medicine made it impossible for the cleric … to take the place of the doctor … likewise the advance of sociology and the art of politics made it impossible for a bishop or patriarch to take the place of a sociologist or an expert on politics or economics.56

Saπadeh’s point is that whatever knowledge is needed to deal with our worldly affairs, that knowledge is not to be found in religion but elsewhere. The clergy as putative possessors of religious knowledge have nothing to contribute to the solution of our worldly problems. Their kind of knowledge merely encompasses matters that have to do with the [285]


salvation of our souls through faith and the observance of religious rules. But these are purely spiritual matters and not “matters of the body”. Thus the separation between the religious and the secular rests on a logical or conceptual separation between religious or theological “knowledge” and secular or practical knowledge. The separation between the two types of knowledge entails the autonomy of reason, theoretical as well as practical reason, vis-à-vis religious authority. Reason, independently of the authority, can marshal its own powers in pursuit of theoretical as well as practical truths and bring us closer to solving our worldly problems. Religion can be authoritative for its adherents only with regard to matters that belong exclusively to the province of faith and thus pertain to the soul and not the body. But, it might be argued on theological ground, “since the body is subordinate to the soul, then bodies must be subject to the single authority of the spiritual head”.57 Such an argument, so Saπadeh avers, is a non sequitur. What its conclusion implies in practice is far removed from, and even belies, what is intended by its premise. The premise, by stating that a person’s body is subordinate to his soul, implies that the function of man’s God-given soul is to guide his thoughts and actions in the here and now. And this is perfectly compatible with, and even requires, attributing autonomy to the individual. The conclusion of the argument, however, “if put into effect … would not only require subjecting the body to the soul, but subjecting all bodies to one soul that renders the powers of all other souls inefficacious and negates the purpose behind man’s God-given soul”.58 For placing all bodies under the authority of one single soul – the soul of the spiritual head – can only result in making man, who, according to religious doctrine, must only answer to God on Judgement Day, answer, instead, to whomever appoints himself in the here and now a spokesman for God. But this is tantamount to negating the soul’s own identity and the autonomy of the individual and his right to handle the affairs of his body independently of his spiritual mentor in the way required by his knowledge of worldly matters. Before we proceed any further in our discussion on Saπadeh’s ideas, it would be helpful to explain precisely what is involved in the concept of knowledge of worldly affairs. The latter concept encompasses two kinds of knowledge: theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. Theoretical knowledge is knowledge of the kind that we find in the pure [286]


sciences, which mainly aim at explaining phenomena by subsuming them under general laws and subsuming the latter under more general laws until theories of a very comprehensive scope are reached that would put an end to this explanatory process. It is the knowledge of what the facts are at their most general. By contrast, practical knowledge is not knowledge of what is but knowledge of what ought to be. It is knowledge of what actions ought to be performed, or what changes ought to be brought about or what ends ought to be pursued. “Ought”, however, in ought judgements, is either a conditional or a categorical (that is, normative) “ought”, which explains the division of reason into instrumental reason and normative reason. The job of instrumental reason is to determine which conditional ought judgements are true. If, for example, the question before us is how we ought to deal with a problem such as unemployment, then what we are required to do is determine what means would fulfil a given end such as the alleviation of unemployment. Here the economic system within which the problem arises is not in question. Thus, in attempting to determine what means would alleviate unemployment, we would be positing the economic system in question as a constant not to be tampered with. This means, in attempting to determine what means would alleviate unemployment, we are, in effect, attempting to answer the question: how ought we to deal with unemployment within the present system – that is, without rearranging any of its structural elements? The latter, of course, can be satisfactorily answered only by establishing the truth of a conditional ought judgement of the form: “If unemployment is to be alleviated without tampering with the basic structural elements of the economic system, then we ought to do such-and-such.” And establishing the truth of some such conditional judgement is a job for instrumental reason as it manifests itself in economics. Practical “oughts”, however, are not always hypothetical “oughts”, but acquire in certain contexts normative significance. In other words, we sometimes want to know not what means to choose to achieve certain given or agreed-on ends, but what ends to choose. And in the latter case, it is not the social scientist or scientific knowledge in general that is of crucial importance, but normative (for example, moral) knowledge. In driving a conceptual wedge between religious and practical knowledge, Saπadeh sometimes gives the impression that he has in mind only the kind of practical knowledge that is yielded by science. In an [287]


article dealing with the relationship between spiritual and temporal authority, he says of a person who purports to be an authority on spiritual (that is, religious) matters that he is no qua religious authority competent “to instruct us in finance, statistics, the medical sciences, chemistry, engineering and economics, or in whatever sciences are derived from them”.59 However, there are two considerations that make us believe that Saπadeh also meant to include normative knowledge among these aspects of practical knowledge that must, on conceptual grounds, be placed outside the domain of religious “knowledge”. The first is that he attributed to reason a substantive-normative function. Reason does not only determine means, but also it determines ends. Rationality is not to be reduced to its instrumental or technological aspect, but is also to be recognized for its normative aspect. Therefore, in view of his insistence on the autonomy of reason, reason must be left to its own devices in its dealing with normative questions. This, in conjunction with his view of rational considerations as overriding all competing considerations, entails that practical knowledge of a normative nature belongs to the province of reason alone. The second consideration is that which has to do with Saπadeh’s view of religious prescriptions and proscriptions as being confined to guiding and goading man’s actions in a way that would contribute to the salvation of his soul. Such prescriptions and proscriptions, in his view, can have no socio-political or economic content, nor can they have, for reasons that will presently be explored, a specific moral content. Religion, he tells us in no mistaken terms, is, in its developed form, doctrinally centred around questions concerning the ultimate origin of man and his ultimate (that is, eschatological) destiny. It is for this very reason that it cannot embody in its credal core an outlook on man and the world “in the social-economic-spiritual sense”.60 Saπadeh’s use of “spiritual” in the latter context is misleading, considering the fact that in other places he regarded the sphere of the spiritual as the exclusive sphere of religion. It must be noted, however, that he used this term in two different senses: a religious sense and a secular one. In its religious sense, “spiritual” refers to matters pertaining to worship, to man’s religious duties, to beliefs concerning the metaphysical ground of man’s existence and his eschatological salvation. “Spiritual”, in this sense, necessarily has a supernatural connotation. But in its secular sense, it refers to man’s higher forms of culture, to the superstructures of [288]


society – that is, to law, morality, philosophy, the state and so on. Thus “spiritual”, in its secular sense, refers exclusively to certain aspects of man’s existence in the here and now and no connotation whatsoever pertaining to the hereafter. It is, of course, the secular reading of “spiritual” that applies to Saπadeh’s use of this term in his denial that religion can embody, in its credal core, an outlook on man and the world “in the social-economicspiritual sense”. But since “spiritual”, on this reading, refers to morality (among other things), then it must follow that Saπadeh is excluding from the scope of religion not only matters that fall within the purview of theoretical and instrumental reason, but also matters that fall within the purview of normative reason. Religion can no more tell us what ends we ought to pursue in this life than it can what means to utilize to achieve certain given ends. It is no more suitable as a substitute for normative reason than it is as a substitute for instrumental or theoretical reason. Practical knowledge, in its scientific as well as its normative aspects, is outside the sphere of religion. On the broader conception of secularism embedded in Saπadeh’s attempt to extricate practical knowledge from any dependency on religion, it is not just the sphere of the political that ought to be separated from religion but almost the entire sphere of man’s non-religious actions, be they of political, social or moral significance. This is to say that all of the actions that are limited to achieving worldly ends, along with the principles or ideals that guide them, ought to be grounded in secular considerations alone. The religious sphere of this conception shrinks into a very minute area involving only those practices and beliefs pertaining to worship and expressing man’s supernatural and eschatological concerns. Does this broad conception of secularism conflict with religion? It appears to conflict with a religion like Islam, which is considered by many of its adherents a religion and state whose doctrine is presumed to embody an all-embracing world view on life and the world. It even appears to conflict with Christianity, because although Christians do not necessarily claim for their religion a political role, they nevertheless do not appear to deny it a social or, at least, moral role. How does Saπadeh deal with the apparent conflict between his conception of secularism and religion? This apparent conflict, he claims, is not really between secularism and religion as such. It is, rather, between secularism and competing outlooks emanating not from pristine first-order [289]


religious beliefs, but from certain meta-religious beliefs. These meta-beliefs confuse in particular contingent features of religion that depend on historical circumstances with necessary and universal features. It is easy to fall prey to such confusion, especially in a case like Islam or Christianity where a belief in a personal God who commands us to do good and refrain from doing evil is at the core of religious doctrine. Given such a belief, it is an easy step towards embracing as integral to religious doctrine what we have come to accept as necessary consequences of that belief in view of our understanding of “good” and “evil” under the influence of the social and historical conditions in which we find ourselves. Here we tend to overlook the fact that the transition from the first-order religious belief that God commands us to do good and refrain from doing evil to beliefs in which “good” and “evil” acquire a specific content is mediated by the way “good” and “evil” are to be interpreted in the light of our social and historical conditions. And by overlooking that fact, it becomes easy to confuse what could, at best, be taken as a contingent consequence of first-order religious belief involved with the latter belief itself. And it is through some such confusion that a spurious conflict could be created between secularism and religion. It is not possible for Saπadeh to uncover the bogus nature of this conflict without first achieving a philosophical understanding of the “true” nature of religion. It is through some such understanding that we can come to see that practical beliefs cannot be derived from first-order religious beliefs alone and, therefore, cannot be part and parcel of the credal essence of religion. It must be noted here that talk about the nature of religion does not mean religion simpliciter but theistic religion of the Christian or Islamic variety. And what concerns Saπadeh in the main is how a true understanding of the nature of Christian or Islamic religious belief and the nature of the central object of that belief (that is, God) can be utilized to dispel the notion that even some pallid support can be found for the thesis that practical knowledge is somehow dependent on religious “knowledge”. Let us turn, then, to Saπadeh’s analysis of the concept of religion as it is exclusively embodied in the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition.61 A careful probing of this concept, according to him, reveals to us that religious belief reduces itself to three essential elements. (1) belief in one God, (2) belief that God commands us to do good and refrain from doing evil and, (3) belief in the immortality of the soul, and in divine [290]


punishment and reward in the hereafter.62 What Saπadeh proposes to do now is show that the second element can be an essential constituent of religious belief as long as it is kept in its present tautologous form – that is, as long as we do not give “good” and “evil” a specific content. For when we give them a specific content such as when we interpret “good” to mean, for example, chopping off the hand of a thief, or stoning the adulteress to death or bequeathing to a son double what is bequeathed to a daughter, what we are doing is entering the realm of values, the realm of the relative, the variable and the contingent. But a careful examination of the nature of religious belief and the central object of this belief would clearly show that first-order religious beliefs cannot include beliefs of a relative and contingent nature. Saπadeh offers four philosophical arguments in support of the latter conclusion. The first argument, which can be called “the argument from the eternality of divine law”, rests on two main assumptions. The first assumption is that the content of our knowledge of worldly affairs is permeated by contingency and relativity, and thus cannot be construed as immutable. The second assumption is that the nature of God, as conceived by Christians or Muslims, requires that we view divine law as immutable or absolutely eternal. The obvious conclusion here is that what belongs to the content of our knowledge of worldly affairs “cannot be found”, as he put it, “in immutable divine laws”.63 The second argument is from the metaphysical nature of the essential ingredients of Christian or Islamic belief. The main point here is that a belief in a transcendent God and Judgement Day is, for a Christian or Muslim, the ultimate criterion for what is to count as a genuine, pristine, first-order religious belief. But since a belief in a transcendent God essentially has metaphysical character, then that puts a ban on including in the set of first-order religious beliefs any that lack a metaphysical character. And since beliefs of the kind involved in our knowledge of worldly affairs lack a metaphysical character, it ipso facto follows that they are to be excluded from the set of first-order religious beliefs. The third argument is from the universality of theistic beliefs of the Christian or Islamic variety. Their universality puts a ban on incorporating into the set of first-order religious beliefs any beliefs concerning how to organize our lives in the here and now socially, politically, economically and legally, and for what ends. For beliefs of the latter kind – that is, practical beliefs – must embody “an outlook on [291]


life and the world in the social-economic-spiritual sense” that is relative and not universal in character.64 The fourth and last argument is from the nature of God. God, as conceived within the theistic Christian or Islamic tradition, possesses certain attributes that would make it contrary to His nature to command us to organize our social-political-economic-spiritual existence in a certain way and for certain ends, regardless of the historical circumstances in which we find ourselves. Thus belief in God, for a Christian or a Muslim, cannot entail a belief in presumably universally valid prescriptions concerning how we should organize our lives in the here and now. Nor does it necessarily yield an outlook on life and the world in “the social-economic-spiritual sense”, which is supposed to be suitable for all times and places. Let us now examine in some detail each one of these arguments. The first argument – the argument from the eternality of divine law – derives the eternality of divine law from the nature of God as it is conceived in Christian or Islamic theism. Within this theistic tradition, God is to be viewed as a transcendent being (that is, beyond space and time). Since He is the creator and sustainer of everything in existence, He Himself cannot be a part of this existence and thus must transcend it. It is some such consideration that makes us view God as being essentially eternal with an absolutely immutable nature and, consequently, to view divine law (that is, laws allegedly revealed to us by God) as being merely an embodiment of eternal, immutable laws. Here the distinction between eternal and divine law is simply that which we find in the Thomistic tradition, and it amounts to treating all divine laws as revealed eternal laws but not to treat all eternal laws as revealed divine laws. Some eternal laws, for example, are not revealed but take the form of natural laws, which are known by reason. Of course, Saπadeh was not operating with Thomistic conceptions or working from within the Thomistic tradition. He certainly rejected the concept of natural law, which is a cornerstone of the Thomistic philosophical edifice.65 He also rejected the Thomistic attempt at deriving human law, a rejection that is implicit in his aversion to reductive naturalism as a theory of values. His point, however, in utilizing the concept of divine law in his first argument, is merely that when we view law from the Christian or Islamic point of view as divine and thus revealed, we are philosophically committed to viewing it as embodying [292]


eternal law. And to view it in this way is, tautologously, to give it an absolutely immutable nature, to make it not merely universally valid, but absolutely unmodifiable. Once this point is made clear, what also becomes clear from Saπadeh’s point of view is that whatever we need to organize our worldly affairs, whether it is of the nature of guiding principles or factual knowledge, cannot be found in divine laws. The former, he says, are “matters that evolve and progress through [new] discoveries and inventions, whereas ‘divine laws’ remain immutable … because of the nature of revelation”.66 Here Saπadeh is referring to the basic ingredients of practical knowledge, which reduce themselves to two main ingredients: factual (scientific) knowledge and normative knowledge. To have practical knowledge – that is, to know what we ought to do about our worldly affairs – is, as we saw, to know what ends we ought to pursue and to know how to fulfil these ends. Practical reason cannot merely content itself with determining “how to secure the obtaining of the practical means for managing the affairs of society and maintaining its system”. It must go beyond the latter to tackling the question of how to bring about “the transformation of [the] social system in accordance with its ideals and what it deems to be better suited for advancing human social life”.67 And it is possible for practical reasons to address itself to the latter question only in its capacity as normative reason – that is, in its capacity as a generator of “moral principles and of philosophical outlooks on the foundation of social life and its ideals”.68 Now, the contents of practical knowledge, whether they take a factual (scientific) significance or a normative significance, are not immutable. Saπadeh did not explain what he precisely meant by that. Was his intention to ascertain their lack of universal validity? Or was his point simply that they are modifiable, at least, in principle? It appears that the latter accords better with the general thrust of his argument, notwithstanding that the contents of normative knowledge (that is, knowledge of values), taken alone, were considered by him to be devoid of any universal validity.69 However, in ascertaining that the contents of practical knowledge in general “evolve and progress through [new] discoveries” he appeared to be suggesting, at least, that they should be characterized as being modifiable in the light of new ideas or facts we discover or in the light of new situations in which we find ourselves that offer novel approaches to our problems and the like. There are, then, new ideas or new facts [293]


waiting to be discovered and whose discovery would not leave the contents of our previous practical knowledge intact. But what appears to apply to the contents of normative knowledge in particular is that they are not only modifiable in the light of new discoveries but also relative. Their mutability goes hand in hand with their relativity. This becomes obvious in view of the fact that their relativity entails, for Saπadeh, that they vary from one cultural perspective to another. “What is good for a Syrian,” he says, “is not necessarily what is good for an Arab or Indian … But what is good for a Syrian could be good for a Greek … And what is good for an Arab could be good for a Saljuk and an Afghan.”70 Values, in other words, are relative to cultures, and when two or more societies share the same cultural perspective, their values are expected to be similar. But if values vary with cultures, then obviously they could vary within the same society in tandem with the changes that its culture undergoes. If the contents of practical knowledge are of a mutable nature, then, regardless of what accounts for their mutable nature, they cannot be entailed by what divine law prescribes. It is a mere tautology, of course, that knowledge of what is contingent and mutable cannot be derived from knowledge of what is necessary and eternal. This appears to preclude the possibility of any practical judgements being derivable from any divine injunctions. But how can we account in this case for the fact that a sacred text such as the Bible or the Qurπan, for example, contains practical judgements – that is, ought-judgements allegedly expressing what God prescribes we do in the here and now? Saπadeh, of course, does not deny that practical injunctions are to be found in so-called texts. And in the Qurπan and the Torah in particular, as he hastens to admit, we find practical injunctions not only of a moral nature but also of the kind that could serve as a basis for informing a political community with its own state institutions. “The issue of separation between religion and the state in Muhammadenism,” he says, “is more difficult to resolve than in Christianity, for the state is found in Qurπanic texts as it is found in the Torah.”71 This means that if the texts in question are revealed, then they appear to contain divine injunctions to the effect that those whom God was addressing ought to organize their community around certain principles and adopt a certain kind of legal and political system and the like.

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Saπadeh’s admission that such injunctions are found in the Qurπan and the Torah is not an admission that our practical knowledge is entailed by our knowledge of divine laws. For even if we assume that the religious texts in question are revealed, the fact remains that the rules or principles prescribed by these texts for guiding our state-building efforts logically cannot express divine law. To say that they are prescribed by God is not to change their mutable, relative nature and make them subsumable under divine law. There is, indeed (if Saπadeh’s analysis is correct), a logical ban on construing them as in any way akin to divine law, because so construing them would amount to making what is eternal temporal or what is temporal eternal. But how are we supposed to construe, in this case, the putative divine injunction that the state be organized around certain principles? Saπadeh’s ingenious answer, which is to be found throughout Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages), does not put any first-order theistic beliefs into question.72 It can be summed up in the following way. Since the alleged divine injunction in question concerns worldly matters, it has to be understood as a hypothetical and not as a categorical injunction. When understood in this way, it can be easily construed as presupposing the truth of an empirical proposition of the form: if the historical, cultural and environmental conditions in which humans find themselves are of such-and-such a type, then the political and legal institutions that are suitable for them are of such-and-such a type. And the alleged divine injunction in question could be construed, in this case, as being addressed to peoples whose historical cultural and environmental conditions are of the type referred to in the antecedent of the previous conditional statement. Thus, it would be prescribing only to those peoples that they adopt legal and political institutions of the type referred to in the consequent of that statement. It is obvious that the conditional statement in question expresses something of factual significance and whatever support it has would have nothing to do with divine law, but with historical, sociological and anthropological “laws”. In other words, whether we ought to establish legal and political institutions of the type in question has nothing to do with divine law as such, but with whether the establishment of such legal and political institutions is what is warranted by the type of historical, cultural and environmental conditions surrounding our existence. And

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whether the latter type of conditions warrants our establishing legal and political institutions of the requisite kind depends on whether there is in fact some sort of a uniform connection between the two. And the fact that some religious text, implicitly or explicitly, prescribes the adoption of legal and political institutions of the kind in question does not invalidate the latter observation. Thus, we are back with Saπadeh’s original assumption – namely, that practical knowledge is not derivable from knowledge of divine law and that religious questions and practical questions are two separate types of questions. Saπadeh reinforces the latter conclusion by an additional consideration that pertains to the nature of what he took to be the credal essence of theistic religion. Theistic religion, according to Saπadeh, be it of the Christian or Islamic variety, “is at its basis and in its evolved form a doctrine [embodying] knowledge of the origin or man and his destiny”.73 What this means is that the credal core or essence of a theistic religion such as Christianity or Islam consists of a belief in a transcendent God who is the ultimate ground of all there is and a belief in Judgement Day. The importance of delineating the essential ingredients of theistic belief, thus, is seen as having logical and epistemological priority over all other ingredients. And that, in turn, provides us with the ultimate criterion to be used in determining what candidate-belief can be considered essential to a theistic point of view and must, therefore, be incorporated into the set of first-order religious beliefs. One important point to be emphasized here is that the two ingredients that Saπadeh took to be constitutive of the credal essence of Christianity or Islam are of a purely metaphysical nature. Belief in God is a belief in a transcendent being, and belief in Judgement Day is one that presupposes a belief in a resurrection world beyond our world. Both beliefs point to a reality transcending our spacio-temporal reality and are, therefore, of a purely metaphysical nature. But if these two beliefs are the ultimate constituents of theistic belief, then no candidate-belief can be considered essential to a theistic point of view, unless it can be shown to be somehow necessarily related to the latter two beliefs. Thus the question that confronts Saπadeh now is whether the belief that we ought to organize our worldly affairs along certain lines and in accordance with certain principles is essential to a Christian or Islamic point of view. This question reduces itself, in the present context, to whether the latter belief can be necessarily, and not merely contingently, related to the credal essence of theism. [296]


In dealing with the later question, Saπadeh presupposes, without explicitly stating, that only beliefs of a metaphysical nature can be necessarily related to the credal essence of theism. A theistic point of view, he tells us, in so far as it is constituted by the belief in a transcendent God and the belief in Judgement Day, “cannot form an outlook on life and the world in the social-economic-spiritual sense”. However, it can assist the birth of such an outlook, but the conditions that are essential for its formation are a function of “the readiness of the socio-physical environment”.74 In other words, such an outlook is logically independent from the credal essence of religion, although religion, as a matter of fact, cannot be excluded from the factors that make its full emergence possible. A natural habitat becomes “a means for effecting the emergence of society’s outlook on life inasmuch as this outlook becomes the vehicle for the realization of religious doctrine”.75 Factually speaking, there is, then, some sort of a dialectical relationship between religion and outlook on life and the world of the society in which religion initially makes its appearance. If we look at this relationship from the socio-historical point of view, “religion [initially] is an effect and not a cause. But it becomes a cause after the establishment of its doctrine.”76 Saπadeh’s main point can be restated in the following way. If we look at the relationship in question from the socio-historical point of view, what we find is that the ingredients of society’s outlook on life and the world are given, at least in their rudimentary form, prior to the emergence of the religion which constitutes the second term in this relationship. This religion, at its beginning, incorporates in a modified form some of these ingredients, and subsequent to its establishment and its becoming widely accepted within the society in question, it becomes an important factor in reinforcing that outlook in its modified form. The outlook itself is a product of man and not something inherent in the credal essence of religion. But for religion to be accepted by the society in which it appears, it cannot transcend that society’s outlook on life and the world in such a way as to make itself fundamentally at variance with the newly emerging outlook of society. Therein lays the necessity for its incorporating some of the essential ingredients of this emerging outlook and for its becoming a medium for its full emergence, while in the meantime making it a medium for its own realization.77 This dialectical relationship is dictated, then, by social and historical “laws” and not by the essential ingredients of theistic belief. This, for [297]


him, is evidenced by the fact that religions like Islam and Christianity, although they share the same credal core, do not share the same outlook on life and the world. It is also evidenced by the fact that when religion spreads beyond its original environment, its outlook on life and the world must undergo whatever modifications are necessary for bringing it closer to the outlook that is dominant in the new environment. In an important paragraph in Islam in its Two Messages, Saπadeh expresses the crux of the latter point in the following manner: Every Daπwa [religious message], regardless of how general is its ultimate goal and even if it covers all of humankind, must be such that its outlook on life and the world will have to correspond to the characteristics and the spiritual readiness of the environment in which it originates. It cannot deviate from what is required by its environment, unless it leaves it and is addressed to a different environment … There can be no doubt that the spreading of the Daπwa and its acceptance in other environments must be subject to the principle requiring that the philosophical outlook originating in a certain environment be in line with the requirements of the new environments, or else undergo the necessary modifications to adjust to these new environments whose acceptance of it might have been involuntary or subject to some historical factor.78

It is obvious, on the basis of the preceding, that Saπadeh perceives an outlook on life and the world, even if it is incorporated into the teachings of some religion, as something variable and modifiable. It, therefore, can be only contingently related to religion and thus cannot be derived from its invariable credal essence. This is not to say that man’s understanding of the credal essence of his religion is invariable. How man interprets the belief in a transcendent God and Judgement Day, according to Saπadeh, depends on his culture, what Saπadeh calls “the mental readiness of the socio-physical environment”.79 What is invariable, then, is the supernatural or metaphysical character of the belief in question. This is to say that the various interpretations we could have of such a belief, no matter how divergent they might be in view of the divergent cultures of the interpreters, would have to be interpretations of it as a supernatural or metaphysical belief. Once an interpretation results in squeezing all supernatural elements out of that belief – such as we find in, for example, God-is-dead-theology – that interpretation, in fact, only succeeds in analysing away the Christian or Islamic character of that belief. Therefore, [298]


as long as the interpretation does not step outside the bounds of Christianity or Islam, it must preserve the supernatural or metaphysical character of that belief. Now, if such a belief has a sui generis supernatural or metaphysical content, then there can be neither socio-political consequences attendant on it nor a way of necessarily linking it to a specific outlook on life and the world. For no matter how we interpret its irreducibly metaphysical content, our interpretation must by necessity yield something that points to a reality beyond space and time and thus an immutable reality. This irreducibly metaphysical content of the belief in question is logically compatible with any actual or conceivable outlook on life and the world, and cannot, therefore, be necessarily linked to one such outlook to the exclusion of all others. For if it were so linked to one such outlook, that would be tantamount to either making it, per impossible, a belief about what is mutable or making the outlook linked to it, again per impossible, a repository of what is immutable, be it a value system or a set of prescriptions concerning how to manage our worldly affairs. One might wonder at this point as to what to make of Saπadeh’s acknowledgement, which was referred to earlier, that the belief that God commands us to do good and refrain from doing evil is one of the three basic ingredients of theistic belief à la Christianity or Islam. Does not such a belief, one might argue, have consequences concerning what values to adopt in the here and now? And if so, does it not follow, then, that the credal essence of Christianity or Islam points to worldly, practical consequences and not merely to eschatological and supernatural ones? Saπadeh, indeed, makes it essential for a Christian or a Muslim to believe that God commands us to do good and refrain from doing evil. This, no doubt, follows from the belief in an all-good God, which is at the credal core of Christianity or Islam. However, the belief in an all-good God, in his view, cannot entail more than the empty tautology that an all-good God prescribes the doing of good deeds and proscribes the doing of evil deeds. But when we move beyond this tautology and specify what it is that constitutes a good or an evil deed in the here and now, we find ourselves in the realm of the relative, the variable and the contingent: the realm of the temporal and historical. What is good or evil from God’s perspective, however, transcends history, cuts across all cultural differences, does not acknowledge any national distinctions and is, therefore, of strict universality and absolute validity. And so it is man and [299]


not God who is the source of normative prescriptions and proscriptions that are valid for man in the here and now, for the latter, in their very nature, can only be relative and variable.80 Here Saπadeh’s point once again is that what would have to be considered good or evil from God’s perspective would have to be subsumable under divine law, whose transcendent, eternal character, as we have seen Saπadeh argue, precludes the possibility of its entailing any practical or specific normative knowledge. The socio-political content of the ideas of good and evil is inversely proportional to the degree of their universality – that is, to the extent to which they approximate what is prescribed and proscribed by divine law; the more universal they are, the less their socio-political content is. And when they reach the epitome of their universality and coincide with the requirements of divine law, they become totally devoid of any socio-political content and totally disassociated from any specific outlook on life and the world. This brings us back to the crux of Saπadeh’s second argument – namely, that the doctrinal core of Christianity or Islam is of a purely metaphysical nature, which precludes the possibility of its having any logical bearing on questions of a worldly or practical nature. Saπadeh was not exactly embracing the positivistic stance vis-à-vis metaphysics according to which metaphysical propositions are devoid of cognitive significance. But he was certainly sympathetic to that aspect of their position which required viewing metaphysical propositions as compatible with any worldly state of affairs, actual or conceivable. This was what prompted him to spurn in no uncertain terms a position of one of his early disciples, which he took to imply that “man’s social, political and psychological affairs can be settled by appeal to faith in conventional religious assumptions that he called ‘truths’ and by substituting faith for reason, science and proof ”.81 His point here is that religious assumptions – that is, assumptions concerning the ultimate basis of existence and the ultimate destiny of man and the like, which human beings accept on faith – can have no logical bearing on matters of a socio-political or worldly nature. The latter, because they are devoid of any metaphysical or supernatural significance, can be tackled only by “reason, science and proof ”.82 Here, Saπadeh is driving a logical wedge between the province of religious beliefs and the province of beliefs concerning worldly matters. The former, in view of their metaphysical character, can be the object of faith and not reason; their truth is assumed and not proven. They are, [300]


from the point of view of the man of faith, absolute, immutable and not subject to external criteria. But the latter beliefs, being subject to rational criteria, are of a different logical type. Their truth has to be established and not merely postulated; they are subject to revision and modification, they are relative and mutable.83 But if religious beliefs and beliefs concerning worldly matters constitute two different logical types of belief, then neither can be the basis for the other: they are separated by a logical divide. It is clear by now how Saπadeh can reconcile, within the context of his second argument, his acknowledgement that a religion like Islam is intertwined with politics, with his assumption about there being a logical divide separating first-order religious beliefs from practical beliefs. Such reconciliation can be accomplished by keeping the two types of relationship – logical, necessary, and factual contingent – separate. The relationship between Islam and politics is to be viewed, in his opinion, as a historical relationship, and thus as a factual, contingent one. This is to say that the explanation for the fact that Islam concerned itself with worldly matters right from the time of its inception is not to be found in its doctrinal essence but in the historical circumstances under which Islam emerged and developed within the confines of the Arab Peninsula. If it is impossible for the practical beliefs contained in some Qurπanic texts to be derived from divine law, as he attempts to show in his first argument, then, by parity of reasoning, they cannot be derived from the credal essence of Islam. These practical beliefs, be they of a political or legal or a social nature, would not have had any place in Islam had the historical circumstances under which Islam arose and developed during the Prophet Muhammad’s life been similar to those circumstances under which Christianity arose. To paraphrase Saπadeh’s way of expressing this point, had Jesus and Muhammad exchanged places, Islam would have looked more like Christianity and Christianity would have looked more like Islam.84 The mistake that is often made, according to Saπadeh, is that the relationship between Islam and politics, which is historical through and through, is confused for a necessary or logical relationship. Those who confuse the former for the latter are inclined to give Qurπanic texts that have to do with worldly affairs the same importance and the same logical status accorded to texts expressing first-order religious beliefs. But these texts are “of two types and must be approached from the perspective of religion and from the perspective of [politics]. And it is by this method alone that we can truly understand Muhammad’s Islam from a historical [301]


point of view”85 (italics mine). Therefore, to give these two types of text the same logical status is to commit a conceptual mistake. It is at bottom to confuse the contingent relationship between Islam and politics for a necessary relationship, to confuse what historical circumstances made appendant to Islam for what is integral to its credal core. It is only by avoiding this conceptual confusion that we can “prevent … the ossification of Muhammadanism”,86 that is, the ossification of the outlook on life and the world that we find in part of the Qurπanic text. For we would then see that outlook for what it is – as a product of the historical circumstances surrounding the birth and early development of Islam. Saπadeh’s point is that once we disassociate the outlook in question from the credal core of Islam, we can no longer view it as absolutely valid – that is, valid for all times and places. Nor, for that matter, can we view any of the practical injunctions embedded in it as absolutely binding on believers. This outlook can, then, be taken as having validity only relative to historical, cultural and environmental conditions of a certain type and as ill-suited, unless modified in some way or another, for a society whose historical, cultural and environmental conditions are of a different type. And this, in turn, makes it clear that any practical injunctions associated with this outlook cannot be interpreted as more than hypothetical injunctions to the effect that we ought to do whatever it is that this outlook requires only if the conditions in which we find ourselves are of the requisite type. And once this outlook (along with the practical injunctions attendant on it) is accorded its proper logical status, the most important barrier blocking any attempt to modify it in response to changing circumstances can be removed and its ossification can be avoided. The crux of Saπadeh’s position, as can be seen from our discussion of his first two arguments, is that there is a conceptual or logical divide between religious beliefs and practical beliefs, between the metaphysical, immutable nature of religious doctrine and the worldly, mutable nature of values. Saπadeh attempts to reinforce this position by appealing to a further consideration – namely, the universal nature of religion. This brings us to his third argument, the argument for the universality of religion. Before we proceed any further in our discussion of this argument, let us try to understand what he means by “universal” in this context. There are two senses to the term “universal” as applied to religion, but only one [302]


of them concerns Saπadeh in the context of his third argument. There is, first, the sense according to which a theistic religion such as Christianity or Islam “is at its basis non-national and contrary to nationalism”.87 Co-religionists are all brothers, regardless of their national, racial or cultural differences. There is one thing that unites them and it is their religious faith.88 The other sense, which is related to the first but not identical with it, is that religion reaches out to all human beings, regardless of their historical circumstances, cultures, races or nationalities. In short, “it claims to be for the whole world”,89 which is another way of saying that it presents itself as valid for all times and places. It is this sense of “universal” that is of direct relevance to Saπadeh’s third argument. The main thrust of this argument is to show that the universalism of a religion such as Christianity or Islam makes it incoherent to suppose that its core doctrine embodies an outlook on life and the world or a certain value system with a specific content. A religion such as Islam, for example, was bound, in its institutionalized form, to acquire a sociopolitical orientation embodying a certain outlook in question. For Islam can appropriate the outlook in question by incorporating it into its doctrinal core either by absolutizing that outlook or by relativizing itself and becoming divested of its universal nature. But if Saπadeh’s analysis is correct, then an outlook on life and the world, along with its socio-political content, is in its nature relative. Thus it would be logically incoherent to absolutize it. However, the other alternative is no less absurd than the first. If Islam relativizes itself by incorporating the outlook in question into its doctrinal core, what this amounts to is making what is absolute relative. The first option results in absolutizing what is essentially relative, whereas the second option results in relativizing what is essentially absolute. And both are obviously absurd. There is, however, a third option that can reconcile the universalism of religion with the relativity of the outlook on life and the world associated with it. This option consists of relegating the outlook along with its socio-political content to one of the contingent features or aspects of religion. This option, in Saπadeh’s view, embraces secularism without compromising religion. For by relegating that outlook, along with its socio-political content, to a mere contingent feature of religion, it places its source in the historical, cultural and environmental conditions of man and not in religious doctrine. Thus, to subject this outlook to rational [303]


scrutiny, as a secular point of view requires, and to modify it or even replace it by another alternative outlook, would not in any way require tampering with any of the essential ingredients of religious doctrine. We have seen Saπadeh arguing so far that the eternality of divine law, the metaphysical nature of religious doctrine and the universal nature of religion entail, either severally or conjointly, that a conceptual ban should be put on appealing to faith, rather than to reason, to settle questions concerning worldly matters. There is, however, one further consideration that he marshals in support of the latter conclusion, which brings us to his fourth and last argument, the argument from the nature of God. The latter argument is premised not on some philosophical conception of God, but on that conception of Him that we find embedded in the Christian-Islamic tradition. Within this tradition, God is viewed as the ultimate transcendent creator of man and everything else in existence. It is also central to this theistic tradition to believe that God created everything for a reason. God, on this same view, is a supremely perfect being and is thus necessarily endowed with all conceivable perfections. The one perfection that is of special importance here is that He never acts arbitrarily but always for a reason. He is a supremely rational being and never acts capriciously or contrary to reason. This traditional theistic conception of God cannot be consistently embraced, so Saπadeh avers, along with an anti-secular stance. Why is that? His answer goes something like this: to uphold an anti-secular point of view could only mean subjecting human endeavours in all areas of human life to criteria embedded in the value system that became appendant to some theistic religion under the pressures of the historical circumstances surrounding the process of the institutionalization of that religion. Now, an anti-secularist is bound, by the nature of his outlook, to view the value system in question, along with its socio-political content, as integral to his religious belief. It thus becomes inevitable for him to absolutize it and make it immune to revision or modification, except in those few cases that are not covered by clear-cut religious texts. But this would yield consequences that God, as conceived by Christians or Muslims, could not have intended for us. Among these consequences are the enslavement of man’s thought and actions by a rigid system (“rigid code”, in his words) and the relegation of his rational faculty to the level of man’s gratuitous features. To probe deeper into Saπadeh’s argument here, let us first give in full his own formulation of it in his own words. He says. [304]


We are an active force in this world. And if God created us and gave us intellectual talents, a rational faculty by means of which to cognize, think and determine our ends, He did not give us that in vain. The human intellect was not brought into being to be put in shackles and become paralysed, but to cognize, perceive, ponder, draw distinctions, determine ends and act on existence. And in our view, absolutely nothing may incapacitate this essential power and this essential talent of man. Reason in man is itself the ultimate and basic code. It is man’s ultimate talent … And if any rules were laid down … to abolish reason, man’s basic distinction would disappear and man would cease to be man and would be downgraded to the level of mindless brutes. Divine or natural law is not susceptible to the influence of the cognizing, discriminating activity of reason, and for that it is only suitable for inanimate objects and brutes. But as to man, God gave him the power to cognize and discriminate and to look into his affairs and shape them in the manner that serves his interests and his grand designs in life. Thus it is not possible for God Himself to incapacitate this power by means of an eternal rigid code. Therefore … man … was meant to be free by the will of God … to direct himself [by reason] towards the better, to determine by himself what constitutes in his life a better destiny. And religion by making the Day of Resurrection … the day we have to answer to God, acknowledges itself … the principle that man is to freely choose his direction and the destiny that he wants for himself.90

There are several arguments in the above quotation all wrapped into one. But the main thrust of Saπadeh’s position can be depicted in the following manner. On the theistic conception of God, He created everything for a reason. Thus God created man’s rational faculty for a reason. Now, the raison d’être behind a created thing is the function or functions its creation is supposed to fulfil. And the function of man’s rational faculty is “to cognize, perceive, ponder, draw distinctions, determine ends and act on existence”. This is to say that reason has a cognitive as well as normative function and thus a transcending function. This is tantamount to saying its function is not to be reduced to thinking and reasoning about reality in its “tacticity”, but it must be extended so as to encompass that of determining ends – that is, determining what reality ought to be. And it is in the latter that reason’s transcending activity lies. What it ultimately means to attribute a cognitive-descriptive function and a [305]


normative function to reason is that practical knowledge is its exclusive domain. It is for man’s reason and for it alone to determine the facts surrounding our existence and to determine in the light of these facts what we ought to do to better our lives and the like. If the latter is subsumed under the functions of reason, then it must naturally be part of God’s raison d’être for giving man his rational faculty. Moreover, reason can perform its function fully only if it is left to its own devices. Therein is the basis for Saπadeh’s emphasis in the above quotation on the autonomy of man and his reason, on the necessity of letting man “freely choose his direction and the destiny that he wants for himself ”. The autonomy of reason means, among other things, that it cannot be subjected to any external criteria or constraints, religious or otherwise. Reason, as he put it, “is the ultimate code” – that is, there are no rules or principles above rational rules and principles by means of which the latter can be checked. If so, then it must follow, in the light of the preceding, that God’s raison d’être for giving man his rational faculty is to give man the freedom “to direct himself … towards the better, to determine by himself what constitutes in his life a better destiny”. In other words, part of God’s raison d’être for endowing man with reason is to create this kind of being that can be left to his own devices to determine how to manage his worldly affairs and for what ends. Now, if God, as Christians and Muslims give us to understand, is a supremely rational being, then His actions necessarily cannot be subject to conflicting reasons. God, in other words, cannot act for one reason on one occasion and for a contrary reason on another, for if, per impossible, He were to do so, His actions would be capricious and devoid of rationality. More specifically, God cannot on the one hand give man a rational faculty to make him a free and autonomous knower and evaluator, to determine on his own by what system of rules to manage his worldly affairs, and on the other to institute a rigid and eternal system of rules by which he should manage his worldly affairs. For to institute or sanction the institution of such a system amounts to obliterating man’s ability to exercise his rational powers. It amounts to dictating that man, like brutes or inanimate objects, obey only divine or natural law. But since God gave man his rational faculty, and God by necessity does not act for conflicting reasons, then He could have dictated that man be subject to an eternal and fixed system of rules. God could not – logically could not – have given man rational powers to elevate him above all [306]


creatures and free him from enslavement to nature, to rigid forms and patterns of life and to his animalistic instincts, only to downgrade him later to the level of other creatures and enslave him by a rigid and eternal system of rules. Now, since opposition to secularism on the part of religionists amounts to elevating the value system that historical conditions made a part of their religion to the status of divine law, then their anti-secular stance must be contrary to God’s rationale for giving man a rational faculty. For so elevating the value system with its socio-political content can only mean making it an immutable set of rules impervious to the scrutiny of reason. Man is called on to blindly obey these rules that were supposedly laid down in heaven. But this is tantamount to destroying the autonomy of reason, for now it is no longer reason that is the ultimate arbiter, but a system of rules that is mistaken for divine law. Saπadeh’s point would not be adversely affected here by the argument that opposition to secularism still leaves ample room for reason, as evidenced, for example by the rule of ijtihad (interpretation) in Islam.91 Saπadeh himself did not deny that ijtihad was “very useful in developing the legal system” of Islam.92 Religion, he acknowledged, is capable of evolving, but its evolution is extremely slow, and therein lies its danger.93 Any time a new idea is introduced it is resisted in the most vehement way, unless a religious text can be found that upholds or sanctions that idea.94 The point, then, is that reason loses its autonomy and ultimacy. For even when reason is called on to play a role, as is the case in ijtihad or theology in general, it is not left to its own devices to work out solutions to the problems confronting it, but is required to operate under the ultimate guidance of faith. Whatever new ideas it spawns, they must, first, pass the test of conformity to scripture before being considered for adoption. Rational considerations become subject to religious considerations, which leaves nothing of the autonomy of reason. The rules and criteria that are extracted from certain religious texts would then be viewed not only as impervious to rational scrutiny, but also as the ultimate matrix within which reason is to operate. Opposition to secularism is, then, no more than a recipe for the destruction of the autonomy of reason. It is precisely this aspect of it that makes it contrary to divine will. God, as Saπadeh has argued, willed that “man … direct himself [by reason] towards the better … [and] determine by himself what constitutes in his life a better destiny”. [307]


However, an anti-secularist not only calls for the destruction of the autonomy of reason, but also claims he is merely acting in conformity with divine will. But if God, as conceived by that anti-secularist himself, is supremely perfect and cannot, by logical necessity, act inconsistently, then He could not have willed at once that man, His most prized creation, be endowed with rational powers and that man refrain from embracing a secular outlook. Thus, Saπadeh thought, the analysis he offered of the concept of God amounts to a reductio of the anti-secular stance of a Christian or Muslim. And this secures the conclusion that only by rejecting that stance can we restore to man his true status as God’s most prized creation and restore to God His true essence as a supremely perfect being.

Conclusion Implicit in the four arguments were examined at length is a searching critique of the outlook on life and the world embodied in an institutionalized religion such as Islam or Christianity for that matter. This critique can be summed up in the following manner: institutionalized religion, by its very nature, has a tendency to absolutize itself in toto – that is, to absolutize not only its metaphysical doctrine but also its value system. It is this tendency that makes it a dangerous phenomenon, because it makes it impervious to change and incapable of adapting to new circumstances. Worse yet, this tendency to absolutize itself in all its aspects makes it laden with irrational elements verging on the contradictory. For it could only result in elevating what is mutable by its very nature to the status of the immutable and eternal. Whether it treats the rules embedded in its value system as having the same status as divine law or as part of its doctrinal essence of its universal teachings, the result is the same: what is temporal is rendered eternal, what is relative is made absolute and universal, and what is contingent is agamically converted to what is necessary. And in the process of committing such conceptual howlers, it makes the concept of God itself incoherent. For no sooner it gives us to understand that God is a being whose absolute perfection requires that His actions not be arbitrary or capricious than it conveys to us the opposite notion. For if the former is what is involved in the idea of God, then God must have given man a rational faculty for a reason – that is, so that man may autonomously work out solutions to theoretical as well [308]


as practical problems. But if the value system associated with religion is attributed to God and elevated to the status of divine law, then this is tantamount to depriving reason of its God-given practical (normative) function and making God look like He acted capriciously. By subjecting the religious outlook to the kind of criticism we already examined, Saπadeh did not mean to subject the metaphysical doctrine of religion itself to criticism.95 He left an open question as to whether the metaphysical doctrine could withstand rational scrutiny or not, except in those cases where the religious doctrine might appear to have consequences that clash with established scientific thoughts. Here, for example, the story of creation in the Bible and belief in miracles and the like would be viewed by him as examples of the latter cases.96 In such cases, we have beliefs that cannot be accepted from a rational point of view, and thus religion must reinterpret these beliefs in a manner that would make them reconcilable with the scientific point of view or else risk the charge of irrationality. Here Saπadeh is perfectly consistent with himself, for one important consequence of his rationalistic stance is that reason is the ultimate arbiter. What this means is that if rational considerations clash with, for example, religious considerations (considerations of faith) or theological ones, the former must be taken as overriding. But as long as religious doctrine is not taken as having any non-metaphysical implications concerning worldly matters, it poses no danger to his mission as a social reformer and he sees no reason to subject it to philosophical scrutiny. Saπadeh’s critique of the religious outlook on life and the world was the first serious philosophical attempt in modern and contemporary Arab thought to resolve a dilemma that has bedevilled every Arab and Muslim thinker in the last two centuries. The question that confronted Arab and Muslim thinkers took the following form: how can we incorporate modern values into Arab or Muslim culture without compromising Islam? The value system embodied in Shariπa (Islamic law) does not seem to be compatible with the values we so desperately need to modernize Arab or Muslim society. Thus, we seem to be confronted with two unacceptable choices: either we compromise Islam or we forgo the modernization of society. Saπadeh’s solution, as the previous discussion made obvious, lies in looking at that aspect of the shariπa that has to do with worldly affairs as not being an integral part of the credal essence of Islam. Thus, detaching it from Islam leaves that doctrinal essence intact and does not [309]


compromise Islam in any way. Saπadeh’s main contribution here is that he paved the way for resolving the dilemma in question by showing how philosophical (that is, conceptual and epistemological) considerations can be brought to bear on the questions at issue. This, in my judgement, is the most important part of Saπadeh’s ardent attempt at philosophizing politics and developing a normative political philosophy.

NOTES 1 This is what Antun Saπadeh hoped to accomplish in his two books Nushuπ Al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: 1938; and Nushuπ al-Ummah al-Souriyah (The Genesis of the Syrian Nation). The latter was never published, because its first draft was confiscated following Saπadeh’s second arrest in 1937 and is believed to have been destroyed by the French authorities. 2 Antun Saπadeh, Shuruh fi al-Aqida (Commentaries on the Ideology), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1958, p. 21. 3 It must be noted here that only when Marxism is interpreted as a thorough-going determinism is the normative collapsed into the factual. For only under such an interpretation would it be correct to say, on Marxian premises, that what ought to be the case is that which will inevitably be the case, given the objective conditions inherent in social reality. 4 Saπadeh rejects geographical as well as biological and economic determinism. This is obvious from the fact that he views man within the context of his interaction with his material conditions as constituting the “negative factor”, while he views the latter conditions as constituting the “positive factor”. See Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, pp. 44, 48, 110; and Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956, pp. 88, 94. 5 This explains why Saπadeh thought that restructuring Syrian society cannot be accomplished by merely supplying the agent of social change (the party in this case) with a scientific theory of society, but involves also supplying it with a new philosophical outlook. See Al-Nizam al-Jadid, no. 15, Beirut, February 1951, pp. 19–21. 6 For a more detailed analysis of liberalism’s methodological rationality, see Kenneth R. Minogue, The Liberal Mind, London: Vintage Books, 1968, pp. 25–36. 7 This view goes back to David Hume and is still central to liberal thought. See David Hume, A Treatise on Human Nature, ed. L.A. Selby-Bigge, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, p. 415. 8 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 96. 9 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, chapter 4 and p. 137. 10 Ibid., chapter 7. 11 Ibid., pp. 129–132. 12 Ibid. 13 Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 158. [310]


14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

Al-Nizam Ai-Jadid, pp. 69–76. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 165. Ibid., pp. 129–132. Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, pp. 11–18, 157–160. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 104–110. Ibid., pp. 21–28. Ibid., p. 7. Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 170. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 109–110. Ibid., pp. 31–32. Ibid., p. 104. Ibid. Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 158. Ibid. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, pp. 69–76. Ibid. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 31–32. Ibid. Al-Nizam Al-jadid, pp. 69–76. Ibid., p. 73. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 71–73. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 71–73. Ibid., pp. 74–75. Ibid., p. 73. Ibid., p. 71. Ibid. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, op. cit., p. 74. Ibid., chapters 5 and 6. Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, pp. 26–27, 38–39. Ibid., p. 133. This point is obvious throughout Marx’s Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, translated by T.B. Bottmore, in Erich Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man, New York: Fredrick Ungar, 1961. See on this issue, Adel Daher, Al-Mujtamaπ al-Insan (Society and Man), Beirut: Mawakif Publications, 1981, part III. Ibid. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, chapters 5 and 6. Daher, op. cit., part III. Ibid. These three principles are: separation of religion from the state; abolition of barriers between religions; and banning the clergy from interfering in political and judicial matters. See Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 119–135. A series of these articles which appeared in the early 1940s in al-Zawbaπa, an Argentine bi-weekly, were later collected in one volume entitled Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages), which was published in Damascus in 1954. We refer here to the 3rd edition (Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1958). [311]


54 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 119–131. 55 Ibid., pp. 133–135. 56 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Masπalah al-Lubnaniyyah (The Lebanese Question), in Silsilat al-Nidham al-Jadid, Beirut: SSNP Department of Culture, 1976, p. 121. 57 Ibid., p. 131. 58 Ibid. 59 Ibid. 60 Al-Islam fi Risalateih, pp. 167–168. 61 Saπadeh acknowledged the existence of certain doctrinal differences between Christianity and Islam, but he attributed them to the theological sphere – that is, he considered them differences on the level of second-order and not first-order religious discourse. This point is evident throughout ibid. But see in particular, pp. 116–152. 62 Ibid., p. 11. 63 Saπadeh, The Lebanese Question, p. 131. 64 Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih, p. 168. 65 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 136. He affirms here that the concept of natural law merely serves to denote uniformities in nature and does not stand for imperatives or the like. That, obviously, is contrary to how Aquinas and others in the so-called natural law tradition understood natural law. 66 Saπadeh, The Lebanese Question, p. 131. 67 Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih, p. 65. 68 Ibid., p. 64. 69 This denial follows from his advocacy of perspectival relativism, which we have discussed in this chapter. 70 Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih, p. 165. What he means here by “Arab” is someone who is indigenous to the Arab Peninsula and not an Arabic-speaking individual. 71 Ibid., p. 156. 72 Ibid., pp. 154–185. 73 Ibid., pp. 167–168. 74 Ibid., p. 168. 75 Ibid. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid., p. 167. 79 Ibid., p. 168. 80 Ibid., p. 170. 81 Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 44. 82 Ibid. 83 Saπadeh, The Lebanese Question, pp. 130–131. 84 Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih, p. 20. 85 Ibid., p. 114. 86 Ibid. 87 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 162. 88 Ibid. 89 Ibid. See also Al-Islamfi Risalateih, p. 173, where Saπadeh says, “Every religion or religious doctrine claims to be for all peoples.” 90 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 127–128. [312]


91 Ijtihad gives some room for reason to operate, but the fact remains that scriptures are its ultimate guide. However, Saπadeh thought that reason must be left to its devices – that is, to operate autonomously. 92 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 128. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 49. See also Nasif Nassar, Tariq al-Istiqial al-Falsafi, Beirut: Dar Attabira, 1975, p. 155. 96 Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, pp. 43–44 and The Rise of Nations, pp. 20–21.

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8 Secularism in Saπadeh’s Thought Rabeeπh Debs

An introduction to the general concept of secularism is necessary to understand Saπadeh’s secular discourse in both theory and practice. Obviously, we are concerned with the word as a concept and not its historical sense.1 Whether it is termed secularism, secularity, secularization, temporality or laicism, the concept does not indicate a sordid world or a rejection of religion. It is the ideology of politics dissociated from religion. It is man’s declaration that the “ecclesiastical spirit no longer inspires the policy of the world”.2 After a long conflict between the clergy and laymen, the Pope’s unquestioned authority has greatly receded in spite of the independence of the Vatican. Similarly the Caliph’s authority has been terminated even in Turkey when the secularist Mustafa Kamal announced the Republic in 1924. Secularism does not imply “speaking of God in a secular fashion” as it is sometimes misinterpreted.3 Secularism is not a matter of fashion and it does not mean that religions have become irreverent or that religious men will cease to have a national allegiance. But the bases on which a religious society is set up are essentially different from those on which a secular society is founded. With secularism, religion will no more cross political boundaries to attain satisfaction. It will be naturally directed towards spiritual sublimation, which is the highest standard of religious faith. The principle of free thought with which secular trends are usually accompanied does not render a secular regime with no identity. A secular society that does not force people to follow a fixed pattern of ends and ideals is not simply “a society without official images”.4 Munby, on the other hand, is absolutely right to state that unsatisfied people have to be given hope in the reality of continuous economic and social change for their own interest, for when this hope no longer exists revolutions break out.5 [315]


The different schools of secularism reflect the fact that secularism is not a unique concept: partial secularism is concerned with secondary affairs of human life; political secularism with separation of religion from the state; and social secularism considers religion a quality of the individual not of society.6 In general, secularism has created a genuine direct literature characterized by a special scientific style – the style of logical arguments.

Secular trends in a sectarian society The society we are basically concerned with is that of the Fertile Crescent, particularly Lebanon, that prolific part of Syria. But the effective influence and relationship with Egyptian society also have to be considered, taking into consideration the factor of Syrian cultural activity in Egypt, where minimum freedom had been sought. In contrast to Egypt, conditions “were not particularly favourable to intellectual life in Iraq … the government turned largely to Syria and Egypt to attract representatives of modern education into the country”.7 In Iraq, it was not until the beginning of the 1930s that the non-sectarian “People’s National Group” commenced a limited intellectual activity.8 It is not easy to avoid religious classification even when we are pursuing an objective, historical and secular point of view. The fact that the “renaissance” (nahda) in Syria was cherished and directed by Christians has to be acknowledged. However, it could not be simply justified by their easier access to, and association with, European culture than their Muslim counterparts.9 A deeper analysis would show, in addition to influential historical events, a wide range of liberties for Christians in initiative, education and opportunities. This phenomenon was not due to religious doctrine. The riot of 1840 and the massacres of 1860 had deepened the gap between Muslims (Druzes) and Christians, and has coloured Syrian history with lingering dark patches. The events of 1860 broke out after the intervention of the European countries in Ottoman affairs under the pretence of defending the “Christian minority”. That intervention was prepared for by sowing the seeds of sedition.10 The communal disturbances resulted in heavy losses. A large number of innocent Christians paid the price for the massacres at Mount Lebanon. Turkish suppression compelled a part of the intellectual elite, professionals [316]

SECULARISM IN SAπADEH’S THOUGHT

as well as writers, to migrate to Egypt where they were encouraged to contribute to the awakening process.11 The peasants’ revolution led by Tanious Shaheen showed, beyond doubt, the farmers’ wrath against feudalism and the mutual interests of the sectarian-feudal system. The conflict as a whole was a glaring aspect of the repressed sectarian separation. The sectarian situation preceded the feudal age, says Nassar, but it was contained in the latter’s structures and served as a base for social division.12 Sectarian hatred was expressed in the carnage reported by the press (local and foreign). The special correspondent from The Times reported, from Damascus and Beirut, the Turkish policy for dividing Syria between Muslims and Christians. He also exposed the strife between the Turkish authorities about the fate of Christians and described the fearful situation. The “logic” he constantly adhered to was that of “Christians and Druzes”.13 Literary coverage of that period was equally confusing. For example, Youssef Karam (1823–1889), a symbol of the revolution of 1860, was considered an “intellectual”, at the same time, a “Maronite leader”, a “representative of Lebanese Northern Nationalism”, and the “formulator of the idea of Maronite Nationalism”.14 In any event, the sectarian strife ended with the establishment of Al-Mutassarrifiyya (1861–1918). It was a regime or protocol instituted by an international committee in Beirut and was called as such with respect to its governor whose title Mutassarrif was chosen by the committee. This odd situation was planned by outsiders from the beginning to the end. The soil, of course, was fertile and wide open for them. It is here that it becomes necessary to study the role of secular writers who had their own philosophies of national life. Several questions need to be asked. Who were these writers? How did they appeal to people? What means did they use? Did they deal with the roots of the problem or its outward manifestations? What were the results? Before considering these luminaries, it is worth mentioning that not all of them were intellectuals. Most of them were writers, mostly journalists. The present literature, similar to most world literature, was developed through journals.15 Indeed, a flourishing branch of contemporary literature is that consisting of newspapers and reviews published in Arabic.16 The total number of newspapers issued since the appearance of the first Arabic paper until the end of 1929 was 3,023.17 A renaissance is not measured by the quantity of its writers and journalists, but rather by [317]


the quality of their work. Rightly or wrongly, the quantity signifies a certain trend. The important periodicals of that stage were mainly those of Butrus Bustani, publisher of Nafir Suria in 1860, “the first Arabic publication to appear in Syria”.18 Others have gone far beyond that, considering Nafir Suria as the first important document of national thought in the modern history of the Middle East.19 In addition to other newspapers such as Al-Janna and Al-Junayna, published with his son Salim or with the assistance of other relatives, Bustani founded in 1870 Al-Janan magazine, which is considered the first and most intellectual literary magazine in the Arab world.20 This stream of awakening in the Arab nations, the results of which were a national aspiration to independence,21 was challenged by other informative institutions whose aims were entirely in an opposite direction. Al-Bashir, for instance, was founded by Father Ambroseous Mono, the Jesuit Bishop in Syria, in 1870 to serve the Eastern Catholic Christian sects.22 No Islamic paper was issued in Syria before 1885, the year Thamarat Al-Funoun appeared.23 The profession of journalism did not satisfy those whose spirits throbbed with national ambitions, so they organized several secret councils and assemblies. The secret association of 1875 was not the only one of its kind as first thought. At least two other associations and perhaps more appeared at that time. What is certain from all the sources is that the leaders of these associations were disciples of Butrus Bustani, that essentially non-sectarian figure.24 What is more important than the names of the members is the fact that those associations were secular, secret and revolutionary. They all believed, each in their own special way, in the goal of national liberation. Let us now quickly run through some of the leading representatives of the secular trend in Syria during the second half of the nineteenth century. Shibli Shumayyel (1860–1917) He was an American University of Beirut graduate of medicine and his monthly magazine, Al-Shifaπ, published in Cairo from 1886, expressed his scientific tendency.25 That tendency is profoundly reflected in studies published in Al-Muqtataff,26 the journal that established his reputation as a free thinker.27 Dagher regarded him as the leader of the idea of evolution [318]


in the Arab world,28 whereas others classified him as a pure existentialist.29 Unlike other contemporary free thinkers, Shumayyel was cautious about nationalism and condemned chauvinism as strongly as he did religious fanaticism. He censured both and believed that “man’s real religion is science”.30 In his famous book on the philosophy of evolution and progress, Shumayyel clearly states that there will never be social reform while religion and state interweave. He admonished his fellow men to be aware of religious guardians who spoiled religion and would not hesitate to spoil human beings.31 Shumayyel may be the first in the Arab world to declare socialism as a conception. In his opinion, socialism is not a belief, but an inevitable result of man’s looking into the act of association.32 Professor Donald Reid annotates that Dr. Shumayyel “undertook to popularize not only Darwin, but also the more daring philosophical systems of social Darwinists like Spencer, Haeckel and Bucher”.33 In fact Shumayyel’s Darwinian view is based on the unity of existing things and their formation through a materialistic process. There is no evidence for the view propounded by some observers that Shumayyel’s “atheism” was inspired by Karl Marx.34 Bashmeel mentions the name of another Arab Darwinist.35 It is important to comment on Shumayyel’s adoption of the “Origin of Species” as a theory. Avoiding the sharp negative criticism of some books,36 or the extreme admiration of others,37 the theory of Natural Selection acquires its objective value, in fact, from Charles Darwin himself, who admitted that several new laws would be discovered after his theory, thus leaving the doors of science open. As elsewhere, Darwinism divided the intellectuals in Syria between supporters and antagonists. For example, it is not believed that Charles Malek was being scientific in his critique of the theory of evolution when he stated that the theory does not dispel the original wonder of being and order. Neither was he scientific when he proclaimed that “the material universe is eternal and therefore the question of its origin does not arise”.38 In contrast, Saπadeh accepted the theory of evolution and gave Darwinism a role of vital importance in developing the scientific school.39 At any rate, science “had to fight a continuous battle against theological prejudice, from Galileo to Darwin”.40

[319]


Butrus Bustani (1819–1883) The historical dynamo of Syrian Renaissance Butrus Bustani was the founder of the first national school in Alay, and the writer of the first national Arabic dictionary and the first modern Arabic encyclopaedia.41 His didactic speech to women is considered the first in the East on this subject.42 Although he was the author of an enormous number of books on language, translation and science, Bustani was preaching a spirit of nationalism to his readers. Maqdissy calls him without hesitation “the teaching master of the nineteenth century”.43 But most if not all writings about the Nahda pioneers, asserts Daye, have disregarded, whether intentionally or not, the national element in their works.44 Hourani’s passing remark on Bustani that “Syria as a whole is his watan”,45 does not, of course, detract from Daye’s observation on the subject. In Bustani’s writings there is enough evidence that he was a secular leader whose secularism was connected to a national conception of the Syrian people in all its sects: the homeland of these people lay between Al-Sham and Arabistan.46 In his Wataniyyat, published in 1860 and 1861, Bustani declared the necessity of placing a barrier between the spiritual and civil authorities. He also stressed the importance of religious tolerance as opposed to bigotry, fanaticism and sectarian enmity.47 Francis Marrash (1836–1883) The poetry of Francis Marrash, an intellectual whose illness in Paris interrupted his studies, expressed an inclination towards the new spirit of the time. He participated as a writer of his age in the serious demand for a “new social world” governed by what he called “peace and security”.48 His articles in Al-Jawaeb, Al-Jinan and Mirπat al-Ahwal were familiar to his readers, as were his two books, Mashhad al-Ahwal (Beirut, 1863), and Ghabat al-Haqq (Aleppo, 1865). His masterpiece, Ghabat al-Haqq, explains his views on the common interest, solidarity and the unified law of society. The prose of some writers, like Marrash, has been of great service to Arabic literature. The rhetoric of Marrash, with its elements of eloquence, represented the beginnings of “Gibranian” literature in later years.49 He was a non-sectarian writer, but his generalizations, disconnected as they were from the national content, often weakened his arguments. In addition, his thought was dominated by a literary style that limited his influx in the stream of An-Nahda. [320]


Abdul Rahman al-Kawakibi (1849–1902) Al-Kawakibi was the first editor in Arabic of the Turkish Journal Al-Furat before establishing his two institutions in Aleppo: Al-Shahbaπ with partners in 1877, and Al-Iπtidal after the former closed down in 1879. He did not bow down to Abdul Hamid, nor did he fear his menace and intimidation. He remained Abdel Hamid’s stubborn enemy although he was imprisoned and dispossessed before he left Syria for Egypt.50 In this respect, he was different from the religious figure Jamaliddin Al-Afghani.51 The quintessence of his thought is expressed in two books: Umm al-Qura (The Mother of Villages) and Al-Istibdad Wa Masariπh al-Istibad (Nature of Tyranny and Struggle Against Enslavement). The latter was published in 1902, the year of his death. Unlike both Afghani and Rashid Rida, Al-Kawakibi distinguished between Arabs and Muslims. He maintained that the Caliph should be an Arab, not a Turk, and a spiritual head of the community exercising no political power.52 This establishes Al-Kawakibi’s fundamental trend towards secular and national dimensions. What draws the attention of the reader is Al-Kawakibi’s awareness of social reform. If Maroun Abboud had called him the “hearth of the Arab National Awakening”,53 Antun Saπadeh considered him the initiator of the “Syrian intellectual revolution” during the Nahda era.54 It may sound strange to classify Al-Kawakibi with secularists, since he was an Imam living in a predominantly religious empire. Any allegations of religious prejudice on the part of Al-Kawakibi are refuted by the fact that he regarded the national tie as above all other ties and religion as a quality of the individual rather than the group.55 In a distinctive article signed by a “liberal Muslim” and published in Al-Muqattam (1899), Al-Kawakibi appealed publicly for separation between religion and state, arguing that secularism would facilitate a return to the origins of religion: “If we do not distinguish between state and religion in our age, what shall we do if the state falls? Does religion, which is considered to be intertwined with the state, fall with the state?”56 Al-Kawakibi’s reply may perhaps be the best: “Let us deliberate on our worldly life, leaving religions to judge the other [life] only. Let us agree on equal words namely: Long live the nation, long live the homeland, long life to us in Liberty and Glory.”57 Khalil Saπadeh (1857–1934) Khalil Saπadeh’s (Dr. Saπadeh henceforth) written works covered history, politics, language, novels and medicine. In 1909, he was advised to leave [321]


the country after he addressed an open critical memorandum to the French Consul.58 In Buenos Aires in 1915 and São Paulo in 1929, Dr. Saπadeh issued Al-Majallah and Al-Jaridah consecutively, then Al-Rabittah. He also presided over the “Syrian National Democratic Conference” of Buenos Aires in 1918 and the “Syrian National League” of São Paulo in 1923.59 Dr. Saπadeh was a key figure in the Syrian Arab movement overseas.60 An independent observer has remarked: “It is not a matter of exaggeration if I say that Dr. Saπadeh was the leader of nationalism in the diaspora, as well as a leader of literature, culture and thought.”61 He emphasized social justice and secularism, even in Brazil. No neutrality, asserted Dr. Saπadeh, is acceptable in the following fundamental affairs of the East and its citizens: women’s liberation, complete separation between politics and religion, and replacing the religious bond by a national bond.62 He was particularly critical of sectarian divisions which, he believed, play a dangerous role in sowing internal dissensions.63 Antun Saπadeh transcribed his father’s view of the religious spirit in the following manner: “Religion to the Levantine [Eastern] is a part of his life. He thinks of life as a means to honour religion, not religion as a means to honour life.”64 Farah Antun (1874–1922) Farah Antun has been described as “the father of the intellectual renaissance and the apostle of democracy in the Arab East”.65 As an intellectual and journalist, he grafted the press with inventiveness and profound thought. If “Al-Muqatataff ” was for science like Al-Hilal was for history, Antun’s “Al-Jamiπah” was for general culture and world literature.66 Al-Jamiπah appeared in March 1899. Antun retained the same name for a magazine he issued in New York in February 1907, while he edited several other periodicals.67 For Antun, journalism was a family profession.68 Some critics have remarked, not without exaggeration of a literary kind, that Antun discovered Karl Marx’s speculations before white Russia was red-coloured, and that he translated some of Nietzsche’s works and introduced to the Arab world Buddha, Confucius, Hamurabi and Renan.69 Others explain his indebtedness to and knowledge of international culture to his mastery of French.70 In his speech “Suria Halaqat al-Tarnaddun”, Antun saw Syria as a ring connecting the Greek and Arab civilizations. Unlike Marrash, Antun considered ideas and meaning to be the main aim of writing. Civilizing [322]


and awakening nations are the primary aims of literature and science, and the writer’s duty is to write for the nation and not for himself.71 His interest was therefore the whole community – the nation – and not the class, or the sect or any other particular category.72 Several Western philosophers influenced Antun. One of these was Ernest Renan, whose speeches do not seem to be re-interpreted by Antun, as sometimes alleged.73 The Arab philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes, 1126–1198), who was attacked for his “apostasy”, was definitely one of those on whom Antun drew. Ibn Rushd’s effect can be traced even in France where the Church’s animosity was stirred up against his followers.74 It was not only in France that Ibn Rushd left his mark. The Renaissance painter Raphael, in his School of Athens, placed him among the masters of Hellenic thought.75 Stimulated by Renan and Ibn Rushd, Antun is believed to have been an extremist. His secular propositions are moderate “only in comparison with Shumayyel”.76 He was “one of the first Syrian Christians to argue the case for secularism openly”.77 It might make Antun less than a secular leader when we allege that he was “a Syrian Christian” interested in his co-religionists and their problem,78 or that he represented “an Eastern Christian consciousness”.79 Antun was a full secularist. To build on religious unity, according to him, is like building on fine dust.80 His poem “Between Nietzsche and Tolstoy” reveals his purest ideology of religion.81 His speech at Niagara Falls and his book on New Jerusalem might be the purest expression of his comprehension of religion. His religion is love and mercy. Everyone should be his own priest. Jesus Christ would certainly demand re-crucifixion if he were to return.82 In his book Ibn Rushd Wa Falsafatuh (Averroes and His Philosophy), Antun observes no civilization, no justice, no leniency, no equality, no security, no intimacy, no freedom, no philosophy, no science, no progress, unless religious and civil authorities, are separated from each other.83 The base of Antun’s socialism is the nation and not the class.84 The state is erected on both science and secularism. It is a rational-materialistic organization resulting from pragmatic human needs and not from religious necessities.85 His famous controversy with Sheikh Muhammad Abduh “has not yet finished because it is a struggle between the rising new life and the retarding old ways of life”.86 Throughout the entire controversy, Antun was rational, objective and future oriented, whereas Abduh and [323]


Rida were religiously biased and past oriented, despite Abduh’s wide knowledge. The debate published in Al-Jamiπah and Al-Manar was but an episode in the whole conflict between both secular and religious currents. Those who found the idea of secularization incompatible with Islam initiated a mordant criticism against proponents of the idea in Egypt. Some national figures called for secularism, others, including poets, gave priority to prophetic ballads,87 and others still praised Al-Imam for responding to Farah Antun.88 Gibran Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Gibran was the leader of the politico-cultural movement in North America with respect to the Syrian Community, exactly as was the case with Shibli Shumayyel in Egypt, Khalil Saπadeh in South America and Butrus Al-Bustani in Syria.89 Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya (The Pen Bond) was primarily a creation of Gibran, who tried to originate with others, particularly Mikhael Nouπaimeh, a literary change in style and substance. Gibran’s art, novels, short stories, articles and general ideas have impressed a great number of writers and poets alike.90 In the first meeting of the Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya in 1920, the members discussed the duty of the Syrian writers overseas to extricate Arabic literature from traditionalism and indolence and elevate it “to where it becomes an effective power in the nation’s life”.91 The phases of Gibran’s intellectual career are not uniform. His rebellion in Al-Awasseff, for example, differs from his calmness in The Prophet. At a certain stage, Gibran advised his friends to read Thus Spoke Zarathustra on the grounds that it is “one of the greatest in all ages”.92 The author of the book (F.W. Nietzsche, 1844–1900) was a genius, but the major premise of his philosophy, beyond question, was atheism.93 Critics go far beyond that and their opinion of the thinker, who impressed Bernard Shaw, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, is that “he is the primary schoolmaster for the present generation of the proclaimers of the God-is-dead gospel”.94 Nietzsche’s influence on Gibran at a certain stage is evident even in expressions. The latter attacked deviating clergymen whom he saw “prevaricating like foxes”.95 Gibran was a secular believer in God. He was not an atheist. While observing the difference between the philosophies of both of them, it can be said that there is no contradiction between Gibran’s concept of God, Christ and Muhammad and his admiration of [324]


Nietzsche’s view that priests “know no other way of loving their God than by nailing men to the cross”.96 Gibran was a reformer and a constructive critic, not an iconoclast, or merely an imaginative lover of Mary Huskel. His assiduous thoughts were: Liberty, Nation and Renaissance. He easily recognized the falsehood of outward progress and was unhappy overseas. Since 1922 and through his correspondence with Nouπaimeh, Gibran affirmed that “this false civilization has lightened the strings of our spirits to the breaking point”.97 In 1910, Gibran answered the orientalist Sicily Lutenburg: “I look at Syria through the eyes of a compassionate son, to his mother who is sick of two illnesses, the illness of imitation and the illness of traditions, for the religious superiors preserve traditions not because of their simplicity, but because they find in preserving them the continuity of their authority.”98 In the Tempests, Gibran vividly describes “the decayed teeth in the mouth of the Syrian nation”. From “The Garden of The Prophet”, we pick up the following wisdom: “Woe to a nation full of sects but lacks religion. Woe to a nation divided but every part considers itself a nation.”99 Gibran, who believed that nations are produced by hard work not by speeches, was not satisfied with writing and drawing. He was active in committees and associations and played a notable role, especially in the 1920s, in the movement for a secular Syria.100 At one point, he joined Al-Halaqat Al-Dhahabiyya (The Golden Rings), whose principles revolved around Syria’s geographical unity and freedom of religions.101 Gibran is also considered a precursor of Saπadeh by his use of a number of terms subsequently employed by Saπadeh himself: The Syrian Nation, the Sons of Life, Human Cattle (Herd of People), and Who are we? Gibran has acquired special attention because his writings were widely circulated in both the Arab world and the United States of America. His art has been constantly linked to his national tribulation. It is for his clear idea of nationalism that Gibran is one of the few figures whose political, cultural and national heritage is highly appreciated in Syrian Social National thought and principles.

Saπadeh and secularism: theory and doctrine The national atmosphere in which Antun Saπadeh was brought up helped him to initiate a secular movement derived from his national rational heritage. It is based on a new theory of nationalism and societal [325]


consciousness. The process of national secularization, as perceived by Saπadeh, is not restricted to the borders of a specific country. Nor is it an act of state chauvinism. Rather, it is a righteous, societal and humanitarian phenomenon. Hence, in Saπadeh’s discourse, the individual is completely free in his spiritual belief provided it does not conflict with the common interest which is necessarily a secular interest. Saπadeh appealed to ingrained secularism – that is, to a complete separation between religious and temporal powers.102 This means dedicating religion to spiritual values and allowing the intellect to take its natural role as supreme adjudicator in human life. As founder of an intellectual school (the school of Social Nationalism), Saπadeh conducted a comparative study between Christianity and Islam, and concluded that both religions are one in essence, in spite of a “few” differences, and that religions serve unity when they limit themselves to spiritual affairs and foster disunity when they cross the bounds of politics. For purposes of management, we will break up Saπadeh’s secular conception into several sub-headings keeping in mind the principle line of continuity between them. Definition Saπadeh very rarely used the word “secularism”. His theoretical and practical trends were always secular not only in politics, nationalism and administration, but also in his view of life as a whole. Secularism is a constitutive part of his philosophy. However, just as he avoided political classifications such as “the Right” and “the Left”, similarly he might have preferred not to adopt the word “secularism” in order to emphasize cultural independence not only in concepts but in language as well.103 Comprehensibility With Saπadeh, secularization is not limited to a particular side, political or social. It is a complete process concerned with the entire foundations of society. It is neither foreign nor transitory, but a life-guiding philosophy. The philosophical base of Saπadeh’s secular view, says Adel Daher, reclines on his logical separation between religion and values: the former is a metaphysical creed whereas values are a matter of human concern pertinent to the very being.104 Any study of secularism must therefore take into consideration the peculiar social situation of a nation, its cultural standard and the proper [326]


way to achieve revival. For example, the pattern of the religious state in Iran is not applicable to a multi-religious country where people’s loyalty is neither directed to a secular state nor to a single religion. It is rather divided among several religious loyalties. Such loyalties infuse regionalism especially in territories dominated by religious minorities. Rationalization Whether we call Saπadeh’s secular social nationalism a theory, a doctrine, a philosophy or an ideology,105 there should be no doubt that it is based on rational thinking. Rationalization is not only equal to secularization, it is a step prior to secularization. In the process of development we rationalize, then secularize and finally revive. We cannot secularize a national state before secularizing the thought of its citizens. Saπadeh accentuated human thought and human intellect, which characterize man and distinguish him from other creatures. The human intellect does not exist in vain or to be paralysed and put in fetters. It exists to recognize, comprehend, specify aims and to be effective in attaining those aims in life. If God has granted man this power of recognition to examine his affairs and great ends in life, it is inconceivable that He would fetter this power by an eternal rigid law. Consequently, human beings with their reason are free, by the will of God, to determine for themselves what is better in life.106 Man’s intellect itself is the supreme and principal authority (law), confirmed Saπadeh. It is man’s higher talent and the power of distinction in life.107 This rationality opens new horizons of creativity and freedom and pits man against old habits and outworn traditions. Hence, Social Nationalism, as perceived by Saπadeh, accepts nothing but reason and science as laws in the temporal and practical affairs of life. It does not interfere with the freedom of conscience in metaphysics, which is the essence, reality and limit of religion.108 Saπadeh refused to mix and even reconcile what is religious and what is national.109 He never proclaimed that religion, as a religion, covers the eyes. The essence of religion helps to free people by freeing their spirits whereas the pretence of divine right may be an appeal to enslavement. What Saπadeh wanted to say is that religious men should devote themselves to values rather than to principles. Moreover, Saπadeh never claimed that he is the only secularist to call for open eyes. His distinction lies in his methodology, his set of procedures to apply secularism in his [327]


own country, and his attempts to prevent the adoption of divine questions which may activate a socio-political case with its offending consequences. When aiming at rightness, says Saπadeh, we can neither look into religion through political spectacles, nor into politics through religious spectacles.110 In the words of Patriarch Ignatius II: “Politics should not be converted into religion nor religion into politics.”111 National bond Saπadeh argued that we cannot gain the earth by fighting each other for heaven’s sake.112 We need to extirpate sectarian hatred and replace it by national brotherhood. Both piety and fearing God help to eliminate animistic interpretations of religious beliefs, and, in all cases, the individual’s religious freedom remains guaranteed to all members of the national state, provided the bonds of religion are maintained. Saπadeh does not leave the examiner of his thought suspicious of his view of religion. Metaphysics, contemplations in the invisible and congregational rivalries are left outside the social circle of the nation. Saπadeh’s ambition was to render nationalism as a worldly religion. He claimed that Social Nationalism has given satisfactory proofs in theory and practice to be a national religion bonding the Syrians in one tie.113 He adds that his national teachings constitute a single unified new religion to lift the nation to a different eternity. This nationalism has become a new social religion different from previous descending religions: it is an ascending one. On one occasion he said: the unity of Syria is “an earthly religion for Syrians”.114 Wassim Zainiddin, one of Saπadeh’s disciples, proclaimed: “Our religion is our doctrine before anything else.”115 Whether such proclamations are allegorical or not, religions are one thing and national doctrines are another thing. The credibility of a certain doctrinal belief lies in its contents whether human or divine, socio-national or purely spiritual. To Rabindranath Tagore, “nationalism is a great menace” and “the nation is the greatest evil for the nation”.116 To Saπadeh, nationalism is the throbbing heart of contemporary life and life is not only based on spirit in either religious or national depths: life is a spiritual-materialistic entity. In abstract thought, to be national, anti-national or international is not the problem itself; it is rather the philosophy of obligation. But in practical thought, to which Saπadeh’s doctrine as a whole is related, the question is more lucid and specified and obligations are measured by [328]


achievements which are firstly national on the grounds that “national conscience is the greatest social phenomenon of our age”.117 This is the starting point of Saπadeh’s theory of secularism, which is a general characteristic fundamental to his entire philosophy. The secular reform principles The secular principle can be traced in almost all of Saπadeh’s writings, even his literary works. The oath of his political party (Syrian Social Nationalist Party – SSNP) membership itself is secular. When a candidate is accepted, he swears he is joining the party with strong will and full faith in its principles, but the oath is not by God; it is by honour, truth and belief.118 Even in condolence the consolatory word is Al-Baqaπ Lil Umma (Survival is the Nation’s). Yet, Saπadeh’s secularism is systematically manifested and detailed in the first three Reform Principles of the SSNP and their explanations. 1 2 3

Separation of religion from state. Debarring religious men from interference in national, political and judicial matters. Removal of barriers between various sects.

These principles determine a single reality: full secularism. Saπadeh presented them in this independent manner in order to eliminate any confusion in the process of ingrained secularism. Starting with the First Reform Principle, Saπadeh declares that the main obstacle to national unity and progress has been [T]he association between our religious institutions and temporal authority, and the pretensions of ecclesiastical bodies to political power. The greatest battles in the history of man’s liberation have taken place between the interests of nations and those ecclesiastical bodies which claimed to govern the people by a so-called divine right. Whenever there is no separation between religion and state, the government rules in the name of God and not of the people. In religious states, the legislators are religious men but not necessarily the nation’s elected representatives. Theocracy, or the religious state, is incompatible with nationhood because it stands for the domination of the whole community of believers by an ecclesiastical authority, such as the Papacy or the Caliphate. The Pope, for example, is the commander of all believers wherever they settle and so is the Caliph. [329]


The concept of a religio-political bond in lieu of the political is contrary to nationalism in general and to Syrian Social Nationalism in particular.119

To Saπadeh, the adherence of Christians and Muslims to this concept has been one of the primary factors behind the disintegration of the nation and the decline of national life.120 Saπadeh separated between the First and the Second Reform Principle, although they are not distinct from each other, because religious bodies endeavour to possess temporal authority even where the idea of the separation of the Church from the state has been conceded. Indirect interference of ecclesiastical bodies in civil and political matters must also stop. Secular reform is not confined to the political sphere: it extends to the legal-judicial sphere. The Social National State, as perceived by Saπadeh, must have a uniform judiciary and a unified system of laws so that every citizen is equal before the one law of the state. In fact, there can be no unity of character where social conceptions, as they are today, conflict with national unity.121 How to remove sectarian barriers among the members of society is addressed by Saπadeh in the Third Reform Principle. It is an indisputable fact that there exist old barriers between the various sects and denominations of Syria which are not of the essence of religion. The conflicting traditions deepened by those barriers have exerted a great influence on the socio-economic unity of the people. They have weakened unity and delayed national revival. Calls for freedom and independence will remain futile as long as those traditional barriers continue. Every nation seeking a free and independent life by which its lofty aims can come true must maintain a real spiritual unity, as the latter is impossible in a country where each group lives isolated from other groups and has its own particular socio-legal system. Those separating barriers constitute a serious threat to the unity of the nation. That is why national unity will not be achieved unless the causes of dissension are removed.122 The source of these principles is the Sixth Basic Principle of the SSNP which states: “The Syrian Nation is one society.” Saπadeh annotated that this is one of the most important principles which every citizen must adhere to for it is the basis of actual national unity and the sign of national consciousness. Social unity is the basis for the unity of interests and this in turn is the basis for the unity of life.123 [330]


Religious partisanship has inflamed the situation in Syria, the result of which was and still is a disaster. Religious fanaticism is a cancer, says Saπadeh.124 It has killed the hope of a national future and kept alive rancours which were about to vanish.125 Sectarian organizations, he further affirmed, threaten the nation and cannot be ignored, especially as religious partisanship is an illness dispersed all over geographical Syria. Indeed, the emphasis on social unity and radical secularism in his political and national discourse is the antithesis of the ideology of sectarian living. For this reason, the secularistic theses in his writings are deemed scientifically inseparable from the national concern: they are fundamentally linked to the unity of national society. Outside this unity, secularism has no basic value.126 Secularism and Personal Status The law of Personal Status is practically the “stronghold of sectarianism”.127 It is a major factor of division and the axis around which the attitude of some religious authorities revolves in their objection to secular laws. Although the new law of Personal Status was not completely specified in Saπadeh’s original texts, it is worth noting that the main points of the Personal Status in a secular system derived from Saπadeh’s theory would, logically, include the following. • • • •

•

Freedom to all those who have attained the legal age to get married irrespective of whether their sects are the same or different. Freedom of will in the contract of marriage and cancellation of the guardian’s role (father, mother and so on). Ensuring equal rights for both husband and wife, including the right to ask for divorce and bringing up children. Confirming marriage at the Civil Legal Status department without any need for religious rituals provided the couple can arrange the wedding ceremony in their own way. Unification of hereditary laws and allowing transmittable inheritance between the married couple and all the members of the family, even if the members of the single family belong to different sects.

Saπadeh admitted that the historical state itself rested on religion. Babylonia (East Syria), Egypt and South America are living examples of historical states.128 But fragmentation has been and will always be the [331]


fate of every religious state because it is a combination of two contradictory principles – namely, the spiritual and the temporal authority. This combination is simply unacceptable in advanced societies.129 Religion is universal. It is this universality which explains its impact on community spirit. Nevertheless, even when the identity of the national community is distinctly reflected in religious practice and in matters of dispute, the interest of society comes before the interest of religion.130 Those are the practical dimensions of Saπadeh’s endeavour: to lay the social unity on the basis of the unity of life and spiritual-material interests and not on religious unity.131 Saπadeh’s vigorous campaign against political clericalism and its foundations is to be understood from this perspective. Some political corporations are apt to use religion as a means. In the name of religion they intervene in people’s affairs and implant through their teachings their own sectarian mentality.132 To remain worthy of reverence, clergymen ought to appeal to the public as preachers: they are not statesmen. The aim of statesmen, says Baruch de Spinoza, is to “frame our institutions so that every man, whatever his dispositions, may prefer public right to private advantage. This is the task and this is the test.”133 Saπadeh and secularism: the Social National Movement Secular activism Saπadeh was not a mere doctrinaire. Thought for the sake of thought had no room in his philosophy. In a casual agreement with Marx and Lenin, he intensified the unity of theory and practice, thus rejecting the view of those who claim that “the critic must keep out of the region of immediate practice in the political social humanitarian sphere”.134 What distinguishes Saπadeh from his forerunners in the socio-national sphere is the fact that not only did he aim at reform, but also he was practical about it. His thought served, and is still serving, as an awakening political weapon in the hands of people seeking practical change. Saπadeh’s disposition towards the practical did not appear from nowhere. He had been surprisingly aware of the malevolence brought about by religious fanaticism, the major enemy of national unity, from an early age.135 Saπadeh objectified the perception of national dignity in his youth and when he was asked in a ceremony to raise the Turkish flag, he tore it up and then threw it to the ground. In 1930, he also tore up [332]


the French flag on his first return to the homeland.136 His rejection of the occupying forces indicates a national rejection of external factors nourishing sectarian division. It was a pragmatic, not a theoretical, rejection. Almost every writer on Saπadeh attests to his secular activism. Even his opponents admit that he was the first leader in Arab politics to stimulate sincerity and devotion,137 to have a firm faith in his unifying message,138 and to engender a very powerful intellectual flux in the Lebanese and Syrian republics.139 The Syrian Social National Party The SSNP is the institutional symbol of the word “Saπadeh”. It is the embodiment of his secular vision of life, the pragmatic expression of his entire secular programme for Syria. Many people from different categories, classes and sects, found themselves attracted to the principles of the SSNP, which represented a secular reformative system and a complete view of life. Before joining the party, the candidate undergoes a moral, intellectual and doctrinal test in both theory and practice.140 The member has to give up any inherited position bestowed on him by family, sect, tribal or feudal rank. If fit, his qualifications are enhanced in both candidature and membership. In a historical evaluation of the cultural role played by the SSNP, Yamak claims that the party has “shaped social thinking of the intelligentsia since the thirties”.141 Indeed, the secular literature produced by a large number of intellectuals, writers and journalists who joined the party is profound, prolific and influential.142 It is not an exaggeration of Yamak when he says that the Phalangists, the Progressive Socialists and even the Baπthists are indebted to the SSNP, especially to its reform principles, which give priority to the question of secularism.143 The founder of the Progressive Socialist Party has openly declared that Saπadeh has to be given credit for being the first to define concepts such as nationalism and patriotism in Arabic. Kamal Jumblatt proclaimed also that Saπadeh is “a man of doctrine, a founder of an intellectual school and an initiator of a Renaissance in the Orient which may have no equal”.144 The main objective of the SSNP, says Saπadeh, is to unify the national trend in the same way as it represents the nation in a microcosmic form.145 In his first systematic speech, in 1935, Saπadeh traced the problem of national fragmentation to the absence of firm national traditions in Syrian society owing to the recurring conflict between personal and [333]


public causes, and to the opposition of the sectarian regimes to national unity. But “the SSNP found the way to overcome those difficulties through its disciplinary system, which fuses traditions and personal attitudes incompatible with the nation’s unity”.146 For Saπadeh, overcoming external difficulties and national identity problems depends on a unified view of life and a secular esprit de corps (Al-Asabiyya) par excellence.147 The Social National Movement, says Saπadeh, was not established as a sectarian movement, Muhammadan, or Christian or Druze, trying to look like a national one. Rather, it is a cohesive national movement incorporating from the very beginning elements from all sects of the country.148 In keeping with its secular origin, party members feel part of the same nation bonded by the same doctrine, interest and will: they respect each other’s religious beliefs.149 The movement, added Saπadeh, has unified the Muhammadan, the Christian and the Druze in the religion of Syrian Nationalism: “In the party we are no more Muhammadans or Christians or Druzes. We have become Syrian Social Nationalists with regard to everything pertinent to society and politics.”150 This was not mere rhetoric. In 1943, Saπadeh refused to take part in a memorial held by the “Islamic Fellowship” in Argentina to commemorate Saπeed Al-Ass, an SSNP military leader who fell in Palestine during the 1936 strike: “Our Martyr was not a Muhammadan or a Christian, but a Syrian Social Nationalist.”151 Over the years, the SSNP’s national ends have provided real stimuli to secular martyrdom. Members of the party never thought of their sectarian attachment either when joining the party or when making a sacrifice of their lives, thus implementing their master’s teaching that they owe the nation all their being, even the blood running in their veins. That was the conviction of the only casualty in the battle for Lebanese independence,152 and of the secular martyrs in the battle against Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon in the 1980s.153 Perhaps the best and most direct expression of Saπadeh’s secular activism is his statement: “The Social National Movement is going to crush religious partisanship and exterminate it from its roots.”154 Saπadeh did not make this statement unexpectedly. An ecclesiastic anathema, including excommunication, had been circulated during the French Mandate over Lebanon against the “Christian” Social Nationalists. The anathema banned the clergy from performing marriage and funeral rites or any other formality for a member of the party.155 In itself, the anathema conflicted with the secular principles of the SSNP, which sought to [334]


debar the clergy from interference in judicial and political matters that are practically national matters. For Saπadeh, the anathema called for action and intensification of the secular struggle. Basic features of the SSNP’s secularism The SSNP is considered “the first doctrinal and non-sectarian party in Lebanon”.156 The Communist Party is also a doctrinal non-sectarian party, but on a totally materialistic basis. The distinction of the SSNP lies in its secular practice rather than its theory. That is why it is efficient and that is why it is ruthlessly fought. Secularism represents a serious danger to those who derive their means of subsistence from sectarian politics or political sectarianism. Consequently, a trend of practical politics is a real threat to them. National secularization is the first step towards the social practical policy followed by Saπadeh who, after 35 years of his absence, is addressed by one of his educated disciples as follows: “Alone, you made them feel that questioning a comrade’s sect is a fatal sin.” The SSNP, observes Michel Suleiman, “has succeeded in quashing any hostile or prejudicial sectarian feeling among its members”.157 The secular relationship between the members is not the ultimate aim. The actual aim “is to make the members of the Syrian nation, including the Lebanese, aware of their secular Syrian nationality”.158 Accordingly, all citizens will undergo a true cultural interaction through a unique circulation of life. The SSNP is precisely defined by Saπadeh as both “an idea and a movement concerned with the life of a whole nation”.159 At the centre of this definition is firstly the idea of spiritual unity in the socio-national and not the political sense. The members of the party, writes Saπadeh in a letter, must be a socio-spiritual unity before anything else, then a national organization.160 Spiritual unity has to comprise every idea and every view of their life. The most important aspect of this approach is its emphasis on implanting the idea of the nation instead of the idea of religions and sects. Such achievements do not come true all at once. They neither come suddenly nor by repression. That is why Saπadeh said: “To educate is our first mission.”161 He was always concerned with the educational cultural process, concentrating on the youth and excluding persons over forty unless exceptional, because the majority of old-aged people are grown up and indoctrinated in opposite old directions of thought. On another occasion, affirming his desire to follow a direction towards a new scheme of national life, Saπadeh wrote: “We are not a [335]


mere political party … Politics for the sake of politics will never be a national deed.”162 Hence, for Saπadeh, secular unity does not depend on numbers. It is a process of finding the unifying elements of which the most important is separation of religion from the state.163 To accomplish a fusion of religious groups we need to expose it to a spiritual and social cultural catalyst, and the principles of the party have prepared that catalyst, asserted Saπadeh.164 To join the party is an important but a first step, according to Saπadeh. Membership is not an absolver but an incentive to the new life. You strive, therefore you are. The possession of the new will imposes on the individual member the endeavour to implement it: “The new man who strives to bring about the new regime: this is the SSNP.”165 The implications of this conception on the procedure of secular implementation in the SSNP are profound. In the first place, every aspect of human life is secularized. This includes, among other things, the concept of struggle, which to Saπadeh is the equivalence of freedom. Without struggle, no lofty objectives are realized and there would be no sense of life. “We are an attacking, not a defending, movement,” says Saπadeh. Religious partisanship, individualistic capitalism and petrified mentalities are social illnesses which have to be always attacked.166 Saπadeh’s practical trend with respect to secularism as well as all other concepts is briefly depicted in his rejection of human intensions as a measure of things: “It was said: Take the will for the deed, but I say: Take the deed for the will.”167 The rationale behind this rejection is that history records actions and facts, not intentions. Second, the SSNP’s all-national secularism means, by necessity, that it does not tolerate partial solutions to sectarianism and religious fanaticism.168 These problems have to be treated on the entire national area because the solution also has to be national, not regional or sectarian. When the interests are those of sects, says Saπadeh, there will not be unified national interests.169 It is impossible to convert the interests of a certain sect no matter how big it is, into public interests, for such a conversion does not comply with the nature of the sect or any other partial group. This is Saπadeh’s scientific interpretation of collective interest. It necessitates a change in the socio-political order the fundamentals of which lie in the abolition of sectarianism not of sects, in refusing sectarian domination in all its kinds, and in framing legislation that foster not only national intermingling but also the removal of sectarianism from the human spirit by education and from the texts by perfect secularism. [336]


Third, state secularization, as perceived by the SSNP, implies the secularization of its laws and the submission of all citizens to the same law implemented by the judicial authority.170 In other words, the abolition of political sectarianism alone will not lead to a new order in the true sense of the word. It also means that, under an SSNP secular state, there will be no room for religious groups living virtually separate existences under a single national flag. Such a state would be based on a “National Pact” upheld by all the citizens, not by Christians or by Muslims, as in Lebanon’s case.171 Since religio-political compromises are very popular in the Arab world, a tendency towards the abolition of political sectarianism is accepted as a principle. This tendency reflects a belief in partial secularization – that is, in state not in social secularization. Such an intermediate solution indicates of course that the sectarian laws of Personal Status will continue to be implemented in its current form. Saπadeh rejected such intermediate solutions because to him secularism is all-encompassing. Secular reforms, he wrote, “must not be confined to the political sphere but must extend to the legal-judicial sphere as well”.172 This is particularly important in religious diverse societies such as Syria: In a country where judicial function is not homogeneous owing to the diversity of religious sects, political rights and sound political institutions will not be possible nor will general national unity for the latter be conditional on the unity of laws. The Social Nationalist state must have a uniform judiciary and a unified system of laws. Citizens must all be equal before the one law of the state. There can be no unity of character where the basis of life is in conflict with the unity of the nation.173

It might not be entirely wrong to start with the abolition of political sectarianism. The stages of development need careful cultivation rather than rapid implementation. But the proper aim of socio-national secularism is still widely misunderstood and its history does not support the abstract view that with secular ideologies the “people must discard their religious faith if they are to make progress”.174 Fourth, secularism, as perceived by Saπadeh, is seen as an ideal way to achieve social justice. If those who prefer to carry on along the traditional and backward-looking way, like “the great majority of Arab intellectuals [who] continue to lean towards salafiyya and eclecticism”,175 want God [337]


to be gracious to them, it is essential to remind them that the struggle for realizing the societal unity of the nation is the real act which pleases the Creator, not the discriminating consequences of fanaticism. Thomas Jefferson writes: “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.”176 Is not sectarian fanaticism a tyranny worth rebelling against? If the goal is justice, why do the pleaders of Al-Salafiyya ignore secular justice? Why are they suspicious of secularism and nationalism if both aim at justness? Herald Hoffding is probably correct in beholding justice as “the highest virtue”.177 But true justice is social justice in the deep sense of the concept – that is, the justice between citizens, not between sects. Justice between sects, says Hussain Qawatli, is a false justice as is sectarian equality.178 Justice is not an absolute must and does not require absolute equality.179 It is neither inherited nor granted freely. One does not have rights just because one belongs to a certain sect. One needs to be qualified and be productive in one way or another so that one can participate in the general right, says Saπadeh.180 In the words of Hassan Saπab, “Social justice is a right parallel to the duty of social productivity.”181 Critics of the SSNP Some critics have declared what they call an “apparent failure” of Saπadeh’s movement to bring about nationalism in Syria.182 If Saπadeh’s journey to national secularization has been so far unsuccessful, what is its real impediment? Is it that “the SSNP painted itself into an ideological corner” as claimed by Jeremy Salt?183 Is it that the party which represents Saπadeh’s secular philosophy has tried to impose itself on society by force as is often alleged? Is the secularism of Social Nationalism a plot against religion?184 Are we a nation intellectually advanced to accept rationalists and rational solutions? In our opinion, Saπadeh’s theoretical and practical heritage does not show the “ideological corner” referred to by Salt. There is certainly an ideological power, but few members of the party were apparently fond of its “unchangeable principles”. A review of Saπadeh’s correspondence with Ghassan Twayni, who questioned him on the matter, show that Saπadeh guided the members of the SSNP to avoid ideological inaction: “It is quite intuitive to us that principles do not simply mean beautiful forms on papers, but rather an efficient life – a life that works, establishes, promotes, accomplishes and creates.”185 [338]


As to the so-called means of violence used by the Social Nationalists to realize their aims, we join Hilmi Maπlouf in asking: “Is there a cause in history that did not try to impose itself?”186 Saπadeh himself emphasized that the responsibility for victory lies on the believers in great doctrines, or they will fall into falsehood. The First Commandment of a political party is victory, says Finer.187 This statement is applicable to Saπadeh’s party, although it is not simply a political party. Any intellectual movement is not assessable in isolation from the circumstances surrounding it, the obstructions encountered and the results attained. The position of a movement, secular or religious, is subject to its doctrinal foundation. Yet, secular doctrines are expected to be more dynamic and creative. They put human reason under one of two decisive alternatives – namely, the logic of the national state of that or the religious state. With Saπadeh, the secular doctrine signifies the rationality, creativity and integrity of the entire national cause. This cause is never a matter of continuity or survival. It is a matter of the victory of principles through a historical change of national society.188 But a question arises here as to where Saπadeh’s secular pursuit stands after more than 55 years of struggle. Saπadeh had been comprehensively aware of the sectarian divisions tearing apart his nation after years of decadence. He was also aware of the time needed to realize serious achievements. Yet, he seemed to have expected an early triumph. This was not to be. Sometimes evolution may not be replaced by revolution, but revolution is the revolutionists and the revolutionary people, not the individual Antun Saπadeh. It is true that Saπadeh’s movement began from zero and has almost penetrated the impediments of classes and sects.189 Yet, the total effect is so far inadequate and incapable of accomplishing historical change. The status quo in Syria after six decades of organized secular efforts still reflects an anti-secularistic attitude among the populace though a large number of intellectuals tend to adopt secularism in principle. Apparently, people are generally carried along by religious politics but they have not yet understood, as a whole, that the only solution for the problem of minorities is secularization and not the aggressive organization of the problem in society. Secularizing the social entity is subject to the implementation of secularized thought at all levels and every moment of socio-national life. The socio-secular principles have not yet established a unified national identity and the Syrians have not yet acquired a [339]


social-minded body of people. Their cultural identity is a bleeding identity at the altar of individualism, sectarianism and regionalism. If the Syrians are to get rid of their collective agony and build a new edifice for a new life, they need to begin by bringing up the secular moral citizen – that is, the citizen who is capable of identifying the true elixir of progress and the new man qualified to run and enhance the new order. Sectarianism itself is a school of thought which cannot be fought by mottos and political speeches, but by a school of scientific thought and practice. If the Syrians are to stop devastation and avoid a complete holocaust, they have to renounce sectarian criteria and eliminate its epidemical nature not only by tolerationism, but by a secular process the primary aim of which would be to eradicate all sectarian remnants and provide a new system of socio-economic justice. Those who are strongly averse to secularism have to realize, before the opportunity is missed, that the process of secularization is a vital step in the revival of nations. They also have to realize and admit that virtue does not only come from the Scriptures: secularism is not an infidelity, but rather an emancipation of religion from sectarianism and an achievement of a public reality where religion can occupy its natural position and reach its spiritual climax. The final distinction between religious and political spheres helps women also to live in an equal status with men; thus, becoming capable of performing duties and carrying high responsibilities. True secularism controls repugnant religious hostilities and replaces the false and shallow relationships between sects by a pure genuine relationship. Fighting sectarianism, on the other hand, does not mean fighting sects. Social realities are incompatible with the attempts to associate people under a religious fellowship. Religious states themselves have been always a human trend of action and a result of man’s initiative but not a divine action. Religion denotes stability and rigidity whereas the states are subject to change and development.

Conclusion The importance of “Saπadeh the secularist” and “Saπadeh the social nationalist” does not only lie in his early anticipation of both the illness and the cure nor only in being totally different from politicians and the leaders of political corporations. Saπadeh was probably more important [340]


by being the weaver of a new social texture par excellence. He signified a serious break with a long period of tradition. His doctrine, Social Nationalism, has developed into an institution with a systematized set of principles and a school from which a sizable elite of secularists has graduated. Saπadeh appealed to ingrained secularism – that is, to a complete separation between religious and temporal powers. This means dedicating religion to spiritual values and allowing the intellect to take its natural role as supreme adjudicator in human life. The founder of the school of Social Nationalism conducted a comparative study between Christianity and Islam, and concluded that both religions are one in essence in spite of a “few” differences and that religions serve unity when they limit themselves to spiritual affairs and foster disunity when they cross the bounds of politics. Secularism does not yet have a stream of advocates among the masses, but it looks to be the only solution of the sectarian crisis with respect to a large number of intellectuals. For Saπadeh, the fact that the implementation of true secularism is still far from realization does not exempt the believers in socio-national conscience from the duty of translating their belief in change into action by bringing ethnic groups and sects together to eradicate sectarian policy. The sectarian menace will not last forever as the secular moment is approaching, but history teaches us that the darkest hour is that before the dawn.

NOTES 1 The correct articulation of the word in Arabic is “Almaniyya”, not “Ilmaniyya” as erroneously pronounced sometimes. For Latin meaning and general history of secularism, see Alan Richardson (ed.), Dictionary of Christian Theology, London: SCM Press, 1969, pp. 310–311. See also Sacramentum Mundi: Encyclopedia of Theology, vol. 6, edited by Karl Rahner [et al.] London: Burns and Oates, 1970, p. 164 et seq. 2 John Draper, History of Conflict Between Religion and Science, 26th edition, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Thrübner & Co. Ltd, 1930, pref. 3 See Harvey Cox, The Secular City, New York: Macmillan, 1966, p. 211. 4 See D.L. Munby, The Idea of a Secular Society and its Significance for Christians, London: Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 30. 5 Ibid., p. 51. [341]


6 The Muslim populace, especially in Lebanon, favours the principles of political secularism only – that is, the abolition of political sectarianism. 7 Carl Brockelmann, History of the Islamic People, translated by J. Carmichael and N. Perlmann, London: Capricorn Books, 1979, p. 501. 8 Majeed Khadduri, “Ittijahat al-Fikr al-Siyassi Fi al-Watan al-Arabi”, Beirut: Hiwar Beirut, No. 26/27, March–April 1987. 9 See Anis Al-Nusouli, Asbab al-Nahda al-Arabiyya, Beirut: A. Tabbaπh, 1985, p. 149. 10 For details, see J.L. Farley, The Massacres in Syria, London: Bradbury & Evans, 1861. See also John Spagnola, France and Ottoman Lebanon 1861–1914, London: Ithaca Press for the Middle East Centre, St. Antony’s College Oxford, 1977, chapter 2. 11 See ∏Omar Al-Dusouqi, Fi al-Adab al-Hadeeth, Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1951, p. 75. 12 Nassif Nassar, Nahwa Mujtamaπ Jadid, 4th edition, Beirut: Dar al-Taliπa, 1981, p. 108. 13 See The Times, London, especially on 2 and 5 October 1860. 14 See Ilia Harik, Al-Tahawwul al-Siyassi Fi Tareekh Lubnan Al Hadeeth, Beirut: Al-Ahliyyah Publications, 1982, pp. 111–114. 15 Maroun Abboud, Ruwwad al-Nahda al-Hadeetha, Beirut: Dar al-Thakafa, 1977, p. 180. 16 Clement Huart, A History of Arabic Literature, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1966, p. 437. 17 Philip De Terrazi, Tareekh al-Sihafa al-Arabiyya, vol. 4, Beirut: Al-Matbaaπ al-Arabiyyah, 1913–1933, p. 482. 18 Jurji Zaydan, Bunat al-Nahda al-Arabiyya, Cairo: n.d., p. 182. It is worth mentioning also that the first newspaper in Beirut was Khalil al-Khoury’s Hadeeqat al-Akhbar. Egypt did not take journalism seriously before it flourished in Lebanon; even Al-Ahram, the first journal, was a Syro-Lebanese journal founded in Alexandria by Salim and Beshara Taqla in 1876. 19 Nassar, Nahwa Mujtamaπ Jadid, p. 19. 20 John Daye, Sihafat al-Kawakibi (documents published for the first time), Beirut: Fajr an-Nahda, 1984, p. 7. 21 See Butrus Al-Bustani, Udabaπ al-Arab Fi al-Andalus Wa Asr al-Inbiπath, Beirut: Dar al-Makshuf, 1968, p. 158. 22 De Terrazi, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 11. 23 The term “Islamic papers” is quoted reservedly, though historically intended by De Terrazi and Zaydan. See the latter’s Aadab al-Lugha al-Arabiyya, ed. Shawqi Daif, Cairo, n.d., p. 56. 24 Hanna Mansour, “Minn Jamiπeyyat 1875 Ila Jamiπeyyat 1877 al-Sirriyya”, Sabab al-Khair, Beirut, 3 January 1977, p. 26. 25 De Terrazi, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 75. 26 In 1913. See S. Hanna and G. Gardner, Arab Socialism: A Documentary Survey, Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1969, chapter 3. 27 Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1970, p. 75. 28 Youssef Dagher, Massader al-Dirassa al-Adabiyya, vol. 2, Beirut: Maktabat Lubnan, 1956, p. 497. [342]


29 Maroun Abboud, Ruwwad al-Nahda al-Hadeetha, Beirut: Dar al-Thakafa, 1977, p. 250. 30 Shibli Shumayyel, Complete Works, vol. 2, Cairo, 1919, p. 62. 31 Refer to Daye, “Shibli Shumayyel”, Sabah al-Khair, 31 January 1977. 32 John Daye, “Ishtirakiyyat Shibli Shumayyel Bayn al-Marxiyya Wa al-Saπadeyya”, Sabah al-Khair, 14 February 1977, p. 32. 33 Donald Reid, The Odyssey of Farah Antun: A Syrian Christian’s Quest for Secularism, Minneapolis: Bibliotheca Islamica, 1975, p. 77. 34 M.A. Bashmeel, Al-Islam Wa Nazariyyat Darwin, Beirut, n.p., 1964, p. 72. 35 Dr. George Hanna, see ibid., p. 6. Bashmeel also alleges that some samples of correspondence exchanged between Ikhwan al-Safa indicate that they were aware of the theory of evolution. See p. 140. 36 See A. Lunn, The Revolt Against Reason, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1950, chapter entitled “Darwinism and Evolution”. 37 A. Tenney, Social Democracy and Population, vol. 26, no. 4, New York: Columbia University Press, 1907. 38 Charles Malek, The Wonder Of Being, Texas: Word Books, 1974, p. 55. 39 Antun Saπadeh, Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1980, pp. 21, 23. 40 John Macquarie, God And Secularity, vol. 3, Philadelphia, 1967, p. 54. 41 Dagher, op. cit., p. 180. 42 De Terrazi, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 89. 43 Anis Makdissi, Al-Founoun Al-Adabiyya wa Aπalamuha fi al-Nahda al-Arabiyya al-Haditha, 3rd edition, Beirut: Dar-Al-llm, 1980, p. 183. Also see his book, Fi Mawakeb Al-Nour, Beirut, n.d., p. 71. 44 John Daye, Al-Muπallim Butrus al-Bustani: Dirassa Wa Wathaeq, Beirut, n.p., 1981, p. 7. 45 See Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age (1798–1939), 2nd edition, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 101. 46 See his fourth national bulletin of 25 November 1860, presented by Mansour, Sabah al-Khair, I, no. 61, 11 October 1976. 47 Ibid. 48 For the study of his life and works, see De Terrazi, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 70; also Dagher, op. cit., pp. 693–694. 49 Haidar Haj Ismail, Tabeπh al-Istibdad wa Ahwal al-Thawra: Al-Marrash, al-Kawakibi, Khalil Saπadeh, Beirut: Samia Printers, 1972. 50 Zaydan, Bunat al-Nahda, p. 98. 51 Afghani found in his last days an access to the caliph. See De Terrazi, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 202, and Muhammad Burj’s introduction to Al-Kawakibiπs Umm al-Qura, Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Arabi, 1981, p. 17. Other sources on Al-Kawakibi can be found in Dagher’s Massader, p. 673. 52 Labib Zuwayya Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966, p. 10. 53 See Ruwwad al-Nahda, p. 25 54 See his article on Al-Kawakibi, Fikr, Beirut: Dar Fikr, I. pp. 33–34, 1974 and An-Nahda, Sydney, 23 June 1983. 55 A sample of those books is written by Abdel al-Ghani Al-Bishri, Athar Siyassat al-Qawmiyyat Fi al-Haraka al-Qawmiyya al-Arabiyya, Cairo: n.p., 1966, p. 137. [343]


56 John Daye, “Al-Sheikh ∏Abdul Rahman al-Kawakibi Awπwal ∏Alim Deeny Qala Bifasl al-Deen an al-Dawla”, An-Nahda, I, 110, 16 June 1983. 57 Al-Kawakibi, Tabaeπh al-Istibdad, Cairo: al-Makatabah al-Tijariyyah al-Kubra, 1931, p. 102. 58 John Daye, Sabah al-Khair, I, 84, 21 March 1977. 59 Ibid. 60 Khair Aldeeri Al-Zirkali, Al-Alam, vol. 2, Beirut: Dar Al-Alam Lil-Malayeen, 1992, p. 366. 61 Ghattas Khoury, Suria al-Jadida, São Paulo, n.p., July 1983, p. 16. 62 See Badr El-Hage, Silsilat al-Aamal al-Majhulah: Khalil Saadeh (The Unknown Works of Khalil Saadeh), London: Riad El-Rayyes Books Ltd, 1987, pp. 17–25. 63 John Daye, “Khalil Saπadeh Qada Awwal Haraka Tulla-biyya”, Sabah Al-Khair, I, 83, 14 March 1977. 64 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), 3rd edition, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1955, p. 27. 65 Dagher, op. cit. p. 1. 66 Ibid., p. 148. 67 De Terrazi, op. cit., vol. 3, p. 58; vol. 4, p. 411. 68 His sister Rose Antun Haddad was the editor of the Men and Woman magazine in Egypt. 69 Abboud, Ruwwad, p. 261. 70 Haidar Haj Ismail, Al-Mujtamaπh Wa al-Deen Wa al-Ishtirakiyya: Farah Antun, Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1972, p. 7. 71 Ibid., pp. 73, 81. 72 Eulogizing Antun in São Paulo, Dr. Khalil Saπadeh spoke of meetings of both of them with Syrian and Egyptian intellectuals proposing the replacement of the “Islamic bond by a general Eastern bond having no religious bluster”. See op. cit., p. 14. 73 A comparative study of the speeches of both does not demonstrate evidence of plagiarism. 74 Khalil Sharafiddeen, Ibn Rushd, Beirut: Sar wa-Maktabat al-Hilal, 1982, p. 13. 75 Majed Fakhry, Philosophy and History, 3rd edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978, p. 67. 76 Reid, op. cit., p. 67. 77 Ibid., introduction. 78 Ibid. 79 A. Hourani, op. cit., p. 259. 80 Farah Antun, Ibn Rushd Wa Falsafatuh, Beirut: Dar al-Taliπa, 1981, p. l. 81 Al-Jamiπah, New York, vol. 8, 6th year, I, 208, September 1908. 82 See Ismail, Al-Mujtamaπh Wa al-Deen wa al-Ishtirakiyya, pp. 82–112. 83 Ibid., p. 43. 84 See Ismail, op. cit., p. 63. 85 Ibid., p. 5. 86 Ibid., p. 32. 87 Namely, Muhammad al-Nashar, Rifaπa al-Tahtawi, Ali Darweesh, Ahmad Shawqi, Mahmoud al-Baroudi, Muhammad Abdel Muttaleb. 88 Such as Ahmad al-Kashef, Mustafa S. al-Rafiπi, Ismaπeel Sabri. 89 John Daye, “Gibran Wa al-Ruwwad”, II, An-Nahda, I, 257, 17 April 1986. [344]


90 One of Gibran’s unknown spiritual sons is Abul Qassem al-Shabbi of Tunisia and the School of Apollo. See M.K. al-Taleessi, Al-Shabbi Wa Gibran, Beirut: Dar al-Thakafa, 1973, p. 47. 91 Mikhael Nouπaimeh, Gibran Kahlil Gibran: His Life, Death, Literature and Art, 9th edition, Beirut: Nawfal Institute, 1981, p. 176. 92 Ibid., p. 143. 93 G.A. Morgan, What Nietzsche Means, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1975, p. 36. 94 See James Collins’ article in Kant Studies Today, ed. Lewis Beck, Illinois: La Salle, Open Court, 1969, p. 416. 95 Gibran Kahlil Gibran, Damπah Wa Ibtissama (The Complete Works in Arabic), Beirut: Dar al-Huda, n.d., p. 265. 96 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 10th edition, translated by R. Hollingdale, New York: Modern Library, 1972, p. 115. 97 Gibran Kahlil Gibran, A Self Portrait, London: Heinemann, 1974, p. 655. 98 Gibran Kahlil Gibran, Rasa-el Gjbran al-Tae-ha (with 19 letters unveiled for the first time), Beirut, 1983, p. 80. 99 Gibran, The Complete Works, p. 420. 100 John Daye, “Gibran Al Aqeedi Wa al-Siyassi”, An-Nahda, Sydney, 27 June 1985, 4 July 1985 and 22 August 1985. 101 Refer to the whole text in Al-Majalla, November 1957, p. 13. 102 See Daye, Sabah al-Khair, 25 April 1982, no. 349, p. 51. 103 See Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995, pp. 150–154. 104 Adel Daher, Al-Mujtamaπ al-Insan (Society and Man), Beirut: Mawaqif Publications, 1981, p. 320. 105 The word ideology indicates, of course, the science of ideas or as termed by Foucault “the knowledge of all knowledge”. See Michel Foucault, The Order of Things, London: R.D. Laing, 1970, p. 138. 106 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashar (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1978, p. 78. 107 Ibid. 108 Abdullah Saπadeh, Al-Haraka Al-Qawmiyya al-Ijtimaπiyya Wa Maπrakat al-Masseer, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1970, p. 7. 109 This notion can be referred to in Saπadeh’s reply to Dr. Abdul Rahman Shahbandar, Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 157. 110 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Rassa-el, Beirut: SSNP Publications, vol. 2, 1978–1990, p. 575. 111 Ignatius Hazeem, an interview with Sabah Al-Khair, I, 371, 19 March 1983, p. 13. 112 Antun Saπadeh, Marahil al-Masπalah al-Filastiniyyah (The Stages of the Palestine Question), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1977, p. 121. 113 Antun Saπadeh, “Junoun al-Khulud”, in Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), vol. 9, Beirut: SSNP, n.d., p. 273. 114 See “Thawrat Al-Kawakibi”, An-Nahda, 23 June 1983, p. 4. 115 Wassim Zainiddin, Ard Wa Tahleel Li Baπd al-Massael al-Iqtissadiyya al-Ijtimaπiyya Minn Khilal al-Manzour al-Qawrni al-Ijtimaπi, Beirut: n.p., 1973, p. 3. 116 Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism, London: Macmillan, 1917, p. 133. 117 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 3. 118 See Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, p. 112. [345]


119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126

127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140

Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 139. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 26. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 69. SSNP, Antun Saπadeh: Leadership and Testimony, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1981, pp. 119–120. See also Inπam Raad, “Mun al-Bidaya Aπlana Saπadeh: La Ukhuwwa Maπa Al-Qahr al-Ijtimaπi”, Mulhaq An-Nahar, 26 November 1972, p. 6. In a lecture delivered during a teachers’ conference, Saπadeh had no compunction about declaring that neither the Church nor the Mosque nor the Recess nor the Tribe nor the Sect nor Feudality nor anything of those preliminary institutions is suitable for the principles of new life – the social national life. Saπadeh does not exclude the family or the home institution, for the family, in general and so far, is a religio-sectarian entity rather than a national public institution. Legislation itself is religious or sectarian but neither national nor public. See Antun Saπadeh, Shurouh fi al-Aqida, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1958, p. 147. George Qurm, Taπaddud al-Adyan wa Anzimat al-Hukm, Beirut: Dar An-Nahar, 1979, p. 331. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 105. Ibid., p. 128. Waleed Zaydan, “Al-Muqaddimat al-Awwaliyya Li Fikr Saπadeh al-Ijπtimaπi”, Fikr, no. 62–63, 1985, p. 69. See Nasri Sayegh, “Muwqif Saπadeh Min Ad-Din”, Fikr, no. 35–36, 1980, p. 148. See Saπadeh’s article against “The Jesuit Establishment” in An Nahda, 1, 113, 11 March 1938, and other articles published in the first issue of An Nahda, 1937, in reply to derogatory articles published in the sectarian journal al-Bashir. Baruch Du Spinoza (1634–1677). See John Bowle, Western Political Thought: From the Origins to Rousseau, London: Macmillan, 1961, p. 389. Matthew Arnold, The Function of Criticism at the Present Times, London: Kessinger Publications, 1954, p. 9. Saπadeh, Leadership and Testimony, chapter 2. Refer also to Marahil al-Masπalah al-Filastiniyyah, p. 29. Gibran Jreige, Antun Sa πadeh: Mun al-Wilada Hatta al-Taπsees (1904–1932), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1982, pp. 36, 38, 113. See Patrick Seale, Al-Siraπh Ala Suria, translated by S. Abduh and M. Falaha, Beirut: al-Muπassassah al-Oma lil-Dirasat wa al-Nashr wa al-Tawziπ, 1980, p. 100. See Khadduri, “Ittijahat Al-Fikr Al-Siyassi”, Hiwar, p. 10. Sati Husri, Al-Uruba baina Du ∏atiha was Muπaridhiha (Arabism between its Supporters and its Opponents), Beirut: Dar al-Ilm lil Malayeen, 1952, p. 70. The story of Omar Farroukh who arrived in Beirut holding a doctorate from Sorbonne University illuminates the procedure followed. Farroukh revealed his admiration for the principles of the party but declined membership because its leader “is from another religion”. When informed, Saπadeh remarked: “[Is this guy] an educated man or a fanatic?” See Jreoge, Maπ Antun Sa πadeh (In the Company of Antun Saπadeh), vol. 2, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1975, pp. 47–48. [346]


141 Yamak, op. cit., p. 91. 142 It goes beyond this work to list the names of relevant figures and foundations. But as an example we mention four chairmen of the press syndicate who joined the party in Lebanon, namely: Robert Abella, Ghassan Twayni, Riyad Taha and Muhammad Baπalbaki. 143 Yamak, op. cit., p. 9. 144 Kamal Jumblatt, An-Nahar, I, 4293, 9 September 1949. See also Kamal Jumblatt, Istijwab Jumblat al-Tareekhy Lil Hukouma Hawla Istishhad Sa πadeh Aam 1949, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1977, pp. 9, 34–35. 145 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 34. 146 Ibid., p. 89. 147 Ibid., p. 37. 148 Saπadeh, Junoun Al-Khulud, in Complete Works, p. 264. 149 Ibid. 150 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 8, p. 69. 151 Ibid., vol. 11, p. 150. 152 Said Fakhriddeen, who was granted the National Struggle Medal as per a Presidential Decree no. 9377, dated 2 August 1946. 153 The Times called Sanaπ Muhaydaly’s martyrdom a “secular suicide”. But in the Arab Press martyrdom was generally given its national secular scope. See particularly Muhammad Farhat’s article “Wajdi al-Sayegh Alama Thagafiyya”, Al-Safir, I, 3989, 15 March 1985. Both Sanaπ Muhaydaly and Wajdi al-Sayegh were SSNP members when they staged their suicidal attacks: they were part of an impressive group of SSNP fighters who gave up their lives in similar operations. 154 Saπadeh is quoted by Issam Al-Mahayri, see “Ana Issam al-Mahayri Ashhad”, An Nahda, I, 113, 7 July 1983, p. 11. 155 See Issam Al-Mahayri, Al-Murafaπa Bi Daπwa al-Qawmiyyeen Al-Ijtimaπiyyeen Fi al-Mahkama al-Askariyya Bi Dimashq, Beirut, n.p., 1955, p. 12. 156 Anis Sayegh, Lubnan Al-Taπifi, Beirut: Dar as-Siraπ al-Fikri, 1951, p. l. 157 Michel Suleiman, Political Parties in Lebanon, New York: Cornell University Press, 1967, p. 100. 158 Ibid., p. 114. 159 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 28. 160 Saπadeh, Al-Rassa-el, vol. 2, p. 366. 161 Ibid., p. 356. 162 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 47. 163 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 6, p. 108. 164 Ibid., pp. 71–72. 165 Saπadeh, Leadership and Testimony, p. 27. 166 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, pp. 153, 161, 176. 167 Ibid., p. 29. 168 A generalization of Charles Malek states that “the West is unthinkable apart from Christianity and the East apart from Islam”. The submission to such a situation, if factual, renders the problem of religious fanaticism more complicated. See Charles Malek, “The Near East: The Search for Truth”, Foreign Affairs, vol. 30, no. 2, January 1952, p. 23. 169 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 95. 170 Abdullah Qubursy, “Nahwa Tashreeπh Jadid”, Afaq, I, no. 4, 1959, pp. 66, 71. [347]


171 Qubursy, “Radd Ala Fouad Afram”, Sabah al-Khair, I, no. 364, 29 January 1983, p. 1. 172 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 124. 173 Ibid. 174 Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981, p. 50. 175 Abdullah Laroui, The Crisis of the Arab Intellectual, translated by D. Camel, California: University of California Press, 1976, p. 154. 176 Quoted by Morton White, The Philosophy of the American Revolution, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981, p. 254. 177 Herald Hoffding, The Philosophy of Religion, translated by B.E. Meyer, London: Macmillan, 1906, p. 359. 178 Hussain Qawatli, “Al-Muslimoun Maπa Baqaπ al-Taπifiyya al-Siyasiyya”, Al-Fikr al-Islami, Beirut: Dar al-Fatwa, November 1985, leading article. 179 See Charles Brich and John Cobb, The Liberation of Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 236. 180 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures (the eighth lecture). 181 Hassan Saπab, Muqaddima Li Dirassat Ilm al-Siyassa, Beirut: Al-Maktab al-Tijari, 1961, p. 124. 182 Such as Robert Haddad. See his Syrian Christians in Muslim Society, Princeton, NJ: 1970, p. 93. 183 Jeremy Salt, Islam in Syrian Ideology and Political Practice, MA Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1976, p. 1. 184 Some writers have claimed that the principles of the SSNP jeopardize religion. See in this respect: Louis Khalil, Al-Hizb al-Suri al-Qawmi Muπamarah ∏ala al-Din wa al-Watan, Beirut, n.p., 1936; Issam Shamass, Shubuhat Wa Rudoud, n.p., 1980, pp. 106–142; Lebanese government, Qadiyyat al-Hizb al-Qawmi (The Case of the National Party), Beirut: Wizarat al-Anbaπ Fi Lubnan, 1949, p. 68. 185 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 35. 186 Hilmi Maπlouf, “Masseer al-Fikr Fi al-Hizb al-Qawmi”, An-Nahar, I, no. 3763, 19 December 1947. 187 Herman Finer, The Theory and Practice of Modern Government, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1970, p. 276. 188 See Sabah al-Khair, no. 349, 25 April 1982. 189 See Abdullah Qubarsi, Taπassiss al-Hizb al-Suri al-Qawmi al-Ijtima wa Bidayit Nidaluhu (The Formation of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party and the Beginning of its Struggle), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1982.

[348]

PA RT V

P HILOSOPHY


9 Saπadeh’s Philosophical Doctrine Adnan Amshi

The value of a philosophical doctrine is not measured by the number of its adherents, nor by the number of writers who explain or propagate it; rather, it is measured by its original opinions and hypotheses, which may or may not have an influence on present society, but may, in any case, influence its future. Did Saπadeh’s ideas constitute a complete and independent philosophical doctrine? Or did he simply borrow an idea from existing philosophies and then re-arrange them skilfully to form a doctrinal and intellectual compound of the most important ideas of his time? All readers of Saπadeh’s writings, as well as those who have followed the stages of his thinking, concur that he made a fairly significant contribution to the main intellectual currents in philosophy, sociology, economics and politics.1 He was the last of the modern Syrian philosophers who tried to bring regard back to classical Syrian philosophy at the outset of the twentieth century when great philosophical doctrines were receding in anticipation of another atomic age. This recession affected philosophy to the extent that few philosophers of that age aspired to new philosophical doctrines, opting instead for methodological ways of dealing with specific and limited issues.2

Saπadeh’s doctrine of knowledge Research into epistemology usually tackles several issues, the most important of which are: • • •

extent and limits of knowledge ways of attaining knowledge and its sources, and nature of knowledge. [351]

ANTUN SAπADEH: PHILOSOPHY

How did Saπadeh view these issues? Did he formulate new ideas or reiterate what earlier thinkers had discerned? To keep the subject manageable for the present purpose, we will endeavour to answer this question one point at a time. Extent and limits of knowledge In regard to the extent of knowledge, there are two theories in this category worth considering. First and foremost is the confirmation theory, which became an epistemological movement in the twentieth century, though its two main features can be traced back to the eponymous Reverend Thomas Bayes (c. 1701–61).3 Those two features are: (1) the introduction of a formal apparatus for inductive logic; and (2) the introduction of a pragmatic self-defeat test for epistemic rationality as a way of extending the justification of the laws of deductive logic to include a justification for the laws of inductive logic. Another is the theory of epistemological scepticism in its two orientations, the methodological and the doctrinal, which denies the possibility of attaining knowledge of reality as it is in itself, apart from human experience.4 Advocates of the confirmation theory take a philosophical position based on an absolute faith in the truth of their opinions and the invalidity of other opinions. They also begin their thinking at a certain point and proceed without thinking of analysing or criticizing it. They then proceed to make limitless allegations which, however, stem from a theoretical mind that has no practical experience and does not know the limits at which to stop. As regards the sceptical doctrine,5 the methodological and doctrinal, the old and the new, its advocates believe that it is hard to know anything of the nature of things and, therefore, it is necessary to refrain from giving judgement. This attitude produces a state of indifference. Saπadeh went beyond the advocates of both the confirmation and sceptical philosophies in their old and new forms. He did not pursue knowledge, at any level, as an end in itself.6 He believed that society is the source and scale of meaning and values; the truth acquires its value in so far as it is truth in relation to society. Consequently, it is not possible to understand human knowledge, as well as human evaluation of things, except by viewing them as a response to the developing needs of the society and its active requirements.

[352]

SAπADEH’S PHILOSOPHICAL DOCTRINE

Practical activity, for Saπadeh, constitutes the ring that links the cognizant self to the existence of objects for knowledge; for just as man is necessarily part of nature, nature is necessarily part of man. Saπadeh’s view of knowledge is that it revolves around interaction of the self with the surrounding physical conditions. These conditions constitute the raw material out of which the objects of knowledge are formed by way of self-activity. The self, according to Saπadeh, is a social self – that is, an activity that has social content and dimensions. As regards the object of knowledge, Saπadeh thought it is not the thing in itself, but the thing as a phenomenon; and the thing as a phenomenon is the summation of the process through which human consciousness organizes practical data according to human standards. In Saπadeh’s view, there are two basic conditions for the truth to exist: first, existence itself, which is for the thing to exist; second, knowledge should be based on this existence. Knowledge is what gives the existing thing value that it cannot have without it. This conception is useful in determining the role of rational knowledge in attaining the truth, and in relating man to reality or reality to man, although he exists in himself as a constant. Knowledge does not create its object but turns it into an object with human value inside the world of human consciousness. Ways of attaining knowledge and its sources As in the preceding section, there are several theories and schools of thought that attempt to explain how knowledge is attained. Rationalists believe that the mind is the only source of all types of knowledge, whereas experimentalists believe that experience alone is the source of knowledge.7 In contrast, intuitionists claim that knowledge is attainable only through intuition, conflicting also with the pragmatist view, which attributes knowledge to demeanour, or mind or practical experience. Finally, existentialists perceive living existential experience as the source of knowledge.8 According to Saπadeh, the self plays an active role in creating the conditions that transform things into objects of knowledge. This self, as a social self, is the product of several dynamics – mind, intuition, the practical and the existential. It does not depend on one factor and exclude the others. For outside social consciousness, existence has no particular essential forms. These forms emerge from man’s intellectual organization of matter, which is basically a practical exercise.

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Here Saπadeh concurs with rational philosophers such as Kant and realist philosophers such as Marx from the point of view of emphasizing the active role of the self. However, his understanding of self differs from that of Kant: whereas for Saπadeh the self is a social self, for Kant the self acts in a social space.9 As for rational knowledge, which comes about after experimentation, study and assessment in a social interactive context, it is, in Saπadeh’s view, more correct than any conclusion based on intuition and deduction. For him, the triumph of right over wrong in a human battle based on rational knowledge, is the preferred right; for right attained in a transcendental or heavenly battle taking place beyond this world, a battle in which human society does not participate, is a “right”, which may or may not be attainable. Right of this kind cannot be absolute right; rather, absolute right and absolute intellectual values take place inside the mind, and in the context of human society, through knowledge. Nature of knowledge There is wide disagreement between advocates of idealist, realist and other philosophies on the nature of knowledge. Before we consider the various points of view, we should start by asking: who are the idealists, and what is their philosophy? Idealism is a philosophical trend or doctrine that traces all existence to thought, and revolves around two issues. First, it claims that the independence and self-sufficiency of nature is an illusive independence, for nature in fact depends on something else in its development and laws. Second, it claims that this something else is the mind, or for another group of idealists, the soul. Idealism has a variety of doctrines.10 The transcendental idealism of Plato realizes the existence of ideals or images of things, which represented a higher level of reality than the objects that embody them. True knowledge was not to be gained through observation of the material world but through dialectic and intellectual exploration of the world of ideas. There is also subjective idealism divided into two types: Berkeley’s immaterial idealism and Kant’s critical idealism.11 George Berkeley (1685–1753) held that there was no existence without perception by the mind, but things may exist if perceived by God. Recall the classic question: does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no one hears it? Berkeley says no because there is no existence without perception, unless it is perceived by God. Thus, he was a religious man and, like Plato, emphasized idealism over matter.12 [354]


Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) emphasized ideas when he focused on human thought processes. He held that the rationalist thinks analytically (priori) and the empiricist thinks synthetically (posteriori). He created a logical system containing synthetic a priori judgements. This system aimed to settle the dispute between the rationalists with their emphasis on reason as the source of true knowledge and the empiricists with their emphasis on experience. Kant postulated a synthesis between experience and reason whereby the human self or transcendental ego constructs knowledge from both sensory impressions and universal concepts called categories that it imposes on them.13 For Saπadeh, outside consciousness, existence has no particular essential form. But he departs from Kant and the idealists in his definition of the nature of consciousness. The latter, to him, is social consciousness, and consequently the self is inseparable from its social context. Occasionally Saπadeh went further than defending the primacy of the mind and rejecting intuitive doctrine in all its forms. In this context, he stated: There is nothing in our philosophy that gives intuition and desires a higher degree than it does to the mind and logic … We do not believe it right to ascribe a monumental human movement or endeavour to an intuitive power or conjecture – to a feeling, or sentiment or despotic desires not derived from the truth of society, its psyche and exact objectives in life.14

He believed that intuition comes next to the mind, and that it is not right to rely on it in great human activities; the way to exclude intuition and conjecture is clarity, and the condition of clarity is certainty and precision. In direct contrast to the idealist theory, which holds that reality exists only in the mind, realism represents the theory that particular things exist independently of our perception. In other words, there are two general aspects to realism, illustrated by looking at the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties. First, there is a claim about existence. Tables, rocks, the moon and so on, all exist, as do the following facts: the table being square, the rock being made of granite, and the moon being spherical and yellow. The second aspect of realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties concerns independence. The fact that the moon exists and is spherical is independent of anything anyone happens to say or think about the [355]


matter. Likewise, although there is a clear sense in which the table’s being square is dependent on us (it was designed and constructed by human beings after all), this is not the type of dependence that the realist wishes to deny. The realist wishes to claim that, apart from the mundane sort of empirical dependence of objects and their properties familiar to us from everyday life, there is no further sense in which everyday objects and their properties can be said to be dependent on anyone’s linguistic practices, conceptual schemes or whatever.15 Realist philosophies minimize as much as possible the influence of the self, negating its role in the existence of things. However, they do not abolish the self at the expense of things, but acknowledge its active and dynamic character and recognize its role in universal knowledge. However, realist philosophies apportion the responsibility for this knowledge between the self and its potential on the one hand, and nature and its potential on the other. Universal knowledge is thus attained through interaction between this dual potential of self and nature.16 Saπadeh’s propositions are compatible with some aspects of realist theory, particularly as regards what constitutes an object of knowledge. However, they disagree on the relationship between self and object. Whereas in realist theory they exist independently of each other, in Saπadeh’s theory they interlock. For him, knowledge revolves around interaction of the self with the surrounding physical conditions. Existence outside human knowledge is valueless and meaningless; it is an existence that means nothing to human life and its purposes.17 Because the mind has a basic role in human existence, Saπadeh’s philosophical doctrine calls for the complete rationalization of human life. Yet it is difficult to find in his writings a clear distinction between the role of the human mind in knowledge and its role in practice. Even though Saπadeh described the mind as the greatest and most fundamental legislation, he attributed the greatest role in work to life and will, rendering the mind subservient to them. He did not associate between the mind and the function that determines the value of objects and deeds; rather, he simply assigned to the mind the role of discovering the nature of good underlying these objects and deeds. In this context, the mind becomes the ultimate reference between goals and targets – the latter determined by the will, which is an expression of life. Hence, Saπadeh’s analysis is focused, primarily, on the rank and role of both the mind and the will, rather than on the nature of their activity.18 [356]


Therefore, if the mind is associated with the will of life at a practical level, then at the level of knowledge it is associated with practical existence and its laws. For Saπadeh, the knowledge that produces the truth is the one that gives value to existence. Thus there should be two basic conditions for the truth to emerge: existence per se, and knowledge based on this existence. This means that the existence of an object in itself does not become a truth – that is, it does not exist for man, except in knowledge; nor does it acquire a value without it. Here Saπadeh, departing from idealist philosophy, attempted, at the same time, to define the role of rational knowledge in attaining the truth, and in the correlation between man and reality or vice versa. Unknown reality is not a defined object to man, although it exists per se; knowledge does not create an object, but turns it into an object in the world of human consciousness. It is these ideas that distinguish Saπadeh’s philosophical doctrine, Al-Madrahiyyah, from other philosophies. They are not idealist ideas as much as they are not realist ideas which glorify the mind. In Al-Madrahiyyah, the mind is glorified but not in the idealist doctrinal sense, but according to the glory that the mind enjoyed in Stoic philosophy19 and in Syrian philosophy during the Islamic age,20 under Al-Muπtazila and similar movements before Saπadeh’s time. In other words, Saπadeh’s position on the nature of knowledge was clear: instead of competing to know the nature of things, let the discussion be about how we can refine the study into human affairs and attain social targets and ideal ambitions; instead of wasting time on pointless issues, like figuring out man’s origin, destiny and the purpose of his existence, there should be a full record of results reached by scholars and scientists as they study man’s behaviour and life, to know what things should be abandoned, what should be maintained and promoted, and the optimum means to achieve this; and instead of squandering our efforts theorizing about the nature of mankind, there should be a record or account of the educated elite and thinkers, taking into account their vision on how life should be, and the ends and targets they wish to achieve in this regard. Thus, knowledge is not a power unless it is able to change and liberate the world; otherwise it is sheer nonsense. True knowledge is not about delving into meanings and universalities. Rather, it should be about finding the meaning of things and knowing what they stand for so that we can control and use them for our benefit. [357]


The purpose of knowledge is to help man extend his supreme power over nature.

Saπadeh’s doctrine of existence For many philosophers, existence is a view of life from the outside and a view of existence as an object, for existence has no limit or expression; it is the most general entity.21 Anything that pertains to existence is existence, and anything realized is realized as existence. Yet, in reality or in the mind, existence is the first of meanings, and this is due to its simplicity and comprehensive nature. In Saπadeh’s opinion, existence outside mankind is valueless and meaningless; it is existence that means nothing for human life and its ideals, and therefore its supposition is meaningless too.22 He rejected any transcendental tendency or theory that strays from existence and turns to the beyond (beyond existence) to explain things that are meaningful and precious in existence from a source outside existence – that is, from a metaphysical source. General existence What is the nature of existence? There are numerous philosophical answers to this question. Material philosophies perceive the physical world as the only true world, and the mind as nothing but a product of a physical organ, which is the brain. They also believe that the contradiction between consciousness and matter is valueless except in epistemology. As for theory of existence, they believe that there is nothing except matter, and that matter is in continued mutation and development. From this development, new creations, more complicated than the previous ones, are always made, beginning with atoms through to particles, living cells, plants, man and ending up with societies. This developmental process takes place entirely without a previously determined target, and it is completed under the pressure of pure causal factors – that is, in forms of clashes and conflicts. The world in material philosophy has no meaning or target. It develops in random fashion without guidance, subject to constant laws that can be enumerated. There is no teleology, target or care from a divine power, since material philosophy conceives of the world as a unified totality. Spiritual philosophies consider the soul above all other things. Berkeley,23 for example, directs his philosophy towards one goal: the [358]


attempt to prove that nothing exists except spiritual vitality – that is, operations of creative souls based on God’s infinite soul and man’s limited self. It is this vitality that human experiences relied on for content and certitude: imagination, cleverness, memory, thoughts, hopes, dreams, feelings and, above all, senses, whose formation and progress constitute the external world.24 In other words, for Berkeley the external objects exist only as they are perceived by a subject. Thus, the mind produces ideas, and these ideas are things; to be, then, is to be perceived. There are, however, two classes of ideas: (1) the less regular and coherent, arising in the imagination; and (2) the more vivid and permanent, learned by experience “imprinted on the senses by the Author of nature” which are the real things. According to Berkeley, matter is not an objective reality but a composition of sensible qualities existing in the mind. “No object exists apart from the mind; mind is therefore the deepest reality; it is the prius, both in thought and existence, if for a moment we assume the popular distinction between the two.”25 Al-Madrahiyyah, Saπadeh’s philosophical doctrine, regards existence as an infinite interaction between soul and matter. The term “Madrahiyyah” is a coinage made by Saπadeh of two words: maddah and ruh (matter and soul).26 As a concept, it is an identification of the idea of interaction in the relationship between soul and matter in relation to social life rather than the metaphysical being of man. One way to understand the essence of Al-Madrahiyyah, is to explain the connotation of each of the concepts (matter, soul), in the way Saπadeh had understood them. The expressions “matter”, “materialism”, “materialistic” and “material factors” were used by Saπadeh to point to the following: • • •

necessary factors for the emergence and biological development of man necessary factors for the emergence of human communities, and the acquisition by the community of a certain personality, and necessary factors for the social development of man.

These factors include geographical, biological and economic factors that represent the material basis of human development. For Saπadeh this basis is triangular: biological–geographical–economic. Saπadeh’s use of [359]


the expressions “matter”, “materialistic” and “material factors” in the sense pointed to is meant to indicate the methods of production and labour techniques used by man to satisfy his basic human needs. Saπadeh had also used the expressions “psychological life”, “mental life”, “social psyche” and so on, to indicate spiritual factors. On the basis of this brief exposition, Saπadeh’s philosophical ideas can now be reconstructed as follows. 1

2

3

It repudiates the idealist thesis that considers the physical world a mere rational or spiritual phenomenon – the thesis that consequently considers human history as a mere revelation in time, and time as a space for the movement of the mind and the soul. It is worth pointing out here that there is not a single explicit assertion in Saπadeh’s writings that denies the existence of the world of the unknown, or the metaphysical.27 Saπadeh did not take an interest in the origin of the universe and other aspects related to this major issue not because of a lack of intellectual skill, but because he preferred to explore the direction that the human mind should assume in its relationship with the universe. Had he chosen to enquire into the origin of the universe he would have found himself alongside spiritual or religious philosophers (theistic)28 who can never be anything except: either a defender of the issues of Revelation, Creator and creation based on certain religious beliefs, or a pacesetter in methods of intuition, conjecture and hypothesis, moulded into logical sequences that might even sound realistic at certain times – methods that produce a philosophy based on the unseen, dealing with unfelt issues, and relying on feelinglessness in the endeavour to establish truths about existence. This entails a transcendental intellectual battle in order to obtain supposed truths that have nothing in common with human society. It corresponds to the materialist proposition which regards the psychological or spiritual existence of man as a mere aspect or facet of his physical existence. But it rejects the materialist percept that considers man an intellectual being – a mere centre to receive objective results. It also rejects the proposition that regards human history as a mere reflection of the movement of material forces. It affirms the role of subjective factors, the intellectual as well as the psychological, in the process of historical development. It can be [360]


4

said that Saπadeh repudiated the basic propositions of material philosophies in their interpretation of history, and accepted them only as normative interpretations. In this repudiation he distinguished between classical material philosophies that take a basically static view of history, and material factors to which he gave priority over all other factors – a distinction that draws him closer to the historical materialism in Marxist theory.29 Al-Madrahiyyah, as a new philosophical doctrine, postulates the idea of societal life based on an indivisible unity between the soul and matter. It is a creative philosophical view on life, world and knowledge that regards human life and human history as products of a continuous interaction between material and spiritual forces.

The essence of existence, in Al-Madrahiyyah, results from a fusion between matter and soul, implicitly and existentially. This fusion does not allow for separation between the two, so that neither can alone constitute nor cause existence. Al-Madrahiyyah is thus a realist worldly philosophy that considers existence a fait accompli. Therefore, it does not have to look for anything outside its realm. Its idealism lies in the fact that it recognizes reality as it is, and works to improve it without taking it out of the realm of existence into the realm of the metaphysical.30 Al-Madrahiyyah takes an integral view of the universe and the world. It considers the world a thing that exists and, as such, it does not try to prove its existence. It takes the existence of the world as its point of departure and is concerned primarily with the facts that originate from it. Al-Madrahiyyah agrees with Thomas Aquinas’s distinction between natural knowledge and theological knowledge.31 But it totally disagrees with him on the point that will is subservient to knowledge. It agrees with Descartes’ aphorism “whatever I plainly understand is real”,32 but disagrees with his view of the relationship between the soul and body which says that since the mind and the body can each be conceived clearly and distinctly apart from each other, it follows that God could cause either to exist independently of the other, and this satisfies the traditional criteria for a metaphysical real distinction. It finds some common grounds with Baruch Spinoza’s unity of existence and agrees with Kant’s critical philosophy on the superiority of the mind. In short, Al-Madrahiyyah came to Saπadeh from the realization that the structure of social existence, which is made from a material base and [361]


a psychological complex, must be respected and upheld to enable the process of human and social development to proceed without hindrance. Saπadeh ascertained that those who call for social development on a purely material basis cannot easily dispense with spiritual activity represented by consciousness, creed and other psychological phenomena – a theme which has begun to appear in writings of modern Marxists. In the same vein, those who call for community development on a purely spiritual basis cannot dispense with material activity represented by the means of production, technology and other material phenomena. From this we can understand why Saπadeh called on the world to discard the exclusive view of human life and, instead, concentrate on developing mankind’s material and spiritual forces in the context of a broad social form which, in this age, is national. On the other hand, Al-Madrahiyyah realizes that the one essence of existence is sublimity. It also believes that the basis on which existence depends is a general single essence in its dual components: matter and soul. Existence, according to Saπadeh, is sublime; and sublimity in existence is accomplished within existence, rather than outside it. To him it is a material as much as spiritual event, for man’s continuous struggle with nature to fulfil his needs, including the material conditions of human existence, is “absolute” in existence. This is because the objective is to achieve a situation in which man can secure his vital interests with the least possible effort, thus releasing part of his energy to deal with major existential problems.33 Sublimity by existence must be stripped of any metaphysical or spiritual meaning, so that its objectives would not conflict with those of mankind inside the framework of existence. For Saπadeh, it is a condition that this sublimity should not impede the material culture of mankind; rather, it should be based on an active response to challenges posed by material conditions – a response that should aim to push these conditions towards higher levels of development. Let us now turn to another issue to which Saπadeh paid great attention: the human mind. For Saπadeh, the mind is not an element independent of matter; rather, it is the result of physical developments of the brain and, thus, its function is subject to the conditions and circumstances of human life in the physical environment.34 Man, according to Saπadeh, could not have invented the wheel in a desert-like environment because it precludes the materials necessary for its invention. Similarly, it [362]


is not possible for man to achieve vast scientific or technological knowledge in primitive or tribal conditions because the mind is restrained by primitive economic circumstances and paralysed by its absorption in tribal life and tribal collective thinking, which is constant and fossilized. Saπadeh did not explain every thing at work in terms of the mind. On the contrary, he gave a greater role to iradah (will) and hayat (life) and regarded the mind as an instrument in the service of both. It is true that he described the mind as the basic and greatest power, but this does not mean that the merit of determining the value of objects and deeds is totally dependent on the mind’s discovery of the nature of good implicit in these objects and deeds. Rather, it means that the mind is the ultimate reference between goals and ends. The one reality with which man must ultimately identify is life, and “man is part of life; he has emerged in stages until he attained his present form”;35 and “life and its beauty, goodness and loveliness, are the ultimate end”.36 For Saπadeh, moreover, the mind, as an active force in the development of human affairs, is contingent on the appearance of the individual on nature’s centre stage. It attains its highest degree of freedom and, consequently, its highest degree of independence, when man is able to achieve as much as he needs with the least possible effort. Nature both makes the mind and is made by it. It is a continuous interaction, beginning with the appearance of man on nature’s stage as a rational being. Man’s ability to think is the result of purely natural factors; nature at the beginning constitutes the mind, then the mind in turn re-constitutes nature by turning it into an object of its activity: the mind was created to know, distinguish and act in existence. It is the most important element in evaluation, because the task of identifying goals and targets is a function of the mind and the key to the process of evaluation as a whole. Among the functions that Saπadeh assigned to the mind is that of target identification. He believed that the mind has a normative function; its role is not confined to knowing reality and knowing the best means to achieve pre-assigned ends. Rather, it has the role of knowing the best means to identify ends which we ought to try to achieve, as well. This means that one of the basic purposes for which the mind was created is to identify what is normatively necessary. In short, in Saπadeh’s view, the mind is the most sublime power in man; therefore, man should use this power within the parameters of existence, whether in the realm of knowledge, or in the realm of action [363]


or practical work. It is something that man cannot discard if he is to remain a human being in a literal sense. As Saπadeh stated: “We are an active force in this universe. If God has given us a mind, with which we realize, think, aim and work, He has not given us this in vain. The human mind was not created for nothing or to be restrained and paralysed, but to know and act in existence.”37 Nothing, in Saπadeh’s view, can dismantle the basic power of the human mind. Should something of the sort occur “man’s basic attribute would dissipate. He would cease to be a human being and would decline to the level of beasts that roam around without direction or consciousness.”38 Human existence Human existence is one of the most intractable questions in philosophy.39 If the problem of existence is murky and ambiguous, the problem of human existence is the nucleus around which this intractability revolves because only humans wonder about their existence. One difficulty relates to man’s physical and spiritual make-up. Material philosophies, such as Marxism, give priority to the physical side; idealist and existentialist philosophies give priority to the other side. In Al-Madrahiyyah they interact. Another difficulty is that when man thinks of his existence, he does not think of it as an independent phenomenon, which can make existence simple to contemplate, but of himself and for himself. As Martin Heidegger would say, for each of us our own being is an issue.40 As a way of an introduction into Al-Madrahiyyah’s conception of existence, we will begin with a brief exposition of some of the material and spiritual philosophies in this field. Some philosophical doctrines, such as communitarianism,41 argue that the community, rather than the individual (or any other entity) should be at the centre of our analysis and our value system. Primarily communitarians emphasize the social nature of life. They tend to emphasize the value of specifically communal and public goods. Extreme forms of communitarianism call for the total dissolution of the individual in community, irrespective of its effects on personal freedom and private property. In this context, life is for community, not for individuals. Other doctrines give primary moral value to individuals over community. They believe that the community should be at the service of the individual, and that it should exist solely for individual happiness. Some doctrines are influenced by the Kantian view that individual human beings are [364]


“ends in themselves”, and thus agree that persons are owed respect for their autonomy, which is protected by inviolable rights. Here individual freedom is absolute. Whether other individuals are poor, miserable or emotionally hurt, is irrelevant. Existentialism revolves around the personal dimension in order to motivate passions and justify pleasure. Søren Kierkegaard, for example, holds that we should not think of our existence as “real subjects” as a feature of our lives which we can just take for granted. Instead, he thinks that it is an aspect of our lives that needs to be developed if we are to achieve our full potential as individuals.42 Existentialism, thus, does not represent the general human characteristic that results in, and is explained by, supreme values. As an expression of individual inclination, it starts from the pure individuality and egocentricity of the person, and ends up with pleasures that are particularly considered pleasures by the individual, though he may transmit them in a detrimental way to others in society. Fascism glorifies the spirit and degrades the matter.43 It considers the state or the race as the goal that every human being should sacrifice on its altar. This kind of state glorification, particularly of racial state, destroys the value and freedom of man and turns him into an artificial worthless machine. Fascism regards anything that is naturally inhuman – that is, unsocietal, as quite valuable. The state in fascism is the highest goal, the only existence in which man can live.44 Likewise, Nazism glorifies and admires the soul as much as it disdains the importance of the matter. It glorifies the racial state and considers spiritual intents or greed the starting-point of human action; thus, it represents one aspect of human existence – the spiritual aspect, though in a distorted style. In Al-Madrahiyyah, man is a historical being who grows and develops in conformity with his interests and institutions, and his intellectual and material constitutions. Notwithstanding special circumstances surrounding his growth and development, he is subject to a general law based on a triangular biological relationship: body–self (brain)–environment. What distinguishes man, in his observance of this law, from other living creatures, is that his relationship with the environment, and with other creatures of his type, is an indirect relationship, rather than a one-sided direct relationship. It is a relationship that assumes the interference of a third element, the cultural element, as a mental-psychological affair. It is [365]


thus an interactive relationship. This explains why man, of all creatures, in observance of the aforementioned general law, is necessarily the only creature whose existence has a historical dimension. Man submits to this law as a biological creature of a certain type, who has needs he fulfils by interacting and responding to the challenges of his environment. It is precisely because his needs cannot be directly fulfilled that he is required to work with existing means.45 This is why the factor of culture in the relationship between man and the environment is intrinsic.46 To fulfil his needs man must resort to certain means and devices with which to tame nature and make it conform to his living requirements. These devices or means are available only within a social-cultural context. Man is distinct from other creatures in that his needs are liable to develop, change, and reach higher levels of vibrancy and complication. As they do, pressure increases on man to develop standards of cultural and social organization that conform to the new lifestyle. Human history, irrespective of the environmental and cultural circumstances of life, is at its simplest an expression of man’s continuous attempts to adjust the physical conditions of his life to his needs. Man’s humanity per se, in all its manifestations and material-spiritual forms, cannot be achieved and fulfilled except within society. Likewise, man is part of nature; he is a natural being subject to the laws of nature, and at the same time has a social essence that distinguishes him from other living beings. Man, then, is both a subjective and objective being, according to his social entity. As a subjective being, he has the ability to outpace nature and transform it into an object of his dynamic targets, giving it value and meaning which nature cannot possibly have outside the teleological frame of human consciousness. Man is in the centre of the circle; he is the only one capable of attributing all things to him, and rationalizing them. He does not enter this relationship as an arbitrator, but as a being whose evaluation of objects and issues is determined under the pressure of his evolving needs. Therefore, the starting point in the process of understanding humankind is to recognize that man is a productive being. As Saπadeh said: “[W]ork and its cooperative system are the bases of social life and the organization of society.”47 It is clear from this that Saπadeh regarded man as part of nature whose dynamic and practical reflexes give him the power to impart to [366]


nature his own intrinsic attributes, harnessing and breathing life into it. Thus, nature becomes an extension of him as much as he is an extension of it. Ultimately, man becomes an entity with some kind of a biological-social structure. All this indicates that the objectivity of human existence has dimensions which other objective entities lack. As part of nature and subject to its laws man derives his existence as a human being from his sociality (communality), not from natural or biological traits of his existence. What distinguishes human existence from other forms of existence is that it has a historical social dimension subject to the laws of society and history, as much as it is to the laws of life and nature. Saπadeh was at pains to emphasize this point because the social nature of man is an essential part of human existence: it is what gives meaning to existence. For Saπadeh, the connecting link between man as a biophysical entity and man as a subjective being takes shape in human society. In his opinion, the human soul does not exist in itself or emerge as a mere result of certain developments in the biophysical nature of man; rather, it is the result of interaction between human beings, as biological entities, within certain physical, historical and social conditions. Outside the frame of this interaction, the concept of man as an active subjective being with a perceptive mind is meaningless.48 This conception places Saπadeh’s philosophical doctrine in a different category from other philosophies. First, it does not accept the religious percept that regards man as a constant spiritual essence with temporary physical existence.49 It also conflicts with idealist philosophies which claim that man is a dynamic entity that moves independently of nature and history; for man is a human self, not an object, in his essence. Moreover, it rejects the propositions of classical material and natural philosophies that consider man a mere object, rather than a human-self, in his essence, and regard the elements that determine the meaning of his existence as a human being, as by-products of his material reality. Finally, it rejects Marx’s concept of man, which associates man with the concept of class rather than society. In the final analysis, the basic issue for Saπadeh revolved entirely around man’s vital interests and his evolving existence. He was not interested in explaining human reality from an existential perspective. His investigation into the meaning of man does not rotate around constant attributes but studies the social dimensions of human existence and analyses them in the context of historical reality. As such, Saπadeh’s [367]


concept of human existence precluded any existentialist or metaphysical interpretations. Saπadeh did not pay attention to either or concern himself with issues of man’s existential reality – whether its essence is material or spiritual. He did not squander his time looking for answers to questions about the nature of relationship between the soul and body, or between the mind and body.50

The individual and society The emergence of the individual was not a result of a random process, but of regulated cultural and social developments during which man slowly moved, as modes of economic activity gradually changed, from a communist society, in which the individual was a subjective entity in his tribe, to an agricultural-industrial society, in which the individual began to exercise relative independence from his surroundings, and to perceive his own personality.51 As the mind entered this new phase, whose birth had been facilitated by certain material-cultural factors, it was liberated and its creative forces unleashed. It will eventually reach its highest degree of liberation and, consequently, its highest degree of independence when man is finally able to achieve as much as he needs with the least possible effort. Society’s historical anthological precedence over the individual does not mean that, to Saπadeh, individual existence is less true than social existence or that social existence is the only true existence.52 All Saπadeh had wanted to show was that human society is inevitable and a necessary condition for the existence of the individual as a human being, and for the advent of individual personality. This advent represents a critical stage in social development, negating the total identification of the individual with the group. However, to Saπadeh this does not mean that man can stand apart from society or orbit around his individual self, as Fayez Sayegh had believed under the influence of Berdyaev’s existential philosophy.53 Berdyaev’s fundamental idea is that freedom precedes existence, which puts the concept of freedom on the highest metaphysical level. Berdyaev’s freedom is tied very closely with his religious beliefs. He states that God is present only in freedom and acts only through freedom. Berdyaev makes a clear distinction between his concept of freedom and the traditional philosophical and theological idea of free will. His freedom has a much more general meaning: [368]


Freedom is my independence and the defining of my self from the inside, and freedom is my creative force, not the choice between the good and evil that I am faced with, but my creation of good and evil. The situation of choice itself can cause the feeling of oppression, indecisiveness or even the feeling of absence of freedom. The liberation comes, when the choice is made, and I move along my creative path.54

The advent of the individual, as perceived by Berdyaev, represented a kind of an ethical trial of the self – that is to say, the self became the ultimate source of values guiding its deeds and action. This tendency, which is clearly discernible in most of Berdyaev’s writings, asserts that in such situations the ultimate end for the individual is to attain individuality through freedom. Values guiding the individual in this process, or guiding his general behaviour, are his own values, for they do not have a basis, neither beyond this world nor in nature, nor in any objective reality superseding the human self, since man, not society, is the maker of values as an individual. The question now is where did Saπadeh stand vis-à-vis these philosophical percepts and how did he try to refute them? To begin with, he regarded Sayegh’s espousal of Berdyaev’s conception of the individual as the “axis and end” of human existence, as a flagrant deviation from his own social national philosophy.55 He therefore decided to address the issue of the relationship between the individual and society. He began by saying that society, not the individual, is the end, and that the individual is not an entity that exists in itself, capable of achieving his self and his humanity independently of society, as portrayed in existentialist philosophies such as Berdyaev’s. In keeping with his social national doctrine, which he established as an exact opposite to such philosophies, Saπadeh explained that man cannot be viewed in isolation of his social milieu, as though he were a self-contained entity that moves in complete independence from society. For Saπadeh, the individual in himself, a being existing in its own right, not as a party in a relationship, is not a human entity that has actual existence. What he wanted to show was that society was the frame within which the individual finds the necessary conditions for existence, conditions not just to help him achieve his humanity, but also for him to be an entity with a particular personality conscious of this personality and its orientations. There is nothing in this attitude that justifies the [369]


extreme conclusion held against Saπadeh that he negated the existence of individuals or had dissolved them in society in absolute terms. All that it means is that, for Saπadeh, “the concept of the individual is not the basis to which human existence can be attributed”.56 What Saπadeh rejected and negated is the individualist doctrine, whether in its sociological or methodological orientations. The former is represented by the doctrine of the social contract to which Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau and others belonged.57 It views society as a group of individuals linked to each other by external relationships. The methodological viewpoint is represented by the existentialist doctrine, from Kierkegaard to Sartre and to those who came after Sartre,58 in its two branches: belief and atheism. It takes individuals’ actions as the starting point in its study of social phenomena, visualizing the social whole as a network of social relationships resulting from individual behaviour towards each other. Rejecting both orientations, Saπadeh affirmed that the individual can only exist as a human being within a social framework. In the study of human existence, he argued, the concept of man must be subordinated to the principle of communality, not the other way around. The primacy of society over the individual, in this sense, revolves around the idea that society is the natural place for the advent of individual personality and the most important determinant of its development and characteristics. The advent of personality in society The advent of individual personality cannot be separated from the appearance of thought because subjective consciousness is a vital factor in the evolution of human personality. Subjective consciousness is rooted logically in the individual’s ability to view his “self ” as a unique entity. The individual becomes a person when he has developed the ability to see himself as an independent entity, to perceive his own existence, and to be in a situation which gives him relative freedom from his social surrounding, and thus his existence, special orientation and meaning. Obviously, the concept of a person is broader than the concept of the individual.59 A person is an enterprising force and a choice, one that commits, assimilates, lives in harmony with others and is sagacious enough to decide when to accept or refuse. These are some necessary traits to say that a person has subjective independence. Conversely, personality begins to emerge when a person refuses blind obedience and recognizes [370]


the supreme value of the mind and thought. This recognition, though, does not mean that some minds have the right to intimidate other minds. The advent of personality entails a shift away from primitive life, which cannot visualize the individual outside group assabiya (solidarity) because its members are regarded as kinfolk, no different from each other, and part of the same life. In fact, tribal assabiya does not recognize solidarity and cordial relationships except among those who are linked to each other by blood ties.60 Its realism is based almost entirely on a common ancestor, which it holds in the highest regard. In these circumstances, the individual becomes a person when he develops certain features, the most important of which are: •

• •

ethical attributes, which the individual is obliged to defend and protect; they include such things as honour and virtue, which are indispensable in the constitution of personal dignity prestige, self-esteem and an ability to take admirable stances, and allegiance to society.

When a person acquires these attributes he is open to the judgement of the group, as an entity responsible for his actions, as well as to the moral values and standards of society. If a person desired to take just the elementary steps to change himself and his environment in common with others, he must, first and foremost, cultivate himself and develop a strong attitude towards change even when it is trivial. This is why political-societal change in such societies is difficult. In order for it to happen, it must come from the innermost depth of the soul and challenge every obstacle in its way.61 When a human being becomes an individual, then a person, he enters the world of freedoms.62 Protecting these freedoms requires the power to create order and perceive patterns. It also requires a degree of self-awareness by the person, as an independent whole, actively working to unify and surpass himself. The process of becoming a person starts from the mind, for the mind is the power that controls the ability to liberate, create and harmonize.63 The mind has a basic role not only in coaching the person, but also in providing the resources that a person needs to develop a clear awareness of his own requirements and to integrate, spiritually and materially, into society. [371]


If an individual is associated with a given human society, and at the same time is relatively independent of it, then he would have a particular personality and a distinct awareness of it. In primitive and tribal communities this was rare.64 In Saπadeh’s view, this phenomenon does not appear until a later time in history, because it is contingent on radical changes in human culture and the factors of production, out of which new methods of social organization emerge.65 In a nutshell, it indicates the appearance of an important new factor in social development. An individual, in this sense, is a real being, who occupies a space in existential reality; he is not absolutely independent of the societal, but is embedded in the social environment. Man-society The concept of man-society is the axis of Saπadeh’s theory of human existence. What is meant by this concept is that existence at a human level and existence at a social level are not independent phenomena; rather, they are one phenomenon, two aspects of the same social essence. Man-society thus begins by re-asserting the primacy of society over the individual – that is, that the individual was not the beginning point of history and sociality, and that his appearance was contingent on certain transformations in the course of human history. This means that, from a historical perspective, human existence preceded individual existence. It also means: • • • •

man does not exist except in a group man does not exist as an absolute individual; when man first existed, he existed in a social context man’s social status cannot be logically extracted from a natural status that assumes the existence of individuals in it, and there is no room for the concept of man as an entity that can think, make choices and feels outside the process of sociality.

Thus Saπadeh rejected the concept of the individual as an absolute entity, as envisaged in Gottfried Leibniz’s philosophy.66 Leibniz’s philosophical thinking, presented in bare-bones form in the Monadology (1714),67 is strikingly different from his early work on the nature of bodies. Nonetheless, certain themes persist – the requirement that the basic individuals of an acceptable ontology (the individual substances) satisfy [372]


the most rigorous standards of substantial unity, and the requirement that individual substances be endowed with causal powers and, hence, be centres of genuine activity. In the Monadology, Leibniz presented the main outlines of his mature metaphysical system unaccompanied by much in the way of supporting argument. Consider, for example, the first two paragraphs of the Monadology: 1 2

The Monad, which we shall discuss here, is nothing but a simple substance that enters into composites – simple, that is without parts. And there must be simple substances, since there are composites; for the composite is nothing more than a collection, or aggregate, of simples.68

In other words, for Leibniz man is self-existent, a composite (monad). His existence is internal, in the sense that he is not an annex of any other existence. He forms and develops from the inside in absolute independence. Society, according to this view, is an aggregate of monads (individuals), each constituting a completely independent and isolated circle, joined together not by internal forces but by external necessity.69 To Saπadeh, real human existence is society, not the individual; the latter is a mere possibility. He stated: “Our doctrine stands for a basic, total, human truth, which is the social truth, the community, society and group. Society is complete human existence and total human truth.”70 Man as an existing being is a social being, and his sociality, as a phenomenon of his life, is neither unforeseen nor accidental. Rather, it is an intrinsic phenomenon, without which man cannot be man in the true sense of the word. In short, Al-Madrahiyyah is, in one respect, a philosophy that views man from two perspectives: 1

2

the perspective of man-individual, where the individual is a mere possibility, but his appearance constitutes a critical point in history, and the perspective of man-society, where the individual is a dynamic force.

The first point does not exist except in the realm of assumptions; the second point is what man has achieved and is still trying to achieve, in order to fulfil his evolving needs. [373]


Saπadeh’s doctrine of ethics Ethics We begin with two questions. Is religious knowledge the ultimate standard of good and evil? And is ethical knowledge derived solely from divine commands and prohibitions? Answers to these questions are varied. Religious believers and philosophical theologians believe that what God has decreed is necessarily good, and what He has prohibited is necessarily evil.71 They also state that our knowledge of His commands and prohibitions may be inadequate, but is still essential for us to distinguish between good and evil. This leads to the following result: although religious knowledge revolves around metaphysical or quasi-metaphysical issues related to the “absolute source” and ultimate destiny of man, it also includes revelations about what He expects of us, and for us – that is, it is knowledge of what we should do, and of the goals we should aim to achieve. Moreover, knowing what these goals are is essential for the way we organize, or re-organize, society, which means that religious considerations cannot be circumvented under any circumstances.72 Saπadeh rejected this conception outright. He believed that it is wrong to confuse the ethical values of religion on the one hand, and religion as constituting, at the level of knowledge, the ultimate source of ethics on the other. Indeed, religion has ethical values, because God calls on us to do good and avoid evil. But our knowledge of this truth does not have limited ethical boundaries; rather, it is knowledge about the nature of God as an all-good being. God, who is all-good, commands us to do good, and forbids us from doing evil, but He does not define what is good and what is evil.73 It is true, by logical necessity, that truth is inherent in the commands of the all-good being irrespective of whether good and evil are defined.74 But this cannot constitute the absolute beginning of ethical knowledge, or even one of its preludes because such knowledge necessitates, first and foremost, human awareness of principles and standards that derive their credibility not from the fact that they are God’s commands, but from their ability to guarantee human submission to these commands, and lead, under certain cultural and historical conditions, to human progress in the best way possible. If the nature of God commands us to do good and avoid evil, the nature of values leaves it entirely to us – humankind – to define good and evil.75

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Saπadeh’s attitude towards the nature of values and his faith in human interest and human progress as the standard of values is the reason why he regarded ethical knowledge as logically independent from the basis of religious knowledge. If the standard of good and evil is logically independent of divine will, because of its intimate association with human life and human interests, then knowledge of what God commands as good, and what He forbids as evil, is not possible without assuming certain normative pre-suppositions. We know that God commands us to do good, and forbids evil because we know that He is all-good by nature. This knowledge had been possible only because we had, beforehand, criteria by which to differentiate between good and evil. Without our knowledge of these criteria we would not have known that God commands good and forbids evil. Our a priori knowledge of ethical values and of evaluation criteria are at the basis of our religious knowledge. In other words, ethical knowledge preceded religion, not vice versa.76 God The discussion of the nature of God is necessarily tied to the nature of deity as conceived in Christianity and Muhammadanism. God, according to this conception, is the creator of man and of everything else on earth; and all that is created by God is created for a certain reason. Thus, God is absolutely perfect and absolutely rational.77 Starting out from this conception, Saπadeh arrived at the following conclusion: God has created everything for a reason, and He also created the human mind for a reason; this reason lies in the essential function of everything He created. Therefore, the reason behind the human mind lies in the essential function of the mind. So what is this essential function? Saπadeh answered this question as follows. The essential function of the mind is knowledge, perception, insight, differentiation, defining goals and to be active in existence. It is clear, then, that the mind’s function is not merely to perceive reality as it exists or to determine ideal means to achieve pre-approved goals and aims; its role, rather, is to define goals and speculate on what reality ought to be like. God, according to Saπadeh, has given man this distinguishing and perceptive force [that is, the mind] to deal with his humanly affairs and reshape them according to his vital interests and goals in life. The mind’s essential function, then, is tied to the purpose for which man was created; and the

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essential nature of man has two poles: freedom and responsibility. Man was created to choose, to act freely and, ultimately, to take responsibility for his choices and actions. It is his right to choose in complete freedom the direction and the destiny he wants for himself.78

God, who created man and gave him a mind to realize his humanity, is Himself an absolutely rational being. This means that His actions could not have been the result of conflicting intentions. It is impossible to believe that God would create man as a free being responsible for his actions, give him a mind to fulfil these functions, and at the same time impose on him a static law and a fixed order of values that limit his mental freedom. The human mind is free, by the very will of the source from which it emerged, to seek the best and to decide for itself, and by itself, the ideal destiny in life. It is often said that one of the fundamental purposes of religions is to guide man to God because knowledge of God is a purpose for which man was created.79 It can be equally said that this knowledge is not possible without ethical knowledge. If God had created man so that he should know Him, then this supposes the primacy of ethical knowledge over religion. It also means that God created man and gave him a mind that can distinguish between good and evil, beauty and ugliness. Thus, there is a normative side to the human mind. Religion In Saπadeh’s opinion, religion is, in its spiritual sense, a yearning to the transcendent – God. It is an internal psychological blaze that elevates man and gives meaning to his humanity. Religion declines when it comes down to earth and clings to the external appearances and superficialities of life, without penetrating the human soul. In Syria, and indeed the whole East, the religious obsession with the superficial, indicated by rituals and customs, is so strong that it has clogged the cycle of social life, rendering it almost meaningless. Religion is, in its essence, concerned with the issues of the afterlife, punishment and reward. It is these issues which distinguish religion from sublime philosophical doctrines advocated by great philosophers in history. These doctrines did not find a permanent place in the hearts of the human race as religion did because they did not identify with an invisible divine power. [376]


Initially, religion assisted the people by helping them to preserve their supreme ideals and strengthening their self-esteem. For Saπadeh, religion became a national tragedy when it lost its spiritual quality and became a material instrument misused by its followers for their own interest and power, at the expense of the freedom and vital interests of the people. As a result, the nation declined, national spirit and self-confidence weakened, social and political lethargy developed, and eventually a situation emerged where people were forced to turn towards more developed nations. As for religious knowledge, Saπadeh’s opinion is that it is basically metaphysical due to its special character and strong interest in the revealed laws. Thus it is an independent kind of knowledge, which cannot be explained by other kinds of knowledge and, consequently, cannot be used as a base on which to form a world view in the spiritual-social-economic sense. There is simply no logical relationship between them.80 On another occasion, Saπadeh stated that it is incorrect to confuse historical or causal relationships on the one hand, and a conceptual logical relationship on the other. He did not deny that religion, as a full-fledged doctrine, has been, from a practical angle, important in socio-economic constructs – far from it. Religion, under certain objective conditions, historical and non-historical, may have a basic psychological role.81 This role does not stem cogently from the essence of religion, but is imposed on it by historical conditions.82 Religion does not surpass this role because its essential purpose does not change. It remains as it has always been: a metaphysical purpose. Saπadeh believed that defining religion in those terms does not affect its essence or cause us to abandon the cardinal issues that determine its nature. For him, there is no essential contradiction between consent to the integrity of religious beliefs and consent to the merit of a certain social-economic world view. Believers, whether Christians or Muhammadans,83 retain their religious beliefs, but at the same time can adopt or refuse a socio-economic doctrine without losing anything of their religion. However, one may object to this analysis on the ground that the Muhammadan Islamic religion is intertwined with a certain socialeconomic view of life and universe that stems from its essence, rather than from historical circumstances.84 In this context, socio-economic knowledge (how a society is organized and its ultimate objectives) is not logically independent from religious knowledge. In fact, it is not possible [377]


without it. When this happens, as in the case of Muhammadanism, religious knowledge transcends its traditional role and becomes the ultimate benchmark for determining good and evil. However, for Saπadeh, religion, by imposing the principle “do good and avoid evil”, is merely exhorting man to do what is good to him and to avoid what is evil to him. Hence, the substance of good and evil is, necessarily, human, which means, by implication, that the divine will cannot be the ultimate benchmark for good and evil, right and wrong, the beautiful and the ugly. If God has ordered us to do things of a certain kind, or to abstain from doing things of a certain kind, the reason for this is because they cannot be anything except good or evil. Thus, the benchmark is man’s interest and his progress, not divine will. Good is not good because God had said so, but because it is good; likewise, evil is not evil because God forbids it, but because it is evil. From this we conclude, with Saπadeh, that the judgement criteria are independent of the divine will, that they had been given to us in a logical way prior to our knowledge of divine revelations, and that our recourse to religious knowledge cannot constitute the ultimate source for ethical or normative knowledge.85 So far, we have examined Saπadeh’s attitude to religion and religious knowledge in general. Let us now turn to the aspect of religious partisanship to see what kind of effects it has had on the spiritual, social and, consequently, the national unity of Syrian society. In his book, Mukhtarat fi al-Hizbiyyah al-Dinniyyah (An Anthology on Religious Partisanship), Saπadeh writes: In this age of ours, there is not a single society among all the civilized societies of the world, more beleaguered by religious corruption and doctrinal domination than Syrian society. Its heart has been torn apart by religious malice; its blood has been poisoned by the virus of devious judgements that obscure everything around; and its virtues, such as dignity, loyalty, and national pride, have been decimated. Instead, there are now only vices: deception, treachery and intrigue. As a result, the Syrian bond has been ripped apart and foreigners have taken over the country and devoured its rights. Ignorant judicatures never fail to incite sedition once another has lapsed, and then toss the people into its fire. In every instance, it is the people who pay the ultimate price. And when one group is defeated, the other becomes jubilant unaware that it is really exhilarating the destruction of their homeland and pride, and handing the country over to foreign domination.86 [378]


In the same book, Saπadeh writes: The greatest fragmentation and dislocation that can afflict any nation are those that result from the transformation of sects into nations, in the literal sense of the word, and the various religious partisanships into nationalities when some of them are irredentist or isolationist in character and others are pan-nationalist, inconstant and confused. The strangest sophistry of the new reactionary force is its attempt to create a superficial synchronization between two reactionary nationalisms by creating an oscillating nationalism that shrinks and expands all at once. This is indicated by expressions such as the Arab Lebanese national Beirutian party, or the humanist national Arab party, or the Lebanese national Arab party, or the Arab national Lebanese party … and so on. Other characteristics of the new reactionary stream are then incorporated into this oscillating nationalism and turned into a fashionable trend.87

Stepping up his attack on religious partisanship, in its diverse forms, Saπadeh goes on to say: Sectarian nationalism, sectarian patriotism, sectarian progressiveness, sectarian reform, sectarian idealism, sectarian love, sectarian state, sectarian rule, sectarian non-sectarianism, and all the other aspects of religious partisanship and religious bigotry, cannot eliminate religious partisanship and religious extremism; on the contrary, they are the very factors that fan religious partisanship and religious bigotry, destroy the nation and wreck the homeland. The destruction of religious fanaticism and eradication of the curse of religious partisanship is achievable only when we re-direct our attention to the land, to the bond of its mountains, plains and rivers, and to the people in their organic unity and daily interaction with the land. It is then we will realize that religious partisanship is deflecting our attention from the national reality and distorting the truth of the nation. The only movement that has succeeded in wiping out religious partisanship and eradicating religious fanaticism from its organization is the one that derives its legitimacy from the land and the people, in all its sects and groups; it is the movement that has declared that the love of land and people is for the whole of society in all its classes, the advanced and the backward, the learned and the ignorant, the cultured and the uncultured. This movement is the Social National movement.88

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In the Social National movement, explained Saπadeh: A pious Syrian can still be a loyal nationalist if he or she accepts the principles of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, and distinguishes between religion and nationalism and between the state and the ecclesiastical institutions. As far as we are concerned, religion is a private and personal matter between the individual and the heavens. A true and loyal nationalist is one who embraces the teachings of social nationalism and follows the policies of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. What he believes in beyond this does not concern us.89

For Saπadeh, the problem is not religion or freedom of religion, but the attempt to turn sects into political parties and religious men into politicians. For him, the concept of a religio-political bond in lieu of the political is contrary to nationalism in general and to Syrian social nationalism in particular. Values For Saπadeh, society creates its own values but not in an arbitrary fashion.90 It creates them according to its interest in survival and progress, and in the light of the information and knowledge at its disposal.91 If, at any stage, society mistakenly considers certain values to be more a guarantee of its interest than other values, the mind would ultimately discover the mistake, revolt against it, and seek alternative values that are more consistent with its targets and interests. Because the world for Saπadeh is not one society but many, this process inevitably varies from one society to another and is contingent on the level of progress and character of each society. Characteristics of values Saπadeh distinguished between two kinds of values: material and psychological. Their source, according to him, is the human consciousness, and their main characteristics are as follows. •

Values are not substances that exist in themselves. They are part of the process of consciousness and knowledge, and, consequently, part of practical work and concomitant with it. Values are not objects, although objects may have values or are of value. The basic values for Saπadeh are: freedom, duty, discipline and power. [380]


•

• •

• •

A value is an experiment. Its existence depends on the person’s ability to express it during the experiment. Moreover, every value has its own expression. It does not exist in the absolute, nor is it associated with abstract action outside human experience. Supreme values are real and absolute only if they are perceived by society as such. Values are a system of some kind, whatever their type. This is because every value has a definite domain in whose structure there exist clear and identified relationships. A value is two-sided: it is this or that, right or wrong, good or evil, beautiful or ugly. Finally, a value is motivational and straightforward because one pole is positive, attracting us to it, and the other is negative, deterring us from it.

The problem of values was one of the most intricate problems Saπadeh confronted defending his philosophical system and social national doctrine. It became conspicuous during the fight against the chaotic and individualistic tendencies that had started to spread among social nationalists in the 1940s.92 Saπadeh reacted to this development by addressing the fundamental issue of values in a systematic manner. He looked at their meaning, nature, source and range. On the whole, his answer, encapsulated in the distinction between material values and psychological values, was an extension of his general conception of the structure of social existence.93 Philosophy of values In Saπadeh’s view, society creates values in the context of its activity, as social activity. Objects have no value or are of no value in themselves outside the frame of their relationship with man, for values, in this perspective, are not material factors or physical traits of objects. Moreover, because objects acquire value and meaning only within their relationship with man, it is not possible to measure values in a quantifiable way: they are a psychological, or immaterial, phenomenon. The immateriality of values means that values find their basis in man, not in abstract nature or in metaphysical forces unknown to man. Immateriality of values is an aspect of their subjectivity – that is, an aspect of their materialization from the human soul, which is the subjective [381]


whole. However, this does not mean that they are independent of all objective conditions; values are deeply rooted in the total human truth, which is an expression of life in existence.94 The individual for Saπadeh can make value judgements, as long as he exists as a party in a relationship or in a group of social relationships. This means that the process of evaluation is a social process. The individual takes part in this process only in as far as he holds to a view of existence and objects of his own making. Nonetheless, in attributing values to man, Saπadeh did not subject the process of value creation to absolute individual will, acting independently of all objective material conditions. Values are intimately associated with the total human truth; therefore their formation and development are subject to the same objective conditions as those of man. This conception brings Saπadeh closer to the existentialist philosophers from the point of view of rejecting the idea that values belong to a natural, or supernatural, objective world.95 Rather, values exist in man, since man, as a social historical reality, is the ultimate guarantee of values. In his treatment of the problem of supreme values, Saπadeh faced two conflicting tendencies, which he totally rejected, for philosophical and practical reasons. The first was the tendency to look for the basis of values outside the human world. Saπadeh rejected this tendency implicitly on account of his refusal to delve into metaphysical philosophy and stay within the realm of the human world. The second was the tendency to locate the source of values in individual subjective existence. This he rejected on account of his objection to individualist philosophy. His final stance in this regard is that normative values stem from collective or societal psyche, and that they are as diverse and changeable as the collective philosophies from which they stem.

Saπadeh’s doctrine of politics Saπadeh’s interest in politics centred on a particular brand – namely, revolutionary politics.96 It is a brand of politics that we often associate with organized political movements aiming to create a new social national order.97 It is also a brand of politics that revolves around revolutionary goals and a revolutionary plan and medium of action. In this context, philosophy has two basic roles:

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1 2

to define the goals that guide the revolution, and to help in the creation of a new Weltanschauung needed to build a new human society (man-society).

In Saπadeh’s philosophical system, goals are defined with regard to the social reality, including its potentials, abilities and prospects for change. These prospects are not determined by science only; philosophy plays an important role as well, falling between our present knowledge of the social reality and what social reality ought to be. Moreover, as an instrument of rational thinking, philosophy’s role is to justify the social and political ideals of the new social national order, and to act as a defence mechanism for these ideals. Philosophy starts from the existing social reality, in order to trace the laws that govern the general process of social development, and then becomes an instrument of knowledge and insight into specific social realities. This knowledge has an instrumental value (as a means to achieve something), but it does not alone determine the goals to be achieved. It requires, in addition to this, normative rational activity and relative independence from science. Philosophy depends basically and largely on this kind of activity.98 According to Saπadeh, this basic role of philosophy depends on two factors: first, the nature of social knowledge, which is basically concerned with the diverse potentials present in a given society and the prospects of change; and second, the nature of the mind, the function of which is to determine ends for society to achieve. Philosophy, therefore, has both a rational and a practical function. Its role is not confined to the theoretical and analytical realm. Nor is it concerned with means, which are a function of applied sciences. Its basic role is to identify the ends that deserve our attention. This places philosophy and science on two different, but related, levels: science is the method of understanding the social reality, whereas philosophy is rationally critical thinking of a systematic kind about the nature of the world, the justification of belief, the conduct of life and the identification of ends. Philosophy further plays an important role in the development of society’s Weltanschauung and the new attitude towards life, the universe and art. This Weltanschauung cannot be borrowed from another society; it must spring from society itself.99 For Saπadeh, this particularity is important because it is the basis for spiritual and intellectual independence, and, consequently, for political independence. He furthermore argued [383]


that change to the social system in a certain direction must be preceded by an equivalent change in the material base of society and in man’s own readiness to benefit from the new material conditions and create new orientations consistent with their requirements at the level of social organization. This process will differ from one society to another, particularly between societies whose development has clogged up at various levels, such as Syria, and those whose development has surged ahead.

Conclusion In a society like Syria, in which the world view is static and traditional, developing a new Weltanschauung is not easy. History attests that it often has to face vigorous opposition from within – by certain powerful groups who feel at ease with the past – and from outside – by nations with vested interests in the status quo. Even with development in its material base, Syrian society will not reach the level at which change to its social structure becomes necessary unless its world view and values start to change together. Hence, for Saπadeh, the question of changing Syrian society is not a purely material issue where the forces of production clash with the relations of production and, ultimately, lead to new economic relationships and to the emergence of a new social order. Certain transformations and changes in the material structure of society are necessary, but they are not sufficient to transform its political and value system. How we respond to challenges during a material transformation may differ because the subjective conditions themselves are different. The solution, according to Saπadeh, is to change the ideological foundations of society. This requires the introduction of new values that are consistent with the changes desired at the social level, and the building of a new Man. Moreover, the new Weltanschauung must be consistent with Syria’s distinct national personality and, therefore, capable of unravelling this personality and tracing its historical roots. It must be capable of identifying its distinguishing cultural features and qualities, as well as the essential psychological elements from which it derives its civilizational identity. According to Saπadeh, philosophy’s role in this is to re-discover Syria’s philosophical heritage and provide new values and principles that do not clash with the basic psychological outlook of society or its supreme ideals.

[384]


NOTES 1 See Kamal al-Haj, Moujaz al-Falsafat al-Lubnaniyyah (A Summary of Lebanese Philosophy), Beirut: Al-Karim Publications, 1974. Also, Kamal Jumblatt, Adwaπ ala al-Hakikat al-Qadiya al-Suriyya al-Qawmiyya, Beirut: Progressive Press, 1987. 2 Martin J. Walsh, A History of Philosophy, London: G. Chapman, 1985. 3 G.A. Barnard, “Thomas Bayes: A Biographical Note”, Biometrika 45, 1958, pp. 293–315. 4 For an introduction to Bayesian confirmation theory, see Colin Howson and Peter Urbach, Scientific Reasoning: The Bayesian Approach, La Salle: Open Court, 1989, and John Earman, Bayes or Bust?, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1992. 5 See Jon Blumenfeld, “A History of Skeptical Philosophy”, The New England Journal of Skepticism, vol. 1, issue 1, winter 98. 6 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1980, p. 49. 7 See Paul K. Moser and Arnold Vander Nat (eds), Human Knowledge: Classical and Contemporary Approaches, New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. 8 James Russell, The Acquisition of Knowledge, London: Macmillan, 1978. 9 See Paolo Parrini (ed.), Kant and Contemporary Epistemology, Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1994. 10 For more details, see Leslie J. Walker, Theories of Knowledge: Absolutism, Pragmatism, Realism, London: Longmans, Green & Co, 1910. 11 Youssef Karam, Tarikh al-Falsafat al-Haditha (History of Modern Philosophy), Cairo: Dar al-Maπarif, 1962. 12 Berkeley became the first absolute idealist. His arguments were in response to, and in rejection of, Locke’s “way of ideas”. He accepted Locke’s argument that where perception of objects takes place, we are never actually aware of anything but our own ideas; the properties perceived are not the real properties of the object itself. But Locke had assumed that there was indeed a material world to which we respond, and to which our ideas relate. Berkeley concluded that since perception is a matter of having sensations or ideas, only sensations or ideas can be properly said to be real. Matter does not exist except in the form of ideas in the mind or as manifestations of the mind: “To be is to be perceived.” If our ideas are not responses to a material world, what is their source? Berkeley’s answer to this is “God”. God wills our ideas. These ideas are the language in which He speaks to us. 13 See Henry E. Allison, Kant’s Transcendental Idealism: An Interpretation and Defense, Yale University Press, 1986; and Paul Guyer, Kant and the Claims of Knowledge, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987. 14 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 174. 15 In medieval philosophy realism represented a position taken on the problem of universals. There were two schools of realism. Extreme realism, represented by William of Champeaux, held that universals exist independently of both the human mind and particular things – a theory closely associated with that of Plato. Some other philosophers rejected this view for what can be termed moderate realism, which held that universals exist only in the mind of God, as patterns by which He creates particular things. St. Thomas Aquinas and John of Salisbury were proponents of moderate realism. Most contemporary British and American [385]


16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

philosophy tends towards realism. Prominent modern realists have included Bertrand Russell, G.E. Moore, and C.D. Broad. See J.D. Wild, Introduction to Realistic Philosophy, New York: Harper, 1948; and P.K. Feyerabend, “Realism, Rationalism, and Scientific Method”, Philosophical Papers, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 68. Ibid., p. 103. On Stoic philosophy see Johnny Christensen, An Essay on the Unity of Stoic Philosophy, Copenhagen: Munksgaard, 1962; and J.M. Rist, Stoic Philosophy, London: Cambridge University Press, 1977. W. Montgomery Watt, Islamic Philosophy and Theology, Edinburgh: University Press, 1962. See T.L.S. Sprigge, Theories of Existence, Harmondsworth, Middlesex; New York: Penguin Books, 1984. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 68. Berkeley, an Irish philosopher (idealist) and bishop, was educated at Trinity College, Dublin where he became a fellow in 1707. He stayed at Trinity for five years serving the college in different capacities. Berkeley then moved to London and spent much time travelling in France and Italy for the next ten years. (The fact that he was in London in 1715 disproves the story that Malebranche died of a fit of apoplexy, brought on by arguing with Berkeley.) In 1724, promised a sum of £20,000 by parliament, he entered a project with enthusiasm for founding a college in Bermuda for Christian education. He arrived and settled, with his new wife, in Rhode Island in 1728. While there he corresponded with the American philosopher Samuel Johnson. Unfortunately, the promise of funds was never fulfilled. Disappointed he went back to England in 1732, and was made bishop of Cloyne in 1734. He spent the next 20 years raising his family “in a remote corner of Inokelly”. In 1752 he moved to Oxford to be with his son. Berkeley’s early theory of idealism – the version now associated with his name – is found in his Principles of Human Knowledge and Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous. In both of these Berkeley argues that no existence is conceivable (and therefore not possible) which is not either conscious spirit or the ideas (that is, objects) of which such spirit is conscious. Quoted in http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/b/berkeley.htm, 3 March 2003. See Adel Daher, Al-Mujtamaπ al-Insan (Society and Man), Beirut: Mawaqif Publications, 1981. Inπam Raad, Al-Madrahiyyah: Mafhoum Saπadeh lil Tatawur al-Ijtimaπe wa Nushuπ al-Umam (Al-Mudrahiyyah: Saπadeh’s Conception of Social Development and Rise of Nations), Beirut: Muπassassat Inπam Raad al-Fikriyyah, 2002. See Richard A. Fumerton, Metaphysical and Epistemological Problems of Perception, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1985. V.G. Afanasyev, Historical Materialism, New York: International Publishers, 1987. Daher, op. cit., p. 236. The writings of Thomas Aquinas may be classified as: (1) exegetical, homiletical and liturgical; (2) dogmatic, apologetic and ethical; and (3) philosophical. Among the genuine works of the first class were: Commentaries on Job (1261–1265); on Psalms, according to some a reportatum, or report of oral deliverances furnished by his companion Raynaldus; on Isaiah; the Catena aurea, which is a running [386]


32

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

commentary on the four Gospels, constructed on numerous citations from the Fathers; probably a Commentary on Canticles, and on Jeremiah; and wholly or partly reportata, on John, on Matthew, and on the epistles of Paul, including, according to one authority, Hebrews i–x. Thomas prepared for Urban IV, Officium de corpore Christi (1264); and the following works may be either genuine or reportata: Expositio angelicce salutationis; Tractatus de decem praeceptis; Orationis dominico expositio; Sermones pro dominicis diebus et pro sanctorum solemnitatibus; Sermones de angelis; and Sermones de quadragesima. Of his sermons only manipulated copies are extant. In the second division were: In quatitor sententiarum libros, of his first Paris sojourn; Questiones disputatce, written in Paris and Rome; Questiones quodlibetales duodecini; Summa catholicce fidei contra gentiles; and the Summa theologiae. Certain commentaries also belong to the dogmatic works, as follows: Expositio in librum beati Dionysii de divinis nominibits; Expositiones primoe et secundce; In Boethii libros de hebdomadibus; and Proeclare quoestiones super librum Boethii de trinitate. A large number of opuscitla also belonged to this group. Of philosophical writings, 13 commentaries on Aristotle are catalogued, besides numerous philosophical opuscitla, of which 14 are classed as genuine. Descartes opposed the old authorities and emphasized the practical character of philosophy. “Philosophy is a perfect knowledge of all that man can know, as well for the conduct of his life as for the preservation of his health and the discovery of all the arts.” He seeks a system of thought that possesses the certainty of mathematics independent of scholastic tradition and theological dogma. Adel Daher, op. cit., p. 187. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 326–327. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 165. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 121. Consult E.D. Klemke (ed.), The Meaning of Life, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. M. Heidegger, Being and Time, translated by J. MacQuarrie and E. Robinson, Oxford: 1962. Philip Selznick, The Communitarian Persuasion, Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2001. See S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, translated by D. Swenson, Princeton, NJ: 1941. See Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, New York: Knopf, 2004. Roger Griffin with Matthew Feldman, Fascism: Critical Concepts in Political Science, New York: Routledge, 2004, p. 129. George P. Marsh, Man and Nature, or, Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action, London: Sampson Low, Son and Marston, 1864, p. 8. Richard A. Watson and Patty Jo Watson, Man and Nature: An Anthropological Essay in Human Ecology, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1969, p. 33. Antun Saπadeh, Nushuπ Al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), 1938, p. 89. Ibid. See Frithjof Schuon, Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, translated by P.N. Townsend, Bedfont, Middlesex: Perennial, 1987. [387]


50 Those interested in this aspect of human life consult Alexander Bain, Mind and Body: The Theories of Their Relation, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, 1885. 51 See Steven Lukes, Individualism, Oxford: Blackwell, 1973; and Harry C. Triandis, Individualism and Collectivism, Boulder: Westview Press, 1995. 52 Daher, op. cit., p. 83. 53 Of all the philosophers who emigrated after the Revolution of 1917, and probably of all Russian philosophers, Nicholas Berdyaev is best known in the West. He was a prolific writer and most of his works have been translated into several languages. He is thought of as expressing the fundamental characteristics of Russian thought, as the spokesman of Russian Orthodoxy, as the philosopher of freedom. To what extent all this is true is debatable, but it can fairly be said that it was he who, in the decades immediately following the Revolution, introduced the West to major trends of Russian thought. Born in 1874, in Kiev province, Berdyaev very early found Marxism insufficient as a world view. He could not accept Marxist determinism: Berdyaev has been called the philosopher of freedom; his concern was ethical and he placed the highest value on the dignity and worth of the individual person. It was inevitable that with such an outlook Berdyaev should try to supplement the relativistic ethics and the determinism of Marxism. He did so from the first, seeking, as many of his compatriots did, an answer in the ethics of Kant. But Marxism cannot tolerate any form of idealism. In such an impasse, Berdyaev broke with Marxism, retaining only the critique of bourgeois capitalism and much of the dialectic – the latter, however, purified of materialism and returned to its Hegelian form. Berdyaev characterizes his mature philosophical outlook as existential and eschatological. It is thus a form of religious existentialism which has its roots in the philosophy of the Slavophiles and the main concern of which is for the person as a creative spirit, in contrast to the socialized role-playing individual, whom he finds “bourgeois” and banal. His philosophy thus centres on freedom, spirit and their role in history. 54 Quoted in http://vis-www.cs.umass.edu/~dima/mytexts/suff.html#ethics, 12 March 2003. 55 Fayez Sayegh was Dean of Propaganda in the SSNP at the time and a close associate of Saπadeh. His dispute with Saπadeh on the question of individualism and societalism led to his expulsion from the party in 1948. See his booklet Ila Ayn? (Where to Now?), Beirut: n.p., 1948. 56 Daher, op. cit., p. 89. 57 John Wiedhofft Gough, The Social Contract: A Critical Study of its Development, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957. 58 See Anthony Manser, Sartre: A Philosophic Study, London: Athlone Press, 1966. 59 Dean Diggins and Jack Huber, The Human Personality, Boston; Toronto: Little, Brown, 1976. 60 See, for instance, David M. Hart, Tribalism and Rural Society in the Islamic World, London: Frank Cass, 2002. 61 George M. Foster, Traditional Societies and Technological Change, New York: Harper & Row, 1973; see also R.N. Sharma and Santosh Bakshi (eds), Tribes and Tribal Development: A Select Bibliography, New Delhi: Uppal, 1984. 62 Consult Robert W. Lundin, Personality: A Behavioral Analysis, New York: Macmillan, 1974.

[388]


63 Richard W. Coan, Human Consciousness and its Evolution: A Multidimensional View, New York: Greenwood Press, 1987. 64 See also Robert H. Lowie, Primitive Society, London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1921. 65 See Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, chapter 5. 66 See Nicholas Rescher, Leibniz: An Introduction to his Philosophy, Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1979; Herbert Wildon Carr, Leibniz, London: Benn, 1929; E.J. Aiton, Leibniz: A Biography, Bristol; Boston: A. Hilger, 1985. 67 Nicholas Rescher, G.W. Leibniz’s Monadology, Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991; also, The Monadology and Other Philosophical Writings, translated with introduction and notes by Robert Latta, London; New York: Oxford University Press, 1925. 68 The most complete edition of G.W. Leibniz’s philosophical work in English is Leroy E. Loemker, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters, Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969. Also available are the New Essays on Human Understanding, translated by Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981, and the Theodicy, ed. Austin Farrer, translated by E.M. Huggard, La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1985. 69 Daher, op. cit., pp. 81–82. 70 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 14, 1947, p. 89. 71 See, for instance, Joe Jenkins, Ethics and Religion, Oxford: Heinemann, 1999. 72 Keith Ward, Ethics and Christianity, London: Allen & Unwin; New York: Humanities Press, 1970. 73 Philippa Foot, Theories of Ethics, London: Oxford University Press, 1967. 74 Saπadeh, Junoun al-Khulud, Buenos Aires, 1942, p. 227, reprinted in Complete Works, vol. 9. 75 An ideal introduction to Ethics is E.J. Bond’s Ethics and Human Well-being: An Introduction to Moral Philosophy, Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell Publishers, 1996. 76 Adel Daher, Al-Falsaphah al-Arabiyya al-Mouπassirah, Beirut: Centre for Arab Unity Studies, 1988, p. 298. 77 Gerard J. Hughes, The Nature of God, London; New York: Routledge, 1995; and Edward R. Wierenga, The Nature of God: An Inquiry into Divine Attributes, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989. 78 Daher, Al-Falsaphah al-Arabiyya al-Mouπassirah, p. 298. 79 Reverend W.R. Matthews, The Purpose of God, London: Nisbet & Co Ltd, 1936; Robert Brown and Julie Brown’s Religion, London: Belitha, 1991, explains what religion is, how it spreads and develops, and examines the beginnings and beliefs of the major religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. 80 See Saπadeh’s exposition on the secular reform principles of his political party in The Ten Lectures. 81 See Antun Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages), 5th edition, Beirut: Al-Rukn, 1995. 82 Ibid. 83 Saπadeh preferred the term “Muhammadan” to “Muslims” but under no circumstances as a derogatory intent. He believed that both Christians and Muhammadans are “Muslims” in the sense they submit to the same God.

[389]


84 P.J. Vatikiotis, Islam and the State, London; New York: Croom Helm, 1987. 85 Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, p. 39. 86 Antun Saπadeh, Mukhtarat fi al-Hizbiyyah al-Dinniyyah (An Anthology on Religious Partisanship), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1993, pp. 125–126. 87 Ibid. 88 From a private letter from Antun Saπadeh to Ghassan Tweiny on 17 April 1946, reprinted in Saπadeh’s Al-Rassa-el (Correspondences), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1978–1990. 89 From a private letter from Saπadeh to Yaπacub Nassif on 7 August 1942, reprinted in ibid. 90 On values, see Bryan Wilson and Daisaku Ikeda, Human Values in a Changing World: A Dialogue on the Social Role of Religion, London: Macdonald, 1984. 91 See Edward S. Reed, Elliot Turiel and Terrance Brown (eds), Values and Knowledge, Mahwah, NJ: L. Erlbaum Associates, 1996. 92 See Ibrahim Yammout, Al-Hissad al-Mur (The Bitter Harvest), Beirut: Dar al-Rukin, 1993, pp. 199–229; also Nadim K. Makdisi, “The Syrian National Party: A Case Study of the First Inroads of National Socialism in the Arab World”, PhD Dissertation, American University of Beirut, 1960, pp. 30–32. 93 Saπadeh did not deal with material values as much as he did with psychological values, because he regarded material values as second in importance to psychological values in revolutionary activity. 94 For further details see Philippa Foot, Virtues and Vices, and Other Essays in Moral Philosophy, Oxford: B. Blackwell, 1978, pp. 20–54. 95 See David E. Cooper, Existentialism: A Reconstruction, Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1990. 96 Mehran Kamrava, Revolutionary Politics, Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1992. 97 Feliks Gross, The Revolutionary Party: Essays in the Sociology of Politics, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1974. 98 See Richard E. Flathman, The Philosophy and Politics of Freedom, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987. 99 Hence the Seventh Fundamental Principle of Saπadeh’s political and national platform: “We derive our ideals from our own character and we declare that in the Syrian character are latent all science, philosophy and art in the world.” For a full exposition see Saπadeh’s The Ten Lectures.

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10 Saπadeh’s Conception of Religion Nasri al-Sayegh

To relate oneself to a heritage must mean to adopt a stance towards the future as much as the past. Although a heritage is something to investigate, examine and analyse, it can only be viewed within the perspective of a future. We have to be careful not to fall into some eclecticism, or rather not to sacrifice the element of data and cognition as the basic material for all research and analysis. The problem that heritage studies are suffering derives before all else from this tension between historical data and the evaluative element, and between events that had their own solidity within history and the uses to which they can be put in future.1 That is why we find that many studies that read the heritage from the entry point of its utilitarian value today do so in too narrow and stereotyped a way: they fail to do justice to a rich historical reality, nor are they fair to the requirements of the future itself in obscuring past reality from it. Addressing the heritage should never entail sacrificing, dividing and fragmenting the past so that fragments of it can be selected out by an author to serve the narrow – evanescent – political goals with which he approached the materials in advance. Perhaps the best position for a researcher to adopt when coming to grips with reality would be like that of Hertz, who discovered electromagnetic waves. When questioned about the uses this discovery might have, he replied: “I do not know but this reality exists.”2 It was not long before scientists came to find the uses and benefits of this scientific reality, and the discovery came to be utilized in many modern devices and machines.3 The concept of mobilizing reality to make it support a position or a doctrine is one of the principles that most rob a researcher of scientific attributes and lay him open to the charge of falsification and intrusion. “Historical reality in heritage research as in scientific research in general is a reality of that kind not because it is useful, but because it is a reality.”4 [391]


While a fact or reality has its own established life, it still has to be known for its value to be ascertained.5 The insistent issue that we shall try to answer in this study is how Saπadeh understood heritage through his review of Christian and Muhammadan Islam, and what methodology he used to carry through his review.

Sources of our study Saπadeh wrote no article or study specifically directed to the issue of heritage. Nonetheless, we can make out the methodology or approach he pursued from his view of religion considered generally, and of the Muhammadan and Christian religions in particular. His major work in this respect in his book Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages),6 which Nassif Nassar considered one of the most courageous attempts at analysis ever attempted in the whole Arab world.7 Also relevant is another book he wrote, namely Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (The Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature).8 In this study we prefer to concentrate our analysis on the religious aspect and to put aside Saπadeh’s book on Syrian literature for the following considerations.9 •

•

•

•

Because literary criticism is far removed from analyses of religion despite the fact that for Saπadeh both were highly spiritual concerns of intimate human psychology because religion and literature provide the set of spiritual values that influence the material base. Because the civilization that researchers have so exhaustively examined in recent times is the Arab civilization that is titled Islamic.10 Our judgement is that to seek to understand origins and bases in their historical context, and in their direct influence on the movement of civilization, will yield better results than to research their subsidiary developments despite the importance that these may have. Because Saπadeh in his analysis of the phenomenon of religion defined a set of social criteria which offer the most appropriate focus for all subsequent studies. Because the methodology that Saπadeh pursued in researching the emergence of nations can clearly be applied to the complex sociological heritage-phenomenon of religion. [392]

SAπADEH’S CONCEPTION OF RELIGION

•

Saπadeh wanted, through his book, to depict heritage reality as it is without ambiguity, falsification or ornamentation. His intention here was that when that reality was revealed in its social nature it would automatically perform its functions within the motion of history in the present and future. This was particularly so as religion was, in his age, much as it is in ours, the axis of violent political and ideological clashes. It is rare indeed today that we find any political movement that does not view religion as one of its supports and bases for existing, despite the dangers it holds for the unity of social life and the progression of history and civilization. If, in the 1930s and 1940s, religious Arabism held tenaciously to Islam as one of the basic elements of arkan (nationalism),11 and if the isolationist movements of that period stressed Christianity or one of its confessions as among the foundations for their “nationalist” political action,12 the 1970s have seen these approaches become even more dangerous and disorientated. Even those who armed themselves with materialist methodologies could not escape this pitfall as we see from the ill-considered positions they took towards the religious movements that arose in Iran, movements which may well be able to spread to other regions of the Islamic world.

The book Islam in its Two Messages will be our first source for this study. In reviewing its sections we shall trace the position that Saπadeh took up towards heritage, particularly its component of religion, as also his view of reality and the means by which it can be ascertained. We shall arrange our analysis within three headings which we have found to be useful for casting light on the thought of Saπadeh. These three sectors include issues that have been at stake in the differences between Muhammadan Islam and Christian Islam, but before we move into the analysis of Saπadeh’s work itself, we may make the following brief observations. •

•

This book is a collection of instructional analytical articles that Saπadeh wrote for the newspaper al-Zawbaπah, which he published in Argentina from 1941 to 1943. Saπadeh started the series of articles in reply to a lecture by the “Village Poet” Rashid Salim al-Khuri (al-Qarawi),13 who tried to grade religions in merit, in particular the Muhammadan and Christian religions, for his own trivial and invalid political end. [393]


•

•

After directing his deadly logical blows against the argument that Rashid Salim al-Khuri (al-Qarawi) had followed in his “demagogic” lecture, Saπadeh went beyond that particular controversy. He proceeded to offer his own “complete theory of religion and society and the civilizational and historical relation between the two”.14 Through this set of serialized articles, which brought out the reality of the two beliefs, the Muhammadan and the Christian, Saπadeh aims to get beyond all the erroneous interpretations that have accumulated in history and through to a new level of consciousness in which man would connect his ideological and intellectual value structure to his reality and future. If the state – in Muhammadanism – “had been set up for the aim of religion while religion had not been set up for the aim of the state”15 and if “the means to an end can cease while the aim remains”16 and if the state has now carried out its purpose and the religion is no longer threatened by past or present Qurayshite leaders of society, then there no longer remains a justification for a state to serve as an instrument to propagate religion.

In this study, in which Saπadeh very precisely and competently compares Muhammadanism and Christianity, he aims to found a unity of society on the firm basis of the unity of life, and of material and psychological life and interest, not on the unity of religion. Saπadeh aimed with this approach for a national unity that will be founded on a social basis rather than on its religious confessions.

Patterns of interaction with heritage In his book Muqaddamah fi Dirasat al-Mujtamaπ al-Arabi wa al-Hadarah al-Arabiyyah (Introduction to the Study of Arab Society and Arab Civilization),17 Elias Farah defines a set of analytical approaches with which researchers have examined heritage and the Arab civilization, including the following. •

The approach of the Orientalists and the Western researchers.18 This approach does have a certain seriousness but it is selective and imposes the concepts of the West on the society and civilization that it studies. [394]


•

•

The approach of studies by Westernized Arabs. This approach is followed by some Arab scholars who adopted the Western perspective in its reactionary and progressive versions – that is to say, liberal and Marxist. Thus, it attempts to implement definitions, concepts, theses, forms and criteria “drawn from the civilizational context of modern European society”.19 This approach makes many scholars lapse into a glaring syncretism, since they have taken from the West what is contemporary in it which they then tried to weld with the authenticity of the past. They try to mix the two, but the product resulting is far from coherent. The approach of Salafite studies. These are studies that have looked at history and Arab civilization from within that civilization itself. This orientation is well content with the past and concerns itself with transforming and perpetuating it since it considers the past as a complete historical achievement. Deficiencies derive from failure to return to the past. Salafites view heritage upside down as something separated from time and from conceptualizations of the process of development that determines human societies. Tayyib Tayzini argues that the ideological problem dogging Salafite tendencies in research lies in their attitude that some moment in the past forms the ontological and data starting point that can offer solutions for the present and even the future, and that those solutions must also be the starting point for scientific knowledge. The past presents itself here as both subject and predicate, as a starting point and as a final outcome for all subsequent human activity. In other words, it is the past that confers legitimacy and effectiveness on any given human activity whatever its dimensions and features happen to be … The Salafite tendency bases itself on deriving the needed positions and solutions first and last from the past that was the golden age created by the ancient pious precursors.20 In his book Arab Intellectuals and the West: The Formative Years 1875–1914,21 Hisham Sharabi mentions instances of this Salafite thought-mode, which led not a few reformists into retrogressive stances and into confused misunderstandings of the historical stage that counted them among its architects. An instance is the statement that “the Arabs before Islam were a group of obscure and unimportant warring tribes, but then Islam gave them unity and strength and delivered them from barbarism and granted them a great civilization. [395]


Thus, the only salvation from the condition of fragmentation and current decadence is to recover that period of Islamic history.”22 We have given some space to interpret this pattern because Saπadeh gave considerable attention to such representatives of it as Al-Afghani, Abduh,23 Shakib Arslan24 and Muhammad Kurd Ali25 because all of them were radically hostile to every nationalist ideology: “[A]ll insisted that the religious community, not the national community, would provide a basis for unity … Al-Afghani said the Muslims constitute a single nation because they belong to a single religion.”26 In this respect Saπadeh said: Reaction is the ideology of wanting to return to a previous condition. When we term the two great writers Al-Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and the shaykh Muhammad Abduh reactionary, we are not speaking at random, but mean that they were reactionary in the full meaning of the word because they systematically called for a return to the age of the religious state on the assumption that founding the state is the totality of the religion. They took no account of great historical events which were serious lessons that had undermined much of the content of ancient belief systems in respect to the aims of religion and the purpose of the state and the respective nature of each: they kept believing that the religious state had passed away only because of incidental or relative causes. They thus explicated the deterioration of the Muhammadan religious state in terms of weakness in belief, or a forgetting of religion, or by the Muhammadans having failed to duplicate the progress of the world, or by their common people having been distracted by internal power struggles between their local rulers, or by other flimsy explications that failed to grasp the social economic, geographic and psychological factors that underlie human evolution.27

•

The approach of academic studies. These isolate the manifestations they study from their national and civilizational contexts.28 Such studies are often glaringly limited by sectionalism, descriptive approaches, eclecticism and approaches that abstractize.

In addition to these patterns set out by Farah, we will also find a grouping of anti-heritage positions which Tayyib Tayzini reviews at some length. [396]


He adds to the category of the Salafite tendency that of the contemporary, of syncretism and the value-neutral approach. These two systems of classification may vary in the depth they achieve, but we have set out here the patterns they have traced so that we can proceed to better specify Saπadeh’s own position from some of the methodology that we have mentioned – in particular that of Salafite studies and vulgar syncretism.29

Saπadeh’s stances vis-à-vis Salafiyya The “Village Poet” had adopted a hostile stance towards Christianity and one of support for Islam claiming that his disenchantment with Christianity stemmed from its tendency to separate man from his reality. The New Testament is a spiritual book concerned only with the Hereafter; of this world it knows only monkery and asceticism, mortification of the body and the confinement of the mind in a cage of idiotic fatalistic submission to the transcendent. It kills human capacities and prevents them from reaching their potential, constricts the vision of compatriots and shackles human nature with heavy chains that strangle aspirations. The only glory it recognizes is that of blind submission to heavenly teachings as its own message defines them. It can accept for a human being to live a whole lifetime as an abject slave on whom degradation and sadistic ill-treatment can be inflicted so long as you can continue to believe that after death you will be rewarded with a new life for your servility, submission and endurance of oppression.30

Islam gave unbounded scope to those who sought livelihoods and wealth through its maxim “work for your worldly life as though you will live forever”, while Christianity made poverty a pre-condition to enter Heaven through its order to the rich man who asked to inherit eternal life to “sell all your property and distribute the price to the poor, and then follow me” (Mark 10: 17–22). It is clear indeed that if every rich man carried out this law all people would be paupers and there would not remain on earth any person with even a penny to spare for a poor man.31 It is true that Rashid Salim al-Khuri (al-Qarawi) is incidental to this study since he was no scholar and entered into the issue for his own political self-advancement. However, such stances did feed a genre of hackneyed studies that argued about the comparative merits of the Muhammadan and Christian religions by tearing texts out of context in a partisan way. [397]


These studies started to win a certain circulation through the activities of the reformers in the early period of the Arabic Renaissance as formulated by religious scholars and Imams. The themes of these writings were recycled within a slightly different perspective after the Lebanese War of 1975–1976 by the clerics of Lebanese Isolationism who propounded civilizational pluralism and the superiority of Christianity over Islam and the civilizational progress that distinguished Christianity from the historical backwardness that so persistently dogged Islam.32 This pattern of discourse contains the following errors. • •

•

It sacrifices the component of historical knowledge that the data provided by the heritage offer. Thus it falsifies the heritage. It privileges pragmatism at the expense of the past. The pragmatism we refer to here is ultra-political in its orientation, closed and serves pretty tawdry aims. It makes religion the basis of human evolution and the primary motive force that produces movement in societies. This is an issue that goes beyond the likes of Rashid Salim al-Khuri to other more scholarly thinkers such as Al-Afghani and Muhammad Abduh as it also touches on an issue that is at the very heart of human social life – namely, that of the national community and religious communities. Al-Afghani and Abduh enabled themselves to argue on the basis of Qurπanic texts that the only national community the Muslims have is that determined in their religion, and to argue addressing the Muhammadan Muslims: “[H]ave they forgotten the promise God made to them that they shall inherit the earth if they but serve Him piously” [Al-Urwa al-Wuthqa 149].33 It also argues that the Muslims should not stop developing their collectivity until contention and conflict cease and the only form of religion that remains is that directed to God. This orientation holds that religious rulings depend on the power of a political authority with the function to enforce Islamic religious laws [Al-Urwa al-Wuthqa 165].34

Saπadeh’s position in his interaction with this heritage brings out the antipathy he felt for any scholar who did not read the heritage from the following perspectives.

[398]


•

•

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The dimension of reality as a historical reality established in heritage. Saπadeh says in his reply to the “Village Poet”: “We have argued this lesson in order to resist scholarly and religious charlatanism and a totalist cynical contempt for all teachings be they religious or non-religious. We have also aimed to clarify those facts which may help check the excesses of a religious fanaticism that could find nourishment from their distortions.”35 Understanding of this reality that is reached through the method of apprehending it historically. This works from the assumption that society in its general reality and in its specific occurrences is the force that has defined the form and content of reality. Society in its environment and its relationships is the producer and the cause. The approach of getting to grips with this reality from a civilizational perspective. Every movement that seeks guidance in a generation of ideal forefathers has to be rejected because reality is relative to the place and time that delimit it together. Reality is never to be considered something eternal in its value but rather as particularistic because it is anchored in place and subject to change.

It is a reality to the extent that it existed historically but not in the sense that its historical existence can be summoned up in the present. Thus, a heritage as a reality that appertains to a specific place and time is not to be applied to another space and time in a process of sanctification, but rather by apprehending it critically. Here social perspective applied to a specific stage comes into play to evaluate the reality of the heritage: a correctness of the historical stances and methodology that a scholar adopts are the two necessary conditions for a reading of heritage that can yield fruitful results. In studying heritage, Saπadeh chose a social and nationalist approach in a historical stage defined by specific national, political and socio-economic conditions. His return to the heritage to study it in the light of his spiritual-materialist methodology did not lack a certain pioneering progressive courage at a time when salafi and eclectic tendencies predominated. The tendency of falsification, accommodation and hypocritical interactions was prevalent. Secularization was not a purely political aim but a history-grounded re-reading of the concepts of religion and its relationship to the state. Saπadeh was engaged in a reading that does not abolish the reality of history but rather, in asserting it, interprets and [399]


analyses it and gives it its distinctive qualities determined by defined place and time.

Islam as understood by Saπadeh The title of Saπadeh’s book Islam in its Two Messages indicates that he saw both messages as belonging to a single religion: no conflict divides them over the ultimate aims of religion. A casual reader might suppose at first that Saπadeh – responding to the social, political and economic conditions of his nation, specifically the division of the people into a range of sectarian and religious loyalties – is aiming here to create a common ground between the two messages in order to move from this syncretic approach to getting the slogan of political secularization and the separation of religion from the state on to the agenda. There is no doubt that Saπadeh grieved at the way these loyalties divided the unity of society. Still, even from the heart of this suffering and in the thick of his spiritualist-materialist battle for reconstruction, he did not abolish the reality that he saw with such sharpness as manifested in each of the two religions. In order to demonstrate that Saπadeh’s position in unifying the two messages into a single religion was neither pragmatic nor utilitarian in inspiration nor inspired by either conservative or superficially libertarian motives, we refer the reader to the main features of his book that are the foundations to his approach to heritage. Saπadeh says that religion in Muhammadan Islam as a religion has three ultimate aims: 1 2 3

to replace idolatry with belief in the one God to impose good social works and the avoidance of evil, and to establish the immortality of the soul and reward and punishment through Judgement Day.36

How could there be any differences between these two religions’ messages in regard to these aims? Saπadeh takes a set of verses of the Qurπan to indicate these three aims and compares them to passages in the New Testament, finding no difference between the two sets of texts as to their realization. Saπadeh also argues as a starting point that Christianity in its religious aims was accepted by the Qurπan when it obliged the Muhammadans to believe in [400]


the religious books that preceded it – namely, the New and Old Testaments. “The Qurπan and the New Testament do not differ from each other in recognizing a single God who is the creator of the Heavens and the earth and every animate or inanimate thing or in the final return of humans to God in an immortal life, be that the bliss of paradise or the torments of hell.”37 The two messages also oblige the believer to do good and avoid evil: the differences in defining what are good and evil acts in the two religions are not of their essence from a religious point of view but rather differences about forms “because every society took as its aim to establish goodness and to eliminate evil”.38 However, if the argument had been taken no further, just making the parallels in aims and objectives between the two religions a starting point for synthesis, Saπadeh’s treatment would have remained contrived. But he also addressed the clear disputes between the two that have been argued or highlighted in the interpretations of the clerics and in mass popular beliefs. These religious texts do indicate differences, but if we consider them from the aspect of their connections to general reality and specific occurrences, we realize that the differences that do exist at various time points were not about essentials. Most of the differences sprang from chance socio-economic circumstances: the procedure by which they are to be judged is not to tear the texts from their historical circumstances but to place them within their psychological, economic and social conditions. The first divergence This is that Islam is a religion and a state, while Christianity never called for the establishment of a state for its implementation. This major difference between the two creeds has acquired, in all areas and aspects of Syria and in other Arab and Islamic areas, a lived political dimension that often brings the people close to despair.39 What are the causes of these differences? They do not derive from religion as such, but rather from the disparities in the stages of social development reached in the Syrian and Arabian societies at the point at which the religious message in question was revealed. That is to say, environment with its diverse structures is the cause of these differences. That is why Saπadeh said: If the Messiah and Muhammad had swapped their respective missions so that the Messiah appeared in peninsula Arabia and Muhammad [401]


appeared in Syria, the message of the Messiah would not have began at the high level it did in his native Syria, while the message of Muhammad would likewise not have began at the elementary level from which it had to start in Arabia. Had Muhammad been in Syria he would have found no need to preach the importance of knowledge because the Syrians had been the pioneers of science and philosophy, and indeed were to play the main role later in instructing the Arabs in them as Arab historians themselves bear witness.40

This simile of exchange of roles between Muhammad and Jesus denotes nothing else here than the divergence of the two environments. Because each environment differs from another, it inevitably has to leave its distinguishing marks on the entire ideological and psychological structure of the group residing in it. If Christianity be purely spiritual it is because the environment into which it came into existence had an advanced material structure. “An advanced spiritual culture can come into existence only if a firm base of material culture already exists. Thus, Christianity had no need to concern itself with matters of material culture because the Syrian environment had carried them to the furthest extent of development.”41 Muhammadanism, in contrast, advisedly chose to address issues of material culture in order to prepare its followers to triumph over matter and ascend upwards into the world of the spirit.42 “The people to whom Muhammad had been sent lacked the understanding and culture needed to foster receptivity to higher teachings: it was rather in dire need of a legal basis that would bring together its divergent tribes, put relations on a sound basis and define rules for interaction.”43 Islam had to deal with a society described by Taha Hussein as “a highly ignorant form of paganism”.44 Thus, it directs itself in its Medinah verses to issues of the basic needs of constituting society, to the necessity to begin the task of setting up a general social system that could encompass all the Arabs and replace those customs and morals that had been confined solely to specific tribes, as well as ending the limited number of linkages between tribes. Each of the tribes was behaving like a self-sufficient nation and state without any common link to bring them all together other than the custom and obligations of the pilgrimage to the Kaπbah and inter-tribal agreement to avoid raids or revenge in a specified month of the year. Thus, the Meccan [402]


portion of the Qurπan highlights two chief factors – namely, legislation and politics. The legislation was to set up a general system that would abolish the particularism of the tribes and unify the Arabs, while the politics were to assure the success of the message and enable it to set up the system.45

Thus Saπadeh wrote: “This environment, so immemorially sunk in nomadism, was not qualified to grasp spiritual belief or understand the teachings of ethical philosophy. It was an environment still several stages removed from this philosophy, and for this reason the Medinah surahs adopted an orientation much closer to the environment and its mentality than the Meccan surahs had had.”46 The Meccan surahs had, of course, corresponded almost completely to Christianity in general orientation. For this set of reasons, and because the conditions of the Arabs in their pre-Islamic paganism resembled those of the ancient Jews, we notice a similarity of legislative patterns between the Mosaic and Muhammadan religions: “The Jews, before coming to Syria, did not know any urban social system because they were in a condition of barbaric nomadism. They used to resemble the Arabs in everything that had to do with their social level and their needs. They lacked any laws or general regulations to direct their transactions with each other.”47 Given this well-established similar nomadism common in the conditions of the Arabs and the Jews, Saπadeh mounts a comparison between Muhammadanism and Judaism. He finds verses that are similar in structure and meaning in the Old Testament and the Qurπan, the many examples he cites bringing out his highly developed skills of research and comparison. In order for us to pursue the strong similarity between the two religions, we will quote some verses that Saπadeh cited so that our conclusions will be not our own subjective imposition but derive from a detailed cross-sampling of texts. Old Testament: “For behold, the Day comes, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all the evil-doers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch” [Malachi 4: 1]. Qurπan: “The Hour is coming of which there is no doubt, but most people do not believe. Your Lord has said: call me and I will respond to you. Those who are too proud to worship me will enter Hell in humiliation” [Q 40: 50]. [403]


Old Testament: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts, Render true judgement, show kindness and mercy each to his brother, do not oppress the widow, the fatherless, the sojourner, or the poor and let none of you devise evil against his brother in your heart” [Zechariah 7: 9–10]. Qurπan: “They ask you what you should expend. Say: the wealth that you spend should be for parents, close relatives, orphans, poor people and the wayfarers. God knows every aspect of the good that you do” [Q 2: 215].

Saπadeh makes a comparison between the legislative verses that come in the book of Deuteronomy and the two surahs of the Cow and Women. He says: “They are all markedly similar.”48 Among these verses are the following. Old Testament: “Cursed be he who lies with his father’s wife because he has uncovered her who is his father’s” [Deuteronomy 27: 20]. Qurπan: “Do not marry women whom your fathers have had before you except cases preceding this revelation: that practice was hateful indecency and a most corrupt path” [Q 2: 22]. Old Testament: “The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall be put to death, their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; they have committed incest, their blood is upon them … . If a man takes a wife and his mother also, it is wickedness: they shall be burned with fire, both he and they, that there may be no wickedness among you … . If a man takes a sister, a daughter of his father or a daughter of his mother, and sees her nakedness, and she sees his nakedness, it is a shameful thing and they shall be cut off in the sight of the children of their people; he has uncovered his sister’s nakedness, he shall bear his iniquity. You shall not uncover the nakedness of your mother’s sister or of your father’s sister, for that is to make naked one’s near kin; they shall bear their iniquity. If a man lies with his uncle’s wife, it is impurity; he has uncovered his uncle’s nakedness; they shall bear their sin, they shall die childless. If a man takes his brother’s wife, it is impurity; he has uncovered his brother’s nakedness, they shall be childless” [Leviticus 20: 11–21]. Qurπan: “Forbidden to you your mothers and your daughters and your sisters and your paternal aunts and your maternal aunts, and the daughters of a brother or of a sister, and those who have served as mothers to you by suckling you, and those who became as your [404]


sisters by co-suckling, and the mothers of your wives, and your step-daughters who are in your care who were given birth by wives with whom you have consummated a union (although it does not rate as a sin on your part if you have not consummated your union with their mothers). As are likewise now forbidden to you the wives of sons to whom you have given birth, and that you take two sisters at the same time excepting only the cases that already exist of this: God is forgiving and merciful” [The surah of Women Q 4: 23].

Saπadeh cites many verses that instance parallelism between the Muhammadan and the Mosaic religious communities, while finding no resemblance in this respect between Christianity and Muhammadanism. Christianity never called for the setting up of a state and showed little interest in legislating, because the social condition and category of economic activity within which Christianity emerged did not require it to give attention to these two matters. For the Syrian environment had long been witnessing the evolution of the procedures of the state: it had been developing sophisticated modes of organization from the time of Hammurabi until the era of Roman Law. The Syrian environment was socially, economically and militarily far-evolved: it had an immemorial and ancient civilization that had attained one of the peaks in human knowledge; and it had drunk full of conquests in Africa and Europe. Such an entity had needs that had to take it far beyond the rigidity of that law to which Judaism awarded a sacred status in the Torah as an inflexible teaching that never changes. That is why Christian teaching from its beginnings addressed itself to building a spiritual culture the material support for which already existed in advance in the society in which that spirituality took its form. The Christian message had no need to concern itself with the affairs of material culture because the Syrian environment had carried material culture to the furthest extent possible.49 The Messiah took as his starting point the assumption that law is “a negative more than a positive function”,50 because law, while it maintains order, does not offer any positive motivation for people to actively do good. This allocates the task of the ethical development of individuals to moral education, and also to philosophical thought which defines the bases of social life and its ideals. Thus, the teachings of Christianity did not confine themselves to law, which had become fossilized at the hands of Jews, but were directed beyond that to “modify [405]


the affairs of society and to changing its nizam (law) so as to bring them into accord with its ideals and in accordance with what it saw as best for the development of human social life”.51 That is why some statements of Jesus nullify the law or modify it or dispense with it, offering moral judgements that he drew from his view of life. He did not specify punishments or lay down procedures for dealings between people. This argument does not mean that Christianity is on a higher plane of development than Muhammadanism, for Islam, although somewhat restricted by factors from its environment, remained ethicist in its broader, final thrust, “not one jot less so than Christianity”. “None can dispute the sameness of the essence of Islam in both its Christian and Muhammadan messages. The only points of divergence are those at which the differences between the two environments imposed some divergences of approach. No differences proceeded from the purpose of these two messages which indisputably remained constant.”52 Saπadeh’s viewpoint may thus be summarized within the following framework. •

•

•

Christianity originated as a religion unencumbered with the affairs of the state and government: “this religion appertained to individuals and their beliefs and ethics”,53 this orientation being predetermined by the historical evolution of the Syrian environment. The different nature of its environment made Islam both a religion and also a state, the state being constructed as a means to establish the religion. A spirituality-oriented belief system or ideology can only be constructed by guaranteeing a firm material basis for the structure. Judaism and Muhammadanism have a similarity in their legislative concerns because the two communities shared some common patterns in their historical evolution, despite being separated by a wide gap in historical time.

In the case of Muhammadanism, was the state an absolute necessity prescriptive beyond its environmental context, or special to that environment and thus subject to the changes of time? Saπadeh stressed that the aim of the state in Islam is to establish the religion. This is why the Meccan verses came before the Medinah ones in order of revelation.54 Because the new religion was the basis for this state, religion brought the state into existence as the instrument that [406]


would assure its triumph and success. It was due to this environmentally induced causality special to Muhammadanism that this linkage arose between the state and religion. It is not, though, an inherent connection fated to endure eternally, for after the religion established itself, and its state became subject to the eternal pattern of evolution and transformation, the state ceased to act as a serious factor for the establishment of the religion. The religion had well and truly established itself to a point where it had long ceased to have anything to fear from the long-departed idol-worshippers. It was out of this perspective that Saπadeh describes those who want to establish a religious state in this age as people who reverse cause into effect and a consequence into a cause – that is to say, they cite religion in their appeals to establish a state at a time when the state has already fulfilled its function of helping the religion establish itself and flourish. To make appeals that have this logic destroys the basic religious idea and nullifies the operation of the religion. The use of religion in the establishment of a state would mean that religion is a means, not an end, and a means can pass out of existence while the objective remains. If religion is a means, then it will have to pass away after the state has been set up or at least become a secondary instrument. If that be the case, then we must regard social community as the basis, and it then becomes impossible to cite religious verses to direct and administer a society, because these verses would then have lost their religious quality. At the very least, this way of thinking must destroy religion, and given that the intention of Muhammad’s message is religion and not politics, a social philosophy that evolves as social sciences develop, it must be allowed that the state is the means of the religion that is the aim, and that its value from the religious viewpoint cannot be more than that of a means. It follows from this that the state would be something secondary that may well be liable to cease once the need it has by now met is no longer there – the case with every instrument or means that has discharged the aim of its existence.55

We note from this text that Saπadeh does not solely rely in his assessment on the principle of the conditions of the environment and the evolution of human society, but also on the logic of some assumptions and beliefs. This emerges more clearly when he compares some Christian beliefs that the Muhammadans reject. It is the internal logic that defines, in many cases, when we are dealing with truth or something more flawed. [407]


The second divergence Saπadeh believed that every environment has its own special view of values, which may be relative, and that values are in any case connected to the movement of history within a given society. From these starting points, Saπadeh sees good and evil as relative, so that the understanding any human being propounds of good and evil will be something suggested by objective historical conditions. Both the messages of Islam, the Christian and the Muhammadan, impose doing good and the avoidance of evil. There is no dispute between the two, then, at the level of the principle that the person who believes has to do good as defined by the religious teachings, injunctions and regulations. This is at the theoretical level. But how are good and evil to be defined and identified? We can trace from these texts how the apparent dispute arises, at the religious level, between goodness as Christianity characterizes it and as it is characterized by Islam, and, in particular, the cause of the central divergence of the two creeds at the social level. Saπadeh writes: Every ideological call, however validly its beginnings and final aim may apply to all human beings, must view life and the universe in ways that address the environment in which it arose and its level of spiritual preparedness. It can diverge from the level of preparedness of its environment only when it passes beyond it or if it has been directed to another very different environment. We can have no doubt about the very close unity of content and the linkages between the Muhammadan call or doctrine in all its details and, on the other side, the environment and its human community in the material preparedness the two foster, and the conditions that they impose.56

What can be said about a message that took its first shape in one environment can also be said about it when it moves to a new, quite different, successor-environment. The religious ideological message in question will either evolve to a new level or degenerate downwards. This was exactly the case with Christianity, which had originated in the Syrian environment, when it entered the Arabian Peninsula: there the highly ethical and spiritual Christianity, very elevated at that time, changed into physical gratifications most strikingly represented by indiscriminate wine-bibbing. The environment that subdues human souls had limited Christianity, restricting it with elementary forms of livelihood and life patterns. [408]


Thus, the Arabian environment, the environment of the desert and nomadism, where the necessities of life can be met only with great effort, and in which the human psyche is caught in a narrow closed circle, is an environment peculiarly liable to produce a view of life and the universe that will be valid for all environments of that type … This view strives to create a straight path that will bring its adherents to the final objective by way of a strict [religious] law which the human soul is to feel no need to look beyond. This law defines the requirements for economic and reproductive life within a legal set-up that offers practical ways to realize such harshly limited needs. This rules out compound philosophical speculations that are beyond the elementary severe punishments that a desert environment requires: it is a single law for a limited unvarying life.57

This view is defined after the message is proclaimed because proclaiming the message is nothing but a soaring beyond a reality that idolatry and barbarism shackle. As soon as the message – the Meccan section of the Qurπan whose verses are religious in orientation, with no discussion of concerns linked to state power – has been proclaimed, and becomes reality, its interaction with the environment obliges it to produce measures, laws and a methodology to achieve the onward progress of religion. It is this interaction of the message with the environment that causes the message to evolve in its methodology and implementation: [T]his may award the original message such a philosophical perspective as a spiritual and material environment may be suited to sustain, should it lack such an outlook at the outset. Such an evolution does not follow any general normative pattern because it is the product of specific messages and the special environments in which they unfold … Religion thus becomes a means to articulate/bring out the view that a given society has of life, just as this life-view becomes the path to realize a religious belief.58

Coming into contact with reality forces evangelizing religions to interact with it. This happened with Christianity at the hands of St. Paul, the first legislator of the institutional Church, and the figure who organized the relations between the believers who spread throughout the far-flung Roman Empire in a period in which the latter’s final decline was underway. Here, we note that the Gospels do not set the advent of the return of the Messiah for the near future “for God to destroy finally Time and the World, to assume total sovereignty over a kingdom unbounded by time [409]


and not of this world to which He will transfer the pious and from which remove the evil-doers unto eternity”.59 But Paul the Apostle played a basic role in propagating it, under stimulus of the spread of Greek ideas in the Roman Empire, and of the disgust he felt at the more and more blatant moral degeneracy as the final period in the long life of the Roman Empire approached. With this promise of the return of the Messiah shaping their thinking, sexuality was now rejected “because it was seen as a means for the perpetuation of the species and thus for lengthening history. They despised woman as the source of sin and evil: it is she who provokes the lust of the man, propelling him to reproduce, thereby lengthening history, distracting him from the returning Messiah.”60 With this complex of assumptions as a starting point, the law-giver Paul placed woman in a lower category that was natural given his attitudes to sex. He both applauded and aggressively advocated virginity: “So he who marries his virgin [betrothed] does well and he who does not marry her will do better” (1 Corinthians 7: 38). His position towards women may “ultimately derive from a perception … that had been ascendant in Jewish society”.61 The contempt that Paul had for sex and women was not derived from the Gospels but came from ideas that all had wide currency in different Greek societies and all lands of the Far East. Paul imported them into Christianity and gave them a new impress inspired by the concept that the end of the world was approaching [millenarianism] and that the coming of the Messiah was imminent. Other positions and prohibitions may be found to be borrowed from ancient civilizations that preceded the appearance of Christianity and remain present side by side with it for some time.62 Every propagating doctrine, then, has aims that must soon express its concept of social relations, in the form of a body of values that image absolute good, as the doctrine moves in the direction of reality. Thus, purely religious movements do not in themselves include a vision of life and the universe in the spiritual, economic, social sense, confining themselves to identifying the beginning and the restoration in the supra-material sphere, or after death and before birth. According to such an analysis, the reality of religion remains one in the first and the third senses (the first: to implant belief in the single God in place of the worship of idols; the second is to establish the immortality of the soul, and divine reward and punishment). As to the second aspect, it is to solve the issue of [410]


benefit, or the necessity for transcendent supra-material beliefs to be bound to human life in its different forms and conditions. Here, the view of life and the universe and the aesthetic appears in the spiritual, socio-economic dimension in defining forms and tints that we said are essential, although only in the relative sense in relation to the final aim of religion which is to establish an eternal resting place of the human soul in God.63

Muhammadanism formed its view of life and the universe on socioeconomic and spiritual bases that are relatively independent of the Christian vision, which in its turn developed on spiritual, economic social bases that were very different from Islam. The disparity, then, does not derive from a difference between the two belief-communities over any purely religious matter, but rather from the disparity between two societies, “the urban economically well-developed Syrian society and the nomadic Arabian society that lacked that economic superstructure”.64 This disparity is formal and not of the essence of matters because every society has taken as its aim the establishment of good and the elimination of evil. But this disparity is of the essence and basic in the economic aspect because it follows on the definition of good and evil. Thus, we find that Muhammad spent 13 years of propagation, preaching, warning, exhortation and threats of punishment that are so often reiterated in the surahs of the Qurπan’s Meccan section and which did not present an incorporative overview of human life with its moral principles, failings, materialism, sense of social community, economic interactions and ideals. Then Muhammad began the second period of his doctrine when he and his companions migrated to Medina, which had a large Jewish population. The first surah after the hijrah was that of Al-Baqarah: it gave Muhammadanism a new orientation in which we may perceive the Arab doctrine of the ideal life. After the prohibition of some foodstuffs comes the verse legislating the rights of ownership. The surah turns to the obligation to fast: “O you who believe: fasting is prescribed upon you as it was on those who came before you: haply ye shall be God-fearing”; it then sets out the procedure and times of fasting. Then follow verses urging battle: “… and fight in the path of Allah those who fight you and aggress not, for God does not love the aggressors”. Then come such duties of the believers as the two types of pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj and ∏umrah) and their conditions, and forbidding wine and gambling, followed by verses [411]


about transactions and contracts, marriage and divorce. This surah also contains legislation for transactions and contacts and their conditions.65 This was the beginning of formulating a particular world view in the Arabian environment. This world view was congruent with the social, economic and spiritual conditions as well as meeting a practical political issue in its exhortations to the adherents to do battle to aid the religion. An Arab knew what was good and what was bad in this world after knowing that good lay in monotheism while what was evil was located in polytheism, on the religious plane. The second divergence between the two religious communities is not religious, but rather one imposed by the nature of the environment and the respective degrees of social, economic and spiritual evolution in each of the two environments, for what is good for the Arabs may not be so for the Indian or be in the interest of the Syrians. Should there be a correspondence that would only be on the plane of general undefined things rather than within the sector of specific issues that are defined by the conditions of different societies and the context of their historical evolution. The third divergence The third difference between Muhammadanism and Christianity is defined within the following theological points: • • • •

the godhood of the Messiah monotheism and trinitarianism immaculate conception, and crucifixion.

Saπadeh strove in many sections of Islam in its Two Messages to prove with a coherent logic and with convincing comparisons that Muhammadanism had aimed at some things that Christianity had also intended. He takes pains to assemble striking verses of the Qurπan that support Christianity and Judaism and categorize the Jews and the Christians among the believers, and people of the book. These arguments run against, for instance, the free interpretation of the religious Shaykh Muhammad Kenπan in his article published in the Beirut daily an-Nahar in which he relied on Qurπanic verses he did not examine within their historical contexts, deducing that the Jews and the Christians are polytheists.66 [412]


He confined “belief ” to Islam, ignoring the Qurπan’s many verses that characterized the Christians and the Jews as believers. The Qurπanic verses in which Saπadeh found endorsement for Christianity and Judaism include: “Those who are firmly founded in knowledge and the believers believe in what is revealed to you and what was revealed before you” [Q 002.004]. In the same vein, verses appear in another surah narrating: “She pointed to him and they said how can we speak with someone who is just an infant in his cradle? He [Jesus] said: ‘I am the servant of God: He has given me the scriptures and made me a prophet. He has made me blessed wherever I may be and enjoined me to pray and give charity so long as I may live … Peace be upon me the day I was born, the day I die and the day I am resurrected to life.’ Such was Jesus the Son of Mary, the word of God about whom they dispute” (Maryam) [Q 019.029]. Likewise, Saπadeh cites the verse: “God sent down to you the book as a true account that confirms what had preceded it: He had sent down the Torah and the Gospels earlier as a guidance to people – he sent down that which distinguishes right from wrong” (Al-Imran) [Q 003.003]. He also cites: “Say, we believe in that which was revealed to us and what was revealed to you: our God and your God is One to whom we submit ourselves” (Al-Anbiya (The Prophets)) [Q 021.108]. Muhammad came confirming the Christian message as he also confirmed Judaism. Texts with close affinity to Jewish legislation are almost indistinguishable from it. True, Muhammadanism is also distinct in appertaining to the Arabs “a book whose verses are clearly set out as an Arabic Qurπan to a people who will understand” [Q 012.002 Al-Sajdah (Prostration)]; “and we have raised up in every nation a prophet” [Q 002.213 sura of the Al-Nahlah (The Bee)]. Nonetheless, such verses do not oppose the message of Christianity, especially when the Qurπan’s environmental particularities and social needs open up into the wider world of humanity. Although there is agreement in the general orientation that Saπadeh earlier traced, there remains disparity in the details of some beliefs, as is stated in the Qurπan in the surah of Al-Maπidah (The Table) [Q 005.017]: “They have disbelieved, those who said that God is the Messiah the son of Mary. Say: who could have anything to hold off God if He wanted to destroy the Messiah and his mother and indeed all beings upon the whole earth. God possesses the heavens and the earth and all between them: He creates what He wishes and He is capable of doing anything He wishes.” [413]


This verse denies the divinity of the Messiah and considers him a prophet in conformity with the verse: “the Messiah the son of Mary was only a prophet such as had passed away before him, while his mother was a pious woman: they used to eat food like any mortals. Consider how clear an account these signs [or verses] give them then just see into what falsehoods they are led!” [Q 005.075 al-Maeda (The Table)]. Such objections by Muhammadanism to the divinity of the Messiah, which is explicitly stated in the above-cited verses, do not deny a shared monotheism. For the Christians are monotheists, their doctrine of trinity neither abolishing nor derogating from the oneness of God, given that they are only persons in the single God. Although the difference over the divinity of the Messiah still has the most weight, some verses occurring in some surahs attempted to bring home to human minds the particularity of the Messiah as a messenger sent from God in a direct way. For He is God’s word and was not born from a biological contact between a man and woman, being rather His spirit. Were we to narrate the verses occurring in the Qurπan around this subject we would find them to evolve from one understanding to another. This is shown in a set of verses in the surahs of “Maryam”, “the Believers” and “The Family of Imran” and “The Cattle” and elsewhere. The Qurπan continued to reject the belief of the Christians that the Messiah was the only Son of God, as in its statement: “Creator of the heavens and earth: how could he have a son when He had no female companion, and given that He has created everything and has knowledge of all things. It would not be in the nature of God to take a son. When He decrees anything He has only to tell it to be for it to come into existence” (Maryam) [Q 019.035]. “Say: all praises are due to God who did not take any son to Himself, and who had no partner in the kingdom” (Al-Israπ (The Night Ascent))67 [Q 017.111]. But although this refusal continued, the position was nonetheless somewhat modified. In the surah of Maryam is a passage that metaphorically likens God to a husband of Mary: “And mention in the Book Mary when she withdrew from her people to a place towards the East, and had resort to what concealed her from them. We sent to her Our spirit who appeared before her in the form of a well-proportioned man. She said: ‘I seek refuge with the Merciful from you if you be God-fearing.’ He replied: ‘I am only a messenger of your Lord whom He has sent to give you a purified child.’ She said: ‘How can I have a child when no [414]


man has touched me nor have I been a harlot?’ He replied, ‘Thy Lord desire it.’ It was easy to Me. And to make him [Jesus] a sign to people and a mercy from Us: thus was the order carried out. She bore [Jesus] and withdrew with him to a distant place. Such is the Jesus the son of Mary, stating the truth over which they dispute” (Maryam) [Q 019.020]. These verses indicate a drawing together of the understanding of Muhammadanism and Christianity about the issue of the immaculate conception. Mary, who was found pregnant by the Holy Spirit in the Gospel of Matthew, is so too in these Qurπanic verses. Still, this modification, which is hard for the mind of the Arab to accept, was itself modified in turn to make it more acceptable to the Arab mind in the passage “Mary who guarded her private parts so that We blew in it of Our spirit and made her and her son a sign to the worlds” [Q 021.091 (The Prophets)].68 The birth of Jesus then is not a matter in radical dispute (between Muhammadans and Christians) as is clear in the verses that we cite in illustration. There remains the issue of the crucifixion which the Qurπan denies under the influence of some beliefs that were current in the Arabian Peninsula. The Qurπan states (The Women): “As for their statement that we killed the Messiah Jesus the son of Mary, a prophet of God, they did not really kill or crucify him: it was only an illusion that confused them … They did not kill him with any certainty: instead, God raised him up as He had both the might and total wisdom to achieve.” Once we leave out the issue of the divinity of the Messiah, which was interpreted in Christianity in diverse ways according to the denominations that were dominant in that age, the area of dispute becomes very narrow, being confined to interpretations of the event or the interpretation of some statements that we meet in the Gospel. This issue was more than a difference of interpretations between Islam in its Muhammadan and Christian forms given that the Christian sects that were widely dispersed before the revelation of the Qurπan fought each other over their various interpretations of it. In the fourth century, Arius used to interpret the incarnation of the Messiah in a way that posited the inequality of the Messiah in relation to the Father in the essence.69 This doctrine that spread widely in the lands of Syria and Egypt had its offshoots in the Arabian Peninsula. The head of this sect in the peninsula was Theofolous Andus who denied the divinity of the Messiah.70 [415]


The monophysite doctrine was a well-known teaching in Yemen and also in Najran due to the missionary efforts of Phimion (Euphemion) who had come from Syria according to the accounts given by Al-Tabari and Ibn Hisham.71 Similarly, Al-Hira was familiar with the Nestorian doctrine that the Messiah was not born, and never knew pain, and never died and that He had in Him two personalities – one divine and the other human: it denied that Mary would become the mother of God given that she was a created being and no created being can ever give birth to one who creates. When Jacobitism came it again articulated its interpretation that the Messiah had a single nature in His incarnated being. Umar Farrukh observed on this matter that: [W]hen Islam came there were many Christian sects in the world and some of them used to oppose the doctrines that distinguish Christianity as it exists today, while according with the concepts of Islam. Among these sects was that of Basileios of Alexandra, according to the data offered in the Register of Heresies by Archbishop Jarmunus Farahat. Basileios was active in the early second Christian century and used to deny the resurrection. He used to say: ‘The Messiah did not come in real humanity, but instead with an illusory human form. That is why no person was able to seize hold of Him at the time set for His torment. Instead, Jesus cast His form over Simon the villager so that he was crucified in his place.’ Then there was Tatianos in the last years of the second Christian century who was among those who argued that the Gospel had changed and altered.72

Farrukh then gives brief accounts of such other figures as Arius and Nestor and the Monk Buhaira who was a Nestorian priest who died in 618, four years before the Prophet Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medinah. Arius used to say: “The Messiah was never crucified, nor did he die – people were just given an illusion of that.”73 Amid this doctrinal legacy that had accumulated in that Arabian environment, and under the influence of the conditions and events that were dominant in that society, there developed the difference of concept between Muhammadanism and Nicean Christianity (that Saπadeh discussed).74 Saπadeh stresses in his book the necessity always to connect Qurπanic verses to the time points in which they were revealed and to the events that directly gave them their logical and narrative form. We [416]


cannot examine given verses independently of time and place, or of a general reality or of specific events. For example, the positions of the Prophet towards Christianity and the Christians and similarly towards the Jews were shaped by the fact that, in the beginning, when he first proclaimed his doctrine, he was very favourable to them and ratified those Books that came before him. But then, later on, Muhammad’s position hardened because he had not expected the stance of opposition to his doctrine that they began to voice, given that they were people of the book who used to maintain regular prayer and who stood in no need of changing their religion. The Prophet was very surprised to find them trying to block the spread of his doctrine and directing at him charges not very different from those that the idolaters in the tribe of Quraysh were developing. The Jews even went so far as to strike a stance of open hostility when they were emboldened by the losses that the Muslims had suffered in the Battle of Uhud.74 Initially, then, Muhammad felt little impulse towards any conflict with either the Jews or Christians, being rather inclined to develop cordial relations with them at a time when it was his prophetic mission to eliminate idols and those who were worshipping them.

Conclusion This chapter has not attempted to examine all issues discussed in Saπadeh’s book, Islam in its Two Messages. There remain highly important matters raised there that would need further studies to clarify, such as the relationship between rational intelligence and the law, religion as a rigid sociological phenomenon, and Arabism and Muhammadan Islam. Although we confined ourselves in this study to areas of the dispute and their causes, we can still clearly see that the following features are very salient in Saπadeh. •

•

Saπadeh does not research religion from the perspective of its own particularistic logic, but rather studies it from a defined sociological viewpoint and on the basis that society makes up the womb in which conceptual, doctrinal and spiritual seeds grow. Saπadeh implements in his study his spiritual-material approach, not confining his study to purely economic matters while avoiding the converse pitfall of remaining a prisoner of the metaphysical [417]


•

•

ideas that such a subject might conceivably impose. If it be true that society is the originating spring and that it thus stands for fertility, the interaction between the material base and the spiritual superstructure is not something that can be given a one-sided character in what is a double-ended equation. Saπadeh neither ignored the material factor to concentrate on the spiritual dimension, nor attempted the reverse. As a result of this methodology, religious messages are revealed in their full diversity in accordance with that of the societies in which they formed and with which they interact. The logic of preferring some religion to others is rejected, just as is the logic of discord and conflict between them. Saπadeh studies religious messages on the basis of the unity of society, while the sectarian and radical restorationists study the unity of society on the basis of the diversity of messages, sects and mankind’s religious communities. The difference between the two approaches is very striking, and it is in this aspect that Saπadeh’s study assumes an innovative historical and civilizational dimension.

Thus, religion, which Saπadeh critiqued from outside via the relationship between its emergence and its interaction with the social environment in which it came to exist, was not in his view something confined to past history but something that is transferred into the present. His critique of religion’s content did not underestimate the psychological influence it could have on the unity of society and the cultural and emotional unity of the collective. Saπadeh’s demand that religion be separated from state could have been meant to protect society and for the state to be kept at a remove from every piece of legislation imposed by specific historical and environmental conditions. Nassar observes in this regard: “It is necessary to demonstrate that non-correspondence of the theocratic idea to the needs of the present age. One preliminary to this demonstration lies in the nature of the religious law – that is to say, in its inflexibility that clashes with constant innovation required by a social life, and with the constant yearning of human beings for better things and their capacity to achieve them.”76 We might finally observe that while Saπadeh wrote these studies in the 1930s, their themes were still being analysed in detailed studies several decades later in the 1970s. This process is likely to continue in [418]


the 1980s because Saπadeh’s thought still retains its provocative capacity to detonate the most free-ranging controversies and discussions. A further reason is that such studies are influenced by the political conditions from which the phenomenon of Saπadeh’s thought is apprehended more than by the deeper and historical basis of such thought. NOTES 1 Paul K. Conkin and Roland N. Stromberg, The Heritage and Challenge of History, New York: Dodd, Mead, 1971. 2 J.G. O’Hara and W. Pricha, Hertz and the Maxwellians: A Study and Documentation of the Discovery of Electromagnetic Wave Radiation: 1873–1894, London: P. Peregrinus Ltd in association with the Science Museum, 1987, p. 5. 3 See Charles A. Holt, Introduction to Electromagnetic Fields and Waves, New York: Wiley, 1963. 4 Tayyib Tayzini, Min al-Turath Ila al-Thawrah (From Heritage to Revolution), 2nd edition, vol. 1, Beirut: Dar Ibn Khaldun, 1987, p. 6. 5 See second lecture in Antun Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1980. 6 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages), Beirut: Al-Rukn, 5th edition, 1995. 7 Nassif Nassar, Tariq al-Istiqlal al-Falsafi (The Path of Philosophical Independence), Beirut: Dar Attabira, 1975, p. 157. 8 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), 3rd edition, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1955. 9 On Saπadeh’s views on literature see Rabeπa Abi Fadel, Athar Antun Sa πadeh fi Udabaπ Asrihi (Saπadeh’s Impact on the Literalists of his Time), Beirut: Al-Rukun Publications, 2002; Ramez Yazaji, Al-Nakd al-Adabi wa Muntalaqatuhu al-Fikriyyah fi Falsafat Antun Sa πadeh (Literary Criticism and its Intellectual Bases in Antun Saπadeh’s Philosophy), Beirut: Bissan Publications, 1998. 10 Joseph Hell, The Arab Civilization, translated from the German by S. Khuda Bukhsh, Kashmiri Bazar: Shaikh Muhammad Ashraf, 1943. 11 See Sylvia G. Haim, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974. 12 See Asher Selig Kaufman, Reviving Phoenicia: In Search of Identity in Lebanon, London: I.B. Tauris, 2004. For a direct example of “Christian Nationalism”, see Bassem Khalifah, The Rise and Fall of Christian Lebanon, Toronto: York Press Ltd, 2001. 13 On the “Village Poet” see Yazaji, op. cit., pp. 143–150. 14 See the preamble to Saπadeh’s Islam in its Two Messages. 15 Ibid., p. 155. 16 Ibid., p. 196. 17 Elias Farah, Muqaddamah fi Dirasat al-Mujtamaπ al-Arabi wa al-Hadarah al-Arabiyyah (Introduction to the Study of Arab Society and Arab Civilization), Baghdad: Ministry of Culture, n.d. [419]


18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48

Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., pp. 10–11. Tayzini, op. cit., pp. 27–28. Hisham Sharabi Arab Intellectuals and the West: The Formative Years 1875–1914, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1970. Ibid., p. 76. For further details on these two Islamic thinkers, see Elie Kedourie, Afghani and Abduh: An Essay on Religious Unbelief and Political Activism in Modern Islam, New York: Humanities Press, 1966. See William L. Cleveland, Islam Against the West: Shakib Arslan and the Campaign for Islamic Nationalism, Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1985. On Kurd Ali see Bruce Masters, Christians and Jews in the Ottoman Arab World: The Roots of Sectarianism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Sharabi, op. cit., pp. 54, 59. Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, pp. 105–106. Farah, op. cit., p. 12. On Salafiyya, see Itzchak Weismann, Taste of Modernity: Sufism, Salafiyya, and Arabism in late Ottoman Damascus, Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2001. From a lecture by Rashid Salim al-Khoury, in Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, p. 14. Ibid. See Theodor Hanf, Coexistence in Wartime Lebanon: Decline of a State and Rise of a Nation, London: I.B. Tauris and Centre for Lebanese Studies, 1993, pp. 361–540. Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, p. 156. Al-Urwa al-Wuthqa was an Arabist cultural club founded on the campus of the American University of Beirut in the 1920s. See Ahmad Hussoun, ‘The Rise and Fall of al-Urwa al-Wuthqa’, al-Mashriq, (Melbourne), vol. 2, no. 8, March 2004, pp. 99–101. Ibid. Ibid., p. 57. Ibid., p. 111. Ibid., p. 169. See preface in ibid. See chapter 7 (Islamic culture and the separation of state and religion) in Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd edition, London: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, p. 20. Ibid., p. 21. Saπadeh says elsewhere: “Materialism was one of the issues that Muhammadanism had no choice but to address.” Ibid., p. 28. Taha Hussein, Islamiyyat (Islamic Issues), Beirut: Dar al-Adab, p. 28. Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, p. 32. When the Qurπan was collected, the Arabs gave a preceding place to the legislative surahs before the spiritual ones because the former had more relevance to their lives, although from a spiritual and historical viewpoint they came after the Meccan surahs. Ibid., p. 31. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid. [420]


49 50 51 52 53 54

55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

Ibid., p. 21. Ibid., p. 63. Ibid., p. 64. Ibid., pp. 70–71. Ibid., p. 100. In Islam in its Two Messages, Saπadeh states this precedence in his chapter “The aims of religion and the divergences between doctrines”. He argues there that: “[I]t is clear that the method followed in assembling and categorizing the surahs of the Qurπan was one based on relative links or shortness. The long surahs come first, then those that are less long, then those that are shorter ending in the shortest surahs, although without always following that approach with full meticulousness. Thus, we find that after Al-Fatihah comes the surah of the Cow consisting of 286 verses, followed by The Family of ∏Imran, which has 200 verses, followed by the surah of Women, which has 175. Whoever wants to study the Qurπan in a scientific way but follows this order will not reach sound conclusions. He will find himself compelled to rearrange the Qurπan according to the sequence of events in order that he can know which surah was revealed first and which later. It is by such an approach that he can know how the Qurπan was revealed and the specific conditions in which every surah came, being thereby enabled to follow the evolution of the message in the context of its circumstances, and to understand the conditions and current events that called for certain verses to be sent down” (ibid., pp. 117–118). “The correct procedure would be for the surah of the blood-clots to be given precedence over that of The Pen, while the surah Al-Muddathir (He who wraps himself up: 74) should be placed before Al-Muzzamil (He who covers himself: 73) and so forth according to the sequential arrival of the surahs as the Prophet proclaimed them, and not according to the arbitrary ordering of the surahs in the Qurπan. For the first surah to be revealed was The Blood Clot and not the Fatihah, and so forth” (p. 119). Such an ordering would greatly explicate the relation of the verses to the events that took place in the age of the Prophet, and bring out the extent to which the verses were connected to general reality, and specific events. Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, p. 196. Ibid., p. 167. Ibid., p. 168. Ibid., pp. 167–168. Fr. Dr. Beshara Sarajji, Al-Alaqat al-Jinsiyyah wa al-Din (Sexuality and Religion), Beirut: n.p., p. 16. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 22. Ibid., p. 24. Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, p. 169. Ibid., p. 170. Ibid. Refer to the section “Muhammadanism as a State”, pp. 180–185. Kenπan writes in an-Nahar 19 August 1979 p. 10: “The Jews are unbelievers as established by God’s words ‘Those who disbelieved among the Children of Israel were cursed’ ” (surah of the Table 78): those who disbelieved were at the outset the Jews. The Christians are disbelievers because of God’s statement “they have disbelieved those who said that God is the Messiah the Son of Mary”, whereas [421]


Jesus said: “O Children of Israel, worship God who is my Lord and yours: he who ascribes associates to God will be barred from paradise by Him and his final abiding place will be the fire: the wrongdoers will have none to aid them. They disbelieved those who said ‘God is the third of three’ when there is no God other than a single being.” 67 Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, pp. 134–135. 68 Ibid., p. 136. 69 Arius, a heresiarch, was born about ad 250 and died 336. He is said to have been a Libyan by descent. His father’s name is given as Ammonius. In ad 306, Arius, who had learnt his religious views from Lucian, the presbyter of Antioch, and afterwards the martyr, took sides with Meletius, an Egyptian schismatic, against Peter, Bishop of Alexandria. But a reconciliation followed, and Peter ordained Arius deacon. Further disputes led the bishop to excommunicate his restless churchman, who, however, gained the friendship of Achillas, Peter’s successor, was made presbyter by him in ad 313, and had the charge of a well-known district in Alexandria called Baucalis. This entitled Arius to expound the Scriptures officially, and he exercised much influence when, in ad 318, his quarrel with Bishop Alexander broke out over the fundamental truth of Our Lord’s divine Sonship and substance. While many Syrian prelates followed the innovator, he was condemned at Alexandria in ad 321 by his diocesan in a synod of nearly 100 Egyptian and Libyan bishops. Deprived and excommunicated, the heresiarch fled to Palestine. He addressed a thoroughly unsound statement of principles to Eusebius of Nicomedia, who yet became his lifelong champion and who had won the esteem of Constantine by his worldly accomplishments. In his house the proscribed man, always a ready writer, composed in verse and prose a defence of his position which he termed “Thalia”. A few fragments of it survive. He is also said to have published songs for sailors, millers and travellers, in which his creed was illustrated. Tall above the common, thin, ascetical and severe, he has been depicted in lively colours by Epiphanius (Heresies, 69, 3); but his moral character was never impeached except doubtfully of ambition by Theodoret. He must have been of great age when, after fruitless negotiations and a visit to Egypt, he appeared in 325 at Nicaea, where the confession of faith which he presented was torn into pieces. With his writings and followers he underwent the anathemas subscribed by more than 300 bishops. He was banished into Illyricum. Two prelates – Tehonas of Marmarica and Secundus of Ptolemais – shared his fate. His books were burnt. The Arians, joined by their old Meletian friends, created trouble in Alexandria. Eusebius persuaded Constantine to recall the exile by indulgent letters in ad 328; and the emperor not only permitted his return to Alexandria in ad 331, but ordered Athanasius to reconcile him with the Church. On the saint’s refusal more disturbance ensued. The packed and partisan Synod of Tyre deposed Athanasius on a series of futile charges in ad 335. Catholics were now persecuted; Arius had an interview with Constantine and submitted a creed which the emperor judged to be orthodox. By imperial rescript Arius required Alexander of Constantinople to give him Communion; but the stroke of Providence defeated an attempt which Catholics looked on as sacrilege. The heresiarch died suddenly, and was buried by his own people. He had winning manners, an evasive style and a disputatious temper. But in the controversy which is called after his name, Arius counted only at the beginning. He did not [422]


70 71

72 73 74 75

76

represent the tradition of Alexandria but the topical subtleties of Antioch. Hence, his disappearance from the scene neither stayed the combatants nor ended the quarrel which he had rashly provoked. A party-theologian, he exhibited no features of genius: and he was the product, not the founder, of a school. See Darwaza, part 4, pp. 323–324. Mahommed Abdulmalik ibn Hishm ibn Ayyub ul-Himyari (d. 834), Arabian biographer, studied in Kufa but lived afterwards in Fostt (old Cairo), where he gained a name as a grammarian and student of language and history. His chief work is his edition of Ibn Isbaqs (q.v.) Life of the Apostle of God, which has been edited by F. Wustenfeld (Gottingen: 1858–1860). An abridged German translation has been made by G. Weil (Stuttgart: 1864; cf. P. Bronnle, Die Commentatoren des Ibn Isbaq und ihre Scholien, Halle: 1895). Ibn Hisham is said to have written a work explaining the difficult words which occur in poems on the life of the Apostle, and another on the genealogies of the Himyarites and their princes. Al-Nahar, Beirut, 19 August 1979 p. 7. Ibid. The Nicean creed was developed in ad 325 at the Council of Nicea. The Council was arranged by Emperor Constantine to attain some unity of faith in the Christian Church by having a standardized creed. This did not work out as planned. The Battle of Uhud took place only one year after Badr, in the third year of Hijra, in the month of Shawwal. After the Battle of Badr, the Quraish felt humiliated and disdained among the Arabs. They recognized the fast-growing power of Islam among the people, and therefore began gathering their men and leaders in order to take revenge by attacking and destroying the Muslims in Madinah. Nassar, op. cit., p. 156.

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L ITERATURE


11 Saπadeh: The Expatriate Critic and Man of Letters Rabi πa Abifadel

The aim of this chapter is to throw light on a prominent side of Antun Saπadeh’s literary and artistic interests. It is an important topic because Saπadeh’s ideas and literary views have rarely been treated for what they actually are. In fact, it does not surprise me at all that critics have focused on those who are less important than Saπadeh in literature and critical thought. The political factor has blinded hearts and minds. It has fostered a literature in which Saπadeh is viewed as a man of politics, judged as such, thus loved or condemned according to this factor. The focus of the chapter is on the expatriate Syrian literature of South America, where Saπadeh spent 20 years. I approach literature as a human and spiritual field organically associated with mankind, as well as with the destiny of nations in their struggle for freedom and dignity. I do not think that Saπadeh is far away from this context. I believe that his two stories Faji πtu Hubb (A Love Tragedy) and Sayidet Sadnaya (Seadnaya’s Lady), 1932; his treatises Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), 1943; Madness of Immortality, 1951; Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages) (the last two books were written in South America between 1940 and 1942) and his Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), published in stages since 1960, provide a wide field for research and analysis. To keep the subject manageable, I will begin with brief observations on Saπadeh’s experiences and early life in the diaspora.

An introduction to Saπadeh’s spirituality Triangle of Suffering Saπadeh’s relationship with literature is the story of the people of Syria in distress. It is the story of the suffering they endured from migration and [427]

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the hopelessness and anxiety they felt as they left the homeland. It is also the story of how they suffered from the pain of losing families and beloved ones in famine; when death became an occasion to reflect on existence, and beyond existence, to conjecture about the reason for suffering and death, and to seek an ideal that can ease the pain of mortality and make it worthwhile to hope for a better life. As well, Syrians suffered all kinds of oppression, tension, deprivation and the vicissitudes of time. These tribulations aroused an intellectual interest in Syria’s national predicament based on three basic ideas: 1 2 3

outright rejection of migration as a permanent solution refusal of voluntary sacrifice (of one’s self and of others) as a solution to the problem, and resistance to planned efforts to depict the past, the bitter present and loss of identity as fait accompli, even if it was actually rejected.

Grievous agonies Saπadeh lived this story enduring its grievous agonies. The Great War of 1914–1918 was one of these agonies. He was a young man then, but it made him ask the fundamental question: what brought this woe on my people?1 The fact that his country had no flag of its own and that he had to line up under the Turkish flag at his school in Brummanah had also distressed him. It was then and there that he decided “not to raise above my head a flag of a state that is not mine, a state that turned my countrymen into refugees and brought all this woe to my people”.2 At the age of 15, Saπadeh suffered the woes of migration (late 1919). Leaving a homeland and journeying into the unknown filled his heart with agony.3 His father, Khalil Saπadeh, had been forced to leave his country and go into exile, the rest of the family following him before long.4 They bid farewell to their hometown, Al-Shwear, and travelled together to Brazil, in the hope of returning one day. Abroad, another shock loomed. They found the immigrants divided into sects, and many of them under the influence of doctrinal and sectarian differences.5 Dr. Saπadeh described the situation in the diaspora as “glamorous sterility”.6 In 1916 he founded the Syrian League in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Its aim was communal harmony, to defend the interests of the diaspora, and to draw the expatriates to literary and social affairs. It was a national and social association for a large community of expatriates.7 [428]

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In his organizational and journalistic activity, Khalil Saπadeh also breathed new life into the community, particularly in politics and literature. Prior to his son’s arrival in Brazil, he founded in Buenos Aires, in 1919, the Patriotic Democratic Party, which focused its campaign on the occupation of the “Homeland” (Syria) and called for independence. In this atmosphere Saπadeh junior lived, studied and cultivated his mind, remembering and struggling by means of the word like his father. It is no wonder then that his writings revolved around one principal issue: the homeland. The burden of carrying the patriotic message thus passed from father to son: it was sacred to both. His father had once said: “I felt the same way as prophets and religious messengers did in the past … that I had a divine message to fulfil.”8 At the peak of his political and educational activity, Saπadeh junior experienced the tragic death of his brother, Salim, who was very close to him. Later on, Saπadeh would immortalize him in the story A Love Tragedy. The message begins Saπadeh’s principal aim, as a journalist working alongside his father for Al-Jaridah (the weekly newspaper his father issued) was to arouse hopes of a genuine revival. His essays revolved around this target, in Al-Jaridah first, and then in Al-Majalla, the first issue of which appeared in Brazil on 1 February 1923. Saπadeh wrote in Al-Majalla his touching article “Memory of Homeland and Kindred”, in which there is a genuine return to the roots.9 Inspired by the past, he wrote another article in which he called for an end to the suppression of religions by other religions. The Islamic Caliphate had declined and it had come to an end; therefore, it was necessary for the Islamic nations to rely on their literary, spiritual and material forces, inasmuch as they were nations rather than religious communities presided over by a religious leader.10 It is clear from his early writings that Saπadeh was aware of the problems of his homeland and tried to find serious answers and solutions to them. However, he was determined not to remain in the theoretical field. He realized that the accomplishment of a constructive revival, as he perceived it, could not possibly come about without concrete human action. Thus, in addition to being a religious, political, literary and social critic, he dreamt of a strong organization founded on his patriotic ideals. On the way to attain this, he took the following steps. [429]


• •

• •

He joined the Freemasons to fulfil a desire to serve his homeland. He founded the Syrian Patriotic Association (1925) – an organization dedicated to the homeland, the eradication of sectarianism and a bulwark against the enemies of his nation.11 He founded the Free Syrians Party. In this party his political views on organization, power, ethics and other matters crystallized. He taught Arabic at the Brazilian-Syrian College owned by Wadee Al-Yazijy.

After failing to convince the Star of Syria Assembly of the need to support the Syrian people in their demands for freedom and independence, he resigned from the Freemasons, and spent his time actively trying to consolidate his new party abroad. He continued to teach, but this time at the National College of Science and Literature, where his brothers received free education, encouraged by the college owner, Louis al-Hayek. Saπadeh emerged during this period with a strong personality, self-made, cultivated, committed, leader-oriented and fearless of hardships. He was the ideal individual who fought selfishness and gave up personal pleasures to serve his people after sharing their sufferings and pains. The return Those who have great dreams are not perturbed by dangers. Their dedication inspires them towards tireless work and reform. Saπadeh realized, while an expatriate, that that there was a limit to how much one can serve his nation from abroad. His memoirs, before his 1930 return, give the impression that, although he was physically out of the country, his soul was still part of his nation and homeland, and that his life was not for himself but for the society that gave it to him. Scores of businessmen tried to tempt him to stay in Brazil; his answer was that he was born for things other than business, and that the miserable conditions of his homeland called for his return.12 When his friend Abdu Jezrah warned him to expect ingratitude and pain back home, Saπadeh replied: “I am aware of the destiny of reformers in history.”13 He told Al-Qarawi (a famous poet), who tried to dissuade him from going back with the aphorism “Do you want to throw yourself into hell?”, “I am returning to give back to the Syrian nation its independence, and to secure its future, and its destiny.”14 It is generally thought that expatriate literature split into two major tendencies: humanism in North America and nationalism in South [430]

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America. Between the two tendencies there are vital differences. Humanism is concerned primarily with its inner-self, whereas nationalism acquires its structure from external factors (language, history, land and so on).15 This outside–inside combination represented the depth of Saπadeh’s conscience and character; rather than joining up with the patriotic and nationalist tendencies that surfaced abroad, he returned to Syria to re-unite himself with the land. In her book Al-Qawmiyyah wa al-Insaniyyah fi Shiπar al-Mahjar al-Janubi (Nationalism and Humanism in Southern Expatriate Poetry), Azizia Mraeden writes: The environment in South America brimmed with patriotic celebrations during which independence battles and various victories achieved by Brazilians were celebrated; martyrs, great men and leaders were sung and celebrated. Arab immigrants took part in these celebrations but with a deep and sad feeling of patriotic orphanage.16

Now, was not Saπadeh’s return to the homeland in 1930 also a rejection of this orphanage? This is one of the critical questions that this study will attempt to answer but from the perspective of his literary and critical writings rather than his political discourse, for, Saπadeh was unfathomable in his culture.

Expatriate literature in South America The Andalusian League As early as 1897, Arab language newspapers emerged in São Paulo. By 1914, 14 Arabic periodicals were published in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. Literary works soon appeared to complement the development of journalism, and the Brazilian New Andalusian League formed a literary circle that published a monthly journal called Al-Usba read throughout the Syro-Arab diaspora. In addition to the Andalusian League, various societies, parties, cliques and clubs appeared. Some called themselves Syrian or Arab, or simply took the name of the province or urban centre from which many of the original immigrants had come, like Aleppo, Homs and Antioch. There were also self-styled Lebanese and Palestinian groups, as well as religious groups – Islamic, Maronite and Orthodox. “Yet all of them helped push the wheel of literary renaissance and progress forward.”17 [431]


The Andalusian League was born in 1933 as a society of culture and literature. Its aim was to bring together Arabic men of letters in Brazil and create a feeling of brotherhood among them.18 There was no common denominator between its members, as in the case of Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya (The Pen Association: an Arab-American literary society that was formed in 1916 and of which Amin Rihani and Khalil Gibran were founder members); nor was there uniformity of perspectives. Rather, each member of the society had his own beliefs and opinions. Some were conversant with Arabic and foreign cultures, such as Al-Maalifa, others were versed in standard Arabic, such as Al-Khuri (Al-Qarawi), and some could not correctly read David’s Psalms, like Elias Farhat, because they lacked the right language skills. The constitution of Al-Usba explicitly banned members from religious and political discussions. Its main principles were as follows. • • • • • • • • • •

To bring together Arabic men of letters in Brazil and create a sense of brotherhood among them. To enhance the spread of Arabic literature abroad. To establish a literary forum. To publish a journal on literary topics.19 To promote pen relationships and links, and to strengthen the association of loyalty between Al-Usba and other Arab literary forums. To raise the standard of Arab mentality through all literary and scientific means. To fight religious bigotry through extensive study of the various creeds. To refute dogmas that foster intellectual immobility or are contrary to the spirit of the age. To shield the society from any political, religious or regional identifications. To acquaint the Arab world, through the journal, with the unique achievements of Western thought, particularly those of Brazil.20

It is clear that the League was strongly oriented towards the Arab world, that the identity of literature was Arabic, and that the primary aim was to raise the standard of Arab mentality. The problem was, how? The League had said “no” to political commitment, “no” to religious discussions; yet it held public meetings to honour politicians and men of thought, took [432]

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keen interest in the Syrian revolution of 1925 and the Palestinian issue, gave speeches, published books and supported the liberation of the “Arab nation” from the tyranny of the Turks. This was particularly true of Al-Khuri (Al-Qarawi) and Farhat. Its members contradicted themselves: on the one hand, they claimed that Al-Usba was a purely literary forum and, indeed, had struggled to demonstrate the artistic qualities of literature without a certain framework or definite plan; on the other hand, they took an active part in political battles, and displayed some degree of religious intolerance, in spite of the beautiful theories they proclaimed on forgiveness, openness and culture. Politically, the Society’s poets celebrated Arabism and embraced Arab nationalism, not out of a belief that Arab nationalism was based on historical, scientific and intrinsic values, but simply because Arabic was their principal language. Patriotism was mixed up and confused with nationalism in many of their poems. “Often they would begin on a patriotic note, and end up talking about Arabism and nationalism.”21 Their poetry and literature were generally passionate, superficial, reportlike and shallow. They would even use art in popular national singing. According to George Seidah, the League regarded singing as “a message of salvation and awakening that saved the Arab countries from colonial domination by rekindling national consciousness and transforming it into a powerful shackles-breaking tool after the literary revival of the nineteenth century”.22 Despite the superficiality in the literature of the Southern diaspora, some, like Al-Maalifa, displayed striking abilities in artistic structure, literary creation and spiritual vision. Some of them understood the fundamental problem that the conflict between religious loyalty and national identity posed to national revival in Syria. The power of the national bond In 1948, Habib Masπoud published in Al-Usba a study of Arab nationalism and religion based on a more rational view of nationalism. He stated: Those who struggle for Palestine are fighting in the name of all the Arabs, even though most of them are from Islamic nations … It is about time Arab peoples realized, after successive disasters, that true nationalism is not based on the religious bond, but on culture, common interests, contractual obligations, and the knowledge that individual freedom ends where the freedom of others starts.23

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“The bond of language, traditions, and history,” wrote Masπoud, “is stronger and more cohesive than the religious bond.” “Arab Muslims,” he added, “will eventually realize that they are Arabs before they are Muslims, and that Arabism is the origin and Islam is the sub-origin. Christians will realize that Arabism is an attribute neither of Islam nor Christianity.”24 Masπoud, and other Christian immigrants like him, realized that nationalism would solve their existential problem whereas bigotry and political religiosities lead to dispersion and inevitable ruin. It is precisely what Saπadeh and his father had advocated in regard to both nationalism and religious bigotry. “Through social unity,” Saπadeh declared, “the conflict of loyalties and negative attitudes will disappear and will be replaced by a single healthy national loyalty, which will ensure the revival of the nation. Similarly, all religious bigotries and their evil consequencies will cease, and in their stead, national love and toleration will prevail.”25 Did he not also warn his people, long before Masπoud and others, that “the only outcome of a religio-political bond is national disintegration and disillusionment in national life”?26 The need for objectivity Despite this liberating and liberated secular call, Saπadeh is rarely acknowledged in studies of expatriate literature. A classic example is Azizia Mraeden’s study of poetry in the Syrian diaspora of South America. Not only does Mraeden ignore the pioneering role of Dr. Khalil Saπadeh, but also the literary and humanist national role of his son, Antun. The study talks about Al-Usba, its members and their tendencies, journalism in Brazil and Argentina, and the national and humanist currents in Arab poetry, but does not give those two pioneering thinkers, who were also prominent journalists in the Southern diaspora, the credit that is their due. Nor does the study acknowledge their substantial contribution to the advancement of the Syrian Arab communities in that part of the world. In fact, it does not mention their names at all, even though it is a literary history of that era. Not content with this oversight, Mraeden criticizes Habib Masπoud for defining nationalism as a form of collective life in society regardless of religion or sect. Mraeden asks: How can one divest Islam of Arabism? How can we regard Arabism as an origin and Islam a sub-origin, when Arabs attained dignity [434]

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only through Islam? It is quite known that the link between Arabs and their Islamic heritage is strong and deeply-rooted: it is not possible to ignore it, whatever nationality, creed or doctrine one may belong to.27

It is not possible to advance if the concept of nationalism, as a unifying force for different religions and sects, continues to be challenged by such an unusual and narrow-minded view of things. It insinuates that collective nationalism is antagonistic to Islam and its heritage. Neither Masπoud’s pan-Arab doctrine nor Saπadeh’s Syrian national theory really stood for this. Mraeden goes on to query Masπoud’s correlation between Arabism and Islam: “How can you separate between Arabism and Islam when we consider the bond of language, traditions, and history the basis of Arabism and nationalism? Did our history, language and traditions develop independently of Islam, the religion which unified the Arab hearts, brought them together and created a state feared by others?”28 Mraeden herself states that Christians “were persecuted and tortured”, and that “up to 11,000 of them were killed in 1860”, in what she describes as a Christian–Muslim conflict.29 But she does not say how such acts of cyclical sedition and strife could be prevented from recurring. Obviously, it could not be in a return to Ottoman theocratic rule, which is what Mraeden is implying, but by enhancing our knowledge and embracing progress. How can a society, in itself a nation, carry on if some members enjoy full rights and others have to be content with less? The religious bond does not solve this disparity, but exacerbates it. A more sensible solution would be, as Saπadeh stated in Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), to move from the religious state to the national democratic state, which has become “the religion of mankind in modern times”.30 Saπadeh and the Andalusian League During a visit to the offices of Al-Usba, accompanied by two expatriate essayists and members of the League, Saπadeh asked the editor of the journal: for what important reason was Al-Usba al-Andalussiah established, and does it have a literary purpose or doctrine capable of keeping its members together and unifying their diverse inclinations? In his book, Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature, Saπadeh claimed that the answer [435]


he received was vague and imprecise. By his own account, he offered the League a set of guidelines (January 1939), but its response was lukewarm. It was then and there that a disappointed Saπadeh realized that what the Syrian diaspora lacked was a major study into literature, its function and qualities, to determine the “kind of literature that is consistent with Syria’s national needs”.31 In my opinion, the literary writers of the Southern diaspora did not contribute anything original on the level of religious or literary criticism. They repeated, to a great extent, the ideas of Butrus Bustani in Nafir Souria (1860), and Dr. Khalil Saπadeh’s literary works in the diaspora. They rebelled against fanaticism, hypocrisy and deception. They proclaimed the truth of religion in the brotherhood of all man, and regarded religious bigotry as a symptom of ignorance and a fanatic as an infidel.32 But these ideas, already enunciated by literati of the Nahda era, did not solve the problem of religious fanaticism. Moreover, the call for Arab unity, which Southern literati had embraced out of affection for standard Arabic, failed to yield tangible results: subsequent generations in the diaspora forgot both standard Arabic and Arabism, and continued to suffer from the preponderance of the religious view over science and nationalism. At the level of literary criticism, Southern literati attacked unoriginal groups and deplored the deterioration of ethics. They called for a sophisticated and insightful literature.33 In their writings, they rebelled against ceremonial forms and advocated a literary revival based on artistic thought, a spiritual desire for creativity and a display of human defiance. The agency of such a revival, argued Habib Masπoud, must be “the elite and the talented individuals, and those with master-skills in creativity and renewal”.34 These are beautiful thoughts and many of them are an intimate part of the Arab heritage, from Ibn Quteiba to Mikhaπil Nπeima, from Al-Mutanabbi to Gibran. But they do not answer Saπadeh’s question. The League failed on two fronts: first, it failed to develop into an organized school of criticism based on a comprehensive vision of life and existence; and second, it was not able to formulate structured religious ideas capable of providing a satisfactory, objective and scientific answer to difficult psychological and social problems. For these reasons, Saπadeh wrote Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature, and his religious and literary critique Madness of Immortality, in addition to papers and articles in several magazines, all of which exemplify a unity of thought and [436]

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orientation, a solid understanding of reality and a zeal for the future rarely met in others. Saπadeh believed that his intellectual and political movement stood out for the clarity and definitions it gave to the issues and problems facing Syria. He wrote: Before this clarity Syrian scholars talked about society in lax expressions, like patriotism without identifying any homeland, and freedom but in chaotic forms … They had no clear standards for action and thought, and often talked about issues unrestrained by logic or sense. My work has clarified and determined the vital goals and laid the groundwork for national life and national innerconsciousness. National work no longer floats without direction: it has become a lucid idea with a lucid purpose.35

It is only in the light of this clarity that we can understand the kind of literature that Saπadeh desired. It is not the literature of replication or the literature of turbulent and chaotic thoughts. Nor is it literature for literature’s sake. Saπadeh sought a literature that is consistent with “Syria’s needs” as determined in his universal social national philosophy, with regard not only to literature and art, but also to “work, ethics and morality”.36 For all its beauty, independence, vitality and splendour, literature is not independent of national revival, and of the truth in “our history and us”.37 In Saπadeh’s conception, literature must seek the great basic truth of a better life in a world of beauty and higher values.38 Literature is an expression of a national revival, not an irresponsible game for personal enjoyment. We cannot understand Saπadeh’s literary views outside this conception and this truth. They are the bases on which Saπadeh had built his civil and national fortress. As Kamal al-Haj wrote, with Al-Rihani and Saπadeh “philosophy was framed in the urn of nationalism, the exclusive field of struggle for freedom”.39 But the philosophical logic in Saπadeh’s thesis was stable and more coherent.

Saπadeh: an expatriate thinker From Arabicization to composition Antun Saπadeh spent his early life in journalism, under the patronage of his father, Dr. Khalil Saπadeh. The role and influence of Dr. Saπadeh on the [437]


Southern diaspora, particularly on Al-Khuri (Al-Qarawi) and Farhat, and subsequently on his son, cannot be over-emphasized. In his study Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar (Saπadeh Abroad), Nawwaf Hardan has noted: “Expatriate literature in the Southern diaspora rejuvenated under the leadership of this new, inspiring, and pioneering teacher. It emerged from its primitive form to reach new horizons, becoming a patriotic literature-inspiring struggle, casting off dissent, ignorance and sectarianism, and seeking dignity, freedom and revolution against colonization.”40 Saπadeh made his debut in journalism in Al-Jaridah, which first appeared on 5 August 1920 as a weekly paper in large size and eight pages. On 21 April 1921, the 25th issue of the paper came out containing Saπadeh’s first article, a translation of an English article on the Battle of Jutland between the British and German fleets, in World War I (30 June 1916). Then he published a second article on the same topic, followed by a serialized translation of Memoirs of the German Crown Prince, Guillaume II.41 He moved from translation to composition, writing a series of articles on homeland problems: “Hopes of Homeland”, “Patriotism”, “Gouraud and Syria”, “Syrian Unity and Lebanese Fears”, “Syrians and Independence”, “The Eastern French Empire”.42 The ideas enunciated in these articles, particularly on renaissance, knowledge, and national spirit, would become the basis of his latter work Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures). From the start, Saπadeh decided that his writing should aim to keep the diaspora in touch with its roots and maintain national consciousness among his fellow expatriates to prevent them from being gobbled up by diaspora life. After all, most of them had immigrated to the Americas in order to rescue their families and countrymen at home from the great famine during which “thousands of people starved to death in their homes and on the roads”.43 Survivors of that calamity still relate horror stories of the war years, stories of how people went through garbage looking for something to eat or mortgaged their land, homes and other belongings for small quantities of food. A recent study on Syrian migration sheds light on this period: The relative peace and tranquillity which prevailed in Mount Lebanon for over half a century totally disappeared with the onset of World War I. As soon as the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of Germany, the Allied fleets blockaded Syria’s coasts [438]

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and prohibited the entry of all imported food supplies. Local production was not enough to feed the population. In addition, Ottoman military authorities confiscated wheat and other grains in order to assure food supplies for the army. Famine spread all over Syria and was particularly acute in the area of Mount Lebanon.44

In Saπadeh’s article “Hopes of Homeland” one finds a return “in thought and soul” to Syria, its people, and its agonies. Saπadeh chose not to have a subjective and romantic return; rather, he utilized his knowledge and intellectual potentials to stir the conscience of his fellow migrants, and to alert them to their duty towards “the Syrian people [who] are suffering at home from humiliation, poverty, and neglect … waiting for assistance from their expatriate brethren”.45 He goes on to ask in a moving tone: “Are we going to deny them [this assistance] and go on the record for it as selfish and traitors? Is it proper of us to watch our homeland suffer in agony and to stare at it as though we are watching a tragic play on stage?”46 Patriotic commitment In his follow-up article, “Patriotism”, Saπadeh exalted self-sacrifice in the interest of patriotism, showing their inter-dependence: patriotism would exist where there is self-sacrifice and vice versa. Without patriotism, he argued, independence is unattainable: “As long as patriotism is lacking the more so will be the independence of the Syrian nation. And as long as the illness of individualism abounds, as is the case now, there will be no hope for independence and the Syrian nation will remain backward and in decline until the last sunset.”47 Among Saπadeh’s concerns abroad were the freedom and independence of his people, and the need for unity in time of uncertainty and fragmentation. His article “Syrian Unity and Lebanese Fears” was dedicated to those concerns. Its purpose was social toleration: to allay the fears of the Lebanese towards Syria and to show them that it was in their own interest to move close to the Syrians because “the two are one people”.48 For Saπadeh, the plight of the Lebanese stemmed from three reasons: 1 2 2

their insistence on separation from Syria selling out to Zionism, and mass migration to America or Europe.49 [439]


Saπadeh’s intellectual school thus began to display some of its distinguishing traits in those early writings: from encouraging the Syrian diaspora to assist the homeland in times of trouble and tribulation; to exalting patriotism, to fighting sectarianism in the interest of social equality and religious tolerance. Sectarianism, Saπadeh believed, was a very serious malady and “the greatest obstacle” to unity and independence.50 In Dr. Saπadeh’s writings, the war on sectarianism reached great heights, but Saπadeh differed from his father in that he identified the reason for the malady: “Let every Syrian know that what has brought upon them this malady is religious bigotry.”51 Moreover, the early writings reflected some of Saπadeh’s intellectual progress to that time. They show, among other things, that he had become conversant with leading treatises on philosophy, literature and social science, such as The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and works by other French thinkers and men of letters “who were widely read in Brazilian universities and among intellectuals and scholars. Indeed, there was considerable interest in French literature in Brazil at that time.”52 Intellectual writing The first intellectual sign in Saπadeh’s early writings appeared in a critical article entitled “Views on Equality”, published in seven successive installments in al-Jaridah in 1922.53 The subject matter of this article was May Ziadeh’s new book Al-Musawat. It begins with a praise of the book as “an example of high innovation”.54 “It is a delight,” Saπadeh added, “to have among our refined women the like of May …”55 He was impressed not only by her sweet words and tender style, but also by her ability to “discuss vital topics and analyse realities of civilization”.56 Saπadeh was also impressed by Ziadeh’s methodology: “She pits proof against proof, responds to reason with reason and produces all this in a language worthy of Arabic literature.”57 Saπadeh also claimed that Ziadeh’s book was a step in the right direction, but felt that her interpretation of Rousseau’s principle concerning natural progress was inaccurate. He was particularly critical of her suggestion that Rousseau and his followers had called for a return to simple life so that humanity would regain its lost structure and live once again in peace and freedom. But they have forgotten that the savage man [440]

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was slave to his utter ignorance, that his myths were a jailhouse for his mind and that his illusions veiled his soul. They have also forgotten that man’s return to where he had been a hundred thousand years ago is equivalent, in the system of universe, to robbing mankind of what it had acquired through pain, experience and oppression through the ages.58

Saπadeh did not agree with this evaluation. According to him, what Rousseau had called for was “return to a simple natural life where peace prevails; no one ever understood that to mean a return to savagery. The progress which the world seeks agrees more with the simple life than with the present civilization which has exhausted mankind.”59 To him, “the simple life neither obstructs progress nor negates excellence. It only clears away many obstacles which hindered Man from excelling and progressing.”60 In other words, Ziadeh found barbarism where Saπadeh found peace.61 The truth is that Saπadeh and Ziadeh arrived at the same conclusion but from different angles. The past can mean either barbarism or creative simplicity. A return to the past through common sense and piety would protect our progress from harm. But a return to it in a haphazard and violent manner would lead to undesirable results and toss humanity into a world of vice. In all cases, we must remain alert to new developments as they come our way because our life is connected to the past and the future; alertness leads to equilibrium and equilibrium helps us to live in a firm spiritual world supported from within. Another example of Saπadeh’s literary criticism during this period was a two-part article entitled “The Monument Committee Insults the Feelings of the Christian and Islamic Worlds”.62 In this article the reader encounters vital historical and intellectual qualities as well as a warm literary style, penetrating thoughts, and deep imagination. One is also apt to find a prime example of national patriotic literature. Here, Mohammad Halal can be appropriately invoked: “The immortality of literary works results not from the universality of their denotations, but from their truth, profound insight into historical and patriotic consciousness, and artistic originality in portraying their hopes and psychological and social pains common to the writer and his audience.”63 In 1917, a committee had been formed in Brazil to collect over four years donations from the Syrian expatriates to build a monument as a tribute from the Syrian community to Brazil on its hundredth [441]


anniversary of independence. The Committee chose a poem by Elias Farhat as an epigram to be inscribed on the monument. Farhat’s poem, chosen from among many entries, was later abandoned, apparently because some of its expressions were demeaning to Syria’s historic grandeur. As a citizen of a large diaspora and an illustrious spiritual and civilized heritage, Saπadeh regarded Farhat’s poetic sacrifice of the “invaluable” ruins of Baalbak and Tadmor, the great historical monuments of Lebanon, and the graves of Saladdin and Christ as an insult not only to Muslims and Christians, but also “to the souls of those giants who built these glories and immortalized the name of Syria in history”.64 Saπadeh added: “These ruins are priceless. The Monument Committee wants to uproot them and give them to Brazil simply because its members have become wealthy in this country.”65 He found support in Rashid al-Khuri (Al-Qarawi): “I wonder, how a Syrian can humiliate himself, when all creatures and human beings prostrate to the Syrian earth.”66 Saπadeh’s critique, which overturned the committee’s decision, proved two things: first, that he was strongly aware of Syria’s national history; and, second, that his bond to his people was strong. Did he not say: “I set out still looking behind my back where I had left a people that are of my own flesh and blood.”67 A man of languages and arts Saπadeh’s interest in languages is not surprising. In 1911, his father had published a lexicon called Saπadeh’s Dictionary in Arabic and English, with a comprehensive, historical and scholarly introduction. The dictionary introduced Arabic readers to new terminologies and linguistic terms and to recent Western concepts in various fields. Saπadeh was thus brought up to love languages. After studying English and Arabic at Brummanah High School, he studied Portuguese at a Syrian school in Brazil, in addition to the two previous languages. It is claimed that he knew French very well, as well as German and Spanish.68 Thus the number of languages he knew fluently was six. His acquaintances claim that he spent considerable time reading German books on philosophy, history, arts and literature. Saπadeh also spoke Russian.69 According to the essayist Helena Haddad, he picked it up from one Emilia Boshkarov, who found Saπadeh’s culture quite advanced and unusual.70 Many accounts attest to his proficiency in the Arabic language. For example, in an anthem written by Saπid ∏Aql about Syria, Saπadeh replaced [442]

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the word “ahram” (pyramids) by the word “amjad” (glories), declaring: “We built the pyramids in Egypt, but in our country we built glories.”71 He also replaced the word “hasseb” (calculator) by the word “muhasseb” (accountant) in another context because, in his opinion, what was needed was someone with the right accounting skills to scrutinize accounts rather than merely calculate credit reports.72 His colleagues, Youssuf Al-Khal, Fuπad Suleiman, Mohammed Youssef Hammoud and Farid Mubarak, who was the editor-in-charge of Al-Nahda newspaper, tried in vain to find a single linguistic error in Saπadeh’s articles. Flabbergasted, they asked him: where did you learn to write so well in Arabic? Saπadeh answered, “[I was taught Arabic] by the Metropolitan Jermanos Ferhat (who had long been dead, then) in his book Bahth al-Mattaalib.”73 According to Gibran Jreige, Saπadeh’s family spoke standard Arabic in their home, in sharp contrast with common practice. “It never occurred to me,” wrote Jreige, “that he [Saπadeh] cared about the Arabic language that he would impose it as the formal language in the home.”74 In justifying himself, Saπadeh claimed that colloquial language did not involve much learning because it was a daily process: “We should try to upgrade to standard language, or at least reach the closest possible level to it.”75 Like his father, Saπadeh took a keen interest in the Arabic language. In the introduction to The Rise of Nations he condemned the poor quality of social studies in Arabic arguing that it was one of the principal reasons why it was lacking in scientific social terms. This inadequacy motivated him to create new terms such as “social reality”, “social community”, “Al-Manaqib” and “Al-Manaaqibiyya” for morals.76 What applies to literature in general applies also to language. What matters here, for the nation, is the degree to which language epitomizes its living images, peculiarities, and psychological and material needs. The structure and lexical vocabulary of language are only marginally important. Saπadeh did not hide his fascination with languages, but he underscored the importance of having psychological and national fibre when wrestling with them. The nation, he declared, should not allow foreign languages to dominate its identity and psyche: it should give them access but only in a way that serves its heritage and aspirations.77 Among Saπadeh’s thoughts on the relationship between language and the nation is his belief that “unity of language does not determine the nation but is necessary for its unity”.78 According to him, defining the nation in terms of language is one of the greatest mistakes: “It is necessary [443]


for the nation to speak one language, but not necessary for it to be the only user of a language. The most important thing about language is the literature that the nation develops to express and keep its spirit and higher principles.”79 Thus, the value of Arabic to Syrians, in Saπadeh’s view, lies in the cultural and intellectual heritage they have instilled into it and in the way it has come to epitomize their gifted abilities: “The Syrian can discern an expression of his essence, perception and awareness, in the Arabic language. It has become the reservoir of Syrian psyche and culture.”80 Saπadeh’s interest in the arts also started abroad. He practised horseriding, poetry and music reading. He once said: “I feel the full burden of life without music. Oh, how I wish I had learned this meticulous art.”81 The hero in his novel A Love Tragedy is his brother, Salim, the outstanding musician or “rare phenomenon”, as Saπadeh would describe him.82 The affection for music in the Saπadeh family was not confined to Salim, who contracted a serious disease just as he was turning into a good musician: Saπadeh’s sister, Aida, was also keen on music and apparently just as talented as Salim.83 According to Nawwaf Hardan, Saπadeh often dropped in on the leading poets and men of letters in the diaspora, such as Al-Qarawi, Ferhat, Toufiq Qurban and others, for intellectual discussions: he “would surprise them with the range of his information, and embarrass them with his difficult questions (that is, difficult to them), and the intellectual topics which often were beyond their mental standard; some would complain and find Saπadeh rather boring.”84 Hardan added: “[Saπadeh] would speak of superficiality in literature and imitation in verse writing, and would criticize their poetry and writing. Although they were ‘immortal’ poets and prominent men of letters, they realized that in front of him they were children in literature, philosophy, history, arts and sciences.”85 A glimpse into Saπadeh’s infatuation with the arts can be found in his article “Fine Arts: The Art of Singing”, which appeared in 1924 in Al-Majalla. The article distinguished between singing in Syria and artistic singing on the international level, particularly in the developed nations. In every gesture, movement, tone, word and sound there is an expression of sublime feeling, tender emotions and spiritual meditations that would raise souls to the higher, minute, ethereal world where the souls would be cleansed of earthly stain and immersed in pure love. Saπadeh’s charm with the arts, as revealed in the article, leaves no doubt that his life was [444]

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sublimated by this human activity. He was a spiritual writer who rose above the material aspects of life, joining, in one aspect of his thought, the expatriates who refused to acquiesce in foreign life or allow wealth and oblivion to take over their life, thus returning to the soul and to the world of virtues to seek true immortality. True to his broad intellectual dimensions, Saπadeh felt that artistic and spiritual values can save mankind from chaos and restlessness. Art, to him, was the language of the soul in times of loneliness and silence. Suffice to note here his observation on singing: [Singing] is a memorable art that beautifies life in a world full of distress and woe. It is an art that raises the artist to immortality. Singing is part of every soul that has tasted the sweetness of love and the bitterness of great hurdles. It is the art with which Paul Jawhar [an expatriate Syrian artist] raised souls to the height of Gods.86

One further observation is in order. Saπadeh’s affection for music or singing was not unbounded: only the type which personified the inner soul and sublime values of human life appealed to him. He was very precise about this. His article carried an advance notice to artists and performers, particularly Syrians, to keep away from dreary and mind-numbing singing or folk music that arouses sensuous desires at cocktail parties and alcoholic bouts.87 In short, Saπadeh’s early writings abroad were characterized by the diversity of their subjects and style. He was frank and deliberate in political criticism and analysis, but sensitive in discussions of poetry, arts and issues of the homeland. In this regard, he utilized touching poetic images and warm suggestive language. But there is no doubt that his writings during this period – the first expatriate stage of his life – determined the future course of his thought, commitments and aspirations. Memoirs: “People have their daily bread, and I have mine” Unlike idealistic literati of his time, Saπadeh did not run away from social responsibilities or spend his time on making a fortune. Nor did he seek a hollow position for himself as they did. Saπadeh devoted himself to a national message, humanizing and spiritual, knowing deep down in him that it would soak up all his energy and private dreams. He was a true example of unflinching commitment, a man who takes on difficulties no matter how hard they are. The most astonishing thing about Saπadeh [445]


is that he constantly held back his emotions, displaying them only in his charming memoirs, in order to stay focused on his national message. So what did he write in his short memoirs in the second half of the 1920s? There are seven basic topic areas: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

a longing for his mother and the motherland why writing is invigorating to the soul the rejection of selfishness the desire for privacy, and feeling of alienation fear of the future an emphasis on virtues (morals), and questioning the purpose of life and man’s role in it.

On the night of 1 March 1929, Saπadeh wrote: In the country where I am now, in the middle of the dark night, I hear a melodious voice calling me, “My son, where are you?” I raise my head, look at heaven’s face, covered like the face of Isis, and respond, “Mother, where are you?” Again I hear another voice calling me, “My son, where are you?” So I turn to gaze at the horizon again and say, “My homeland, where are you?” My mother and my country are the beginning of my life, and shall accompany my life to the end. Oh, God, help me to be righteous and pious to them.88

Several key features about Saπadeh are revealed in this extract: sincerity, genuine sense of commitment, towering faith, an epic and reminiscent spirit that is deep and inspirational, a deep lyricism that penetrates the depth of conscience and the foresight of legends. Land, mother and God – a triangle that preoccupied Saπadeh as a young man abroad; so he tried to overcome his alienation by returning to his motherland, to his own mother of flesh, blood and soul, and to God the merciful. In the New World, the land was not his, the people were not his and the language was not his. But he did not spurn its languages, feel hardhearted, or reject its heritage. Even though he remained open-minded and tried to assimilate to life abroad, the doubts and exclamations, the imagining of voices and faces, and the insistence on piety in his relations with the mother country, represented sweet and painful longing, as well as a superlative spiritual composition. Saπadeh’s alienation abroad did not dissipate, because his conscience and entity were intimately joined to the homeland. He tried in vain to [446]

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forget through writing but his thoughts were overshadowed by memories of his native land.89 In the entry of 2 March 1929, he wrote: “The suffering that those who leave their homeland must endure is not little. I have constant feeling of homesickness, to the valley, to the pinewoods, to the fountain. I feel depressed when I remember those precious things. Oh, how I wish to go back to my hometown!”90 He took up reading to calm his anxieties. He read The Life of Al-Khansa and some of her poetry, and was touched. It took his mind off things and provided a much needed respite to reinvigorate his feelings and go back to novel writing, which had become part of his emotions, thoughts and experiences.91 In the fundamental spirit of his memoirs, Saπadeh was similar to other well-known expatriate littérateurs, like Al-Rihani, Gibran, Nπeima and Arida. Each one of them had a land he longed for and extolled; each one used his devotion to it to ward off the brutality of another land; each one gazed at the heavens asking questions and listening to voices that burst in the unconscious, calling them to go back to the roots. And why wouldn’t they be similar? The valley and charming pinewoods of Saπadeh’s hometown, Al-Shwear, are no less beautiful than the splendour of Al-Rihani’s Qadisha valley or the marvel of Nπeima’s Al-Jemajim gorge? Similarly, the fountain in Al-Shwear is just as pure as the Mar Sarkis fountain at Gibran’s hometown, Bsharri. And the soil in Arida’s hometown, Homs, is no brighter and touching than the precious soil of Al-Shwear. As if to punctuate the point, Saπadeh went on to say: “Where is the homeland? … My soul craves for that place; my longing is swelling up … There, my mother embraced me; there, I was brought up.”92 Saπadeh refused to let his life slip by in tears and pain or to give in to the cruelty of diaspora life. In pain he found life, in migration a resting station, and in sacrifice some consolation. Life is short; his tribulations made him realize that the philosophy on which he was brought up taught that there was indeed life in pain for those who know how to use it. He who accepts pain, can overcome selfishness: “I refuse to be a selfish person who does nothing but seek pleasure or cry when I am deprived of it.”93 In the same vein, he said: “I should not be selfish … I should remember the pain of millions of my fellow countrymen first, and then think of myself.”94 Truly, it is a literary composition that is both sublime and affectionate. [447]


There is really no difference between Saπadeh and the expatriate triangle Al-Rihani, Gibran and Nπeima, except that those three created heroes in their books (Al-Mustafa, Mirdad and Khalid), whereas Saπadeh was the hero of his writing and life. He extolled heroism in his own way. His thoughts were part of an inspiring national literature that called for revival in Syria, defended the national life against distortion, and fostered feelings and new attitudes within fixed humanistic and spiritual values: “I must forget the wounds of my bleeding self, so that I could help heal the serious wounds of my nation.”95 Herein lays the totality of Saπadeh’s philosophy. As regards his thoughts on life and man, and about the purpose of human existence, he came to the conclusion that the value of human life lies in an acclaimed principle or ideal. He posed several questions (such as those below), but not because he was sceptical or word-playing. Nor was he theorizing. • • • •

What is the purpose of human existence? What is fate or destiny? Does life create tremendous difficulties for an unknown reason or does it create them to destroy life by destroying happiness? If human existence ceases to exist, would life come to an end too?96

We notice in some of his memoirs an inclination towards solitude. At the same time, he alternates between solitude and a discernible devotion to knowledge, comprehension and reform. This vacillation does not deny the fact that Saπadeh, as a littérateur, lived uncountable moments and realized through these moments the value of solitude when man is completely self-contained and on his own. He wrote: “Every time I sought solitude and raised my head and reflected, I always found myself alone with my thoughts, a stranger among my acquaintances. In the vast realm of social existence, selfishness overcomes principles, and desire conquers love.”97 This is a second type of alienation, but it is not due to homesickness: it is not geographical alienation here as much as it is spiritual and psychological. The chosen few, the elite, in every generation work to raise the standard of public life from a materialistic, selfish, alienating and chaotic level to a spiritual, sacrificing, stable and orderly level. Saπadeh’s final words cannot be understood except in this context. His was an attempt to make the majority imitate the minority in love, [448]

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ethics, ambition and virtues – the latter defined by Saπadeh in his memoirs as “a noble human sentiment … conducts that are unanimously regarded in society as honest and dignified”.98 Finally, in his memoirs Saπadeh clings to the past and displays a certain affection for it. Perhaps this is because he knew the past and understood it very well. However, he shows fear of the future; his vision is a mixture of expectations and hope, curiosity about the seen and the unseen and a sense of agnosticism: “Hopes, illusions, desires and dreams – all these are curtains; who knows what lies behind them!”99 We also recognize a hard, varied, altruistic and singular personality: “People have their daily bread, and I have mine.”100 What was Saπadeh’s other bread? It was the bread of the message bearers and torch bearers in every nation. Letters: loss of origins and direction of light This is another aspect of Saπadeh’s expatriate literature. It includes official letters he wrote as a leader of a political party and personal letters in which he expressed his inner thoughts to his friends and comrades. His style of letter writing is an expression of the soul without sophistication. The prose is highly suitable for intelligent dialogue and as a channel of communication of personal thoughts. It is also highly sensitive and reflective. As Al-Thaπaliby once said: “Letter-writing should be exercised by those who are well-read and highly sophisticated.”101 He who reads Saπadeh’s letters would realize how applicable this observation is to his work. In his prose and letters Saπadeh was free, flowing and concise. He steered clear of amorphous vocabulary or rhymed prose, and refused to mix seriousness with humour or to allow wit to get in his way. An insight into Saπadeh’s letter-writing style can be found in an anthology entitled Al-Rassa-el (Correspondences), published by Dar Fikr for Research and Publication in 1989. It includes several letters on elaborate political and ideological issues, and casual descriptions of life in the diaspora. In his letters to Sheikh Nuπman Daw and others, there is invaluable information on: • • •

the historical, literary and commercial life of migrants political activity abroad and the hardships of organizing the national movement Saπadeh’s anxiety due to the persistence of bigotry and ignorance among many migrants [449]


• •

• • •

Saπadeh’s state of loneliness abroad Saπadeh’s devotion to Syrian customs and traditions that were on the wane in the diaspora, as well as a personal assessment of culture as a factor in human development Saπadeh’s craving for Lebanon’s vegetables and fruits Saπadeh’s rebellion against the slaves of money abroad and the superficial view of life and existence, and Saπadeh’s constant longing for the ideal life and everlasting virtues.

Saπadeh developed two attitudes towards the migrants. The first, and positive one, was that “they represent one of the most important elements of strength and life in the nation; in contrast to Syrians at home who, on the whole, are indifferent to reform, migrants are active and diligent, as well as dynamic participants in the reform process abroad”.102 The second, and unsympathetic attitude, describes the diaspora as a place overflowing with personal desires, narcissism and constant tension. In one of his letters to Sheikh Nuπman Daw, Saπadeh wrote: I am fully aware of my people’s old-fashioned psyche and what life is like abroad. I am also aware of the activity of our nation’s enemies and the egoists in our community. Yet, I know that common people are good-hearted and can be reformed once we save them from the clutches of the wealthy opportunists among them and show them the right way to the ideal life and everlasting virtues. I am confident that there are noble and great souls that can distinguish between light and darkness and work in the light to spread light.103

In another letter, he told Daw that cultural activity is essential for every national endeavour, insisting on more public lectures, more performing arts, more parties and more celebrations, so that the public would feel that “we are a living people”.104 At the same time, he exhorted the artist, Faris Butrus, to give more attention to organizational and scientific themes than to literary images.105 Culture, as understood by Saπadeh, is a science that enriches life and a literature that beautifies living; a living human being who is altruistic enough to change it through his constructive spirit, temperament, and strength of mind. It appears that Nuπman Daw used to send some fruits and vegetables from his land – apricots, grapes and olives – as gifts to Saπadeh abroad. Those gifts were one of the causes of Saπadeh’s constant homesickness: [450]

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“Your gifts remind me not only of the orchards of Al-Shwear and Zarπoun, but also of the heroes of Al-Shwear and Zarπoun on that famous day in Bekfayya when they surrounded the soldiers, but refrained from harming them.”106 In another letter, he wrote: “You and your family symbolize the spirit of Syria’s finest customs. In this country, many Syrians have put these lovely customs behind them and turned to the one thing they know: money.”107 In a third letter to Daw, Saπadeh described the olive gift as the best thing “we enjoyed and cherished as we ate; for olive is one of the exquisite symbols of our country”.108 This idea was repeated in another letter: “Grapes, apples, pears and olives have been pleasing gifts, particularly olives: it reminded us of Al-Shweifat, Al-Maπassir, Al-Manassif and Al-Koura.”109 Saπadeh rarely resorted in his letters to symbolic poetic style, but some rare cases found their way into his letters, including one to Nuπman Daw in which he said: The greatest thing about towering mountains is their ability to withstand tremors and violent storms. You are one of the towering mountains in our social nationalist [endeavour] standing stalwartly against storms and heavy rain until the sky has turned blue and the land has cleared. It will be when nature has blossomed with the light and warmth of the sun and the souls are pleased.110

Saπadeh’s relationship with Daw, as revealed in their correspondence, was soulful rather than political or intellectual. The images and melodic rhythms in some of the letters are expressions of instinctive thoughts that delight the psyche of those who can comprehend their value. Through them the soul expands and rises to new horizons. Poetic images, such as simile, metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche, in their different forms, take the text and the soul out of “individual spontaneity to universal perpetuity overwhelming the listener with a sea of light and opening for him his hidden and normally inaccessible inner-self”.111 Thus, in rare and exceptional circumstances, writing becomes a means of receiving the truth, in expression and suggestion, rather than an explanation of a momentary truth; understanding turns into a sensory awakening, a dream and reflection. Consequently, expressions are no longer limited symbols, but instruments of stimulation and communication with values, a take-off point and a journey with mimetic charges.112 [451]


In the letter one finds wisdom, concision, simile, metonymy, symbols and a clear association between nature and human ideals. This is because the recipient (Daw) was a towering mountain in his national spirit; the ability to hold out against adversity and to remain steadfast are two of the most distinctive qualities of such mountains. These qualities, moreover, are necessary until dreams and hopes come true and the flame of truth shines over mankind. In this instance Saπadeh switched from report-like style to a suggestive style, expounding humanist and social ideals without compromising his national vision. This national vision was enunciated in his letter to Charles Malik on 15 April 1938, and in another letter to Hamid Franjiyyah on 10 December 1935. I have chosen these two letters because they depict the national dream and its spirit in Saπadeh’s thinking. In the letter to Malik, Saπadeh displayed astonishment at a speech in which Malik had described the Near East as a homogeneous and cohesive community, when it was nothing but a combination of different civilizations and cultures.113 He reproached Malik for leading an aggressive campaign against the philosophical vitality of the nation on account of its misfortunes during the latter periods of injustice and tyranny. Saπadeh also tried to restore Malik’s confidence in his people pointing out that they were neither antipathetical to philosophy nor too weak-willed to rise above bodily desires, as claimed by Malik. But then Saπadeh realizes: “However, I can see how you turn back and realize this and try to save the people and show them the way of the light.”114 Saπadeh did not share Malik’s view that the meaning of philosophy is the philosophers themselves; “When I think of philosophy, I do not think of names (Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Zeno and Nietzsche), but of the same basic truths and psychological goals of which these philosophers had thought.”115 What Saπadeh probably meant is that the student of philosophy starts as a mere conveyer of the discipline and then becomes a creator of new perceptions in a process that consolidates his relationship, as a philosopher, with his nation, its philosophy and ambitions. From the point of view of style and content, Saπadeh’s letter is rich in logic, tranquillity, reason and scope that serve the nation and its culture. It is devoid of vague or generalized thoughts. However, one passage in the letter leaned towards a biblical style. Malik’s speech, Saπadeh affirmed, goes around “in a large cycle with the result that some of its seeds fell on [452]

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the rock, some on the scorching sands, and some were sprinkled on the right land without any cultivation or farming, thus yielding a small harvest”.116 The technical and symbolical style in this passage swerves from the rest of the letter, giving it a tinge of imagination without tarnishing its analytical and rational integrity. His letter to Hamid Franjiyyah, the lawyer who stepped forward to defend him in the trial of 1936, is characterized by an interesting narrative style. In it Saπadeh narrated the story of his struggle, at home and abroad, to help his people overcome sectarianism and division and find a solution to their woes.117 I was only a child when the Great War broke out in 1914, but I had already begun to perceive and comprehend. The first thing that suddenly occurred to me, having witnessed, felt and actually experienced the affliction of my people, was this question: what was it that brought all this woe on my people? Soon after the end of the war, I began to look for an answer to this question and a solution to this chronic political problem which seems to drive my people from one adversity into another, constantly delivering it from a lesser evil to make it an easy prey to a greater one. It then happened that I left the country in 1920 while dormant sectarian rancours were still widespread and the nation had not fully buried its corpses.118

He goes on to describe the atmosphere in the mahjar (diaspora) after World War I: The situation in the diaspora was only a little better. Various tendentious movements had had their effects and badly factionalized the community. Although they were all Syrians, a sizeable group among them had yielded to extreme inter-sectarian hatred, so that a Lebanese patriotism concept arose in turn, which is itself also an outgrowth of the leadership of religious institutions and of their authority and influence [in society].119

The next section is even more revealing: Obviously, I was not seeking an answer to the above-stated question for the mere purpose of satisfying a scientific or intellectual curiosity. For a scientific knowledge which does not benefit is no better than a harmless ignorance. Rather I sought an answer to that question purely for the purpose of determining the most effective way to [453]


eradicate the causes of that woe. After a preliminary systematic inquiry I came to the conclusion that the loss of national sovereignty was the primary cause of my nation’s past and present woes. This led me to pursue the study of nationalism, the question of communities in general, and of the issue of social justice and its evolution.120

Before I conclude this section, let me point to a letter Saπadeh had sent to his sympathizers on 10 January 1947, in which he projected himself as “a teacher and mentor of the nation and people”, like when Syria was a “model, teacher and mentor to the other nations”. The reader will notice the range of development in Saπadeh’s style towards lyricism, transparency, allusion, suggestivity and emotive rhythms: Nine years are almost over, years of complete discontent; oh, how painful they have been for you and me! In this period, the deadly wounded snake of colonization has come back to attack you, for the last time, with all its remaining strength; yet you stood firmly in the face of this final attack as you did against its first attack, when your determination proved stronger than its might, and forced it to retreat. After that you pounced on it with all your strength to destroy what remained of it. In this period I have been tried by Satan and his group of devils and evil spirits.121

There is no rhetorical or elocutionary word play in this letter. The letter is charged with genuine feelings and a touching style that affects the soul like music or old wine. Expatriate life as Saπadeh’s main concern Reminding the people of the nation When Saπadeh was in Brazil he was incensed by the apathetic and uncaring attitude of the Syrian community towards the situation in Palestine (between the Jews and the native people). It behaved as though events in Palestine were occurring in a country that had never seen the light of life, or as if they were of no concern to the core nation to which it belonged. Some noticeable effort was undertaken by a society called The Syrian Patriotic Association, but its work was disproportionate to the strong pro-Jewish propaganda in Brazilian newspapers. Thus, in one of his articles, Saπadeh displayed displeasure towards the Syrian diaspora for relying on a few individuals “who do not have at hand the resources [454]

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needed for them to do anything effective” to help Syria against the encroaching Zionists.122 On another occasion, in 1939, Saπadeh addressed the Syrian community in Brazil in an attempt to entice its members to the national endeavour in their country of origin: “It is not fair to say we are now in free nations so let’s forget the despotism of the country we came from. You are in those nations like parasites sucking from the vitality of others. If you are not free members of a free nation, then the liberty of other nations must put you to shame.”123 Saπadeh exhorted the Syrian expatriates to show their love of their homeland in deeds as well as in words, “for delivering and sending telegrams of protest to the League of Nations is useless if it is not supported by real action”.124 He incessantly kept reminding the migrants of the plight of the homeland and the economic hardship from which they escaped to be where they were. Cordial relations Saπadeh insisted on cordial relations between Syrians and Brazil. For example, he was greatly moved when Brazil was hit by a severe economic crisis; he monitored the situation and the reaction of the people, and watched closely “the degree of anxiety and unrest in society during those hard times”.125 Of interest is the conclusion he reached from the crisis and the extent to which it reflected his faith in God. It was one of those moments when he seemed to be most submissive to God’s will. He said: How poor and pathetic man is; how ignorant and ungrateful he is to God’s graciousness! When man is in distress, he disturbs his Creator’s restfulness by wishing and asking for help. When his dilemma passes, and he regains his composure, he forgets his Creator and returns to his earlier state of prodigality, lavishness and misdemeanours! Woe to man! How ungrateful he is!126

This attitude is not surprising, for Saπadeh’s faith in God was not circumstantial or egocentric. It was voluntary and free, the kind which shows up in deeds, not in hollow and pretentious words. On relations with Brazilians, he said in a 1939 speech: I was extremely pleased with the extent to which cordial relations between Syrians and Brazilians have developed. It strengthens my [455]


belief in the need for stronger relations between the two peoples through institutions that promote cultural understanding and acquaint both peoples with their great spiritual potentials, as well as provide the means for further cooperation between them in the interest of humanity.127

It greatly disturbed Saπadeh that some elements in the community were out to destroy this relationship through a deliberate campaign of slander and calumnies. He described their action, depicting the Syrian heritage as repulsive, as a threat to the general interest of Syria and to Syrian–Brazilian relations.128 Maintaining personality In a letter to Ghassan Tweiny on 26 May 1946, Saπadeh talked about how the Syrian migrants were straying in America, “that wide continent and country of great temptations”, to use his words.129 So what is the solution? Emigrants who plant seeds in the land of other countries for others to harvest, need to be shown the proper way to channel their feelings and galvanize their vast potential forces. To achieve this, three conditions must be met: 1 2 3

an intimate social psyche a national consciousness, and a distinctive spiritual mark to protect their social personality.

In his letter to Tweiny, Saπadeh wrote: The diversity of cultures in America, and the additional psychological and spiritual diversity stemming from it, has deprived us of a large number of our youth who qualify for tasks of psychological reconstruction in our society, and the world through us. This applies particularly to those who came to America to study purely for personal advancement: they have become fine raw material in factories that weave foreign sentiments and thought.130

This view is as relevant today as it was then, because Saπadeh’s agonies are still today Syria’s agonies and the migration problem which tormented him is still tormenting Syria. America is still the same; the people in Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, beget children and bring them up only to [456]

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be gobbled down by an unappeasable America! It is really a serious problem that calls for quick answers.

Conclusion In his literature, as in his social and political erudition, Saπadeh was a key figure in the civilization and culture of Syria. He made a valuable contribution to its heritage and extended its horizons beyond the mainstream discourse, imitation and recurring religious connotations. His mastery of languages was a great help. It enabled him to stay conversant with Western resources and to utilize its material in the service of his country socially, nationally and morally. He belonged to an elite group of writers of the age of literary revival in the Arab East who formulated prose-poems that “revolt against injustice and feudalism, objectify the maladies begot in colonization, appeal to valour and energy in the struggle against ignorance, poverty and slavery, call for the liberation of woman and encourage the spread of knowledge”.131 Karam added a description which applies conclusively to Saπadeh: “[He] alone fused every nutriment in himself, annihilating in his literary experience every plagiary regarded as a cultural input and a contribution to the accomplishments of the Renaissance [Nahda].”132 As an émigré, Saπadeh was constant in his love for his homeland. He remained attached to the “old country” and never adjusted fully to life in the mahjar. He spent his time sending good wishes to the homeland and places he loved from the bottom of his heart, and agonizing about the death of dear ones and their humiliation at the hands of misery. His literature and tales indicate that overseas, for him, was a momentary stage: he refused its great temptations. A force drove him to conquer diaspora life. Many of his fellow expatriates shed tears lamenting about the homeland, but very few of them dared to do what Saπadeh did – keep the “covenant to my countrymen, the living and the dead, till the end”.133

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NOTES 1 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1979, p. 86. 2 Kamal al-Haj, Moujaz al-Falsafat al-Lubnaniyyah (A Summary of Lebanese Philosophy), Beirut: Al-Karim Publications, 1974, p. 599. 3 Here, Omar al-Daqqaq’s observation on immigration can be appropriately invoked: “How they wished, because of extreme sorrow, to retrieve what they had lost, but in vain; thus they nearly died of longing and distress, and soon gave vent to sighs while their eyes shed tears.” Omar al-Daqqaq, Anadil Mohajirah (Immigrant Nightingales), Damascus: n.p., 1972, p. 19. 4 Nawwaf Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar (Saπadeh Abroad), Beirut: Fikr Publications, vol. 1, 1988, p. 28. 5 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 86. 6 See Badr al-Haj, Silsalat al-Aamal al-Majhula: Dr. Khalil Saπadeh (The Unknown Works of Dr. Khalil Saπadeh), London: Riad al-Rayyis Books Ltd, 1987. 7 Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 36. 8 Ibid., pp. 95–96. 9 Ibid., p. 125. 10 Ibid., p. 132. 11 Ibid., pp. 140–146. Six trusted compatriots helped Saπadeh set up both the association and party; they were: Henry Daw, Dr. Abdu Jezra, Philip Lutf Allah, Raji Abu Jamra, Rasheed Maalouf and a member of the Al-Murr family (pp. 139, 146). 12 Ibid., p. 204. 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid. 15 William Al-Khazin, Al-Shiπar wa al-Wataniyya fi Lubnan wa al-Bilad al-Arabiyyah (Poetry and Patriotism in Lebanon and the Arab Countries), 2nd edition, Beirut: Dar Al-Mashriq, 1984, p. 110. 16 Azizia Mraeden, Al-Qawmiyyah wa al-Insaniyyah fi Shi πar al-Mahjar al-Janubi (Nationalism and Humanism in Southern Expatriate Poetry), Cairo: Al-Dar al-Qawmiya for Printing and Publishing, 1966, p. 30. 17 Ibid., p. 35. 18 The League was chaired by Michael Maalouf. Al-Andalus al-Jadida was its first publication lasting over a year until Al-Usba came out in 1935, with Habeeb Massπoud as editor-in-chief. (The first issue came out in January 1935.) After Maalouf, it was chaired by Al-Qarawi, a poet, and then by Shafiq Maalouf, who remained in his post until Al-Usba ceased altogether. Mraeden, ibid., p. 42. 19 Shafiq al-Maalouf, “Al-Shiπar al-Arabi fi al-Brazil” (Arab Poetry in Brazil), Al-Usba, nos. 7 and 8, 1953, p. 483. 20 Ibid. 21 Mraeden, op. cit., p. 217. 22 George Seidah, Adabuna wa Oudabaouna fi al-Mahajir al-Amirkiyyah (Our Literature and its Makers in the American Diaspora), 2nd edition, Beirut: 1956, p. 66. 23 Al-Usba, no. 1, July 1948, p. 3. [458]

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24 25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49

50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57

Al-Usba, no. 2, August 1948, p. 114. Also Mraeden, op. cit., pp. 219–223. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 143. Ibid. Mraeden, op. cit., p. 223. Ibid., p. 224. Ibid., p. 23. Antun Saπadeh, Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), 2nd edition, Damascus: 1951, p. 140. In an exclusive interview (5 August 1987), Riyadh al-Maalouf told us: “Easterners, who are idealistic by nature, are very fanatical about their religions because they feed on dogmatism from infancy to school, thus they grow up on hatred and detestation, and end up fighting each other. They kill on earth in the name of religion, yet religion is innocent of them and of their vices; they seek heaven with hands immersed in blood! If a Muslim managed to understand religion, he would realize that to abuse a non-Muslim is against God’s will. The same applies to the Christian, if he managed to understand that love is the essence of his religion.” Antun Saπadeh, Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), 3rd edition, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1955, p. 7. Al-Usba, no. 3, April 1937, p. 180. Al-Usba, nos. 11 and 12, December 1935, pp. 999–1,002. Al-Usba, no. 10, 1949, p. 1,003. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 155. Saπadeh, Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature, p. 66. Ibid. Ibid., p. 95. Kamal al-Haj, op. cit., p. 553. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 96. Ibid., p. 99. See Antun Saπadeh, Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 1, 1980. Omar al-Daqqaq, op. cit., pp. 14–15. Najib E. Saliba, Emigration from Syria and the Syrian-Lebanese Community of Worcester, Pennsylvania: Antakya Press, 1992, p. 3. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 101. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 102. In some of his prose-poems we read: “Peace upon the living homeland, if the homeland is alive. Peace upon the dead homeland, if the homeland is dead. Peace upon the living countrymen. Peace upon the dead countrymen. Peace upon places where I saw the light of life for the first time”, p. 125. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 107. Full text in Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. [459]


58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67

68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85

86 87 88 89 90 91 92

Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 106. Ibid. Ibid. On Rousseau’s thought see Youssef Karam, Tarikh al-Falsafat al-Haditha (History of Modern Philosophy), Cairo: Dar al-Maarif, 1962. In Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1. Mohammad Halal, Al-Adab al-Mouqarin (Comparative Literature), Beirut: Dar al-Awada, n.d. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 118. Ibid. Ibid., p. 121. Ibid., p. 126. This emotive note appeared in two essays: “Memory of Homeland”, in which images of silent graves and ruins epitomize the misery which dear people and family had suffered in life (p. 125); the second is an elegiac essay on Ibrahim Al-Yazijy, a clever writer and a man of principles and honest intentions. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 32. Ibid., p. 129. Helena Haddad to Hardan, ibid., p. 162. Gibran Jreige, Maπ Antun Sa πadeh (In the Company of Antun Saπadeh), Beirut: n.p., 1973, vol. 2, p. 27. Ibid., pp. 69–70. Ibid., p. 81. Ibid., 1976, vol. 3, p. 104. Ibid. See introduction to the book. In Saπadeh’s The Ten Lectures, 1979, we read the following: “Letters and words are a means to express the deepest intentions of the soul. Otherwise, Man would lose the true meaning of his life … If expression is confined to individual pleasures, Man would forgo the ideals of beauty, goodness, and right”, p. 258. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 172. Ibid., p. 173. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 120. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, pp. 173, 175, 176, 203. Saπadeh bought a piano for his sister, Aida, and contracted a Brazilian music teacher to give both her and Salim lessons in music. He was pleased to hear them play classical music, p. 129. Ibid., p. 193. Ibid. Ibid., p. 197. According to Hardan (p. 196) Saπadeh taught at the Eastern Patriotic College of Sciences and Literature, before his return to Syria in 1930. During that time he read History (in German) by Farm Hagen, and History of the Near East and International History by the Italian Cezar Canto, in addition to other books in various fields. Ibid., p. 133. Ibid., p. 134. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, (a brief SSNP booklet-type publication), August 1950, p. 10. Ibid., p. 11. Ibid. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, pp. 199–200. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, August 1950, p. 14. [460]

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93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103

104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133

Ibid., p. 12. Ibid. Ibid. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 201. Ibid., p. 203. Ibid., p. 200. Ibid., p. 203. Ibid. Al-Thaπaliby, Nethr al-Nadhm, wa Hall al-Agd, Cairo: n.p., 1317 (Hijra), p. 3. Saπadeh, Al-Rassa-el (Correspondences) Beirut: Dar Fikr for Research and Publication, 1989, p. 18. Ibid., p. 22. In another letter (p. 45), he said that most members of the community were corrupt and disgraceful. He added that: “[T]he community is poor in people with high morals; the selfish are many; and those seeking to achieve the public interest are few.” Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., p. 46. Ibid., p. 31. Ibid., p. 47. Ibid. Ibid., p. 98. Ibid., p. 103. Antun Ghattas Karam, Al-Ramziyyah (Symbolism), Beirut: Dar al-Kashaf, 1949, p. 76. Ibid., p. 78. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, September 1950, p. 17. George Abdul Massih, Risala min Risala, Beirut: Dar al-Rukin, 1985, p. 65. Ibid. Ibid., p. 64. Ibid., pp. 197–198. The full English text of this letter can be found in Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995, pp. 228–231. Ibid. Ibid. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, September 1950, p. 96. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 21. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, August 1950, pp. 5–8. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 21. Hardan, Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar, p. 202. Ibid. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, August 1950, p. 70. Ibid. Al-Nizam al-Jadid, May 1946. Ibid. Antun Ghattas Karam, Malamih al-Adab al-Arabi al-Hadith (Characteristics of Contemporary Arab Literature), Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1980, p. 24. Ibid. See Saπadeh’s memoirs in Complete Works, vol. 1. [461]


12 Saπadeh’s Views on Literature and Literary Renovation Mohamad Maatouk

Antun Saπadeh is widely known as an inspirer of political violence in the 1950s and after, in the Middle East, as a mentor of prominent political and literary figures who influenced the development of Arab politics and literature. Much less is known about Saπadeh the social philosopher, who promoted new concepts of the nation and social development1 or about Saπadeh the literary critic, who formulated a new theory of literature.2 This chapter focuses on the literary side of Saπadeh’s thought. It examines his views on literature, literary renovation and critical attitude towards prominent Syrian and Arab literalists. One can imagine him asking this important question: why do Shakespeare, Wagner, Al-Maπarri, Gibran and others still appeal to us? And he would answer: because they chose subjects that enjoyed universal appeal (such as love, hate, goodness, rightness, prejudice, altruism, human weakness and so on) and treated them with progressive lofty outlooks on life which are their own. It follows that a dynamic literature seeking to command universal acclaim must follow suit and choose its subjects in the same careful way as did the ancient giants and treat them with a new (national) outlook on life. This outlook must be national, or else the writer might not be able to stay in total control of his material or produce admirable works. Moreover, if it is a national outlook, shaped in accordance with the general traits of a nation’s nafsiyya (psyche), then it can handle foreign subjects more comfortably than it might otherwise. The shortcomings of Syrian literature In 1932, a debate over the concept of “High Ideal” was triggered by Taha Husayn in an article he published in al-Hilal, which illustratively ascribed the poet Ahmad Shawqi’s limitations to the latter’s scant knowledge of [463]


Western literature.3 Opposing opinions held that it was incumbent that “we recognize no ‘Ideal’ for poetry other than the ‘Ideal of the nation which this poetry uses as its tongue’ ”.4 The same writer prescribed a kind of innovation or a process of forming an Arabic literature as follows: “We receive Arabic poetry as it has come down to us and adapt it to our mentality and environment and to our times. Thus we live and it lives with us, and thus we become the owners of an Arabic kind of literature as Italians have an Italian kind and Germans a German kind.”5 Furthermore, against contentions to the effect that Arabic poetry was one unified entity, Husayn divided poetry into various parts each with a different mentality and spiritual attitude. Taking his cue from this new radical view of Husayn, Saπadeh proceeded to shed light on Syrian literature, drawing a distinct line between what was Arab and what was Syrian. In the process he noticed what he called the Syrian poet’s dull imitation of old traditional Arabic poetry which supplanted Syrian “Ideals”, closely connected with Syrian life and mental disposition, by the “Ideals” of a different and abandoned kind of life. He wrote: “What was once an Arab ‘Ideal’ is no more suitable to be an Egyptian or Syrian ‘Ideal’ by virtue of what Egypt and Syria experienced in evolution of their spirit and mentality.”6 He gave the example of Abuπl Alaπ al-Maπarri, the poet-philosopher for whom Saπadeh never failed to show great admiration. Calling the poet, who was born in Maπarratul Nuπman in North Syria, “Syrian” with “nothing Arab in his philosophy and thinking”,7 he argued: “Had Al-Maπarri confined himself to the ‘Ideal’ of Arabic poetry he would not have been able to provide this extensive treasure of poetry and literature in the Arabic language.”8 Saπadeh saw the demise of the Syrian nation as that of an old civilized nation, which knew sedentariness and stability very early and produced a culture that mirrored its people’s richness of spirit and great imagination.9 Then came the Arab Conquest, which introduced a new national language – Arabic – and the Syrians, subsequently, lost contact with their pre-conquest culture and history. The clash between the two distinct cultures ended in the prevalence of the Arab mentality with only a few signs of discontent, which were manifested in the works of a small number of Syrians in the Arab era. The Umayyad era witnessed intercourse between the two cultures, but the Arabs, whose nature depicted the roughness of their land, hastily plundered the Syrian treasures of [464]

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civilization and were only superficially influenced “because their sharp temper, acquired from their country’s hot climate and its burning sands, was incompatible with the quiet Syrian personality, which grew in a moderate and kind climate, which had seasons changing regularly without disturbing the current of thought or agitating the peace of the soul”.10 According to Saπadeh: Had the Omayyad era lasted longer and the government in Syria been firmly established the Syrian personality would have succeeded in softening the rough Arab personality and lent it spiritual profundity and intellectual sublimation. However, as Arabs changed governments as often as their psychological states changed, and as their old character was adverse to umran (culture) and self-satisfaction, they would start one thing and quickly move to another. This explains why they have not built any survivable cultural monuments like Baalbak, Tadmur, Byblos and other Syrian archaeological remains, which bear the mark of an ambition for immortality and the adoption of immortal qualities.11

In the end, Saπadeh wrote: “Arabs thus separated themselves from Syria, and each side upheld its own personality.”12 However, one should beware of judging Saπadeh’s attitude towards the Arabs as racist: at that stage, he still believed that the Arabs were among the original stocks of Syria and had only praise for their good character: The Arabs proved with their conquests and their contributions to civilization that they are a people of merits which enable them to carry the burdens of civilization when in a suitable environment. The Arabs in Andalusia – a large part of whom were Syrians – were so largely active in furthering sciences and tolerating free speech, that Arabic eventually became the language of science in both the East and the West.13

The “Ideal”, to Saπadeh, is “not constant but changeable”. Being so, “Ideals” must have laws of development. On the one hand, they keep in touch with the nature of the people and develop in conformity with their life. On the other hand, they respond to the influence of other national cultures. It happened to Italian literature, which is not completely or largely Italian in origin – Dante having inherited Virgil and the latter having imitated Homer. It also happened to German literature, which “did not rise up to become an ‘Ideal’ worthy of respect and admiration [465]


until all of Europe was swept by the Renaissance of the literary resurrection, and the Germans adapted new visions from Shakespeare and Homer, and until Italian art and Greek philosophy started to influence German literature”.14 In much the same way, the Syrian personality in ancient times “influenced neighbouring nations and provided a number of gods who symbolized the order of life and provided mythological sources for the Greeks and their myths”.15 In this statement, Saπadeh was referring to Adonis and Aphrodite, who are the equivalent of Tammuz and Ishtar or Ashtarut in Syria. His persistent reference to Syrian mythology, however, is not intended solely to illustrate the idea of international cultural interaction, but more importantly, to underline the fact that Syria, as a civilized nation, was in existence long before the Arab Conquest. It follows that that nation which lost sight of its culture and its “Ideals”, the symbol of its ways of life, should, necessarily, regain contact with its past as a precondition for resurrection and reinvigoration. The contact with the West, Saπadeh held, made the Syrian writers aware of the “ideals” in their myths which were the subject of more than one work of art, and thus they proceeded to re-discover those myths which treasure the psyche of the nation.16 The time when Saπadeh’s views and theories can be backed up with reliable references is yet to come. This makes the task of tracing those views and theories back to their original sources rather difficult. It is clear, however, that he consulted more than one work for his theories on the myth of Tammuz and Ishtar, for while he seems to have read Ernest Renan,17 whom he quoted on the definition of the nation, he does not follow him in his opposition to identifying Tammuz and Adonis, accepting what other anthropologists, like James Frazer in The Golden Bough, proclaimed in recognizing both as one and the same.18 Given that Saπadeh was widely read in German, it is most probable that some of the German works on which Frazer heavily depended in his magnificent book, especially the fourth volume, which was devoted to Adonis and his Egyptian and Greek equivalents, were accessible to him.19 It should be noted, though, that while most of those works, including Frazer’s, were mainly concerned with the descriptions of the festivities and their development, Saπadeh was concerned solely with surmising the inherent tendencies in the ancient Syrian nation of which he highlighted two: the tendencies to create and to construct.

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The conditions for literary revival Syrian literature that followed in the steps of old Arabic literature, Saπadeh explained, was the product of many elements, mainly the adoption of the “High Ideal” of Arabic literature. That “High Ideal” depicted the primitive life of the Jahili (pre-Islamic) Arabs which was not only different from the modern life of Arabia, but also incompatible with both the Syrian mental life and the exigencies of modern life. In Saπadeh’s view, Syrian poets who chanted for camels and wept over atlal (imaginary remains) concealed, “a great deal of self-deception”. They displayed utter ignorance of their past history and an inability to recognize their ancient myths and the significance of their archaeological ruins.20 This notwithstanding, the Syrian personality, wrote Saπadeh, “soon started to feel ill at ease inside that narrow literary space as a prisoner does inside his cell, and so started to realize that such a form of [Arabic] literature stands like a fence between itself and life, its order and strength”.21 The alternative to this is to produce literature that depends on a new kind of life. This concept, adopted and strongly advocated by Saπadeh, is a cornerstone in his belief system. He classified literature into two kinds: one is the literature of books, and the other the literature of life. The former is based on imitation and immature adoption of foreign “High Ideals” or foreign modes of life, while the latter is very close to life in its sublimated aspirations. As a matter of course, all Syrian literary production, with a few exceptions to be named and discussed later, belonged, in Saπadeh’s classification, to the former kind of literature. The shortcomings are in the writer himself who is content to depict real-life scenes at an inferior level and is, himself, part of this kind of real-life scene. To illustrate, Saπadeh chose the topic of love and, in the context, referred to the traditions of match-making which concentrated heavily on the physical features of the woman. This life, which concerns itself only with physical features and bodily contact, was itself the source of inspiration for Syrian poets and novelists. It follows that the images of love they drew in their works lacked the “clarity and purity of the profound spirit which is rich in spiritual elements and mental descriptions”.22 The preponderance of “savage images” in most literary works is due to the fact that writers and poets themselves played the love roles which were commonplace among all young people.23 In the process, Saπadeh distinguished between the image of physical love, which seeks gratification in bodily contact and represents the “human psychological phenomenon [467]


closest to the animal”, and the image of spiritual love, which is based on “natural and spiritual choice”, and portrays a respectable personality of the woman.24 One source of inspiration for Syrian writers to hold women in great esteem was the Syrian heritage with a preponderance of images of women in a position of power and respectability. Another source of inspiration was contact with the West, which helped to cultivate the taste of Syrian men of letters. This shows clearly when “the savage images” of love, which dominate the poetry and prose of “those who had no contact with Western literature”, are compared with the works of “those few who searched in their poems and prose works for the identity of the woman and the wishes of her heart and the hopes and aspirations which tie her sentiments of love to those of the man, and who are among those who knew Western literature well and experienced life with increasingly modern minds and intellects”.25 However, not all the Syrian literature born from contact with the West seemed agreeable to Saπadeh: Those of our poets and writers who were in contact with foreign languages appreciated the difference between the sublime topics of Western literature and the simple topics of their writer predecessors, and they grew greatly fond of Western literature, which led them to imitate them and present us with many of their images and meanings as they were originally made and before they became original in those writers themselves. Thus, they created something new which our public and the great majority of our elite could not understand and appreciate, because the kind of life from which they stemmed is new and foreign to them: rather, it is foreign even to those poets and writers themselves.26

Saπadeh did not consider this kind of literature part of what he called an independent new Syrian literature because it reflected a basically foreign life. Although Saπadeh was more explicit in denouncing old literature than in describing his proposed new one, he made clear that the literature of life should be relevant to life, instrumental in forging national unity, and more consistent with a lifestyle befitting an active nation and modern times. On the way to attaining such a kind of literature, Syrian writers went through the experience of interacting with Western literature which opened their eyes to the fact that they belonged to a different culture and a way of life that is different from the one they depicted from ancient [468]


Arabic literature, and thus a restless spirit guided them towards seeking “High Ideals” in their own heritage. After contact with the West, wrote Saπadeh, “Syrian thought started to retrieve its independence as evidenced in every aspect of the new Syrian literature and eventually the belief that Arabic literature represented the Syrian personality was refuted”.27 Identifying the sources of his revivalist effort, Saπadeh, at a later stage, recast those sources so as to point out the figures involved in the great, albeit incomplete, endeavour. They were his father, Dr. Khalil Saπadeh, Gibran Khalil Gibran, Philip K. Hitti and Farah Antun.28 Hitti, a well-known historian who lived in North America and dedicated his work to the histories of Syria, the Arabs and Islam, was, like Dr. Khalil Saπadeh, always present in Saπadeh’s acknowledgements. While Hitti’s famous book History of Syria 29 was not published in Saπadeh’s lifetime, his contribution which Saπadeh praised was mainly his books Surya wa al-Suriyyun min Nifidhat al-Tarikh and The Syrians in America.30 The latter, however, was the more important for while it concerned itself mainly with the Syrians in the United States – their careers, newspapers and organizations – it also allocated its opening chapters to the history and geography of Syria. The human mixture of the Syrian people and the area historically referred to as Syria, as described in that book, were adopted in their main features by Saπadeh, when he set out the Principles of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.31 “The new Syrian literature represented a resurrection of Syrian literature,” Saπadeh wrote, and literature became once more “a clear mirror that reflects the true picture of the hidden substance of the Syrian personality.”32 In his novel, Fajiπtu Hubb (A Love Tragedy),33 one of the characters is presented as attempting “a prophecy”, as Saπadeh called it, saying that “the day will come when the Syrian personality and mentality, which are rich in natural resources, become twin sources of inspiration for littérateurs, artists, scientists and philosophers emerging from the heart of the Syrian people”.34 Commenting on this, Saπadeh wrote: “It means the resurrection of the Syrian literature which will extract our reality from within us and present it to our eyes and the world so that we and the world can mutually understand each other.”35 This optimism about a literary revival was rather inflated. Saπadeh who predicted that revival in 1933, a few months after he founded the Syrian Nationalist Party, was soon to realize that in a divided society with few cultural institutions to build on, such a revival can only be affected [469]


by a dedicated revivalist movement that will offer guidelines to the new literature and influence its trends. The importance of those ideas to which Saπadeh would still adhere a decade later lies in that they were introduced in the early stage of his national endeavour and before those ideas matured and took final form.

A new concept in the form of old literature Even though Saπadeh seized every opportunity to expound his modern, literary and artistic views, which agree with his new belief-system, those opportunities must have been very rare. Besides two novels he published in 1932, and the articles that appeared in Al-Majalla in 1933, Saπadeh employed his contacts with the members of his party, including the visits he paid to branches of the organization in various regions, to preach the idea of the independence of Syrian personality and its modes of expression. One such contact was between Saπadeh and a young party member who had an interest in theatre. Saπadeh recalled that the young man had sought his advice on ways of promoting theatre and Saπadeh explained that the matter was contingent on developing a similar life in the Syrian people, for “acting the roles of love, chivalry and heroism in sophisticated modes requires that the actor himself feels these qualities in a sophisticated mode. People who have never seen love other than in its physical trend cannot act out its lofty psychic states.”36 To illustrate, Saπadeh gave examples from plays he had seen in Damascus, where one young actor failed to perform the role of a serious lover because it did not agree with the facts of his real life.37 Another contact, in 1936, involved the poet Saπid ∏Aql, whose name had just started to circulate in Syria’s literary circles.38 Aql had written “Bint Yaftah”, an epic poem which recounted the story of the biblical Yaftah who had vowed to sacrifice the first person who would meet his troops on their way back from a battle against the Canaanites, before fate had it that that person should be his daughter.39 Commenting on the epic poem, Saπadeh wrote: I happened to stumble on a copy of that poetic narrative and after reading a few sections, I sensed an excellent poetic ability worthy of addressing the affairs of life and of the spirit. However, I could not bear to finish reading it because I found its subject alien to Syrian topics and confined to Jews, the enemies of Syria. I detected the [470]


faculty of a Syrian poet worthy of expressing the Syrian personality, but it was alien to Syrian topics and the characteristics of the Syrian personality. It also served certain trends and ideals the victory of which would mean the defeat of Syria and its “Higher Ideals”, ambitions and potency. Despite the good poetic ability manifest in the epic poem, I could find nothing that might open a new avenue for Syrian literature and effect change or innovation – at least such change and innovation which would put Syria on a par with nations which possess dynamic literature worthy of life and universality.40

Saπadeh then reported that he exploited a visit to the Zahla branch of the party, of which Aql was a member, “to draw the poet’s attention to the requirements of the Syrian Renaissance as regards literature”.41 He continued: Towards the end of my discourse, I turned to Saπid ∏Aql and praised his excellent poetic ability, but scolded him for being inattentive to topics which were deeply rooted in the heart and history of the Syrian people. I asked him whether he could not find in the history of Syria great and meaningful historical psychological phenomena and themes that would introduce him to its treasures and the course of its lofty histories. As he failed to answer, I advised him to read the story of the building of great Carthage and its transformation into a centre of a vast and extremely mighty empire, and to study the events of its impressive history, which stimulates the mind, or to read something about any period of ancient Syrian history. The fact that he was involved with the Syrian Nationalist outlook would enable him to furnish a link between Syria’s ancient topics and its new topics and ascertain the philosophical connection between the ancient Syrian and the new Nationalist Syrian topics.42

The initial response was fairly positive. ∏Aql took Saπadeh’s remarks to heart, and was soon busy writing Qadmus, another epic poem which he published in the early 1940s. This epic was published during his absence, and it was a dissatisfied and disappointed Saπadeh who read ∏Aql’s Qadmus in 1947. The author, he wrote, “tried to tinge historical facts and traditional myths with narrow domestic considerations and thus did injustice to both the myths and history”.43 Qadmus was first written, as its poet recounts, in Al-Shwear (Saπadeh’s town) in August 1937, and was reviewed in Zahla (∏Aql’s town) in 1944.44 In the meantime, the poet seems to have undergone a major change of heart as may be inferred from his ambiguous call for the “Lebanonization of the world”.45 [471]


One does not fail to notice that at no stage in his encounter with ∏Aql did Saπadeh raise the question of the new outlook on beauty in poetry; his main concern was the subject which he entrusted to the promising poet. We are not suggesting that the lack of supervision in matters of beauty was particularly behind the mediocrity of Qadmus, but it was behind the move of men of letters in the SSNP from producing new literature to producing theories on national literature which indeed are Saπadeh’s and not their own. One good example is the articles written by members of the party and published in a special edition of the Beirut al-Maπrad in 1936.46 One of those articles was by Abdul Rahman al-Asir, and tackled the topic of literature and literary innovation. “Literature to me,” wrote Al-Asir, “is the mirror which reflects the life of the nation and so it is national before everything else”.47 In imitation of Saπadeh’s view concerning traditional Arabic literature and alienated westernized literature, which in 1933 Saπadeh had ruled out as incompatible with the Syrian personality, Al-Asir wrote: “Syrian literature is of two kinds: one looks towards the Desert [Arabian] and seeks inspiration from the remains and goes back to the time of ‘al-Dukhul fa Hawmil’, while the other sits in the lap of France and moves among Baudelaire, Valery and Verlaine. In other words, we do not seem to feel anything near love and care for this piece of land between the Desert and the Mediterranean Sea.”48

Spiritual independence and national revival From the outset Saπadeh prided himself on making the goal of intellectual and cultural independence one of the fundamental aims of his budding party. The Seventh Fundamental Principle, which stated that the “Syrian National Movement seeks its inspiration from the talents and genius of the Syrian Nation and its political and cultural history”,49 is probably the lynchpin of Saπadeh’s claim for the intellectual independence of his revivalist movement. In the Commentaries on the Ideology, Saπadeh wrote: By this principle the Syrian National Party asserts the spiritual independence which manifests its national character with its qualities, ideals and aims. For the party believes that no Syrian revival can be accomplished except by that action of an original and independent Syrian mentality. And indeed one of the most important factors in the absence or weakness of the Syrian national consciousness is the [472]


neglect of the genuine Syrian mentality as manifested in the theoretical and practical contributions of its men, and in its cultural monuments. Among these is the invention of the alphabet, the greatest cultural revolution in history and the creation of the first civilized laws, not to speak of the monuments of Syrian colonization, the materialspiritual culture and the constructive order which was spread by the Syrians all around the Syrian Mediterranean Sea, and the immortal works of great Syrians like Zeno, Barsalibi, St. John Chrysostom, Ephraim, Al-Maπarri, Dikπul Jin al-Himsi, Al-Kawakibi, Gibran, and many other great persons of ancient and modern times. Add to these Syria’s great generals and its immortal warriors from Sargon the Great to Aserhaddon, Sennecharib, Nebuchadnasser, Assurbanipal, Tiglatpelassar, from Hanno the Great, through Hannibal (the greatest military genius of all times and all nations), to Yusuf Al-Azma, the hero of Maysalun. We derive our ideals from our mentality and we declare that the Syrian spirit accommodates every science, every philosophy and every art in the world. Unless the Syrian mentality is strengthened, and liberated from the domination of foreign trends and foreign mentalities, Syria will continue to lack the element of true independence and the “Ideals” of its life.50

The four main issues in this text are as follows. First, spiritual impendence and Syria’s ability to vindicate it. This factor is sought both for itself and to show the nation’s worthiness of independence. Syria’s credentials in this respect are twofold: first, it is a mature nation which, like all mature nations, is able to comprehend every science, art and philosophy in the world; and second, it aspires to regain its spiritual independence and its independent character by linking up with its magnificent past and the “High Ideals” in its national history. Second, revival of national consciousness is a manifestation of the “will to life”. Yet, unless this consciousness is connected with national original contributions which epitomize the character of the nation, it is mere bigotry which Saπadeh believed nationalism was not. Third, the connection between Syria’s independent character (personality) and real independence. This idea was further emphasized in 1947, wherein he asserted that values to which Syria would not subscribe are not to be recognized as such or cherished by Syria. Saπadeh maintained: If we cannot recognize Rightness, Goodness and Beauty, we shall not be able to recognize Rightness, Goodness and the Beauty of a [473]


different entity. To us what we do not subscribe to a Rightness, Goodness and Beauty cannot be so, and will not be imposed on us forcibly because we possess a conscious perceptive profound self which is capable of recognizing Rightness, Goodness and Beauty and do so by means of the elements of its spiritual – intellectual and feelings-relation – independence.51

Fourth, Saπadeh’s criterion in selecting Syrian great men believed to have made major contributions to the national history. This handful of names was chosen, to the exclusion of others, from various eras of Syrian history which span the period from 1100 bc, as in the case of Tiglatpelassar, to 1931, the date of Gibran’s death in New York. From the Arab era, he picked Barsalibi (an avowed defender of Christianity against Islamic monopoly on theological thought during the Omayyad era), Al-Maπarri (the famous poet-philosopher) and Dikπul Jin al-Himsi (777–849) for “his free thinking and Syrian patriotism”.52 Except for Al-Kawakibi and Gibran, none of the so-called “forerunners of the renaissance” in Syria, who count some 50 personages in some assessments,53 were mentioned. One reason is that Saπadeh dismissed the so-called “literary Renaissance” as “spiritually heterogeneous mixtures … which produced only confusion and lacked any shade of clarity”, as he declared in 1939.54 Another reason is that Saπadeh valued highly the spirit in which those great men made their contributions. One example he cited was Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps mountains during the Punic wars which was robbed of its significance by Polybius, the famous authority on those wars, who claimed that certain Gallic tribes preceded the Carthagean military genius in crossing those mountains. Citing the position of Polybius as an illustration of the bias of the Greek-Roman school of history against the Syrians, Saπadeh maintained that the Greek historian sought to compare the unplanned spread of savage groups motivated by blind elements and circumstances, with a premeditated military campaign that was well organized and well planned with a clear design that goes beyond the aim of crossing those mountains and seeks to defeat the enemy. Such significant determination cannot be attributed to savage groups which wander up or down the mountains. There is a great difference between the two cases.55

The exclusion of other men of letters and war strategists does not signify that Saπadeh did not appreciate their considerable contributions. Nor [474]


did he intend to provide a rigid mould to shape the thinking of Syrians. His objective, rather, was to provide a staging-base for an identity of outlooks on life and directions, leaving it to the people to elaborate and enrich them. Indeed, Saπadeh always made it clear that he wanted to be the leader who guided the renaissance and sought to protect it from deviations, and not the despot who reduced the members of the party to puppets who would obey his orders and lend him their brains along with their allegiance.

An early sample of Saπadeh’s new poetry Once at least, Saπadeh did give his disciples and followers, in that early period of his party’s life, what may be seen as an illustrative piece on his aesthetic views which were at that time merely lofty and poetic and had yet to be given ideological contents. That piece was published during his 1936 imprisonment in response to a question put forward by a Lebanese magazine to Lebanese men of letters. The question was: “If you are not what you are who would you like to be?”56 and Saπadeh’s response was the following beautiful piece which shows his sophistication and poetic gifts. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been the eagle who flies high in the wide space, to him distances are not as long as they are to the short-winged. If I were not what I am, I would yearn to have been tunes that move along with the invisible waves of the Universe and touch the pulses of the hearts and transform it into odes of love and strength, and touch callous hearts to bring back to them the forgotten pulses of life. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been a man whom the urgent numerous tasks of life have forgotten, so he left behind the bustle and the murmurs of slanderers and calumniators and walked to the steppe to enjoy the beauty of nature and listen to the hisses of the evening breeze and the sound of twigs and dry leaves as they break under his feet, causing the quivering of profound secrets in his soul. If I were not what I am, I would want to have been the lights of dawn in the eyes of the virgin. [475]


If I were not what I am, I would like to have been the lover as he sits at the shore at sunset while his beloved rests her head on his shoulder and the waves echo their breaths. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been works of art magnificently painted. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been those dreams coloured like a rainbow. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been a soldier who is called on by national duty and patriotic love to march under the forests of bayonets that glisten under the sun, preceded by standards and flags. If I were not what I am, I would wish to have been those spiritual currents which urge on towards freedom and sublimation. If I were not what I am, I would wish to have been the great expectations on which are pinned the souls of millions of people. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been those lofty desires which became what we call a “High Ideal” which people comprehend partially when they think that they comprehend it completely. If I were not what I am, I would wish to have been a conscious mind, a comprehensive spirit, a brave force, a compassionate clemency, an undepletable patience, an insisting determination, a vagueness which stays beyond ruse and a clarity which leaves no shadow of doubt. If I were not what I am, I would wish to have been a strong character, an honest emotion and a human weakness sometimes. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been my desires, hopes and lofty ideals – embodied. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been that psychological complicated complex which comprises thousands of human life’s factors and emotions. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been that psychic enigma with all its strange contradictions, its astonishing harmony, its terrible secrets of strength and its fascinating simplicity: that enigma inside me which remains veiled in invisibility until it clears up to show a nation of millions of live souls that moves forward to success, a nation which will come back to life and advance to glory. If I were not what I am, I would like to have been myself.57 [476]


Attention may be drawn to the following features in the above piece. •

•

•

•

Saπadeh’s highlighting of the beauty of nature in contrast with the everyday hustle and bustle of life, which indirectly takes the blame for the imprisonment of the soul. Beauty is portrayed in its pure sublime sense (nature, love, art, coloured dreams, patriotic soldier and great expectations of a nation); no ideology and no exclusive interpretation are attached. The resort to nature is reminiscent of the Romantic poets, and more particularly the Mahjari poets, in its denunciation of everyday life and including man in the elements of nature. The emphasis on the soul of man as a complex one full of wishes and hopes and aiming at self-satisfaction is given a new perspective: sublimation and social rationality. This view of man as a materiospiritual being where the spirit looks forward to perfection inside society would later turn into one of Saπadeh’s main contributions to social thought. The unfamiliar expression “High Ideal” is used in a poetic piece and given a definition which shows its origin in “lofty desires” and is veiled by obscurity, for it is a futuristic concept that is yet to materialize. Ideal beauty is given materialistic and spiritualistic images, but reality is omnipresent; “spiritual currents” are there only to urge the march towards freedom and strong character, and honest emotions are tempered with occasional human weakness.

The politicization of the Mahjari literature Saπadeh’s unchosen stay in America brought him in contact with the Mahjari poets who once were a source of inspiration to him, and offered the occasion for contrasting his views on poetry with their views, variant and inconsistent as they are. The polemics that ensued had a political background which must first be understood. Shakib Arslan (1869–1946) was a Druze prince from Lebanon who, in addition to being a politician, was also an influential writer, poet and historian. Influenced by the ideas of al-Afghani and Abduh, Arslan became a strong supporter of the Pan-Islamic policies of Abdul Hamid. He also advocated the proposition that the survival of the Ottoman [477]


Empire was the only guarantee against the division of the ummah and its occupation by the European imperial powers. To Arslan, Ottoman and Islam were closely bound together and the reform of Islam would naturally lead to the revival of the Ottoman Empire. One of Arslan’s propagandists was Rashid Salim al-Khuri (al-Qarawi) who also, like him, converted to Islam and introduced such extreme views on it that Arslan himself vouched that he rendered more services to that religion than many prominent Muslim scholars.58 A friend of Saπadeh’s father in Brazil, in the late 1920s Al-Qarawi became one of Saπadeh’s few friends who knew about his plan to return to Syria and form a political party.59 His reaction over the disclosure of the existence of the Syrian Nationalist Party in 1935 was generally positive and Saπadeh took advantage once of reproducing Al-Qarawi’s piece, a truncated version which lost the disputed cautious parts. The poet was a trader whose line of business put him in close touch with the Syrian communities around Brazil. Though lacking in wide education he read Portuguese, and Saπadeh once caught him red-handed stealing from a Mexican poet.60 Things did not run smoothly between Saπadeh and Al-Qarawi owing perhaps to the poet’s refusal to follow Saπadeh, especially after it transpired that the man had not particularly won the support of any great power to his effort. Later on, he joined forces with Arslan and decided to pose as a national leader himself, propagating Arab unity on an Islamic religious basis. He blended this activity with slanderous attacks on the Syrian Nationalist Party and Saπadeh, personally accusing their leader of having beaten his father.61 At one stage, Al-Qarawi was part of an effort to convene another Syrian conference on the model of the one which was held in Paris during World War I by political activists who made demands for Syrian independence – only this time with the intention of supporting the Axis alliance against the allies.62 As this endeavour excluded his party and involved tribal and feudal chiefs with religiously biased ideas, Saπadeh went to great lengths to abort it. Part of that counter-attack was the publishing of the series “Jununπul Khulud ” (Megalomania) immediately after the announcement of Al-Qarawi’s plan to visit Buenos Aires as a representative of the Syrian communities in Brazil in a conference that was to be held in Argentina. The series started to appear in al-Zawbaπa from 15 October 1941 and continued for 36 successive issues ending in 1 May 1942. The articles were first reproduced in Suria al-Jadida in Saõ Paulo, then published simultaneously in both publications.63 [478]


The title was given for the first part and always appeared among the various titles given for the other 35 parts in accordance with the subjects under discussion, which ranged from poetry to religion, via accounts of the early history of the party. Saπadeh used the pseudonym Hani Baal after the Carthagean leader, Hannibal, whom he always referred to in reverence; he frequently used the pseudonym for other essays he wrote in al-Zawbaπa at the time and later in various publications back in Lebanon. Only the first 12 parts of the series were devoted to Al-Qarawi’s poetry and his prose, with a few excursions into the realm of polemics where the subject was mainly Al-Qarawi’s personal slanders against Saπadeh. The other parts discussed a lecture given by the poet on Islam and Christianity, pitting the one against the other and favouring the former for what he called its deep interest in life over the latter’s life-despising spiritualism.64 Saπadeh insisted that the series was not a personal vendetta, but a war against the reactionary literature whose authors were also involved in the calumny against the party and its leader. When responding to intercessions to end the series after the fourth article on the suggestion that Al-Qarawi had had enough or that he was not worth the effort, he wrote: Those intermediaries are showing their compassion in the wrong place, for what is at stake is the interest of the whole nation, and every compassion used to the detriment of the people is a crime. Let them leave that pussycat in the paws of the lion and watch from a distance. Al-Zawbaπa aims to make of Rashid al-Qarawi an example for all “the leaders of thought” of his class. All they need to do is not to rush, for each will have his share. The Nationalists do not offend any one, but they demand that the supporters of Reaction should not stand in their way. Those people want everything to remain as it is and they resist every new idea. We shall only leave them inert as they are and let them die a natural death. He was thrust himself into the mouth of the lion to die before his time, however, [and] has only himself to blame.65

In his criticism of Al-Qarawi’s poetry, Saπadeh reviewed the poet’s beginnings which are mainly characterized by artificiality and imitation. His book of two parts, Al-Rashidiyyat, which collects the poems of that period, offered ample examples where a poem was merely a rehearsal of ordinary speech in the language of rhyme and metre. More serious are [479]


the examples of the love poems of which Saπadeh chose one that exudes lust and materialism. Then, intoxicated, we fell over the branches over the hills, Into the soft and young which resemble your body. Like a loose necklace you looked over the earth, And even the best poet could not reassemble you.66

Commenting on these two lines, Saπadeh showed his disapproval of the base materialism which dominated them. He wrote: The second line which was expected, after the introduction in the line before, to be a peak of idealism and represent the conquest of spiritualism is nothing but sheer materialism which when put into verse has pushed the poem to the gutter. It shows material bestiality deprived even of the magnificence of savagery. Rather, it is degraded mutilated savagery which lacked the naivety and the natural fascinating charm of original savagery, and thus was made into an appalling complicated kind of bestiality.67

Other lines of the same poem showed more insensitivity; the girl is metaphorically portrayed as a bee whose honey the poet tasted and who sometimes “renewed his youth against her will”.68 Saπadeh consequently judged the whole poem to be as “a personal imaginary account of a private affair which concerns the versifier alone and should have remained a personal matter that need not be made known to others”.69 Saπadeh then moved, though in general terms, to the aesthetic aspect of Al-Qarawi’s poems. His talk about magnificent savagery, stipulated to be naive and original and thus charming and distinguished from another kind of savagery that is mutilated and therefore appalling, represents a departure from his previous line of criticism which concerned itself solely with the identity of poetry and its subjects. No social morals are adopted as a criterion unless naive nature is identified with purity. However, this idea of charming savagery remains vague and probably with intention, for Saπadeh marks it as a second choice next to idealism and transcendence. This probably accounts for the fact that he never returned to this new idea in his later criticism. The second remark which concerns the personal life of the poet is highlighted with further explanation that considers also the so-called “patriotic poetry”, a personal matter that should not be given to disturb the peace of readers if it confines itself to personal [480]


solutions for public sufferings. When Al-Qarawi pretends to solve his problems of national nature by “tying his sinking boat with the rope of hope to Sannin mounting”, Saπadeh questions the “intellectual significance” of the act and, failing to find any, concludes that Al-Qarawi “wants to impose his ‘poetic’ trivialities and private affairs on us”.70 Here, then, is another criterion for judging poetry, and that is, in other words, the move from personal eccentric experiences in both love and patriotism to general experiences, with which people can identify, even with some effort. This may look consistent with Saπadeh’s vocation, but very soon it will find itself at odds with new concepts of poetry. The term “Versifier” (al-Nazim) Saπadeh uses in referring to Al-Qarawi (and other poets of the day) aims to distinguish the insignificant verse they wrote from real poetry. Although Saπadeh left his definition of the true poet for another occasion, he made clear in his criticism of Al-Qarawi that poetry and versification are two different things. At one stage, Al-Nazim is compared to Al-Qawl, which is the name given to folk verses differing from colloquial speech only in their exclusive use of rhyme and metre. Versification is “lacking in poetic images”,71 Saπadeh wrote, and the images one happens on in Al-Aπasir (The Hurricanes), another book of poetry by Al-Qarawi, “are of the ineptest images experienced by a simple fold versifier”.72 Except for themes adopted from other thinkers, mainly Dr. Khalil Saπadeh, and versifications which resembled that of Syrian folk verses, Saπadeh found in Al-Aπasir “Don Quixotic images which invite mockery and sarcasm”,73 and “a spirit of wailing, weeping and blubbering … that does not control its destiny or comprehend its position”.74 Examples given included a poem which called on the Ayyubid Salah ad-Din (Saladin) to return from the dead and teach the new crusaders another lesson,75 and a poem on the British politician Lord Balfour which threatened war.76 Two more themes are illustrated in other poems of Al-Qarawi: one is scorn for ideas which conceive of action as free of morals and principles; the other is a call to desert Jesus for Muhammad because “preaching to the wolves to ‘love each other’ did not save the cattle”.77 This thinking was behind Christ and his followers as they were to Muhammad and his followers before they resorted to the sword. “Swords and the art of war are useless if not backed by a strong spirit of morals and principles.”78 In what Saπadeh interpreted as an attempt to achieve personal fame at the expense of the national, Al-Qarawi launched a “hate campaign” [481]


against the Syrian people accusing it of lack of dignity instead of seeing the case as a special social political state, as Saπadeh advised in the context.79 He compounded this self-hate by pinning his hopes on the Arabs of the Desert to whom he appealed for help. This the reviewer considered a psychoanalytic case where emotional disturbances induce hallucinations.80 The peak of this “campaign” is reached by a poem entitled Tahiyyat al-Andalus (Greeting to Andalusia), which incurred Saπadeh’s wrath and intense anger. In this poem, which was recited in a banquet given in Saõ Paulo to a Spanish poet who had recounted the merits of the Arabs in Spain and claimed to have been himself of Arab origin, Al-Qarawi impersonated Syria and lamented that all parts of Syria were so much dressed in shame and submission as not to allow him proudly to give his greetings to great Andalusia “who was never humbled and whose people never experienced shame or defeat”.81 Saπadeh, who earlier referred to the Canaanite conquest of Spain as one of the many conquests that robbed it of its independence, cried out: O great Syrian nation! O great Syrian nation who had tasted the pleasure of glory and the bitterness of perils which inflict great nations! How bad is your luck with a poor group of your sons! A lowly slave cannot speak for a free nation for he only humbles her. How many great free men made a stand and did justice to an unfortunate nation, and how many lowly slaves took a position and did injustice to a great nation and humbled it. Yes, O great nation: It is a misfortune and a misery to have built a glory which reached the sky and unmatched honour which your generations inherited, then have a group of your sons who are not worthy of carrying your name or the immortal heritage you bequeathed to them, who forsake you at the time of your fall from which no great nation was saved – a fall which is greater than all falls known in history – stab you in your entrails, adding to your wounds. They slap your noble face with their criminal hands and then stand in front of the world away from you denying any responsibility on their part, blaming you for your fall, washing their hands from the blood of your wounds and saying to the world we are the men and representatives of this nation and we declare to all and sundry that we are a nation of slaves.82

This very harsh-worded emotional piece goes beyond the cause of poetry and treads on political terrains. The remark on slaves speaking for a free [482]


nation moves with the competition to the public arena and invites readers to take sides in the battle for representing Syria in talks for determining its destiny. Al-Qarawi’s stand towards his nation’s affairs would not have been a point of debate in discussing Tahiyyat had it not been for the poet’s involvement in political activities which tried to upstage the Syrian Nationalist Party. Yet this consideration aside, there remains Saπadeh’s literary judgement of Al-Qarawi’s poetry, which is based on the following criteria set out very early in his career. • •

•

•

•

• •

Poetry is a talent which had less to do with the ability to versify than with imagery and thought. Great poems are poems of a great spirit which transcend matter and offer new lofty images of the subject, whether patriotic or emotional love. The Great Spirit is very closely connected with clarity of national consciousness, and its values should be derived from those of the nation it represents. It does not compromise the poet’s ability and greatness not to be a leader of thought himself if on the other hand he devoted his creativity to a new trend of thought – namely, in this case, the Syrian Nationalist Movement. This theme was articulated further in Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), as we shall see soon. A poet who has the role of educating the people should not use his patriotic sentiment as an excuse to scold the nation and rob it of its self-confidence. Themes, and not artistic forms, are what matter in literature, because they influence and articulate the unity of spirit in the nation. Poetry is judged by the expressions it uses and not by what readers or fellow poets make out of it in accordance with their various opinions of the poet or his poetry.

Al-Qarawi did not sit idly by while Saπadeh attacked his poetry and confused views on matters of religion; he responded with further attacks on the Syrian Nationalist Party and its leader, and used his influence in Argentina to terminate a few subscriptions to al-Zawbaπa.83 He also sought and won the support of the Al-Samir newspaper of New York, owned and edited by another Syrian poet, Iiya Abu Madi, which ran an article, [483]


probably written around remarks provided by Al-Qarawi himself, that sided with the poet and accused al-Zawbaπa’s critic, Saπadeh himself, of ignorance in matters of literature and poetry.84 This marked the beginning of an attack by Saπadeh on the New York journalist poet, which widened further to encompass Abdul Masih Haddad, the editor of al-Saπih, which was still claiming to be the mouthpiece of Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya (The Pen League) even after the departure, by death or by volition, of most of its founder members. The attack did not spare that League as well, and introduced Saπadeh’s views on its original role and the contribution of each of the founder members.

Abu Madi, Haddad and literature mongers Abu Madi was a Syrian poet from Al-Muhayditha village in the Lebanon. He lived in the United States of America at the time when Gibran, Mikhaπil Nuπayma and other writers were there, and together they formed Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya, which propagated innovation in poetry and literature through al-Saπih, its mouthpiece.85 After working for some time as a writer for al-Saπih, Abu Madi published his own magazine Al-Samir, which he later turned into a newspaper that concerned itself mainly with the news of the Syrian community in the United States, allocating several pages for weddings, baptism and other private parties. Even though he denied being a poet of occasions, most of his poetry, including his best-known pieces, were recited in praise of wealthy hosts whose names he dropped when he later collected his poems in books.86 Like many poets of the day who praised the Syrian Nationalist Party and Saπadeh after the existence of the party was brought to their attention or after meeting with Saπadeh, Abu Madi was reported to have told members of the party that he supported it unreservedly yet had to be discreet and cautious out of concern for his personal interests.87 Abu Madi, however, remained outside the party’s sphere and consequently chose to ignore it. During the Saπadeh–Al-Qarawi polemic, he published an article in al-Samir which criticized Saπadeh’s concept of patriotism as “content with a limited space in life” in sharp contrast to Al-Qarawi’s open realm of thought or matter.88 In reply, Saπadeh gave his first definition of the poet and his task which ties art to basic reality without impairing the power of imagination. He wrote:

[484]


The poet is not someone who is not confined to a realm of thought or matter. Rather he is one who can highlight with beauty, sophistication and magnificence the loftiest and most beautiful aspects of a realm of thought or matter. He should necessarily acquire full comprehension of that realm of thought, matter and emotion so as to be able to express his ideas in a way that does not take him away from the basic facts. There are in the world of humanity basic facts and logical fundamental which, if the poet departs from their territories, he will then cease to be a poet and become a silly hallucinator.89

The “basic facts” and “logical fundamentals” to which Saπadeh refers are not, it could be said, matters of ideology; rather, they are matters of sense and taste which necessitate judging a literary work by its real contents and expressing one’s ideas and feelings in a clear articulate language. That could be made out of hallucinations being in the wings for a writer who crosses the boundaries of those facts and fundamentals. Comprehension and knowledge of the subject matter are safeguards against aimlessness. This strong relationship between reality and creativity did not agree well with poets of the time, and also poets of later times. Less than a year later, Saπadeh entered a polemical contest with the editor of al-Saπih of New York, after the latter unreasonably ascribed to Saπadeh an article of al-Zawbaπa describing al-Saπih as a reactionary newspaper. This promoted the publishing of a three-part article under the title “Tujjar al-Adab” (Literature Mongers) in which Saπadeh discussed some Mahjari men of letters and the state of the Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya, after the departure of its main innovative founders.90 Naming Al-Qarawi, Abu Madi and Haddad among the literature mongers, Saπadeh ascribed “the decline of national and social ties in our communities and the remoteness of our sons and daughters born in the mahjar from our language and their aversion to identifying themselves with us”91 mainly to conduct of this group of “literary impostors and mercenaries of the press”.92 This was a rare occasion on which Saπadeh illustrated the relationship between literature and life and the subjection of the former to the necessities of the latter. Like Abu Madi, Haddad also sought protection in vanity and abstained from partaking in the discussion, claiming that he had little time for such topics and nonsense, quoting in the process Gibran’s epigram “I learnt silence from the talkative”. Saπadeh readily and rightly saw through this pretext, citing the fact that al-Saπih had ample time to concern itself mainly with social events of [485]


personal interest.93 Haddad’s resort to vituperation and abuse was seen by Saπadeh as an irresponsible dictatorial behaviour becoming all literature mongers, whom he articulately described as follows. These littérateurs lived like highway robbers attacking every seeker of noble purpose and every passer-by, taking them to task in absolute highhandedness, blaming them for their own ignorance, robbing them of their belongings and refusing to answer to anyone for their deeds. Their lust is their law and their personal purposes are their logic. An excuse enough for their fiddle, to them, is their knowledge of grammar and linguistics and their aspiration to choose fluent eloquent words even when they sometimes use them at the wrong time in compliance with their personal needs to adulate, show sycophancy or show off their linguistic skills and their knowledge of composition. … They mistake everything in writing for literature. Literature, to them, consists of words and formal style, topics and their roots are only companions of the style and forms of verbal techniques. They write in politics and its topics and matters of science and philosophy in the same way as they write on emotional events or personal affairs and tastes. All topics to them are a matter of taste. Every one of them writes in any topic he fancies and discusses it with no asset other than his own taste. No knowledge, no rules … nothing.94

An example of such shallow writing was a piece written by Haddad in which he admitted his ignorance of political beliefs and asserted that principles ought to be supported by the majority of people, and so an individual who found himself at odds with the majority should either change his ways and conform or seek solitude.95 Citing another example of Haddad’s writing where he called a fellow journalist a mad dog, Saπadeh then commented: It is extremely unfortunate for our people and our émigrés in American countries that this writer, alley-mannered in language and literature, who lives like a parasite from al-Saπih and Al-Rabita al-Oalamiyya, and similar writers and journalists who have no worthy literature, are seen by a no small group of our émigrés as pillars of the Mahjari Syrian literature. This fame which they achieved undeservedly by following Gibran Khalil Gibran and those who partook in his passive revolt against traditional literature enabled them for quite some time to deceive that group and win their trust. This made it easier for them to transport their intellectual decay [486]


and spiritual disgraces to them justifying them with worthless topics and scales of literature.96

Turning his attack round to Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya, he reported that people were whispering about its activities and especially its fund-raising functions with tacit suggestions that the money raised for charity was being skimmed by the League officials.97 He added: What is Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya today? The answer, a rotten corpse … Among those who remained in Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya are the crippled souled and the short winged who see in the eye of their impotence and weakness that the web of the spider is better than the aspiration to liberate a nation and promote a homeland. That is what “their poet” Abu Madi said on their behalf. The only exception are those few whom we hope still have a remnant of that first torch which was the first light that glimmered in the darkness of Syrian literature.98

To illustrate his point, Saπadeh referred to a report which both al-Samir and al-Saπih ran subsequently on the accidental death of a soldier son of a wealthy Syrian businessman, which described the accident as “a calamity visited upon the Syrian communities”,99 and “a striking thunderbolt”.100 After sarcastically criticizing the exaggerating tone and language used in the almost identical reports, Saπadeh accused Abu Madi and Haddad of betraying the literary club to which they belonged and represented, adding that little could be expected from people who betray their literary mission.101 Saπadeh, himself a man of high moral standards and integrity, always expected the same from writers and poets. This was evident in citing Al-Qarawi’s verses of material-insensitive love, in giving an example of sycophancy in Abu Madi’s and Haddad’s reporting on personal events concerning people of wealth and embezzling money meant for charity, to justify levelling charges of dishonesty against them. To him, high sentiments coexisted only with high intellect and cultivated spirits. So, Saπadeh’s opinion on the mahjari literature is now taking full form. It is a first glimmer in the darkness of Syrian literature and a mutiny against derelict literary traditions. But that is all it was. That loyalty to change could not be kept up in the absence of a new outlook on life and this probably precipitated the demise of the Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya. At this [487]


stage, Saπadeh’s role begins. He does not only dispute the inheritance in the unwritten will, but believes that what is in that will is a false asset. Only he can appreciate the heritage and complement it with his new ideas that move the mutiny from the phase of destruction to the phase of construction. One effect of Saπadeh’s wrangle with the literature mongers was his growing interest in literature as an art, which he dealt with in Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature. As he started writing the series a few months after his hot debate with Haddad, it carried traces of his former arguments with him, Abu Madi and others. Again, as we shall see, Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature represents a full illustration of Saπadeh’s idea of moving from the stage of destruction identified with Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya to the stage of construction.

Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature and the new theory of literature Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature was written in eight fortnightly installments in al-Zawbaπa from 15 August 1942 until 1 December 1942.102 The book consisted of five chapters, the first three of which were two-part articles. Saπadeh chose as an exordium a debate on poetry given in a correspondence between Shafiq Maalouf on one side and Amin Rihani and Yusuf Maalouf, Shafiq’s uncle, on the other. The occasion was the release of Shafiq’s Al-Ahlam, the book of poetry which, back in 1933, Saπadeh had praised along with writings of Gibran and his own A Love Tragedy as harbingers of the new Syrian Literature. The second part of the series discussed the views of Muhammad Husayn Haykal, Abbas Mahmud al-Aqqad, Taha Husayn and Khalil Mutran on literary innovation and the means to procure a universal literature. Other features of the book are: an account of Saπadeh’s encounter with Saπid ∏Aql, a critique of Shafiq Maalouf ’s Abqar, a translation and discussion of part of a report by the head of an excavation expedition to Ugarit in North Syria, and a discourse on music. The message of the book may be rephrased as follows: innovation in literature is stipulated by the emergence of a new outlook on life, the universe and art, which itself should have an origin in the annals of the nation’s mentality and should accommodate the new demands and ambitions of the modern national society. It is the outlook from which [488]


the new society, the ultimate society, will emerge, or at least a long-lived stage through which the march of history towards that ultimate society will necessarily pass.

Dissent from popular views on literature Writing on literature was one task too many for Saπadeh. Being encumbered by a great number of tasks as leader of the party, the organizer of its propaganda abroad and the political officer in charge of high foreign political contact, he was left little time to write on literature.103 As a compromise, he chose to discuss the issue of literature by reviewing critically certain views and suggestions given by Syrian and Egyptian writers on literary (and social) innovation, pausing at length over Haykal’s and Mikhaπil Nuπayma’s philosophical arguments. He then moved to comment on the relationship between life and literature, which led him to expose his views on originality, the role of myths in culture, and the idea of an outlook on life, the universe and art. Of the various poets and writers whom he discussed in Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature, he knew Rihani, who was reported to have praised the Syrian Nationalist Party privately in the 1930s, but preferred to keep his distance as he could not trust a movement led by a Christian to meet success in a Muslim-dominated country.104 Another poet was Shafiq al-Maalouf, a resident in Brazil whom Saπadeh was hoping to recruit. The gist of Rihani’s view is that poets ought to desert wailing and weeping, and read Isaiah instead of Jeremiah and Shakespeare and Goethe instead of Byron and de Musset, and build for the nation “castles of love, wisdom, beauty and hope”.105 Saπadeh regarded this view as highhanded, unrestrained, uttered without examination or specification, and wanting of a single fundamental truth that could be relied on “to build castles of love, wisdom, beauty and hope for nations with castles which are destroyed or do not exist”.106 He then dismissed the idea of reading Western or any other literature, as being of not much help “in the absence of a conscious apprehensive culture in line with the courses of Syrian mentality”.107 And, joining the hordes of critics of the Egyptian poet Ahmad Shawqi, he questioned the benefit to Arabic literature from his return to Shakespeare “other than copying, mutilation and imitation, which did not increase the wealth of world literature by as much as a mustard seed”.108 [489]


Moving from Rihani’s letter to his pamphlet Antum al Shuπaraπ (You, the Poets), which started a debate in the 1930s over the right of the poetry of weeping to be recognized, Saπadeh found the same vagueness and ambiguity in the writer’s argument, pointing out that he “failed to give the poets a single cue to help them to move in the new direction; his words were all of the ambiguous muddled kind that resembles the appeal, by some, for national unity without comprehending or defining nationalism or its components”.109 As with Al-Qarawi earlier, this last remark was undoubtedly intended to settle an account with Rihani the politician, who devoted his latter years to the cause of Arabia and Saudi propaganda in the Arab world. Yusuf Maalouf was less concerned about what his nephew wrote than about his dominating position in that field. His advice was to “try in your projected writings to break ground in what you aspire to, whether in theory or in practice, and to be imitated rather than imitate in all your endeavours”.110 Saπadeh severely dismissed this as “purely individualistic advice probably motivated by the fact that the addressee is the uncle of the addressed and is concerned about his personal status out of allegiance to blood ties which is inclined towards boastfulness and pride”.111 In fact there is at least one point in common between Rihani’s and Yusuf Maalouf ’s contentions: both considered the poet a leader, the former by describing the poet as “a lamp in darkness”,112 and “an aid in times of misfortunes and a sword in calamities”,113 and Rihani by his emphasis that success means breaking ground and leading other people. Saπadeh, on the other hand, distinguished between the job of a poet and the job of a leader or philosopher. He writes: A poet whose job is to produce a mirror image of the condition of his community or era is not the person whom one can expect to set up a new condition for his nation or era; the latter is the job of the mentor, the philosopher, the artist, the leader who can envisage a new history for his nation and lay the foundations of a new era for his people. Such a person has the privilege to be a poet if he wishes but does not have to, in the same way as a poet may be leader-artistphilosopher-mentor if he can, yet does not have to.114

From there, he proceeds to define the job of a poet, building on his previous definition, advanced during the debate with Abu Madi:

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I have previously stated that the poet, to me, is he who is concerned with highlighting the most esteemed and the most beautiful in every realm of thought, feelings or matter. I here add that I see as one of the most important characteristics of poetry the highlight of feelings, emotions and sensation in every thought or every cause that upholds the elements of the soul, and giving those feelings, sensation and emotions figurative or imaginative images, that have the elements of strength, beauty and sublimation, without parting company with the truth and the human goal.115

Thus, for Saπadeh, the poet is a person with a talent whose main concern as a poet is to highlight beauty and greatness in both spiritual and material realms. However, it is not the job of the poet to induce changes in society, for it is not the job of literature but that of leaders of thought and great arts. Saπadeh believed that: Literature – prose and poetry – in the sense that it is an industry with which it is meant to highlight thought and emotion with the utmost finesse and the classiest beauty cannot of its own affect innovation. For literature is itself neither thought nor emotion. That is why I believe that innovation in literature is an effect and not a cause, it is an effect of innovation or change in thought and emotion, in life and the outlook on life. It is an outcome of a spiritualmaterialistic, social and political revolution that changes the life of the whole nation and the conditions of its life and opens new horizons for thought and emotions and their ways and trends.116

Different nations and different eras From the discussion of the views of the Egyptian and Syrian writers, there emerged a few complementary ideas relevant to the job of poets and writers in general; one is the idea of a writer producing mirror images of his era and the other the identity of an era. The first, the idea of the writer producing mirror images of his environment, was adopted by Rihani, even while he was disputing Gibran’s portrait of the poet as “a lily in a cranium”.117 Haykal subscribed to the same idea, which he married to the demand of conforming to the era and ended up preaching oddly that a modern Arab writer can still write about the camel and the sword in a modern way.118 Saπadeh had a different view; to him “the literature of the writers of our era is sincerely representative of it … and [491]


the writers in Syria and Egypt are a mirror of their communities indeed and the sincere representatives of their era, and so what is required by all the talk with which proponents of innovation filled pages and volumes is already obtained”.119 Explaining further his view, he argued: What shall we expect from a poet – especially one who is expected to be, as the exponents of “innovation” put it, a mirror of the communities or the era, who was born in an environment beset by ignorance and engulfed with debasement and subjugation, whose eyes first met the darkness of chaos, uncertainty and indulgence in material follies, who was brought up amid sighs of impotence and repentance, ideals of lust, archetypes of material beauty and tendencies of biological instincts? Do we expect him other than to follow the principles that made him and the examples of literature with which he was acquainted? No, never!120

It is clear that Saπadeh is not opposed to mirror images in literature; rather, he is opposed to poor mirror images of a stagnant society that is alienated from its spiritual identity. “Honesty” or “real life”, as some writers boast, take their inspirational meaning when what is depicted is sublime, not for being borrowed from developed nations, but from promoted life in the same nations of that literature. Becoming more critical and even cynical, Saπadeh preached that the era in Syria and Egypt is not the same as the era or eras in other parts of the world, and the comparison is certainly not to the advantage of the Arab nations which were backward, as were their writers who continue to confine their task to depicting the prevailing social conditions and concepts. He wrote: I believe that our present era is different from that of those [other] nations even though the time is one. For Syria’s psychologicalpolitical-social condition differs from that of those nations; it looks as if she lives in a different era from that of those nations. That is why the products of her poets could not be in line with the era of the most developed European nations. While those nations produced great revolutions in sociology, economics and politics, alongside with revolutions in science and philosophy, Syria is still trudging in the darkness of her dramatic recent history, oblivious to the philosophy of her myths and her ancient social, economic and political revolutions which illuminated the whole world of those days and her reforms that set examples for Athens and Rome.121 [492]


The calls for innovation which, Saπadeh remarked, did not go beyond similar calls and experiments in the Abbasid age – namely, that of Abu Nuwas who was sarcastic about those who wept of “the remains” in a standing position refusing to sit down122 were – still being made even though the writers have already conformed to their societies, backward as they were, and produced sincere mirror images of their conditions. We have come very close to what Saπadeh wanted to say bluntly: it is not enough to criticize the literature of the day; we need to produce a new kind of literature. However, before any attempt in this direction is made and lest this kind of literature be an imitation of literature borrowed from other nations, and thus be lost on the nation it is meant for, the life in that nation should be promoted and literature would then be more honest in depicting real-life scenes. What is missing, therefore, is Al-Mathalπul Aπla (the “Ideal”) which elevates life and indirectly affects literary and political changes of considerable measures.123 Religion and Oriental and Syrian “Ideals” The idea of the “Ideal” was introduced by Haykal who, Saπadeh remarked, subscribed to the notion of different contrasting “Ideals” for the West and the Orient propagated by the Syrian Nuπayma.124 The introduction of this idea elevated the discussion to a philosophical level and gave Saπadeh the opportunity to articulate his idea of Syria being a Mediterranean nation as he first declared in 1939,125 and draw a comparison between its character and the character of Oriental nations and their propensity for mysticism commonly mistaken for spirituality. The exposé provides further insight into Saπadeh’s social philosophy: “What could the ‘Ideal’ be?” asks Haykal by way of an introduction to this thesis on the Orient, identified mainly with Islam, and the challenge that “Ideal” poses to the arts. I believe that the Orient has lost its way, during these last eras, by virtue of the influence of Western teachings, and adopted a material “Ideal” which conceives of freedom that rises with the soul to the higher place as indulging the body and its lust. The natural environment of the Orient as well as its history from time immemorial and particularly since the Islamic civilization took form over its land, imply that the “Idea” which the West adopts is inferior to what the Oriental soul seeks. This soul believes in the unity of the Universe and sees this unity, communicating with it and the [493]


spiritual self-obliteration (Fanaπ) in it, as its ultimate goal. This explains why proverbs of this Orient run along such lines as “he who prides himself on other than God will be belittled and he who seeks help from other than God will be shamed”. These proverbs see nothing comparable in life to the fear of God. Can art portray these meanings and rise with them to the highest attainable ranks of sublimation?126

Nuπayma had similar views which he aired in an interview with al-Hilal in which he said that the Orient says with Muhammad: “There is no victor but God”, while the West says: “There is no victor but I.”127 He was also quoted as saying that the difference between the Orient and the West is confined to one substantial area: The Orient submits to a greater power with which he declines from fighting, while the West is confident of his strength and pits it against every power. The Orient sees perfection in Mankind – that is, the making of the perfect God – while the West detects numerous flaws in it and seeks to redeem them. The Orient says with Muhammad: “Believe that all that occurs to us is predestined by God”, says his prayers with Jesus: “Let it be Your will”, strips his soul as did Buddha from all its lust and sublimates with LaoTsu above earthly matters to unite with “Tao” or the Great Spirit. The West, on the other hand, says: “Let it be my will.” When he fails, he tries once and again, promising himself victory all along, and before his death bequeaths his ambitions to his offspring.128

“A square parasang of ‘sluggish’ China,” concludes Nuπayma, “is richer in substance than all the ‘booming’ Japanese Islands.”129 Against these contentions, Saπadeh set his argument which he based on the following views. First, that it is a “fallible” and “superficial” division that identifies materialism with the West and spiritualism with the Orient.130 Materialism and spiritualism existed independently in both sectors.131 “Materialism as well as spiritualism,” he wrote, “were the lot of both the West and the Orient. A great part of the mystic spiritual affairs which concern the peoples of ‘the Oriental psyche’ can hardly be considered, from the point of view of life, spiritual affairs in the vital sense.”132 Second, the Orient’s course of civilization came to a standstill at one stage and consequently turned to the non-material and metaphysics, while the West defeated materialism and achieved sublimation. [494]


In my opinion, since civilization in the Orient came to a standstill, the Oriental soul turned to self-obliteration in the mystic matters of the spiritual affairs, and so the affairs of the non-material and metaphysics became the only affairs to which the soul aimed, forced along this course by the forfeiture of existential, material, sensual affairs. Where elements of civilization become almost non-existent, most of the metaphysical demands themselves become material, Paradise becomes abounding in jewellery, clothes, perfumes and the like.133

Third, the West’s spiritualism is existential while the Orient’s is immaterial. He wrote: The Orient’s materialism is strong while its spiritualism devotes itself to mystic affairs which do not materialize; the West on the other hand has a strong materialism, too, but contrary to the spiritualism of the Orient that has sought sublimation beyond the material world (the human world), its spiritualism concerns itself with the material world itself and the sublimation of life inside the human world.134

“It is a grave fallacy, in my opinion,” he concluded, “to call sublimation beyond the material world spiritualism and sublimation within the material world materialism.”135 Contrary to the idea of the Orient abstaining from redeeming mankind, a task which Nuπayma entrusted exclusively to the West, religions in the Orient were attempts at redemption.136 Accusing Nuπayma of “ignorance in matters of life and their development ever since man appeared in Nature, and of ignorance of history and its philosophy”,137 Saπadeh gave a rational view of religion moving it away from the domain of theology into the domain of sociology and the logic of history, he wrote: The Orient, most probably for a natural cause, has tried, formerly, to “redeem mankind”, just as the West tried to do later on. That explains why religions appeared in the Orient: to redeem mankind, which they no doubt did in great measure. They, however, opposed every new attempt at redemption that occurred after their laws, and their followers would not unforcedly condone any new knowledge. If Jesus, the Syrian by birth, aimed to cultivate the souls by saying “Let it be Your Will”, he, however, revolted against “the scriptures” in his endeavour to “make the souls perfect”. Muhammad, too, who [495]


grew up in a milieu remote from dealing with great philosophical matters made the revelation: “For each time its Book.” Seen in perspective, there is neither in Jesus’ tradition nor in the Prophet’s hosts any impediment or opposition to “the redemption of mankind”.138

Returning to the idea of Oriental progress coming to a standstill without giving explanations for the reasons of this disruption other than the failure of the emergence of “an understanding outlook on life and the universe”,139 in the Orient, Saπadeh went on to blame the “Oriental mentality” for reeling under the canonical teachings: “I do not believe that the teachings of Buddha or LaoTsu also were originally intended to prevent thinking of ways to “redeem mankind”, but it was the “Oriental mentality” which failed to free the soul from the restrictions of the matter by virtue of an understanding outlook on life and the universe and actually came to a standstill and moulded itself around the “laws” of the religious philosophies and presumptive reasoning linked to the suggestion of “a power greater than she”, such power to which those philosophies gave heterogenous definitions that made the one Creator “send down” different teachings on human life in the material world and before “the self-obliteration in the unity of the universe”.140 The defect, therefore, is in the “Oriental mentality” itself to which, Saπadeh believed, the Oriental Egyptians subscribed, and which is different from the Syrian character opposed as it is to spiritualism in its Oriental version which means self-obliteration in the unity of the universe. The different nature of the Syrian character is illustrated, Saπadeh believed, in Syria’s cultural achievements and its propensity for dealing masterfully with material and existential issues.141 Taking issue with Haykal, he reckoned his definition of the “Ideal” as “He who takes pride in other than God will be belittled and he who seeks help from other than God will be shamed” as “tantamount to a transformation into a frozen state incapable of defeating materialism in the spiritual life and its matters in life. It cannot be considered a spiritual principle unless we confine spiritualism to metaphysics.”142 Portraying a rather funny picture of the Oriental outlook and the way the Oriental dealt with it, he wrote: It is an Egyptian Oriental outlook that puts the “Ideal” in an embroidered lightweight box, that one carries around in his pocket [496]


and every time he fancies looking at the “Ideal”, he will open the box, take it out, look at it with admiration, sigh deeply in happiness and then put it back and carry on wandering. If “spiritual self-obliteration in the community of the Universe” is a “High Ideal”, then it is nihilistic, destructive, non-existentialist, the spirituality which agrees with it is paralysed and ill, and seeks settlement in the metaphysical, turning away from the human life which is seen as a mere bridge to the metaphysical and a means to dissolve in it.143

In contrasting the Syrian nation with the Orient, Saπadeh believed that while the latter saw that “the only way to defeat materialism was by neglecting the affairs and the culture of the matter”,144 the Syrian mind “that laid down the basis of the materio-spiritualist culture of the Mediterranean and the West decided that defeating the matter was attained by dealing with it, handling it and subjugating it for the quest of beautiful spiritual goals which render human life more beautiful, more openly and more luminous”.145

Abqar, myths, fairytales and the new love The conditions Saπadeh set for treating a foreign subject were not met in the example of the long poem Abqar, which he discussed at some length and through which he introduced his views on myths and fairytales and his fully fledged theory of new love. The subject of the poem is Abqar – an “Arabian village inhabited by the fairies to which all great and esteemed are attributed”.146 Maalouf makes a pilgrimage to Abqar as Al-Maπarri and Dante did in Risalat al-Ghufran and The Divine Comedy respectively.147 Full of fabulous scenes such as riding rabbits, deer and snakes talking with the fairies and abounding in mutilated figures such as boneless and half-bodied priests, Abqar is one of the famous good long poems which broke ground in its portrayal of a world of fairies. In his critique, Saπadeh lavishly praised the poetic talent of Maalouf, particularly his “qualifications for rising above the accidental or instinctive emotions or feelings and for tackling human subjects that are relevant to the substantial everlasting human qualities”.148 He also praised his “kind of imagination that is tied to the intellect, and where intellect is not neglected so as to give emotions free rein”.149 Having said this, Saπadeh recognized in the poem two major shortcomings. The first is that it treated fairytales with a view to lending [497]


them more significance than they deserve, thus revealing the poverty of the meaning. He wrote: The author of Abqar did not tackle this Arab subject with a view to portraying the Arabs’ psychological condition evident in their fairytales and fantasies, as they go to and fro amid sand hills and in the desert’s wastelands and desolate regions and among its highlands and precipices. His aim was to ascertain in these primitive images, emanating as they were from ignorant fears and haunted confusion towards the Unknown, the significance of the lofty myths.150

“The aim of the poet,” Saπadeh added, “was greater and loftier than the means he used to attain it, and the ultimate result he reached was not any of the blissful ones sought by high comprehension”.151 As a result, “the poet tried to elevate the Arab fairytales to the level of psychological myths [but] succeeded only in reducing the philosophy of the myths to an illogical level”.152 The distinction between the great myths and fairytales lies in the nature and predisposition of the communities on the one hand and the extent of their conscious experiences which are recorded in these works.153 While fairytales, as stated above, are expressive of fear, ignorance and confusion, great myths draw for the issues of human life and its great psychological problems philosophical symbols of utmost accuracy in contemplation and strong perception stimulated by predisposition and an inclination that is indicative of a great psychological ambition to comprehend the essence of life, the universe, Survival and Death, and the great goals of human life – all of these are characteristics of communities in possession of the means of mental sublimation.154

A comparison of such tales with the Syrian myths such as those uncovered by the excavation in Ras Sahmra in Syria (thought to be Augarit of the Egyptian scriptures), especially the fight between Mot and Alein (reported by Schaeffer after his expedition of 1929), shows the significance of the myths and the mediocrity of the fairytales. The myth recounts the murder of Alein, “who rules over rain and wind” by Mot, “who symbolizes fruitbearing nature”, and their revenge of Anat, Mot’s sister, after the humans complained from drought and insecurity, by killing Alein and scattering some of his remains over the fields “to give bread to mankind”.155 [498]


The second shortcoming is that “the best thing about Shafiq Maalouf ’s poetic talent is that he tried to connect all the traditional Arab illusions in Abqar and the fairies and the priests, with a thread of thought and feelings, to one of the most important topics in humanity: Love”.156 This, Saπadeh noted, was unprecedented and may not be surpassed, but he hoped that it would not find many imitators in Syria.157 He concluded that the love which Maalouf portrays and glorifies is “Jahili, barbarian or primitive. It is love that has neither been tamed by civilization, nor moderated by culture and so failed to sublime with the soul. The portrait of love that the poet envisaged is that of embraces and kisses, of trembling ribs and lusting bodies.”158 This kind of love is set against a different more idealistic kind of love which bears resemblance to the sublime feelings in the Syrian myths just reviewed in their relation to youth unconcerned with corporeal pleasures. Whereas Maalouf ’s is shown as “a biological inclination with all its bodily tendencies and yearnings”,159 Saπadeh’s is an ideal psychological aim that uses the biological purpose as a ladder to climb towards the zenith of its “High Ideal” where the soul cuts itself free from the constraints of the need for the survival of the species and the pleasures of its purposes. Instead a great psychological edifice is built for a better life in which the demand of love becomes the great social human happiness. Thus, love becomes a union of souls and the embrace of bodies become a device for the embrace of souls which are determined to make their stand in order to achieve the “High Demand” in a strife against corruption and vice, and to support total right, total Justice, total Beauty and total Love, and discard bodily pleasure sought for themselves, such pleasures that are the main source of harm, hatred and small base and ugly animosities.160

This view of love is not derived from the annals of the Syrian character. Rather, it is one of the new issues that have emerged together with the emergence of the new outlook on life which he believed is consistent with the Syrian character. It is true that ancient Syrian annals have not shown, at least in the already discovered remains, a propensity for consuming lust, but the new view of love is closely associated with the new cause, the new philosophy which Saπadeh set out and on which he based his new theory of society. In fact, Saπadeh himself makes a distinction between these issues and new issues which came to light by virtue of the [499]


emergence of the new outlook on life.161 Defining the new issue of love, Saπadeh says it is “the motive towards the ‘High Ideal’ ”,162 and explains: The “High Ideal” is what is seen by a clear specific outlook on life, the universe and art, and love which comprehends this outlook always points out towards and reaches out to its “High Ideal” in every single feeling. The issue of the reunion with the beloved being the ultimate spiritual demand is dead for the new outlook on life, the universe and art and is supplanted by the issue of love being the union of thought and feelings and the collective understanding of souls of the beauty of life and the attainment of its “High Demands”.163

Abqar was also the example Saπadeh gave in order to refute the various views of the contemporary proponents of literary innovation. On the one hand, Shafiq Maalouf depicted the concept of love embraced by all writers of the day and thus acted as “the mirror of the communities, as Al-Rihani and others saw the true poet”.164 On the other hand, it showed Maalouf ’s mastery of the old traditional Arab poetry, a stipulation made by Taha Husayn.165 Despite this, Saπadeh judged Abqar not to be an example of the new literature because it lacked a new outlook on life. He wrote: If the innovation of literature means upgrading its styles and producing new figures of speech, while preserving the old outlook on life, Abqar would make an important innovation. However, the aim of seeking a new kind of literature, as I see it, is to appropriate it in establishing a new understanding of life which elevates the souls to a higher level and enables it to comprehend a new realm of psychological viewing comparing new “High Ideals” in which the aspirations of life and its yearnings – emanating from the characteristics of its original mentality – take form. Failing that, every innovation in form that carries no innovation in substance is a kind of vain distraction and short-lived pleasure with no duration or continuum except that of boring repetition.166

Immortal literature, argued Saπadeh, cannot be attained by any other means than through a new outlook on life from which will emerge the final world itself: That outlook on life, the universe and art has at its core a fundamental truth appropriate for the establishment of a new world of [500]


thought and feelings, that, though it may not be the ultimate and the most sublime as alleged by the sceptic, at least ranks above the previous worlds and is an unavoidable stage in the source of the spiritual development of humanity. That is why it is immortal, for what will follow in the very distant future will emanate from it and on it base itself. At least, the souls that would have risen to this new world would be ripe enough to accept the newer world if the future revealed the feasibility of the birth of such a world. Even though we cannot, and for a long period, imagine the causes, facts and issues of such a world we can nevertheless rely on the philosophical principle of continuity and association, that I always consult in my attempts at understanding the human existence, and judge that it will be closely associated with the world of our new outlook and its truths and issues. According to this outlook we see that its world is not an independent accident but rather it stems from a substantial origin, and truths are connected in the process so that the new truths are borne out of the old original ones through a new understanding of life and its issues, the universe and its potential and art and its goals.167

Conclusion In Saπadeh’s conception, the keystone in producing a new dynamic literature is a change of life. This view defines the role of literature differently from more popular opinions mainly held by writers which entrust it with the task of changing the life of the community. In the same way as the physical characteristics of a nation, such as the community of habits and customs or the community of language are considered effects and not causes of the emergence of the nation, likewise literature and politics (commonly believed to trigger changes in literary patterns) are only effects of human life, and changes in their patterns are caused, in Saπadeh’s opinion, by the change of life and not vice versa.168 This definition of literature separates it clearly from thought in the grand sense of the word. It is not the philosophical literature, like Al-Maπarri’s, which can still appeal to us, but the forms of expressions of ideas and spiritual tendencies that change with life and will still bear resemblance to our ideas and tendencies as they all are part of man’s quest for freedom and human integration. If literature is an effect, then men of letters, including poets, are only talented “singers” of beauty and noble values – which is not a little thing – but they are definitely not in their capacity as men of letters [501]


more than that. “Politics in itself,” wrote Saπadeh, “is more like literature; where there are no new thoughts or emotions in politics, there is no new politics. Likewise in literature, where there is no new thought or emotions in life, there is no chance for a revival in literature or the arts.”169

NOTES 1 The founder and leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP), which Saπadeh formed in 1932, used his organization to attract and indoctrinate zealous followers who later became household names in politics and literature: Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said), Yousef al-Khal, Muhammad al-Maghut, Khalil Hawi, Nadhir al-Azma to name a few. 2 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), 3rd edition, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956. 3 al-Hilal, December 1932. 4 Sami al-Juraydini, al-Hilal, January 1933. 5 Ibid., pp. 121–122. 6 Ibid., p. 123. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. 9 Ibid., p. 139. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid., p. 140. 12 Ibid. 13 Ibid., p. 112. 14 Ibid., p. 122. 15 Ibid., p. 141. 16 Ibid., p. 142. 17 Ibid., p. 132. 18 Renan doubted the equivalence of Tammuz and Adonis in Mission de Phénicie, Paris: n.p., 1864, pp. 216, 235. 19 We could not find a reference in Saπadeh’s works to any German writer on the subject. Meyer’s book, however, was heavily quoted by Saπadeh in Nushuπ al Umam (The Rise of Nations), especially in the part on ancient Carthage. See Saπadeh’s Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 5, 1981, pp. 104–120. 20 Ibid. 21 Ibid., p. 142. 22 Ibid., p. 127. 23 Ibid., p. 126. 24 Ibid., p. 128. 25 Ibid. 26 Ibid., p. 127. 27 Ibid., p. 142. [502]


28 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 8, p. 21. 29 Philip K. Hitti’s History of Syria was first published in 1951 and later re-titled History of Syria, Including Lebanon and Palestine; an abridged edition entitled Syria: A Short History was published in London by Macmillan in 1959. 30 As from 1912, articles by Hitti on Syria and its ancient grandeur were published in various Syrian periodicals in Beirut and Cairo. One such article, which appeared in the Beirut-based al-Maarif, praised the glories of Lebanon, Antioch, Damascus and Jerusalem (al-Maarif, vol. 12, 1929, pp. 130–135). 31 Saπadeh criticized Syrian historians blaming them for the exclusion of Iraq from “geographical Syria”. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 2, p. 87. 32 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 2, p. 142. 33 In Saπadeh’s Complete Works, vol. 2, pp. 49–79. 34 Ibid., p. 55. 35 Ibid., pp. 129, 143. 36 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 11, p. 38. 37 Ibid. 38 Ibid., p. 154. 39 Bint Yafta was published in 1935. ∏Aql wanted to reprint it in 1982 after the Israeli invasion of Lebanon – probably for political reasons – and offered 5,000 Lebanese pounds for a copy. 40 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 11, pp. 54–55. 41 Ibid., p. 156. 42 Ibid. 43 Ibid. 44 Saπid ∏Aql, Qadmus, 1st edition, Beirut: n.p., 1947, p. 125. 45 Ibid. (introduction). 46 Reproduced in Gibran Jraij, Min al-Juπba, vol. 2, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1986, pp. 405–448. 47 Ibid., p. 405. 48 Ibid., p. 407. 49 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 2, pp. 92–93. 50 Ibid. 51 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 15, pp. 88–89. 52 The Principles and Aim of the SSNP, English translation. 53 See, for example, Maroun Abboud, Ruwwad al-Nahda al-Hadeetha, Beirut: Dar al-Thakafa, 1977. 54 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 6, pp. 160–241. 55 Ibid., vol. 15, p. 87. 56 Al-Jumhur, 22 October 1936. 57 Ibid., pp. 227–228. 58 Al-Ilm al-Arabi, 13 November 1940. 59 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 9, p. 296. 60 Ibid., pp. 26, 339–340. 61 Ibid., p. 22. 62 Ibid., vol. 8, pp. 123–124, 126–129. 63 Ibid., pp. 224, 229. 64 Ibid., vol. 9, p. 95. 65 Ibid., vol. 7, pp. 55–56. [503]


66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110

Reproduced in Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 9, p. 25. Ibid. Reproduced in ibid., p. 26. Ibid. Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., p. 31. Ibid. Ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 34. Reproduced in ibid., p. 35. Reproduced in ibid., p. 33. Ibid., p. 38. Ibid. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 40. Reproduced in ibid., p. 44. Ibid., pp. 44–45. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 8, pp. 265, 272. Al-Samir, 26 March 1941. Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya was founded in April 1920 at a meeting hosted by Haddad, the publisher of al-Saπih. From among the attendants, Gibran was elected president; Nuπayma, adviser; and William Katzaflis, treasurer. Henri Zugayb, “Abu Madi al-Mushakis” (Abu Madi The Quarrelsome), Al-Naqid, London, June 1991, pp. 39–42. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 8, p. 131. Al-Samir, 26 March 1940. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 8, p. 135. Al-Zawbaπa, nos. 43–45. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 10, p. 91. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 95, 110. Ibid. Reproduced in ibid. Ibid., p. 108. Ibid., p. 109. Ibid. Al-Saπih, 19 March 1942. Al-Samir, 19 March 1942. Ibid., p. 112. Saπadeh, Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 10, 1980, pp. 13–14. Gibran Jraij, op. cit., vol. 2, p. 67. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 10, p. 22. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Reproduced in ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 23. [504]


111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158

Ibid., p. 18. Ibid. Ibid., p. 38. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 26. Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., p. 37. Ibid., p. 39. Ibid., p. 36. Ibid., p. 37. Ibid., p. 30. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 6, p. 44. al-Hilal, November 1933. Ibid., p. 28. Ibid. Ibid. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 11, p. 28. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid. Ibid., p. 31. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid. Ibid., p. 29–30. Ibid., p. 29. Ibid. Ibid., p. 37. Ibid. Reproduced in ibid., p. 61. Ibid. Ibid., p. 62. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. National Geographic, July 1933; reproduced in ibid., p. 75. Ibid., p. 62. Ibid. Ibid., p. 64. [505]


159 160 161 162 163 164

165 166 167 168 169

Ibid., p. 67. Ibid. Ibid., p. 82. Ibid. Ibid. “The concept of love,” writes Saπadeh, “is not exclusive for Shafiq Maalouf, but is hailed by all the Arab poets who inherited the annals of Arabic literature. Material love which materializes in bodily pleasures is the ‘High Demand’ in Arabic literature at large.” Ibid., p. 71. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 71–72. Ibid., p. 84–85. Ibid., pp. 53–54. Ibid., p. 57.

[506]

PA RT V I I

C OSMOPOLITANISM


13 Saπadeh and National Democracy Sofia A. Saπadeh

Ever since the impact of the West was felt on the shores of the Eastern Mediterranean at the beginning of the nineteenth century, intellectuals in the Arab world started an incessant quest as to the reason for their degeneration following a glorious past. The question was very tormenting, but its answer was even more painstaking. The response came from two types: the religious ulama (learned), and those influenced by their teachings. The basic idea from the first type was that the degradation of the Muslims was due to their having erred from the right path. Progress is thus a backward movement, returning to the roots and adhering to the principles of the Qurπan. This trend survives today through the many Islamicist and fundamentalist movements such as Al-Ikhwan al-Muslimun and the Jihad, the Wahhabi movement in Saudi Arabia, the Jamaπah al-Islamiyyah and the Khumayniyyah with all its ramifications, both in Iran and elsewhere. The second type took a scientific and rational approach in order to explain the deterioration that took place in the Arab world. It endeavoured systematically to explain causes and try to find solutions, using the same tools provided by the West. These scholars believed that science and knowledge have no specific nationality and, once adopted, they become part of their original and genuine thought. As a matter of fact, they firmly believed that without the wealth of this scientific knowledge that the Western world was able to accumulate, no progress would have been achieved. The struggle between these two currents started towards the middle of the nineteenth century, and is still continuing without the triumph of either one. The Muslim religious heads espoused the “salafiyah” current, proclaiming a return to the past, while the second current, eager to cut loose from tradition and build on sturdy rational and scientific grounds, was headed by thinkers with varying interests and ideologies ranging [509]

A N T U N S A πA D E H : C O S M O P O L I TA N I S M

from nationalism to communism. Antun Saπadeh was heir of this second current, as his father was one of the leaders of this movement. He produced a system that, he thought, would provide an escape from backwardness and humiliation. Except for three books,1 Saπadeh’s system of thought was not analysed or discussed either by his followers or by the public. Even worse, his thought was utterly distorted by foe and friend alike. The use and misuse of Saπadeh’s thought Three main reasons account for the obscurantism and lack of understanding of Saπadeh’s thought. First, there has been confusion between Antun Saπadeh’s thought and the creation of his party. True, Saπadeh created the party in order to implement his thoughts and translate them into action, but party members were so engrossed with the latter that they were unable to pay attention to the former. Many members entered the party with emotional fervour but little intellectual luggage and, hence, misunderstandings ensued as to what Saπadeh really meant by this or that idea. Furthermore, being persecuted, those members did not have the leisure time to read and discuss Saπadeh’s writings that were collected, later on, in 17 volumes. Saπadeh was the first to notice this gap. He wrote to a party member residing in the United States of America saying: The documents and brochures of the party that you were able to glimpse at, is not all what a student of knowledge ought to study. Many articles remained unpublished, and many events were not recorded. We should not forget either, that the comrades of the leader and his assistants had varying degrees of qualifications, intellect and knowledge. Some of them missed very important details because they were unaware of their historical relevance. Others tended to stress the poetic aspect of a treatise, and still others were completely ignorant of events that took place in the party prior to their engagement.2

Second, no ideology or doctrine had been so vehemently opposed by the Lebanese state, whether under the French mandate, or after independence in 1943, as that of Antun Saπadeh’s. The latter relentlessly attacked sectarianism, tribalism, feudalism and religious fanaticism in the name of secularism and democracy, thus attacking the very foundations on which [510]

S A π A D E H A N D N AT I O N A L D E M O C R A C Y

the Lebanese state was established in 1920. Moreover, Saπadeh advocated the social and economic unity of geographic Syria, aiming at strengthening it against outside enemies in the heydays of colonialism and expansionism of the European nations. As a consequence, regular police and army raids confiscated official papers, speeches and documents. Fearing reprisals, families of party members burned books, photos, manuscripts and anything related to the Syrian National Party. Until very recently even a photo of Saπadeh mounted on a wall in a living room would generate accusations and interrogations by the Intelligence Service. For a long time, the written heritage was hidden and could not be published as the party was banned by the French and, later on, by the Lebanese authorities. Third, Saπadeh’s ideology clashed with the existing parties in both Syria and Lebanon. On one hand, Saπadeh considered the Phalanges Party (Kataπib) as representative of a purely Maronite point of view; on the other, he viewed the Arab Nationalist Movement as essentially Muslim in character. As for the Communist Party, he categorically refused its economic doctrine pitting one class against another within the same society, thus leading to conflict and strife and, furthermore, he refuted from a national point of view its international aspiration aiming at uniting the proletariat of the world. These parties reacted not by initiating a rational dialogue, but by leading a smear campaign, vilifying both Saπadeh’s person and his doctrine. In summary, Saπadeh found himself caught in the middle, fought by both rightists and leftists: When the American University of Beirut students and professors felt the impact of new ideas, the Arab Nationalists reacted against it. And when the leader of the party and members of the party’s executive council were arrested, a campaign against the doctrine of the party was launched by four opponents: the Arab Nationalists, the “Pro-Lebanese”, the Christian clergy and, notably, the MaroniteCatholic clergy, and from the Muslim religious heads.3

This chapter tackles one aspect of the doctrine of Antun Saπadeh that has not been studied – namely, his concept of democracy. Many scholars looked at the party and its make-up and inferred conclusions that do not fit with his thought. Such scholars confounded means and ends, and mistook the party to be an end by itself.4 Moreover, many Arab scholars wrote about Saπadeh without having read his work, basing [511]


their judgements on information gathered from secondary sources, the latter often written by his political foes.5 I believe that it is in the interest of scholarship to look for the truth. Once Saπadeh’s concept of democracy is clarified, scholars can evaluate and criticize him; their evaluations will then stem not from hearsay and rumours, but from the knowledge of his thought.

The goals of national democracy For democracy to function, a high level of group consciousness is needed. Individuals in a society must realize that they share the same fate and existence, for the more pervasive the spirit of union among citizens, the more enduring is national democracy. Unless there is some consciousness of the community, democracy becomes shaky, insecure and faltering: “Democracy is none other than the state of the people. It is the will of a society conscious of its existence and entity. It is at the basis of the national state.”6 Consequently, group participation requires the existence of common concerns and common interests within the community. If socio-political structures create deep conflicts of fundamental interests among citizens, democracy becomes an impossible quest.7 It is for this reason that citizens should be able to elaborate a normative framework that provides a generally desired direction for society.8 Antun Saπadeh posited the welfare of society as the ultimate goal. The state is but a means for providing and furthering the good of the people: “Nationalism will ultimately reach its objective that justifies its existence. Namely, that true sovereignty rests with the people. The state should be at the service of the people and not the other way round.”9 Saπadeh reiterated his position that his goal is to “cater to the interests of his people” and his ideal is to “work for the public good within a peaceful and free context”.10 Thus, as a political leader, Saπadeh wanted to enact his role in a manner which facilitated the development of the “general good”, and refused to follow the path of other politicians who opted, opportunistically, to side with the rulers. In other words, politicians can choose to contribute to the social development of civil society or they can choose to contribute to its disfigurement. Therefore, Saπadeh’s aim was to urge the state and civil society to interact positively to benefit society at large.11 [512]


His creation of a party did not deviate from this goal, as he refused to pit his party against other parties in a futile struggle that would only weaken society.12 Saπadeh’s objective was to raise the consciousness of the people as to the issues at hand and hasten the process of modernization and reform. He stated in 1947 that he had struggled for 15 years against the French who tried to silence him: “The only policy that I know is the policy of truth and honesty; the policy of telling the people the truth about their condition and the untapped possibilities of their potential. People should be able to develop their self-confidence and their belief in their own talents.”13 It is imperative that the citizens of a democracy be confident of their collective capacity to govern themselves. Saπadeh strove to collaborate with all elements within society in order to form a front that would have as a common denominator the struggle against French occupation in Syria and Lebanon. However, the other political parties refused to cooperate with him.14 This clearly shows that he attempted to reach some kind of consensus among the different political parties in order to be able to lead the country towards independence and progress. However, he condemned the endeavours of certain parties to recreate the past, and considered these endeavours as a mark of failure to face the challenges of the present. Thus, for Saπadeh democracy is a system oriented towards change and innovation.15

The egalitarian creed One of the major achievements of nationalism is the granting of citizenship for those who are born on a specific territory. Unlike empires, where citizenship was granted by the will of the ruler, the right of citizenship is acquired by birth in the modern national state.16 Being a citizen within a national democracy necessitates that person’s participation in decisionmaking. Towards the achievement of such an end, Saπadeh insisted on citizens acquiring their civil, political and social rights. The granting of these rights regardless of wealth, status or gender reinforces the egalitarian creed of democracy: “All should be considered equal within a nation, with equal rights and duties. All should enjoy their civil and political rights.”17 This egalitarian thrust towards social and political citizenship presented a powerful challenge to the status quo prevalent in the Fertile Crescent area. Saπadeh fought against equating the government with the [513]


state on the one hand, and against the hegemony of the latter on the other hand: “Political sovereignty is derived from the people. Citizens do not exist to serve the state; rather the state exists to serve the people.”18 Saπadeh brought upon himself the wrath of the religious leaders because he asked for the separation of religion and state. He categorically refused to allow the various religious laws known as the Personal Status laws to run the lives of individuals.19 In order for equality to prevail, it was essential to discard the sectarian laws that divided citizens. The essence of democracy resides in its attitude towards law as a product of collective will, and not as something emanating from a transcendental will or from the authority established by divine right: “Our attack on religious factions is not an attack on religion itself. Each individual is free in his beliefs, but we aim to stop religion from interfering in socio-political matters. The latter should remain subject to change depending on the needs of the nation.”20 Saπadeh saw religious factions as a threat to national unity. He noted that in Western countries, social institutions disagree on the priorities and the course to follow, but they all have as their purpose the welfare of the nation. However, this is not the case of religious institutions in the Fertile Crescent area. In addition, he asked the people not to permit the religious heads to interfere in politics.21 Saπadeh asserted that the Maronite clergy in Lebanon believe that Muslims and Christians have two different cultures. Consequently, Lebanon has to remain as a separate Christian entity, while Sunni Muslim institutions lead public opinion in the opposite direction, “thus, between the interests of the Muslim sects and the interests of the Christian sects, national interest is lost and public opinion paralysed”.22 Hence, Saπadeh expected civil rights to be extended to all the citizens living in the Fertile Crescent area regardless of their religious creed.23 Furthermore, he urged the Christians to forget the cruelties they had been subjected to by the Muslims, in the past, and look forward to a future that grants equality to all: “[K]illing the prospects for the future based on past history is tantamount to suicide and annihilation. This is a crime committed against our innocent sons and grandsons.”24 In the meantime, Saπadeh wrote a book comparing Islam and Christianity, and tried to accentuate the similarities of both messages in an attempt to eradicate religious strife.25 He accused the state of persecuting secular parties while allowing religious heads to say whatever they like, [514]


uncensored.26 In this sense, he viewed democracy as an inseparable component of modernity: “[T]he democratic state is not representative of the historical past, or old traditions, or the will of God or past glories. The democratic state is the will of the people who share a common existence, and who have a common positive will.”27

Oppression of the ruling elites Since democracy provides the best system for a society to run itself, Saπadeh fought fiercely against the oppression of the people. He observed in 1947, on his return from Argentina after a forced absence of nine years, that geographic Syria is in a sorrowful condition: “A wave of oppression and lack of legitimacy, a wave that gives no heed to the general will is surging in the area.”28 One of the reasons he established his party was to fight injustice and subjugation. He rightly saw that the oppression of the people by the rulers had as the sole aim their refusal to relinquish power and behave along democratic norms.29 Saπadeh deplored autocratic regimes where governments exert censorship on the press, where protests and demonstrations are banned and trade unions tolerated as appendages of the political establishment. He aspired to implement the freedom of assembly and association, and the freedom of parties to organize. The stronger these institutions, the more individuals are able to voice their demands and see to it that these demands are met or else the governing body loses the support of the people. The establishment of democratic institutions would thus allow citizens to discuss and determine the public policies of their society. Furthermore, it would allow them to hold officials accountable for their public acts.30 The lack of institutions that support public deliberation and accountability on political matters renders the members of a society politically constrained. Thus leaders in developing countries escape control mechanisms that would hold them accountable to the public. These leaders subjugate individuals who are not only deprived of their political freedoms, but also of their personal freedom.31 It is basically for this reason that Saπadeh rose against oppression wherever he encountered it. To him, oppression and terror go hand in hand and they stem all liberties.32 Saπadeh stood against the subjugation of Syria and Lebanon by the French mandate in 1938, because it banned [515]


the freedoms of the individual: “Lebanese citizens do not enjoy their civil rights, nor are they allowed to exercise their freedom of belief. All independence of thought is denied them.”33 The people, according to Saπadeh, should be permitted to progress freely, and the government ought to take a neutral stand regarding the development of various systems of thought.34 Citizens must be empowered with political rights that allow them to partake in the selection of their government and the possibility of making their own decisions concerning their fate.35 The respect of civic and human rights, the rule of law, freedom of expression and association, and the existence of parties are fundamental conditions for the implementation of democracy.36 Saπadeh rightly saw that what best guarantees civil liberties is the capacity of the citizens to defend those rights against possible abuse. Hence, political rights are the natural corollary of the rights to liberty. Whenever a regime tries to suppress or limit these freedoms, the only safeguard becomes the resistance of the individuals to oppression. Democracy is valued because it opposes the establishment of a political rule by a selfappointed, unaccountable and tyrannical minority. According to Saπadeh, oppression of the rulers belongs to the past. Modern movements demand freedom of speech, the freedom of the press and freedom from arbitrary arrest, the right to organize oppositional parties, and the right to vote in genuinely competitive elections. Leadership and parliamentary democracy The right to vote On Saπadeh’s arrival in Beirut from Buenos Aires in 1947, a journalist asked him: “What kind of a Syrian state are you striving for?” Saπadeh replied: “A democratic, parliamentarian and secular Republic.”37 However, for the parliament to be truly representative of the people, and for elections to be the expression of the people’s will, certain preconditions are necessary. In order to achieve some kind of political equality, it is necessary to study the rules that have been laid down concerning the electoral process. Furthermore, background conditions have to be evaluated because they set the stage for participation. These conditions will have to include the inviolability of personal rights. Voting is considered an effective exercise of political power only because it is a free vote, and only because the individual who casts his vote enjoys liberty of opinion, a free press and [516]


freedom of association and assembly. Without these preconditions, participation in the electoral process becomes a fictitious act: “Voting in Lebanon has no democratic value because of the absence of the preconditions necessary for democracy.”38 The citizen must be free to participate in the nomination of candidates for office, free to run for office himself, and free to place his ballot without fear of retribution or reprisals: The Lebanese administration is corrupt, for justice is manipulated by the rulers, and the newspapers are being persecuted and shut down by the government in a very irresponsible manner. By so doing, they are handicapping the freedom of the voters. In addition, the government is resorting to cheating, bribing and forging for the purpose of swaying the electoral results in its favour. Under such conditions, both the Parliament and the Cabinet cannot claim to be representative of the people.39

Any sign of boycotting elections means that the elected parliament is not representative: “The present Lebanese government does not represent public opinion or the will of the Lebanese because the people refused to cast their ballots.”40 The government in 1947 intervened so blatantly in the electoral process that these elections became famous in the annals of Lebanese history: “The parliamentary elections of 1947 in both Syria and Lebanon denied citizens their political rights and their civil liberties. Sociologists and political scientists should study such important events in the life of states.”41 Saπadeh affirmed that rigged elections are a symptom of governments that are ruling through means of oppression and terror.42 Nonetheless, he did not fail to place some blame on the citizens as well who “do not react when stripped of their freedom and sovereignty”.43 Saπadeh urged for the largest turnout of citizens at the polls. Women were encouraged to vote. He also asked the government to allow those Lebanese living abroad to vote as well. He criticized, for example, the National Muslim Council for its refusal to allow those who emigrated during World War I to reclaim their citizenship, for no reason other than a sectarian one. The emigrants being in the majority Christians, the Muslim Council sought to deny them the right to vote: “This is the logic of ‘religious nationalism’. The latter is campaigning in Lebanon to cancel a governmental draft that would allow emigrants to vote.”44 [517]


According to Saπadeh, the right to vote freely “is a basic right without which voting would only be a virtual activity in the exercise of sovereignty”.45 Furthermore, one of the important preconditions that Saπadeh set down for voting is the education of citizens so they would be able to read the news and follow discussions concerning public issues. Saπadeh could not see a democracy flourishing in an illiterate society. Only an educated citizenry could make rational decisions and be equipped with the necessary skills in order to deal with problems and conflicts. In addition, citizens should be able to rely on their education and knowledge to gear change without fear of the unknown. One of the main reasons for the establishment of his party was to educate citizens about their political rights. In Saπadeh’s mind, democracy is intimately connected with rational discourse. During the French mandate, very few Lebanese dared voice their objections to measures taken by the government. Saπadeh was one of the very few who opposed publicly the decision of the French authorities to stop elections and resort to the appointments of deputies.46 He did not believe there was a change after independence. The blatant interference of governments in elections was tantamount to nominating, rather than electing, deputies.47 In his eyes, the Lebanese government had “turned into an arena of political deceit and manoeuvring instead of being, as it ought to be, a centre where total openness and honest discourse are exchanged”.48 Saπadeh also opposed a change in the Constitution of Syria in 1947, whereby the president of the republic could extend his term for another six years, and considered this act a breach in the democratic process.49 Saπadeh had planned to run for the parliamentary elections due in May 1947 on the basis of his reform programme. He found out that both the government and the opposition were campaigning in accordance with personal interest. Despite his efforts, he was unable to form a list with other candidates on the basis of a programme.50 Thus, Saπadeh laid down specific conditions so that parliament can be truly representative of people and fulfil its role within the democratic system. 1

It is necessary for the deputies to place public interest above their personal interest in all political matters.

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2

3

4 5 6 7

The parliament should rely on the support of people, and represent the expression of their will. It must not heed outside interference and pressure. The representatives of people should be knowledgeable in the economic, social and political affairs, so that they can provide the country with appropriate solutions. The deputies should put forth transparent and clear policies. Sectarian representation in the parliaments of geographic Syria ought to be discarded because it caters to personal, not public interest. Competition during elections must revolve around parties and programmes, not persons. Finally, the parliament cannot be considered a representative body as long as governments stem the freedom of opinion and association, and the freedom to establish political parties.51

Qualified leadership Saπadeh hoped that the future would usher in qualified leaders because they would have to make important decisions that would affect the lives of citizens: “Each parliament that is made up of deputies who do not know much about economic or political principles, except for the pavement of some roads, and employing some friends and relatives, is a parliament that cannot take care of the people and ensure the success of developmental projects.”52 Saπadeh deplored the fact that leaders in both Syria and Lebanon in the 1930s and 40s failed to develop policies for the advancement of their countries: “The debate of those leaders does not deviate much from the general gossip one hears in coffee houses.”53 In addition, this leadership does not seem to have established goals and guiding principles. Without such principles “the country will not reach economic well-being and happiness”.54 The only guiding principle for this ruling elite “is to reach an administrative position for material gain and personal interest”.55 Such a situation would only lead to the disappointment of citizens who should harbour “absolute trust in their leaders, for public welfare can only be achieved when the people trust their representatives. Trust is at the heart of the democratic system.”56

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Role of parties in government Basically, the political ideas of free nations are expressed through parliamentary democracy in which the political parties shoulder the responsibility. Nonetheless, a representative parliament can turn into a tyrannical organ if it behaves as if it has replaced citizens as the origin and source of power. Citizens may not abdicate their sovereignty, their freedom, their goals and their reckoning: “Due to the national element, the meaning of the state changed from being an oppressive ruling force, to the sovereignty of the community. This new principle was realized by political representation that separated the legislative from the executive power. Real sovereignty came to reside with the people, and as a consequence, the state became representative.”57 Stability through the presence of a majority representing a specific programme is essential because the strife between factions within the parliament leads to the ruin of projects needed for the advancement of society, and paralysis will ensue. The Lebanese parliament represents religious sects and not parties that cut across the sectarian board. For the parliament to become an institution representing the interests of the people rather than the interests of particular individuals, it should allow the representation of parties. Saπadeh ascribed this sorry state of affairs to the lack of political education among the people on one hand, and on the restrictions imposed by the government that hold in check the individual freedoms of citizens on the other.58 This is why he doubted that Lebanon was following democratic tenets. Likewise, the electorate does not have the technical institutions in order for it to bring down a deputy who did not abide by the principles he upheld when elected. Consequently, the successive Lebanese parliaments did not feel obligated to represent the interests of the people, and the deputies did not consider the parliament to be a means for the implementation of society’s will.59 According to Saπadeh, a basic principle in politics is that the means a politician resorts to should be geared to the service and welfare of the people. Politics must be used as a tool for public service, and not as an end in itself.60 Saπadeh saw all political strife in geographic Syria as a struggle between factions over personal interest: “These politicians are not bound by parties or doctrines, or programmes. They behave like private companies aiming at having sole monopoly over the resources of the country.”61

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Civil, political and human rights Freedom of expression Since national democracy has as its goal al-shaπb (the welfare of the people), it devotes great care and gives a preponderant significance to public opinion: “Public opinion is a cornerstone in the existence of a state. And no matter how contradictory are opinions on such a matter, the truth remains immutable – namely, that public opinion is a socio-political force of great importance.”62 However, Saπadeh lamented the fact that there was no public opinion within the states of geographic Syria due to the lack of a “general will” as the consequence of conflict between the various sectarian currents. The religious sects interfere in politics and worry only about their own peculiar interests, rather than the interests of the state. Furthermore, two major antagonistic currents, one Muslim and the other Christian, are unable to agree on what constitutes national interest. Needless to say, public opinion needs a public sphere. It is to the credit of Saπadeh that as early as the 1930s he ascertained the existence of a civil society and civil rights in the face of successive governments that were trying to stifle such rights. Citizenship is, first and foremost, a public function. It springs from the participation in, and membership of, a public body, a political community: “[T]he city has always been the best locus for the growth of democratic ideas, and represents, par excellence, the heart of political activity.”63 Saπadeh was very firm concerning civil rights and freedoms of the individual citizen In a democratic system, there exist sacred rights, these are the rights of citizens that allow each member of the Lebanese state the right to think, and believe, and propagate his beliefs; the right to make public his thoughts and creed, and the right to associate in order to discuss those creeds and thoughts; the right to form an opinion about the government and its different systems, and convey such opinions to other citizens. These freedoms would allow the people to progress towards a better system, better guiding principles, and better political conditions. If an intervention takes place on behalf of one member or several members of the government in order to censor such sacred rights, then these members should be considered as tyrannical and oppressive, who are trampling on the same rights that brought them to power in the first place.64

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Throughout the 14 volumes of Saπadeh’s Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), the most prominent issues that come across are the defence of civil rights and the individual freedoms of citizens. Article after article, he condemned governments for censoring public opinion and forbidding citizens from expressing their points of view. He backed his arguments with the fact that the Lebanese Constitution guaranteed freedom of belief and that the government cannot impose a “standard” belief on all citizens: “The government is behaving like a feudal principality, abating all thought that does not agree with the government or the private interests of its leaders.”65 Saπadeh’s defence for civil rights and freedoms did not exclude anyone: “Lebanon is not a private property to some of its citizens. It is a public right to all citizens. The latter should be free to ponder on their existence and select the creed they feel is better suited for their lives.”66 He denounced the Syrian government for its persecution of parties, thereby banning all freedom of thought.67 To Saπadeh, freedom is a need exactly like the need for air and food.68 Moreover, he valued most freedom of thought: “The interest of the Lebanese people resides in freedom, not oppression. The truth is sought by independent research, not by persecution. The problem of political doctrines in Lebanon is the problem of freedom, and the problem of freedom can only be solved by freedom!”69 Saπadeh defended all aspects of freedom of thought, be it at the level of the individual, the press, political movements, labour and professional unions or parliamentarians.70 According to him, no government should act as an oppressor and forbid freedom of thought. He attacked the Maronite Patriarch Monsignour Antoine Arida because he advised the government to censor public opinion on the basis that some thoughts are “corrupt”.71 Saπadeh answered by affirming that “corrupt” thoughts can only be differentiated from “good” thoughts through the freedom of expression: “Why would the government suppress freedom of thought in Lebanon, and control the judicial system and allow the army to persecute people rather than defend their freedom?”72 The answer was obvious: the government wanted to quell all thought that ran contrary to its interests.73 Governments have certain privileges, but so do citizens. This is why any government that attempts to circumvent the civil and political rights of citizens is a government that has gone beyond its limits and privileges. “A government that refuses to grant its citizens the freedom of [522]


opinion and association, and the freedom to create political parties, is a government that has no representative value.”74 Thus, Saπadeh worked for a responsive democracy where conditions of deliberation exist leading to some form of consensus or public opinion, “a reconciliation through public reason”.75 If Saπadeh believed in national democracy as the expression of popular rule, he was also liberal because he sought to secure for his country the political conditions that are essential for the exercise of personal freedom.76 Because he saw political parties as the backbone for democracy, Saπadeh firmly believed in allowing the opposition to be active politically. Hence, he condemned the National Bloc Party that was ruling Syria in the 1930s for persecuting the opposition and accusing it of “plotting against national security”. He contended that successive Syrian governments use this accusation to get rid of the opposition by putting it in jail: “[T]he government has no right to accuse the political opposition, or critics or malcontents of plotting against the nation.”77 Likewise, freedom of the press is essential because the press is the “mirror of the nation”.78 The public, according to Saπadeh, should be enlightened and should know what is happening in order for it to make a sound judgement. Democracy can only become a reality if the public is informed. Secrecy will bar people from intelligent participation. He denounced the censorship laws that came into effect: “This action is dishonourable for Lebanon. This country did not witness such acts during foreign colonialism.”79 The freedom to propose, and to oppose, constitute the freedom of expression that democracy requires – that is, the communication of ideas through the radio, television, books and newspapers. Hence, freedom of speech encompasses the freedom of publication that is the freedom to make public facts and ideas of general concern, without fear of punishment. When, in 1937, the Minister of Interior censored newspapers, Saπadeh promptly criticized such a step saying: “By so doing the government has denied the people the right of information in a so-called democratic country.”80 Furthermore, secrecy leads to a lack of accountability. The people are misinformed and unable to formulate sound judgements in the public domain. If the public is deceived, or is offered a one-sided view, this may lead to catastrophic decisions. A rational, accurate and complete account is needed for intelligent decisions to be made. Saπadeh [523]


urged for transparency not only on the governmental level, but also among citizens within society: “Both Muslims and Christians should be open about their intentions vis-à-vis each other. Honesty is the beginning of the road towards reform. Honesty paves the way for citizens to trust each other.”81 Freedom of association No sooner had Antun Saπadeh landed in Beirut in 1930 returning from Brazil, than he clashed with the French mandate authorities who had banned the freedom of association and the freedom to form parties. He went ahead and formed his own party, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, in 1932.82 There can be no political victory, according to him, without the freedom of parties to be active and promote the welfare of society.83 “If an independent nation is denied freedom of political expression and association, then this nation is living in abnormal conditions.”84 Effective participation in the life of the polity demands the cooperative use of fact and opinion. Men and women should be free to interact and confer. There should be a constant debate between parties in order to appreciate each other fully as decisions in a democratic system should be the outcome of continuing discussions. Antun Saπadeh observed that the democratic rules for decision-making were violated. He criticized the successive governing bodies that were ruling in an autocratic manner: “Principles ought to be put down in order to serve the people. Every principle that does not serve the sovereignty of people is a corrupt principle.”85 Freedom of association is an essential part of the collective interest that coincides with the public sphere. In addition, allowing freedom of association leads to homogeneity and cooperation among citizens instead of personal confrontations that would stand as a stumbling block towards progress.86 Tolerance and cooperation A basic rule that Saπadeh adopted was tolerance and understanding towards his compatriots. He tried his best to inculcate among party members a feeling of tolerance towards those who are enrolled in other parties and have different principles because, as he said, they are citizens and belong to the same society and the same nation. He once addressed a party member telling him: “[Y]ou have to be aware that your opinion [524]


is only an opinion and not a judgement, and the way to voice an opinion is different from the announcement of a verdict.”87 In his earnest attempts to dissipate conflicts between Christians and Muslims, he tried to show that “tolerance is at the basis of every society that does not want to wither away”. He noted further that the success of the European and American nations was the result of their following the teachings of Jesus Christ who stressed the qualities of mercifulness and leniency. Islam, in turn, reiterated those two qualities.88 Many incidents corroborate the tolerant stand of Antun Saπadeh. In 1937, for example, when the Kataπib (Phalanges) Party clashed with the authorities and its leader Pièrre Gemayel was injured, Saπadeh dispatched the head of the party’s Higher Council, Nimeh Tabet, to visit Gemayel and wish him well. Saπadeh then issued a press release: “If Pièrre Gemayel wants to see me beheaded, I only want his safety. Being a nationalist, I love all my countrymen.”89 He warned party members not to seek revenge on citizens who have mistreated them: “If a citizen makes a mistake, do not turn this into internal strife. Rather, try to lead him in the right direction.”90 Another incident occurred when he was heading to a meeting in the suburbs of Beirut and encountered a funeral procession on the road. He asked his bodyguard who the deceased was, and the bodyguard answered that he was a relative of his, but an enemy of the party, and therefore he did not bother to attend his funeral. Saπadeh admonished him saying that he should treat a political foe kindly, especially in circumstances such as funerals.91 His tolerant attitude expressed itself in his efforts to bridge the gap between Muslims and Christians. Towards that end he wrote a book titled: Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages).92 His aim was to show that both Christianity and Muhammadanism offer the same spiritual message, and hence asked the sectarian parties to put an end to their enmity and animosity. Sensing that such an enmity is a handicap to progress, he chided a faction for wanting to impose its will on another faction and suggested that both come to a mutual understanding as to the best solution, for “the unity of people can only be the result of the unity of hearts”.93 To Saπadeh, dialogue is the only means through which various groups and parties within a nation can reach discernment and accord.94 Thus, a set of psychological conditions is necessary for a nation to remain within the democratic guidelines. Besides tolerance and mutual [525]


trust, Saπadeh felt that self-confidence is essential. Building self-confidence should start at home where the parents should help their children and not suppress them.95 Finally, Saπadeh viewed auto-criticism as a very important tool for learning from our mistakes and being able to correct them: “We have to be courageous and admit our faults, and study their causes if we want to keep our national pride and advance along the path of living nations.”96 When asked what kind of regime he envisaged for geographic Syria once it is united, he said the people will decide, not the party.97 Diversity and the question of minorities Even within the ranks of his party, Saπadeh did not try to stem diversity; quite the contrary, he saw it as a sign of cultural wealth: “One cannot limit the thinking of party members to the thinking of their leader.”98 Saπadeh himself was a non-conformist as he thought of a general movement of reform. This is why he paid a lot of attention to art, music and literature as signs of the creativity of people, for change can only be initiated through encouraging creativity. Thanks to such efforts, the tyranny of opinions and customs is broken, especially where a constant dialogue between individuals and their community is established, for it is through such dialogues that nations progress.99 A major issue in the acceptance of diversity within a nation is the problem of minorities, whether ethnic or religious: “Forcing minority groups to submit to the majority is the act of individuals who are completely ignorant of the principles of the rise of nations.”100 Saπadeh thought that the principle of equality under democracy is capable of levelling groups so that there will be no domination of an ethnic/religious majority over other minorities in the country: “Ignoring reality, mainly, the existence of ethnic and religious racism in Syria does not eradicate the truth. Rather, it leads to painful experiences.”101 He criticized, for example, the attitude of the governing National Bloc in Syria. The latter threatened the civil rights of its citizens by announcing that religious and ethnic minorities residing in Northern Syria (that is, Christian Assyrians and Kurds) are insignificant.102 Furthermore, he blamed the Syrian parliament for espousing the same attitude as the executive branch concerning the issue of minorities. He considered it an affront for members in the parliament to denigrate their colleagues by telling them that they are of no consequence, politically, since they only [526]


represent a tiny minority. To him, this constituted a breach of individual rights, of justice and equality, all being at the basis of national existence. Despite his incessant demands for independence from the French tutelage, Saπadeh did not shy away from accusing the National Bloc in Syria of committing shameful acts against minorities. He honestly admitted that it was the National Bloc that was carrying out such activities and not the French as the Bloc wanted everyone to believe: “[T]he National Bloc blames the French for raising the question of minorities, but it is the nationalists themselves who are following segregationist policies by denigrating ethnic and religious minorities.”103 Saπadeh always viewed modern society on the basis of territoriality, harbouring various ethnic, linguistic and religious groups. However, he thought that the only way to survive would be for these groups to cooperate together in the name of national interest.104 There should be no exclusion of minorities, and the latter should be allowed to participate in political life. Any attempt at marginalizing minorities was considered by Saπadeh as a breach of democratic tenets. In true democratic fashion, he encouraged the resolution of disputes by creating situations in which the resort to violence to achieve one’s goals was unnecessary. In his party, he aimed at including all elements and did not reject anyone. Nonetheless, he never agreed to have a fixed majority, in political life, such as religious or ethnic. In heterogeneous communities, there is a real need for inclusive and protective decision-making rules; otherwise, democracy is endangered by oppression of a fixed majority, and citizens will fear the power of opponents. Thus, protection of citizens consists of including, not excluding, them from political involvement. This is why Saπadeh opted for, and created, a modern party system where all ethnic elements are represented. Power would be vested in the party or programme that acquires a majority vote. Such a majority would be a fluctuating majority, depending on the issues at hand. Hence, a majority that rules on an issue will not be the same majority regarding other issues.105 It is noteworthy that Saπadeh believed there could be no democracy without some kind of national unity. Majority rule presupposes social cohesion; for both the majority and minority have to be parts of the whole; of society: “In the civilized world, when a decision is taken by the parliament, all opposition within this assembly subsides. Thus, when a majority (even a slight one) in the British House of Commons [527]


opposes a certain policy or course of action, everyone accepts that decision, including the defeated minority. If any group wants to raise the issue anew, it will have to do it constitutionally and through the existing laws.”106 In order to build a solid base revolving around national unity, Saπadeh favoured in the case of developing countries, the two-party, rather than the multi-party system. He believed that the two-party system would ensure more stability for the government. In the set-up which consists of a multi-party representation, the parliament will comprise several small parties, with no one party able to maintain a majority vote on decisions. In such a case, governments would either be minority or coalition governments; needless to say, a minority government would lack support from the parliament. As to coalition governments, they will not only be weak but would also tend to act irresponsibly due to the diffusion of responsibility among the different groups. Even worse, having opposing parties in the government means that the latter would have a very hard time reaching consensus on issues. A party that has won the majority of votes and is ruling according to the programme that brought it to power will have to act responsibly, for it will be accountable for its decisions: The presence of a majority in the parliament is an expression of democracy in the life of parties, and is valued greatly among free nations. Once you know to which party the majority in the parliament belongs, you know the direction the legislative body will take, and the governmental policies that are based on it. However, in Lebanon, the majority and minority in the parliament have nothing to do with party affiliations. Here, the deputies disagree on policies to be enacted by the government merely on the basis of individual interest.107

Because consensus was a target that Saπadeh earnestly sought, he shunned extremist parties, whether Muslim or Christian, for these parties exacerbate conflicts and accelerate polarization. He even went into action when such parties clashed and intervened to stop the two camps from killing one another.108 Saπadeh saw the establishment of modern parties as vehicles that would transform the particular interests of primordial groups and adjust them in such a way that they would be superseded by national interest. Party organization is essential for social stability, especially in a religious and ethnically diverse country. Citizens can acquire a position of power through parties. The latter can help to steer away primordial loyalties from being politicized, [528]


resulting in conflict and eventual war. Secular parties are one channel through which individuals can freely associate and intermingle, thus providing mobility within society, and resulting in more cohesion and agreement among the diverse elements as to the rules of the game and the provisions for a normative framework that provides a generally desired direction for society.109 Women’s liberation For women to be able to gain self-confidence and express themselves freely, women’s liberation should start at home. It is there that children learn to participate and argue, and feel their own worth. Living within a despotic family turns children into either despots, or slaves who will later on submit to despotism: We see the father oppressing his wife, and we see both the father and mother oppress their daughter and suppress her most vital desires. How can such a girl when she, in turn, becomes a mother, infuse confidence to her children and teach them to be independent and rely on themselves; to think freely and act freely? Life, without all these qualities, is aimless, meaningless and unhappy.110

Saπadeh’s espousing of the women’s cause went as far as interceding in the sequestration of a famous woman writer, May Ziadeh, who was unfairly placed in a mental asylum. Following the death of her parents, and being an only child, May’s uncle tried to bend the law and deprive his niece of her inheritance. The conservative men in Lebanese society backed the uncle based on the tradition that only the male has the right to inherit. However, since May’s parents had left a will making her sole heir of the inheritance, the uncle resorted to a doctor friend who stated that May was mentally disturbed and, consequently, the uncle became the custodian of her property. When Saπadeh learnt about this story, he turned it into a public issue, writing about it in his newspaper. Furthermore, he contacted various influential people, prodding them to ask for her release. Finally, May regained her freedom but, due to the electric shocks she had received at the mental asylum, she never fully recovered and died a couple of years later. In his eulogy, Saπadeh stated: “Only very few male writers in Syria and Lebanon come close to the high cultural level, the feelings and the art of May’s writings.”111 [529]


Saπadeh fought against the discrimination of women, both within his party and within society. In a letter to a party member, he asked: “Why do you conclude that women are not fit for public activities? The issue is not about men and women. It is about the morality and ethics of both sexes.”112 He reproved poets who described women merely as sexual objects, with no regard to their feelings.113 He rightly saw that one of the major obstacles in the way of democratization is the lack of freedom and equality of women. In order to ensure equality for women before the law, it was necessary to establish a civil code within a secular state, as all monotheistic religions ascribed to women an inferior status and did not give them the same rights and privileges as men. Saπadeh traced the development of the emancipation of women to the industrial revolution in the West.114 He rejected the traditional view that women should be restricted to the private sphere, and their exclusion from partaking in the activities of the public domain: “National activity should not be restricted to men. Production cannot be considered national unless women participate in it and become active members of society.”115 In his efforts to promote the emancipation of women, Saπadeh asked his Muslim party members to urge their sisters to take off the headdress and veil.116 Saπadeh’s party was the first party to accept and encourage the enrolment of women in politics. This brought a violent reaction from the Lebanese conservative society. Newspapers condemned the party for accepting women among its ranks, predicting this would lead to decadence, debauchery and sexual laxity.117 In return, Saπadeh encouraged educated women to participate in international conferences. The first Lebanese woman to finish her PhD in the field of Physics in the USA was Salwa Nassar, a party member who at one point headed the American Beirut College for Women. Saπadeh knew that he was undertaking a thorough change in the mores of a traditional society, and predicted that this change will affect not only members who enrolled in the party, but also society at large.

Saπadeh and the quest for modernity If modernity is defined as the emergence of new kinds of public space, there is no thinker in geographic Syria that strove for modernity in the 1930s as much as Antun Saπadeh. To be modern meant the emulation of [530]


the example of societies that have been successful in providing a better life for individuals at this stage of human development. He perceived the national state to be the best safeguard against any external or internal hindering of society and its evolving public space. Furthermore, to create a public good stipulated that the traditional elites of either a theocratic state, a feudal or a dynastic regime, which have hitherto confiscated this realm and made it their private property, abdicate in favour of democratic egalitarian norms. Henceforward, public space is the prerogative of the public, that is the people, and the latter will exert full sovereignty on all activities of life. Saπadeh embarked on a movement of reform on all levels: political, social and individual. His dream was to free society from colonialism, and to free the individual from traditional constraints, be it tribal, sectarian or racist. Reform in the political realm Saπadeh’s objective was for geographic Syria to gain its independence from both the British and French tutelage. He fought these two powers on the basis of the right of people to self-determination. However, in his struggle, he remained open and fair, and did not resort to chauvinistic attitudes like many of his compatriots. He scolded, for example, a party member who wrote an article in which he stated that foreign nations do not wish the Levant well. Saπadeh told him that he could not make such sweeping statements, and judge a priori the intentions of foreign nations. Besides, Saπadeh went on to say, such a statement would close the door to the possibility of establishing friendly relations: “We have no desire to isolate ourselves from the world, and there is no shame in building good relations with foreign countries when it is in our interest to do so.”118 Once geographic Syria was independent, Saπadeh envisaged a state that would be secular and democratic, able to promote progress and advancement: “If we study the evolution of people in the West, we notice that they did not reach their high level of cultural achievement and civilization until they were able to overcome the theocratic state. The latter relied on religion to manipulate people for its own interests.”119 Nonetheless, Saπadeh warned that we should not infer that national principles would cancel religion. Each one has characteristics that differentiate it from the other – namely, religion should solely be concerned [531]


with the problem of life after death and the spiritual salvation of the individual. Thus, the secular state will have to be neutral regarding all religions and all confessions. Its laws will be unified under a civil code in order to provide for citizens equality before the law. The Personal Status laws will be abolished because they open the door for religious leaders to partake in the government of the country and interfere in state affairs. In addition, the Personal Status laws lead to a non-egalitarian society, where citizens are treated differently depending on the religious sect in which they are born. As to the political leadership, it will be judged by how it affects the people. What makes a state good, according to Saπadeh, is how far it cares for the welfare of individuals.120 Needless to say, the secular state will have to follow the rules of a parliamentarian republic entailing the separation of the legislative, executive and judicial powers. The leaders ought to be elected, by the people, on the basis of achievement, not ascription. Saπadeh stressed the quality of leaders because they are in a position of power and should have as a goal the furthering of the society they are ruling. Having defined the state as being the representation of the people and their institutions, Saπadeh concentrated his thoughts on social reform. The name he gave to his party, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, bears testimony to his bent at initiating change within society. Reform in the social realm Since Saπadeh posited the welfare of the people as the ultimate goal,121 he objected to political systems that led to the oppression of people, be they a military dictatorship or a theocracy, feudalism or communism, fascism or racism.122 He viewed democracy as a good system because it allowed people to make decisions for themselves, freeing them from any kind of tutelage. Both sectarianism and communism impel to a divisive society and futile civil wars: “We have suffered dearly from hatreds, but they were the hatreds of a sect against another sect, communism replaced sectarian hatred by class hatred.”123 Nonetheless, on a philosophical level he refuted the Marxist materialist theory, seeing human existence as the result of interaction between matter and spirit.124 Having the welfare of society as the ultimate goal and, consequently, the individual, Saπadeh proposed the implementation of a charter of human rights even before it was adopted by the United Nations.125 He [532]


refused discrimination on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity and gender. In the same vein, he objected to the one-party system, and opted for the freedom of belief and freedom of choice: My doctrine guarantees to all members of society the freedom of belief, a free conscience, and free action as long as it does not deprive other members of the same society from espousing another creed, or stop them from enjoying their civil and political rights. There should be no attempt by any one group to impose a specific political system, or a special kind of state.126

Society has the right to establish its institutions, unhampered by the government.127 This opening up of the public space on the internal level runs parallel to a similar opening towards the international community: “We do not believe that there is a nation that would favour isolation. It is the duty of each nation to facilitate the ways of communication between it and other nations, and it is the duty of Arab nations to seek understanding with other nations.”128 Interaction, for Saπadeh, is the cornerstone for progress. It provides knowledge that is essential for development and advancement. It is in this spirit that Saπadeh coined the phrase: “Society is knowledge, and knowledge is power”. An open and modern society should strive for knowledge, justice, freedom and peace, and fight oppression and injustice.129 Finally, to be modern meant to give up traditional norms and mores. To build a democratic, secular state required new social rules and laws. A republic is not representative of an elite – it is a res publica, a public thing, a common good. It is only in a democracy that the individual is respected for himself, for his uniqueness, and is given inalienable rights to protect him against the abuse of others.130 Traditional norms gave rights only to the few, dressed up the state against the people, exerted oppression and suppression for the continuation of their rule, and subjected women to an inferior status. Saπadeh objected to the obligation of obedience to a system that does not cater for the well-being of the people: “In as much as discipline and order run contrary to life, and contrary to the interests of individuals, it is a demeaning goal and a despicable attempt.”131

[533]


Conclusion Saπadeh was a liberal who took the side of democracy against totalitarianism, dictatorship and autocracy. He advocated an open society, where individuals are free to express themselves, thus allowing society to benefit from the diversity of its elements. The latter was viewed as an asset and not a weakness because, to Saπadeh, diversity is a sign of creativity. He spent his life fighting for civil and political liberties and demanding their implementation from the successive governments in both Syria and Lebanon during the span of his active political career between 1920 and 1949. He, like his father before him, had a repulsion of a police state that stems civil liberties.132 Saπadeh not only made sure to safeguard the civil and political rights of citizens, but also sought the development of the individuals’ potentials. He urged writers to tread new paths, and was able to create a modern current in poetry, prose, music, sculpture and painting, as party members were the first to innovate in these domains.133 He encouraged the elaboration of modern poetry with its free rhyme, and criticized poets who were still writing in a traditional way and using traditional themes borrowed from the Jahiliyyah period of the Arabian Peninsula. As a matter of fact, Saπadeh wrote a book portraying the guidelines for modern literature entitled Al-Siraπ al Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature).134 Finally, Saπadeh saw the struggle in the Arab world as taking shape within two opposite camps. On one side is the principle of territorial union, a secular state, and a liberal democracy that offers the widest possible space for the individual to develop and for society to progress; on the other side is the principle of a religious state, of archaic forms of elitist governments, of traditional norms that base themselves on the worth of the past rather than future achievements: “There is nowadays a terrible struggle going on between these two forces, and the whole Arab East will be affected by the consequences of this struggle.”135

[534]


NOTES 1 Adel Daher, Al-Mujtamaπ al-Insan (Society and Man), Beirut: Mawaqif, 1981. Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh, Beirut: Bissan, 1995. Labib Zuwayya Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1966. 2 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Athar al-Kamilah (Collected Works), Beirut: Fikr, 1984, vol. 13, p. 308. 3 Ibid., vol. 13, p. 294. 4 See Yamak, op. cit. 5 See Fouad Ajami, The Dream Palace of the Arabs: A Generation’s Odyssey, New York: Pantheon Books, 1998. See also Aziz Azmeh, Al-Ilmaniyyah Min Manthur Mukhtalef, Beirut: Markaz Dirasat al-Wihda al Arabiya, 1992, pp. 296, 312–313; and Sofia Antun Saπadeh, “Fikr Antun Saπadeh kama Yarahu Aziz Azmeh”, al-Hayat (Afaq), 24 October 1993. 6 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), vol. 5, p. 167. 7 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 202. See also Robert Dahl, Dilemmas of Pluralist Democracy, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1982, p. 165. 8 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 38; Ellis Goldberg, Recat Kasaba and Joel Migdal (eds), Rules and Rights in the Middle East: Democracy, Law and Society, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993, p. 73. 9 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 130. 10 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 342; and vol. 4, p. 38. 11 Danny Burns, Robin Hambleton and Paul Hoggett, The Politics of Decentralization, London: Macmillan, 1994. 12 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 76. 13 Ibid., vol. 14, p. 149. See also Eric Nordlinger, Conflict Regulation in Divided Societies, 2nd edition, Cambridge: Harvard University Center for International Affairs, 1977, p. 2. 14 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 6, p. 65. 15 Ibid. vol. 9, p. 35. See also Stephen Holmes, “Precommitment and the Paradox of Democracy”, in Jon Elster and Runc Slagstad, Constitutionalism and Democracy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989, p. 240. 16 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 131. 17 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 9, p. 280. 18 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 50. 19 Ibid., vol. 10, p. 16. 20 Ibid., p. 17. 21 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 126. 22 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 126. 23 Ibid., vol. 8, p. 19. 24 Ibid., vol. 9, p. 285. 25 Ibid., vol. 9, p. 283; see also Antun Saπadeh, Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages), 5th edition, Beirut: Al-Rukn, 1995, pp. 32f. 26 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 323. 27 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 131. [535]


28 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 14, p. 179. 29 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 14, p. 199. See also Norberto Babbio, Liberalism and Democracy, London and New York: Verso, 1990, p. 39. 30 Amy Gutman, “The Disharmony of Democracy”, in John Chapman and Ian Shapiro (eds), Democratic Community, New York: New York University Press, 1993, p. 143. 31 Ibid., p. 150; see also Zehra Arat, Democracy and Human Rights in Developing Countries, Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1991, p. 67. 32 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 185; and vol. 4, p. 91. 33 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 6, p. 35. 34 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 316. 35 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 131. See also Carl Cohen, Democracy, Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1971, p. 7. 36 Bulent Ecevit, “Prospects and Difficulties of Democratization in the Middle East”, in Goldberg, Ellis et al., (eds), Rules and Rights in the Middle East: Democracy, Law and Society, Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1993, p. 143. 37 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 14, p. 64. 38 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 203; vol. 14, pp. 66–67; Babbio, op. cit., p. 39. 39 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 14, p. 108. 40 Ibid., vol. 12, p. 47, Saπadeh describes the 1943 parliamentary elections. 41 Ibid., vol. 14, p. 179. 42 Ibid., p. 106. 43 Ibid., p. 95; see also vol. 3, p. 191. 44 Ibid., vol. 11, p. 60. 45 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 202. 46 Ibid., p. 187. 47 Ibid., vol. 14, p. 100. 48 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 311. 49 Ibid., vol. 14, p. 100. 50 Ibid., p. 93. 51 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 51, 76–77, 206, 209, 213, 219, 311. 52 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 213. See also Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950, p. 295. 53 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 221. 54 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 240–241. 55 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, pp. 240–241. 56 Ibid., p. 137. 57 Ibid., vol. 5, p. 131. 58 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 4, p. 107; see also vol. 3, p. 78. 59 Ibid., vol. 3, p. 181. 60 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, pp. 132, 145. 61 Ibid., p. 202. 62 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 222. 63 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 124. Also Danny Burns, Robin Hambleton and Paul Hoggett, The Politics of Decentralisation, London: Macmillan, 1994, p. 245. 64 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 117. 65 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 40. 66 Ibid., vol. 6, p. 59. [536]


67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108

Ibid., vol. 4, p. 101. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 211. Ibid., vol. 1, p. 329. Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 29, 101. Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 118. Ibid., vol. 14, pp. 66, 104. Ibid., p. 103. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 51. Robert Post, “Between Democracy and Community: The Legal Constitution of Social Forms”, in John Chapman and Ian Shapiro (eds), Democratic Community, New York: New York University Press, 1993, p. 179. Amy Gutman, ‘Democratic Community’, in John Chapman and Ian Shapiro (eds), Democratic Community, New York: New York University Press, 1993, p. 134. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 128. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 115. Antun Saπadeh, Mukhtarat fi al-Masπalah al-Lubnaniyyah (1936–1943) (Selections of the Lebanese Question), 2nd edition, Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1991, p. 195. Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 323. Ibid., vol. 9, p. 180. See also vol. 12, p. 21, and Cohen, Democracy, pp. 156–157. Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 4, p. 41. Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 14, p. 193. Ibid., vol. II, p. 195. Ibid, p. 180. See also Jean Baechler, “Individual, Group and Democracy”, in John Chapman and Ian Shapiro (eds), Democratic Community, pp. 28–29. Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 10, p. 35. Ibid., vol. 11, p. 127. Ibid., vol. 9, p. 157. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 97. Ibid. Gibran Jreige, Maπ Antun Sa πadeh (In the Company of Antun Saπadeh), vol. 4, Beirut: Dar al-Fann, 1973–1984, p. 111. Saπadeh, Islam in its Two Messages, 5th edition, Beirut: al-Rujun, 1995. Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 8, p. 17. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 17. Ibid., vol. 8, p. 18. Ibid., vol. 14, p. 99. Ibid., vol. 2, p. 198. See also Babbio, Liberalism and Democracy, p. 54. Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 2, p. 13. Ibid., vol. 8, p. 19. Ibid., vol. 6, p. 91. Ibid. Ibid. Arat, op. cit., p. 59. Cohen, op. cit., p. 71. Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 8, p. 294. Ibid., vol. 3, p. 212. Goldberg et al., op. cit., p. 73. [537]


109 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 341. 110 Ibid., vol. 4, pp. 21–25; see also Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 8, pp. 24–54; Jreige, Maπ Antun Sa πadeh, vol. 2, pp. 58–59. 111 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 8, p. 196. 112 Ibid., vol. 9, p. 25. 113 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 5, p. 84. 114 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 54. Keith Tester, Civil Society, London and New York: Routledge, 1992, p. 135. 115 Jreige, Maπ Antun Sa πadeh, vol. 2, p. 73. 116 Ibid., pp. 86–87. 117 Ibid., vol. 4, p. 99. 118 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 6, p. 218. 119 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 333. 120 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 74. 121 Alan Hamlin and Philip Pettit (eds), The Good Polity, Oxford: Blackwell, 1989, p. 7: “What makes a state good is that it constitutes or brings about something that affects people appropriately.” Hamlin calls it “moral individualism, or the principle of individual relevance”. 122 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 49–50, 60, 78. 123 Ibid., p. 75. 124 Ibid., vol. 8, p. 29; vol. IX, p. 172. 125 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 184, 322. Also James Fishkin, Democracy and Deliberation: New Directions for Democratic Reform, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1991, pp. 78–79. 126 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 13, pp. 285–286. 127 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 74. 128 Saπadeh, Complete Works, vol. 1, p. 112. 129 Ibid., vol. 1, p. 74. 130 Blandine Kriegel, “Les fondements de la philosophie politique moderne”, Villa Gillet, no. 7, November 1998, pp. 161–162. 131 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 2, pp. 242–243. 132 Israel Gershuni, “Egyptian Liberalism in an Age of Crisis of Orientation”, International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, 31, 1999, p. 553. 133 Examples of famous literati who were party members: the poets Adonis and Muhammad al-Maghout (Syrian), Khalil Hawi, Yusuf al-Khal, Saπid ∏Aql, Fuad Rifka and Tufiq Sayegh (Lebanese). The painters: Fateh al-Mudarris (Syrian), and Amin El-Basha (Lebanese). The first lady to master and innovate in sculpture: Muazziz Rawdah (Lebanese from Turkish origin). The musicians: Tufiq El-Basha and Zaki Nassif (Lebanese). At the instigation of Antun Saπadeh, Tufiq al-Basha wrote the first Arabic symphony, and Raja Khauli wrote a book on music in 1944 titled Al Musiqa. The fiction writers Saπid Takieddine, George Masruπa and Halim Barakat (Lebanese). See also, Abdallah al-Udhari, Modern Poetry of the Arab World, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1986. 134 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), in Collected Works, vol. 9. 135 Saπadeh, Collected Works, vol. 8, pp. 93–94.

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14 Saπadeh and Marxism Moueen Haddad

In the political and intellectual vortex, where views and currents sometimes draw together and at other times diverge, ideologies battle each other and the danger of selectivity on the one hand, and reconciliation and compromise on the other, loom larger than ever. Because of these conflicting currents some thinkers are drawn into dogmatic positions, thereby forgetting their duty to objective analysis. However, this chapter is an attempt to consider social nationalism1 and communism, which arose in the course of time as two doctrines distinct from the “ideologies” of the traditional society which sprang up from traditional and highly entrenched roots such as sectarianism, provincialism, clannism and so on. The social nationalist and communist ideologies, on the other hand, are based on modern concepts. They have dominated the ideological scene since the 1930s, arousing a great deal of controversy in Syria and the Arab world.2 Nationalism in Marxist perspective There is no doubt that the communists in Arab societies, diverse as they are, have to a certain extent abandoned their traditional attitudes towards nationalism and have come to reject flatly the statements made by Joseph Stalin in 1927 that, a revolutionary is one who is ready to protect, to defend the USSR without reservation, without qualification, openly and honestly, without secret military conferences; for the USSR is the first proletarian, revolutionary state in the world, a state which is building socialism. An internationalist is one who is ready to defend the USSR without reservation, without wavering, unconditionally; for the USSR is the base of the world revolutionary movement, and this revolutionary movement cannot be defended and promoted unless the USSR is defended.3 [539]


It took some years for the communists to realize the senselessness of such statements. However, the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) took a timid step towards espousing nationalism in its admission in 1968 that, in neglecting nationalist issues, it had failed to understand them or perceive their revolutionary nature.4 In large part, this neglect was the result of the inaccurate perception that considered nationalism solely a bourgeois phenomenon, as if the workers, the peasantry or the rest of the masses have no nationalist sentiments and are not stirred by nationalist issues.5 Marxists, as is well known, considered nationalism as petit bourgeois ideology. The petite bourgeoisie, according to them, is a motley collection of social strata engendered in any capitalist development – central or peripheral. As a class it plays no decisive political role, and vacillates between right and left. In the capitalist centres it sometimes joins the capitalist camp and the right, and sometimes supports the working class in its reformist strategy, according to circumstances. But this vacillation, entirely within a structure where right and left accept the system’s rules of play (that is, the fundamental criteria of capitalist management of the economy and electoral democracy), has no greater historical impact than the right–left cleavage typifying the life of the central capitalist societies. In the peripheries the petite bourgeoisie also vacillates between the camp of the local bourgeoisie (which can envisage power only within the bounds permitted by “adjustment” to the demands of the worldwide capitalist system) and that of the popular classes (constantly required to revolt against the fate wished on them by peripheralization). According to the Marxists, there, however, the right–left cleavage does have a decisive historical impact. All this, in the view of Marxists, takes place as a consequence of the contradiction within the petits bourgeois themselves by reason of their failure to ally permanently with the proletariat. Marx himself expressed this in 1846: In an advanced society and because of his situation, a petty bourgeois becomes a socialist on the one hand, and economist on the other – that is, he is dazzled by the magnificence of the upper middle classes and feels compassion for the sufferings of the people. He is at one and the same time bourgeois and man of the people. In his heart of hearts he prides himself on his impartiality, on having found the correct balance, allegedly distinct from the happy medium. A [540]

SAπADEH AND MARXISM

petty bourgeois of this kind deifies contradiction, for contradiction is the very basis of his being. He is nothing but social contradiction in action. He must justify by means of theory what he is in practice …6

On this basis, nationalism, as a petit bourgeois ideology from the Marxist viewpoint, may, on account of its doubtful status, become servile to imperialism in expanding countries, as in fascist states, where capitalism seeks through it to develop its market at the expense of other countries. In under-developed countries the petite bourgeoisie could become a reserve power for bourgeois regimes. A Marxist writer, Professor Youssef Shweiry, wrote in 1973 about the Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) that “it was, and still is, a reserve power for the Lebanese regime. This party is known to antagonize all that is progressive … and any national line that practically opposes reactionism and imperialism.”7 In any case the communists regarded Saπadeh with great suspicion as a builder of strong foundations of nationalism. They viewed social nationalist thought, in both origin and content, as affiliated to bourgeois fascism in as much as its concept of nation denies class struggle and rises above class contradictions. Saπadeh’s thought, according to the writings of some Marxists and statements made in communist circles, is Hegelian rightist as well as petit bourgeois. Shweiry believes that Saπadeh understands the rise of social institutions on an idealistic basis for [Saπadeh] attributes the origin [of these institutions] to a social mind reconciled in its outlook towards life and the universe. This is a Hegelian interpretation of history based on an assertion of the priority of consciousness. It turns objective laws upside down. History is transformed into a history of a self-conscious ego and a collective reason resulting from the interaction of the minds of several individuals. Institutions rise to meet the needs of this consciousness and this interaction, and social evolution is no longer the outcome of the direct process of production – that is, of the material substratum of society. In other words, social reality no longer determines social consciousness, as Marx says, but the other way round.8

It can be seen from these arguments that Saπadeh, according to Marxist views in Syria (including Lebanon), is a petit bourgeois thinker whose philosophical roots go back to Hegelian rightism.9 Accordingly our discussion is divided into two parts: the first deals with how truly [541]


Hegelian Saπadeh was, and the second with how truly the description of Saπadeh as a petit bourgeois actually conforms to his political thought.10

Saπadeh and Hegelianism Saπadeh is known to be an ideologist rather than a founder of a philosophy, although his concern with philosophy was greater than that of any other politician of his generation. He stressed the importance of philosophy for a revolutionary movement and strove to establish a philosophical basis for his beliefs in his ideological and political writings. His political writings aimed at a renunciation of traditional Syrian Arab existence and the establishment of a Syrian Arab entity that is progressive, creative and free from subordination and cultural backwardness. The important thing is that Saπadeh was an ideologist not a philosopher, although an ideology necessarily embodies a philosophical content. In his treatise Tariq al-Istiqial al-Falsafi (The Path of Philosophical Independence), Nassif Nassar discussed the existing relationship between philosophy and ideology and reached the conclusion that: [E]very ideological system embodies a philosophical nucleus which stands to ideology like the trunk to a tree. Accordingly [philosophy] represents the deeper theoretical layer … The major characteristics of the philosophical spirit are different from those of ideological thinking, although philosophy as a theory of action tends to change into a way of life, that is, takes the form of a definite historical social behaviour.11

On the basis of this analogy we wonder whether the “trunk” of Saπadeh’s ideology is Hegelian, as the Marxists say. The Marxists did not sufficiently clarify their judgement in this aspect. I shall explain the Marxist viewpoint and then comment on it. It should be noted that my intention is not to draw a comparison between Saπadehism and Hegelianism but only to consider how communists see the latter and how they associate Saπadeh with it. Hegelian postulates through Marxist perspective We draw in this respect on the writings of Roger Garaudy, former philosopher of the French Communist Party and a major pillar of Marxist thought in the world.12 In his book on Karl Marx, Garaudy considers [542]


Hegelianism as a philosophy of pride and self-confidence and argues that the basis of Hegelian ethics is the assertion of man in the world, fully transparent in relation to Reason. In Hegel’s philosophy man is ultimately united with the absolute being. Garaudy affirms that Marx and the young Hegelians made these postulates the starting points of their thinking and acted as if they were the legitimate successors of the French Revolution, because Hegel’s philosophy, as Marx wrote later, “is the German theoretical basis of the French Revolution”.13 The victorious bourgeoisie gave tremendous impetus to science and technology after removing the barriers that had stood in the way of the growing forces of production. The bourgeoisie began to feel that they were on their way to becoming the masters and owners of nature. The struggle they had waged against the “divine right” and the religious justification of feudalism and authoritarianism led them to place man in God’s position. Garaudy goes on to say that Hegel’s philosophy bore a new world outlook that was consistent with the spirit of the age and the aspirations of German youth at that time: a unity of matter and spirit, the dominance of a mind capable of penetrating the totality of the actual world and controlling it and its contradictions.14 In a historical analysis of Hegelian thought, Garaudy says that at the hands of German philosophers, Hegelianism split into right and left versions. According to the rightists the Hegelian system led to an ultimate reconciliation with the world as it existed and to a rational devotion to the bourgeois system, just as the theory of divine right had endorsed the feudalist system. The leftists viewed the dialectic as the best weapon against the existing regime. Friedrich Engels, in his youth as a Hegelian leftist, wrote: “The question is: What is God? According to German philosophy (Hegel) it is Man. If Man is God he should work out a world fit for him.”15 At later stages, Marx and Engels set out to settle accounts with Hegelians having rebelled against them and their rigid system.16 This closed system could not, Garaudy argues, hold out against scientific progress and political development. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels continued to regard what they had produced as rooted in Hegelian philosophy. In La Revolution Dimocratique Bourgeoise (The Bourgeois Democratic Revolution), Engels writes: “If it had not been for Hegel’s philosophy scientific socialism would not have existed.”17 He reiterated later in life: “We, German Socialists, are proud that our roots go back [543]


not only to Saint Simon, Fourier and Owen, but also to Kant, Fichte and Hegel.”18 Accepting for the sake of argument that Saπadeh’s philosophy is rooted in Hegelianism (although his roots in fact go further back to the Renaissance), we are at a loss to explain why our communists maintain that Marx outgrew Hegelianism while Saπadeh did not and failed to disengage himself from it. Here the Marxist-Leninists, on the basis of their own postulates, fell into the pit of dogmatism. They reiterated after Lenin that “Marx is the legitimate successor of the best that humanity has produced: German philosophy, British political economy and French socialism”.19 The fact that the imperialist-capitalist system is still alive signifies to the communists that whatever is not Marxist is backwards in terms of Marxism. Since Saπadeh was not Marxist, he is backwards in terms of Marxism, in view of the fact that his postulates conform to those of Hegel. These postulates may be summarized under three main headings. 1 2 3

Hegel’s hero corresponds to Saπadeh’s leadership. The supremacy of Reason corresponds to Saπadeh’s statement that “Reason is the essential and highest law”. Reconciliation of the mind and body corresponds to Saπadeh’s Al-Madrahiyyah (spiritual-materialist doctrine).

At this point, we must elaborate a little further. Leadership Some Marxists maintain that Antun Saπadeh’s concept of leadership is a fascist one because it involves absolute powers and total domination over its followers. They point to the magic halo with which it was surrounded and the myths that spun around it. It was a type of leadership corresponding to a Hegelian hero20 – a man with an iron will and an uncontested historical message to build a nation, a political movement and a new religion.21 Probably the most conclusive reply to these claims has been offered by Inπam Raad in his paper “A Comparison between Saπadeh’s Social Nationalism and European Doctrines”. Raad wrote: A leader under fascism is the Destiny of a nation. He is chosen in accordance with Hegelian Destiny, which endows him with personal [544]


qualities and confers infinite powers on him … Hence, in Nazi or Fascist society the fundamental law is not Reason but the leader’s intuition and inspiration. On this basis, a leader chooses his successor because his will amounts to the will of Destiny.22

He added: The social nationalist doctrine rejects the idea of individuals chosen by divine will or destiny. Saπadeh’s value lies in the fact that he is the founder and, as such, his leadership is justified. The founder creates institutions, not individual leaderships. There is thus a radical difference between the Nazi or Fascist concept of leadership and that of social nationalism. In social nationalism, the institution replaces the founder and authority is ultimately dependent on the will of the social nationalists.23

Looking back, Hegel had grieved to see his country fragmented by selfish interests. For this reason, he considered the absolute imperial regime a solution to the selfish and individualistic tendencies in his country. Similarly, Saπadeh’s leadership was dictated by his concern to end the selfish desires that caused havoc in his society. An interesting description of the problem of individual egoism in Syria can be found in Edward Saπab’s book, La Syrie ou la Revolution dans la Rancoeur: Quwwatli, on signing the union with Egypt, said to Abdul Nasser: “If you only know what burden you have relieved me from. You have freed me from a trés inyrot honour of being the president of a population of five million individuals who consider themselves as political geniuses, half of whom imagine themselves leaders, one quarter believe they are prophets and ten per cent are convinced that they are gods. You will be dealing with people who worship God, fire and the devil.”24

A brief glance around will show us how many there are who regard themselves as both the beginning and the end of things, and who speak interminably and indefatigably about their ego until they drive their listeners out of their wits. Undoubtedly, Saπadeh realized that a party carrying the diseases that are devastating society will inevitably fall to pieces. He saw from the outset that “individual egoism and authoritarianism are the most serious of these diseases and the toughest internal difficulty which we should [545]


overcome in order to be able to face the outside world as one strong entity with a united will”.25 Leadership, then, is necessary for a party still in the stage of forming within a corrupt society to when it can overturn it. It grinds away egoistic and individualistic tendencies, and paves the way for unity. In his letter to Hamid Franjiyah, when the latter offered to defend him in the first case against him in the mixed court during the Mandate in 1936 and asked him to put on paper the reasons for founding the party, Saπadeh described his leadership as follows: I organized the party in the first place on an individualistic, centralized and hierarchical basis and in the fashion that focuses on the quality of each recruit in order to prevent internal confusion, and to avoid all forms of factionalism, destructive competition, and other social and political ailments, as well as to foster the virtues of discipline and duty.26

Our comment in this respect is that Saπadeh’s determination to subdue egoist ambitions was not to establish his own individual authority. He had already identified the powers and prerogatives of his leadership with the party’s central institution. For instance, according to the party’s constitution, he was not entitled to draw an amount exceeding 50 liras without recourse to the administrative mechanism. Saπadeh clung to the leadership of the party, both its legislative and executive powers, because during his absence between 1939 and 1947, a clash arose within the party between advocates of social nationalism and those of liberalist tendencies among senior members.27 His powerful leadership enabled him to resolve this power struggle decisively and preserve the unity of the party. Thus, his powers served as a safeguard against political side-tracking. As Inπam Raad has pointed out, after Saπadeh the historical functions of leadership passed to the institutions of the party and not to another leader.28 The task of maintaining and leading the party then became the responsibility of these institutions. Now that it has matured after years of struggle and experimentation, during which major internal differences were resolved, the SSNP is taking steps to pass on this historical responsibility to the party’s rank and file. The difference is, accordingly, clear between what Hegel had advocated and what Saπadeh aimed at in founding the party, although both men had set out from a similar starting point. [546]


With regard to personality cult, Marxists maintain that, in the case of Saπadeh, it was not exercised impulsively by members of the party but that he established this practice among his followers by posing as a prophet, a guide, a teacher, a redeemer and a saviour of the nation and men, and by assuming powers placing him above suspicion and criticism – an absolute leader of the party and the nation. As a result of this the social nationalists acquired a strict discipline and cultivated a religious, loving and resigned faith in constitutional institutions and came to support them whether they were in the wrong or right. The party became an end in itself.29

Shweiry concluded that for a party to become an end in itself is the gravest fault that could arise from leadership and personality cult.30 Here, he ignored the fact that the party was still in the making and it was necessary for it at that stage to be an end in itself. The party is the agent of social change – transforming society from a condition of corruption and decline into a coherent society responding to calls of the “revival”. Some measure of personality cult is unavoidable in all movements for change.31 To criticize a personality cult may be acceptable from the liberal angle, but we are not dealing with this matter in this discussion. It may not be so from the point of view of the Marxist-Leninist. Although Marxist theory ostensibly ignores the individual, almost all Marxist-Leninist states, different as they are in many respects, have had one thing in common: a personality that commands total obedience and worship – Castro, Tito, Lenin, Stalin and Mao to mention just a few. Even non-Marxist movements have found symbols by which to preserve their unity: Napoleon and Abdul Nasser are two examples. All historians of contemporary Arab political thought agree that Antun Saπadeh is endowed with a unique and singular character distinguishing him from other contemporary political leaders.32 This does not mean that those who described him as “Syria’s new prophet” are right or that Saπadeh was an infallible leader. However, Saπadeh was aware that for a party to grapple with hard reality it must possess a sound and solid body in order to stay together, particularly in its formative stage. A single head would be a guarantee for the soundness of this body. These are circumstances that impel nations [547]


to accept some person as an embodiment of its unity. Did not the French communists, in their struggle against German occupation, accept the rightist Charles De Gaulle as an embodiment of France’s aspirations for liberation? Every revolutionary movement preserves its unity by exercising some sort of personality cult. Reason Saπadeh does not present a detailed exposition of his conception of Reason. However, a scholar may be able to deduce a philosophical attitude towards reason from his ideological writings. Saπadeh reiterated his aversion to metaphysics and all types of mystic or supernatural thought: “We are not the sort of people who administer the affairs of existence in metaphysical terms. We do not go beyond existence.”33 He added: We are, as I said, an active force in this universe. God created us and endowed us with intellectual powers. He gave us a mind by which we think, perceive, wish and act. This was not given us in vain. Reason did not exist in vain. It was not created to be limited or taken away. Reason exists to know, to comprehend, to discern, to perceive, to set up goals and to act in this existence. In our view there is absolutely nothing that can disable this power and this basic endowment of man. Reason is the highest and essential law. It is man’s loftiest gift. It is the power to discern in life. If rules are laid down to suspend discernment and perception, man ceases to be human and sinks to the rank of beasts divested of free will and moved without reason or consciousness.34

At first sight, these statements suggest that the roots of this attitude to reason are found in the rationalist current originating with Plato, through Thomas Aquinas, Descartes and Malbranche, up to Kant. But a closer scrutiny reveals otherwise. Nassif Nassar has demonstrated this in a study on Saπadeh’s discussion of existence, reason and will, in his book The Path of Philosophical Independence.35 He shows that Saπadeh holds an independent attitude towards reason and maintains that: Saπadeh is not a rationalist philosopher in the idealistic doctrinal sense of the term. His glorification of reason is the same as that of some ancient philosophers such as, Aristotle and Zeno, but with the zeal of the Muπatazila or some philosophers of Enlightenment. He appeals to the authority of reason in knowledge and behaviour, [548]


but gives preference to the principle of the activeness of life and what it involves by way of the characteristics of growth, rejuvenation, creativity and reason which light the way for the will and activeness of life.36

The Marxists maintain that the chief task of Hegel’s idea of the supremacy of reason was rationalization of the bourgeois system, which is a conservative function. Saπadeh, however, explained that his rationalism involves an endless fight against conservative and reactionary thought. To Saπadeh these are signs of decline in society. Rationalism, according to Saπadeh, is therefore revolutionary and radical.37 Reason in his view is not to be harnessed to resolve contradictions and vindicate the status quo, but to overthrow the present conditions and save the nation from the decay of its will to live. Al-Madrahiyyah (spiritual-materialism) The Marxists maintain that historical materialism turned Hegelianism upside down and overpassed it. In its interpretation of reality it starts with liberation from class society. The spiritual-materialist doctrine thus becomes, by necessity, a reversion from dialectical materialism and is, from the philosophical point of view, identifiable with the dictum that reads “the grand idea of the unity of matter and spirit”38 – a rightist thesis par excellence. Saπadeh said little about spiritual-materialism, but he considered his ideas could be extracted from the bulk of his writings. As a matter of fact, he did not have enough time for philosophical discussion. However, he asserted that spiritual-materialism, which advocates interaction between matter and spirit, is the basis of human evolution. The idea of interaction, particularly dual interaction, dominates Saπadeh’s entire writings. He regards “every phenomenon in a human society from the viewpoint of interaction, although the term dialectic is absent from his methodology”.39 Nassar describes Saπadeh’s methodology as “interactive dualism” although this notion does not express itself in clear philosophical terms. However, Saπadeh’s book Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations) is largely based on the idea of interaction between the superstructure and the group, between the material and psychological factors in a single society. This interaction, in Saπadeh’s view, is unifying in the battle for existence and evolution. Saπadeh employed various terms [549]


and expressions to describe interaction such as “positive” and “negative”, as when, for example, he says “The earth offers what is possible, not what is absolute and this means that the earth is positive.”40 Another example is when he says: “The earth is the positive side; as for the negative side, it is we.”41 This raises the question: does the concept of integrated or unifying interaction lead to Hegel’s Absolute Idea,42 which represents the ultimate reconciliation between matter and spirit? We can start from the following observation by Saπadeh, made in 1947: Al-Madrahiyyah consists of calling the nations to discard the doctrine which regards Spirit as the only motor of human progress, or Matter as the fundamental basis of human development; to give up once and for all the idea that the world is by necessity in a state of war in which spiritual forces are continuously fighting with material forces; and finally to admit with us that the basis of human development is spiritual-materialist and that superior humanity recognizes this basis and builds the edifice of the future on it. The world, which has come to realize, especially after the last world war [World War II], how destructive the partial philosophies and ideologies of capitalism, Marxism, fascism and national socialism have been, is today in need of a new social philosophy that can save it from the arbitrariness and error of these ideologies.43

The new philosophy which Syria and indeed the “whole world” needed, according to Saπadeh, is the philosophy of unifying interaction that brings the human forces back together. The fact that Saπadeh set the spiritual-materialist philosophy in juxtaposition to the two systems, the Marxist and Fascist, clearly signifies that his is a doctrine of social philosophy and that “unifying interaction” is an interaction between the material and spiritual elements on the social plane. The spiritualmaterialist doctrine is therefore neither a metaphysical nor an ontological philosophy. Like other political philosophers, Saπadeh was aware that those who call for the evolution of human society on a materialist basis do not ignore consciousness, belief and other psychological phenomena. He also comprehended that those who call for evolution of human society on a spiritual basis do not discount matter and the effectiveness of matter, as displayed in the means of production and other material phenomena.44 [550]


Although the spiritual-materialist philosophy is chiefly concerned with human society, some nationalists went so far as to reduce it to a dialogue between body and soul. Shawqi Khairallah wrote some interesting literary commentaries in Al-Nukhba al-Muπakissa (The Opposite Elite). In the course of the dialogue there are hints to the spiritual-materialist doctrine. Much as we appreciate the artistic and sublime style that flows from Khairallah’s pen, it must be stated that what he wrote is totally irrelevant to Saπadeh’s doctrine of spiritual-materialism. A more sombre discussion of spiritual-materialism can be found in Mounir Khoury’s article “Al-Thwarah al-Ijtimaπiyahh fi al-Aπlam al-Arabi” (The Social Revolution in the Arab World).45 He sets the doctrine of spiritual-materialism in a social framework, saying that “A revolution should be that of substance and appearance … a spiritual revolution and a material revolution”.46 He maintains that one essential condition for the success of revolution is to achieve balance between the two phenomena, the material and the spiritual, on the social plane: “Giving equal expression to the two facets of a revolution – substance and appearance, spirit and matter – is a condition for sustaining its effectiveness.”47 The significance of Khoury’s argument lies in the fact that he links Al-Madrahiyyah with social action. He does not give it any metaphysical dimension. He follows in Saπadeh’s footsteps when he says: In launching into this discussion and advocating the dualism of revolution we do not mean the philosophical school which advocates dualism of universe and life. We do not intend to plunge into a controversy about metaphysical philosophies, materialist or spiritualist. All that we wish to affirm is that there is almost a consensus of opinion on the importance of continual interaction between the material and spiritual phenomena.48

Another writer worth considering here is Labib Zuwiyya Yamak, who was a senior official in the SSNP in the late 1940s. He wrote: The spiritual-materialist doctrine represents a lucid view of life, art and the universe … It is a view that regards existence as a state of sublimation and that the foundation on which existence rests is the all-integrating and distinctive dual elements, matter and spirit. These elements, if taken individually, can be considered a separate entity and expressed in absolute terms, but if we speak about existence per se, these two elements are in reality a single one.49 [551]


This kind of vague language and ambiguity have characterized the writings of many Syrian nationalist writers who “excelled” after Saπadeh’s death. What Yamak wanted to prove is that the spiritual-materialist doctrine deals with the question of existence and is, consequently, an ontological philosophy. Elsewhere in his article he claimed: “The spiritual-materialist doctrine is not only a theory of knowledge, but also a metaphysical theory with its own postulates.”50 It is noteworthy that Yamak, after he turned against social nationalism, maintained his argument that spiritual-materialism is an ontological and metaphysical philosophy. He argued that although Saπadeh did not intend to formulate a new metaphysics or to develop a philosophical system, his social philosophy, “like all similar totalitarian systems, could not avoid sooner or later facing the issue of human freedom. Its claim that it is only interested in human social problems and not in metaphysical questions, such as the existence of God or the immortality of the soul, and that it is not against any religious belief, is clearly baseless.”51 In Yamak’s opinion, Saπadeh formulated a new philosophy on human existence in all its dimensions. This is not true because spiritualmaterialism is restricted to man’s social role. A more accurate description is that of Nassif Nassar: Saπadeh’s spiritual-materialism, he wrote, established the idea of interaction in the relationship between the spirit and matter in the context of social life. Saπadeh did not put forward the spiritual-materialist concept as a solution to the problems raised by the dualism of spiritual substance and material substance in medieval and some modern philosophies. Nor did he introduce this doctrine as a reply to monism, which reduces the whole universe to matter and its forms or to mind and its forms. He was not a metaphysical philosopher.52

The spiritual-materialist doctrine as a social reality Every human society consists of two elements: material and spiritual. Undoubtedly, the credit goes to Marx in making this clear. He considers that society is formed of a material substratum from which springs the spiritual structure, which he calls “superstructure”. According to Marx, society develops through a certain dialectic in which the material basis is the active element. This materialist foundation is based on the existing relationship between the productive forces and the means of production. Contradictions in the superstructures reflect social or [552]


material contradictions. A change in the material substratum necessarily entails, though with some delay, a change in the superstructure or spiritual level. For this reason, Marxism concentrates its revolutionary effort on this material foundation in order to liberate the productive forces that make life and make history. Once these forces are liberated, man’s freedom is achieved materially and spiritually.53 Marxism was an immensely fertile theory that enriched historical and social research and political action in a manner unprecedented in the history of human thought.54 Nevertheless, on closer scrutiny of Marxism and the Marxist heritage, it will be found that dialectic materialism is, in many respects, unbalanced and confused. Based on his assumption that it is the material substratum which produces the superstructure, Marx writes: “It is not consciousness that determines life, but life determines consciousness.”55 He adds that “morality, religion, metaphysics and other forms of consciousness have no independent existence, or autonomy, for they have no history or [independent] evolution”.56 However, Marx and Engels later retract these assertions. In a letter dated 21 September 1880, Engels wrote: “We, Marx and I, are personally responsible in part for the undue weight given by some of our young men to the economic (material) elements.”57 Marx also corrected the fallacy to which he had fallen victim in his youth that the superstructure is by its nature devoid of autonomy. He later wrote: “The difficulty lies not only in understanding how Greek art and Greek epic are related to forms of social (material) advancement, but also in our failure to understand how this art still gives us aesthetic pleasure and embodies in our view the value of inexorable laws and ideals.”58 This indicates that the relationship between the material substratum and psychological superstructure is not as clear-cut as many Marxists in Syria imagine. In line with this tendency to mitigate Marxist materialism, Lukács, an important theorist of Marxism, stated: “What distinguishes Marxism sharply from bourgeois science is not the dominance of economic causes in the interpretation of history but the postulate of universality.”59 In other words, Marx, according to Lukács, did not advocate spiritualmaterialism. We may also quote the words of a philosopher of the French Communist Party, Pierre Fougeyrollas, after leaving the party following the Hungarian Revolution and tragedy in 1956: “The danger of Marxist theory lies in its postulate that superstructures, save for a few exceptions, always spring from a temporary equilibrium in the forces serving the [553]


substratum which engender the superstructures.”60 It also means that if we were to give precedence to matter (which involves ontological and metaphysical dimensions), we must acknowledge that the spirit which originates from matter breaks away from the matter and leads a life independent of, and equal to, matter. Saπadeh’s spiritual-materialist doctrine as scientific method In his study of the rise of nations Saπadeh came to perceive human society as spiritual-materialist in nature and therefore based his methodology on this conception. In the first five chapters of his book The Rise of Nations he deals with the origins and general outlines of human evolution and progress in their material culture which was the result of the interaction between man and nature. He shows how spiritual culture went hand in hand with material culture after it had sprung from the latter. At the beginning of the sixth chapter he says: “We have so far traced the material basis and conditions of human society and in this chapter we shall tackle the spiritual structure of this society.”61 Saπadeh maintained that if pressure is exerted on a society so that it is prevented from achieving economic progress, it is at the same time necessarily denied cultural growth. When spiritual culture ceases to keep pace with material culture, society ceases to achieve absolute evolution – that is, spiritual-materialist evolution. This is exemplified in nomadic society which does not undergo proper development and hence its economic level remains primitive. Its spiritual life also lags behind as “the conditions of this society or community remain necessarily subordinate to their economic conditions”.62 This situation is attributable to the desert environment, but once the inhabitants relinquish this environment they can give expression to their capabilities and talents. We may cite as an example the case of the Arabs when they abandoned the desert for the Fertile Crescent.63 However, Saπadeh also noted that the question of total evolution is not confined to nomadic societies. Modern systems suffering from an imbalance between the material and spiritual forces also face obstacles that render human development and freedom almost impossible. In Saπadeh’s opinion, the capitalist system generates social and economic problems that translate into instability and serious disturbances, eventually induce the intellectuals to formulate an alternative system to resolve these problems and provide a new groundwork for development in both [554]


its spiritual and material aspects. In the same vein, Saπadeh believed that Marxian materialism, which called for the unity of the proletariat all over the world on common material grounds, had given rise to an international form of socialism concentrated around the former Soviet Union. This created problems of international rights. All over the world, communist parties came to regard their historical missions as merely to help the Soviet Union (the first socialist state) succeed even if it entailed placing the interests of the USSR above all other considerations, including domestic duties. In Saπadeh’s view, all that the Soviet Union did was create an international imperialist system of a new form.64 As for Fascism and Nazism, which gave emphasis to spiritual forces in their interpretation of human development, Saπadeh considered them just as imperialists in the light of their attempt to dominate only the nations they had deemed as vital for their own capitalist economies.65 An important question arises here: did Saπadeh follow a spiritualmaterialist method in his evaluation of these systems? In Saπadeh’s view: “Only man among all living species succeeded in establishing an interactive relationship with nature, particularly with his environment.”66 The basic purpose of this interaction is survival and progress. What distinguishes human life from other forms of life is its spiritual dimension, which renders every society an entity of spiritual and material structures. The spirit of society consists of the relationships which determine the dynamism of the society and the manner in which economic cooperation, regulations, laws and beliefs are organized. Every society has its own psychological structure that reveals its needs, tendencies, aspirations and potential. The material side of society consists of economic relationships which reflect man’s needs directly or indirectly through work. “Economic relationship is the first relationship in the life of man. It is the material foundation on which he builds the structure of his development. We cannot imagine a society based on other relationships than those of economic cooperation to satisfy its needs.”67 However, certain social phenomena cannot be ascribed to economic causes. Economic factors cannot be motives for love, marriage, care for children or love of music. Nonetheless, “once a marriage contract has been signed the economic factor enters into it as a basic element for its strength and continuity. Even the love of music as a social phenomenon remains sterile or crude in the absence of an economic foundation. Life cannot in practice be [555]


separated from its basic elements.”68 In the final analysis, the social structure depends on the system adopted by the community. Saπadeh shares with Marx the view that society is a material-spiritualist totality, but they differ on the following scores: First, Saπadeh does not see the psychological structure as a mere reflection of the socio-economic basis alone, important as it is. He believes that disparities among societies in their psychological make-up are, in addition to the material factor, part of the characteristics of the collective psychology – that is, of the racial mixture and its interaction with nature through history. The psychological make-up from Saπadeh’s angle is thus more complicated than from Marx’s angle, which means that spiritualism plays a more significant role in Saπadeh’s thought. Nevertheless, Saπadeh is careful not to fall into the trap of chauvinism or intellectual isolation. He considers that, although the psychological characteristics of nations vary for racial, environmental or historical reasons, natural sciences prove that men are basically equal.69 The passions of hate, love, kindness, cruelty, joy, sorrow and the motives for amusement, meditation, pleasure, thinking, ambition, contentment, and all that these passions generate, which words cannot describe – all these manifest themselves in the same way among all peoples east or west and they only differ in the degree to which minds are receptive or apathetic. Saπadeh did not view this apathy or decline as permanent qualities. Otherwise he would not have devoted his life to struggle faithfully in the potential of “awakening” a nation suffering from a prolonged decline.70 Second, Marxism considers the material substratum as a foundation and every overall change as depending on a material change that must precede the spiritual change. Saπadeh, on the other hand, maintains that human development and social progress depend on a balanced interaction between matter and spirit. Should some factors upset this interaction, society will fail to develop.71 Besides nature, which may impede the process of interaction, as in the case of a desert environment, colonization or imperialism, for example, may also oppress subjugated nations and impoverish them materially and spiritually in order to arrest their growth. Similarly, capitalist class systems, fascism, socialist bureaucracy and all such systems act to upset spiritualmaterialist interaction by giving priority to matter over spirit, or vice versa, in favour of the class which has control over capital or decision-making, or both. This is the basis of our statement that Saπadeh [556]


had opted for a spiritual-materialist approach in his condemnation of modern systems. Strategic principles for socio-political action Saπadeh and Marx agree that the liberation of man, in his totality as a material and spiritual being, is only possible when all men or society have been liberated. However, they differ in the nature of the liberation process. Marxism holds that revolutionary effort should be concentrated on the material structure which is the foundation. The spiritual-materialist doctrine, on the other hand, revolutionizes both structures – the material and spiritual – simultaneously on the grounds that the basis of human evolution is both material and spiritual.72 According to Marxism spiritual impurities or imbalances are bound to wither on correcting material relations by abolishing ownership of the means of production and introducing collective management of the production process as a first stage.73 This would be followed by abolishing private property so that the state would, as a result, wither away. The disappearance of the state is an essential and necessary condition for the ultimate elimination of man’s exploitation of man. This signifies that Marxism deliberately discounts the importance of the spiritual action in its relationship with material action. Social nationalism agrees with Marxism on the question of revolutionizing the material structure, but it departs from the latter in its basic understanding of materialism generally. Social nationalism sees materialism as an economic bond on the socio-economic plane in its horizontal and vertical dimensions. This means that it embraces the Marxist concept of material or vertical relations between the producer and the owner of the means of production. However, social nationalism in proceeding from the concept of “nation” gives a more comprehensive meaning to materialism than that provided by social materialism. The nation, as a spiritual-materialist concept, embraces a dual material element, the land and the community, and a spiritual element, nationalism, which, according to Saπadeh, is the spirit of the nation. Thus, in addition to the economic element, social nationalism includes the land and the community. Therefore, strategically, nationalism starts from the notion that economic development is necessary (to which everybody agrees), as is action to change the socio-economic relationships by abolishing feudalism and capitalism. It thus engages in a deadly [557]


struggle to regain the land and unify the community. This is on the material plane.74 On the spiritual plane, social nationalism endeavours to establish a sense of national affiliation and, in working towards this end, finds itself in stark confrontation with sectarianism, tribalism, regionalism, entitism and other impurities in the psychological structure, which act to obliterate nationalist consciousness.75 Thus, it can be seen that the spiritual-materialist approach in socio-political action unites materialism and spiritualism not only in society but also in the nation. It was remarked that Saπadeh was more explicit in his implacable antagonism to feudalism than to capitalism. This is true, for he went so far as to declare his intention to carry out agrarian reform if his party assumed power. He was, in fact, the first to take this direction. In his eighth lecture (of ten) he said: On these feudal estates there are often hundreds or thousands of peasants living in a deplorable state of servitude. Their conditions are not only inhuman but also incompatible with state (national) security in that a large segment of the working population is kept in an oppressed state. This produces grave consequences for the safety of the national wealth and gross mismanagement on a large-scale. The SSNP cannot remain silent about such a state of affairs.76

The prevailing system of production throughout Syria in Saπadeh’s time was largely feudal. His war against feudalism did not originate, as some Marxists thought, from his standpoint as a petit bourgeois whose personal development was hampered by the feudal system. Despite the fact that capitalism at that time was only in an embryonic stage, he did not spare it from attack.77 However, the party leadership that immediately succeeded Saπadeh failed to grasp the social changes and consequently understood social nationalism in such a confused manner that it grossly impaired the progress of the party. Spiritual-materialism as an applied analytical approach In an attempt to assess the extent to which dialectical materialism and spiritual-materialism have understood actual realities, we must choose examples from international and local systems and then compare how the two theories address the issues. The examples chosen are Nazism, the Soviet Union and nationalism in Syria. [558]


Nazism The Nazi Party was formed with workers, peasants and the petite bourgeoisie. The party was therefore a people’s party in the true sense.78 Nevertheless, neither its programme nor its popular structure prevented its becoming a tool serving German capital, particularly the heavy industry. The party was indeed a tool in the hands of German capitalism in its attempt to dominate Europe and the world. However, in 1943, after the Battle of Stalingrad, it was clear to everybody that Germany was inevitably heading towards defeat. It then became in the interest of the governing capitalist class in Berlin to stop the war and protect German industries from devastation. This was clearly shown in Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s memoirs.79 Nevertheless, German leadership continued the war until the disastrous end. This shows that dogma (a superstructure) which serves the interests of capital (the material substratum), according to Marxists, turned against capital, used it for its own purposes, and drove it to disaster. Spiritualism, therefore, became the active element at the expense of materialism – a matter Marxism could not comprehend. The superstructure no longer had a “relative autonomy” in relation to the material substratum but dominated that substratum absolutely. The Marxist dictum that dogma is, in the final analysis, subservient to a specific class, is contradicted by the facts. In contrast, spiritual-materialism acknowledges the possibility of the spirit exercising an absolute dominance over matter, and believes that an imbalance between materialism and spiritualism may lead in one or another direction.80 The Soviet Union What happened in the now defunct Soviet Union may be regarded as conclusive evidence that the spiritual structure does not necessarily change automatically with the change in the material structure. The Soviet Union made tremendous economic achievements. It introduced social security measures such as medical, old age and other benefits. It witnessed unlimited democratic education and a revolution in production relationships. In other words, the material substratum of the Soviet society was utterly transformed. Yet all this was not accompanied by a radical change in forms of consciousness – that is, forms of superstructure, particularly political consciousness.81 The Soviet leadership at the time acknowledged implicitly that political consciousness did not mature enough to allow workers and [559]


other groups engaged in production to participate in government. Workers in the Soviet Union were, for example, surprised at a change in power as much as the rest of the world was. This meant that the workers had no direct political influence under the Soviet system. The material substratum in the Soviet Union underwent a transformation, though within the spiritual mould of Tsarist Russia. The material transformation could not break this mould to replace it with the new spiritualism that should have been fostered by the material substratum, according to the materialist theory. Stalinism was condemned as responsible for this deviation from Marxism, whereas Stalinism, in so far as concentration of effort on the material substratum was concerned, was nothing more than Marxism in application. It is noteworthy that Stalinism created a political system that was closer to Hegel’s than Marx’s notion. The elements of the Soviet system consisted of the emperor (Stalin), the administrative bureaucracy (the party) and the common people. This political composition was described by Hegel in his book the Philosophy of Right,82 while the collective and democratic interpretation of production never materialized in the form envisaged by scientific socialism. In any case, many years passed after Stalinism was denounced in the Soviet Union, but no political democracy was ever created. We may state, by way of reply, that the age of retirement in the Soviet Union was 60, which meant that all members of the productive force had known no system but socialism and yet were deprived of any share in government or collective management in the production process. It must be acknowledged, however, that the level of material progress made by workers in the Soviet Union was unequalled by others in the world in comparison with the conditions from which they started. Nationalism in Syria Marxists and social nationalists are in agreement that sectarianism83 is a blemish on an individual’s psychological structure that hampers the growth of citizens.84 The Marxists in Syria generally view religion, and consequently sectarianism, as an illustration of man’s alienation and estrangement, and a cover for dominating certain classes. Sectarianism, as a superstructure, has its roots in economic conditions where feudalism and capitalism hold their sway and which will continue until its material roots have been plucked. Sectarian conflict is seen by some as merely a cover for class contradictions between exploiters and the crushed social [560]


classes. Therefore, the only way to eliminate sectarianism is to wage a social struggle aiming directly at the material roots of sectarianism and uniting the working masses in building a new progressive society.85 Against this analysis, we may recall Engels’ criticism that some youth give undue weight to the economic situation. The history of the region during the past two centuries reveals to a great extent that sectarianism as a superstructure has not relative, but absolute, independence of the material substratum, even if we grant that it had originally risen from that basis in the past. This is to be gathered from the fact that the change of the system of production from feudal to feudal-bourgeois, and later to petit bourgeois, as is the case in some countries, according to Marxists, did not affect sectarianism as a reactionary spiritual factor. Another group of Marxists – namely, the Lebanon Socialist Group – are of the opinion that “sectarianism actually enjoys an absolute autonomy in relation to the material substratum because it can place any political dispute on the whetstone of civil war and strangle it by abolishing its actual political nature”.86 Therefore, if sectarianism is an independent spiritual entity, it will not suffice to tackle it at the root – that is, at the material substratum – for it will remain highly effectual spiritually at other levels of society.87 In keeping with the spiritual-materialist approach, Saπadeh stepped forward to address sectarianism under another spiritual structure – nationalism. Apart from its obvious social content, nationalism can thwart various spiritual structures such as the tribal, the familial, the sectarian and so on, by anchoring national consciousness on a societal basis. In recent years, though, communists have admitted that nationalism is no longer a form of affiliation that epitomizes human alienation and estrangement, but has become, in their view, a necessary revolutionary postulate.88 Communists and the national question To conclude the first part of this study, I will discuss the relationship between communists and nationalism in Syria, particularly now that the Lebanese Communist Party, reputed for being among some of the extreme internationalist organizations, has, on various occasions, taken bold stances on nationalist issues.89 Lenin taught Marxists that imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism and that confronting it was an inevitable part of the revolutionary [561]


strategy.90 But the communists were late in discovering that a struggle in this direction should primarily take a nationalist form. It is only recently that they have been bold enough to adopt nationalism as a revolutionary postulate – something which Saπadeh did as early as the 1930s. However, the Lebanese Communist Party did not undertake any original scientific studies concerning nationalism and the nation. It spoke of nationalism in a casual manner. The reason for this, in our view, lay in its belief that nationalism was a mass phenomenon. Those who profess a scientific attitude should take a scientific and realistic view of nationalism rather than a religious or casual one. Most advocates of Arab nationalism – progressives, reactionaries, evolutionists and traditionalists alike – exhibit a strangely mercurial ideological attitude. They oscillate between claims for a separate entity and Arab nationalism. If this “tactical” oscillation is used by the ruling classes to serve their ends, it does grave harm to the revolutionary movements, because it contradicts everything they stand for. This vacillation is one of the factors that lead revolutionary movements into incurable dilemmas.91 The best illustration of this is the present plight of the Palestinian resistance.92 A senior official in the SSNP, Hassan Kamel, said once: “In the thick of fighting we alone know scientifically, and convincingly, the nationalist nature of our people.” The communists, late as they were in adopting nationalism as a revolutionary postulate, should not also be late in discovering the nationalist nature. The communists are now called on to study Saπadeh without preconceived ideas, by discarding the terms formulated by Europeans to describe their own situation. If used by us in imitation of them, such terms would betray an intellectual arrogance alien to the spirit of a true scientific attitude. It is at this point that ideological dialogue acquires certain significance. On the other hand, I am certainly not seeking a compromise between Saπadeh and Marx, and I am not trying to subsume one under the other. I consider that to extract some nationalist concepts from Marxism or Marxist-Leninism, or, conversely, to extract some class concepts from Saπadeh’s thought, or from nationalist thought in general and then bind them in marriage, is a kind of theoretical adventurism. The reader may now be asking: Marx or Saπadeh? Whose is the future? This is particularly significant, as I have taken Saπadeh as the starting point for my scientific, social and political discussion. The future is contingent on several factors. [562]


The question whether the future is for Marx or Saπadeh implies that one of them is the end limit of human thought, and this is something both, as two indubitably great thinkers, would reject. Those who take Saπadeh as their starting point know that “the human mind has not existed in vain. It is not there to be fettered and paralysed, but to know, to comprehend, to discern, to perceive. Mind is the highest law … ” For social nationalists Saπadeh is the beginning, not the end.93 I do not intend, then, to criticize Marxism as an independent school, from the inside or outside. However, observers cannot hold their silence before those who dealt with the intellectual principles of Antun Saπadeh’s doctrine, particularly if they take their stand from positions they claim as Marxist in the first place. Before commencing the main discussion I should cite the communist Emil Touma. His thesis was published by Dar-al-Haqiqa in a book comprising a few lectures on the nation, the nationalist issue, Arab unity and Marxism.94 In this book, Touma reviewed the history of nationalism in the Arab countries. He expressed the belief that social nationalist thought is “a nationalist Phoenician doctrine throughout Syria. The [SSNP] ideology is based on an attitude that Syria is an independent society, that the Syrians are unrelated to the Arabs and that the idea of Arab nationalism is absurd.”95 On the next page he goes on to claim that “the organized Muslim current coordinated with that of the Syrian nationalist.”96 Such false accusations and inconsistencies were dictated to that writer by a certain political attitude. As a politician he should have stopped at politics rather than wade into doctrinal principles. He tried to underestimate Saπadeh’s role in the nationalist movement and dismiss it as unimportant. He deliberately ignored the fact that Saπadeh played a prominent part in it, that he was a dynamic leader, and a man of principle and nationalist thought. These qualities led Kamal Jumblatt to describe him as “a person dedicated to his cause and the founder of a large intellectual school. He was also a figure who sparked off a rarely paralleled revival (nahda) in all areas of the East.”97 Furthermore, Saπadeh never faltered in his beliefs, nor did his faith in the justice of his cause ever shake, and when the time came he died for his cause. He set a rare example for all those who offer themselves liberally on the altar of the national cause.98

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Saπadeh and the petite bourgeoisie Is nationalist thought petit bourgeois? The Marxist thinker Youssef Shweiry believes that “political parties are, in the final analysis, an expression of socio-political interest. They belong to the superstructure by reason of their representing an ideological line, an organizational relationship and grass-root interests. A political party is necessarily a class party. From this perspective, the SSNP represents rural, narrow-minded sectors of the petite bourgeoisie, which are backward in their political and culture consciousness, and includes some semi-educated segments in urban communities.”99 Granted that every political party is a class party, why then should the SSNP represent the petite bourgeoisie? What is this petite bourgeoisie and how did it originate? What mode of production gave birth to it? A Marxist axiom is that classes are linked to modes of production and that they grow and decline with these modes. What, then, is the history of the modes of production in the Arab world and have they reached the stage of petite bourgeoisie? It is, of course, a habit among Marxists to describe any manner of thought which they wish to belittle as “petit bourgeois” without taking the trouble to search into the material structure from which such thought stems. We therefore often find hasty and summary judgements with no scientific bases. Shweiry, for example, finds that “petit bourgeois” thought eventually ends up in a movement representing higher capitalists and businessmen; hence, “the Social Nationalist Party represents the petite bourgeoisie in their attempt to build a capitalist national economy”.100 He neither tells us what this class is, nor does he explain, and also cannot explain, the process by which the party expresses the interests of this class. Shweiry is incorrect in affirming that other Arab nationalist movements “within the framework of their petit bourgeois outlook such as Nasserites, swept away the last bands of the Social Nationalist Party”.101 In discussing the internal crisis which shook the SSNP in 1973, he says that the party split into three different groups according to their political consciousness as a result of their social origins … The third group, the more deeply conscious and the more progressive by reason of its poor social stock, … had started on a path leading to its divorce from the party, both as a doctrine and as an organization, and advocated [564]


Marxist-Leninism as a course of action and democratic centralism as an indeed progressive form of organization.102

While the writer fails to present any statistics to support his argument, he also cannot convince anybody that the division among the three groups was associated with the social status of the individual members of the party. He thinks he is giving a practical explanation of this division in linking it with social origins which he believes are the basis for determining political stances. If he thought that he was being faithful to the Marxist approach, in this respect he was wrong. On the other hand, despite the fact that he never ceases to remind us of his affiliation to Marxist-Leninism, he is unashamed of tying consciousness and progressiveness to poor social origins. In using this as his starting point for an analysis of Saπadeh’s thought, he is more unjust to Marxism than to social nationalism. The problem of rich and poor is as old as mankind and does not constitute a basis for Marxist theory. Marxism only deals with it as a relative manifestation of productive relations. From this angle, Shweiry, in his sympathy with the poor, is closer to Robin Hood than to Marx. Shweiry does not seem to be the only one to classify society into poor and rich people – the progressive poor, and the reactionary rich. Salah Mukhtar, author of Some Ideological Issues of the Petit Bourgeoisie,103 who introduces himself as a Marxist-Leninst writer calling for Arab nationalism, agrees with Shweiry in associating progress with poor social origins. He considers that the lower strata of the petite bourgeoisie can be in a position to commit itself to the ideology of the proletariat once they manage to rid themselves of the essence of petit bourgeois ideology … If they achieve this, it would be a revolutionary break-away leading them to gradual integration with the two toiling classes. This was exactly what happened to the Arab communist parties and finally to the Arab Baπath Socialist Party. In evaluating this stratum one should not regard it as a “petit”, or small, group as long as it is committed to working class ideology and integrated with workers and peasant. However, it is still subject to criticism and its behaviour and stances observed lest they be influenced by their past history as a middle class.104

He then tries elsewhere to show that “the higher strata of the petite bourgeoisie, which are in contact with the middle and higher levels of [565]


the bourgeoisie, remain in a state of vacillation for a while until they settle into an alliance with the bourgeoisie and feudalism and sink into criminal Fascism”.105 Mukhtar distinguishes himself from Shweiry in that he is bold enough to discuss the middle classes, though he does this badly. However, he agrees with Shweiry that progress and revolution are contingent on a specific social condition – poverty. If the petite bourgeoisie are, according to the Marxist point of view, those social categories sandwiched between workers and peasants on the one hand, and the bourgeoisie on the other, therefore, for the lower strata of the bourgeoisie to become revolutionary, they must decline economically to ally themselves with the lower classes. It follows from this argument that should Shweiry and Mukhtar be required to work out a revolutionary strategy, they would exert diligent effort to impoverish the majority of the population in order to lead them into a state of progressive revolutionary consciousness. It may be interesting to follow Mukhtar’s arguments further. He finds that all nationalist formal groups have disappeared. As for his group, “it is being fed by an unfailing stream from the vast masses”.106 This is because the writer, just like Shweiry, boasts that he is a scientific socialist. It is indeed astonishing that a writer should, before embarking on a discussion, claim that he has assumed a certain approach – but then is unable to uphold it, asserting at every turn of his discussion that he is Marxist-Leninist. As a matter of fact, all Marxists without exception consider Marxism as a science like any other science. But not all those who claim they are a physicist or a geographer must necessarily be a scientist in these disciplines. Similarly, not everyone who claims they are Marxist can follow the historical materialist approach. Mukhtar regards himself as a Marxist theorist addressing petit bourgeois issues to defend this class or, rather, its lower strata. He introduces his discussion with a description of the characteristics of the Arab East by stating that “most important of the characteristics is that Arab social classes are, to start with, in an embryonic stage”.107 He takes this as his starting point. It may be acceptable from the Marxist point of view to talk about the working class or industrialist capitalist class as embryonic. But to consider social classes in the Arab countries as in the early stages of genesis evidently betrays ignorance of the ABC of Marxism. It may be useful at this juncture to remind him that the Communist Manifesto begins with the statement that “the history of all hitherto existing society is the [566]


history of class struggles”.108 The first sentence of chapter 1 of the Manifesto was later corrected by Engels to read that class struggle began with man since the beginning of written history. Social classes, according to Engels, did not come into existence until after the emergence of production accumulation – that is, the period of agricultural production and man’s shift from a savage state of living by hunting or gathering to that of settlement and production.109 Therefore, if Mukhtar notes that societies in the Arab world are in a state of genesis, why then does he stick to his Marxism and boast of it? To accept this view is to relegate Arab society to a pre-historic stage. Mukhtar and Shweiry agree in principle in basing ready-made theories on a reality they do not take the trouble to study. While the scientific method begins with observation of the real world as it is and then proceed to explain it, both of them turn this method upside down by sorting out classes before studying modes of production and classifying social categories without searching into their material substrata. A concept imported from the West, “petite bourgeoisie” thus becomes a concept which conveniently accommodates any “heretical” political thought. If Shweiry and Mukhtar, in their half treatment of the case of the petite bourgeoisie, are failures from the Marxist point of view (their failure will reveal itself more pronouncedly in the course of this discussion), others have treated this question from the Marxist angle in a more serious vein. Probably the most profound study on this topic is that of the Egyptian writer Michel Kamel published in French under the title La Rôle Politique et ideologique de la petite bourgeiousie dans la Monde Arab.110 The writer regards every national movement in the Arab world as politically petit bourgeois.111 He later proceeds with an analysis of the experiences of the organizations of the Arab Baπath Socialist Party112 and Nasserism in their sundry forms from Nasser, through Ali Sabri, to Sadat.113 As he considers that this class assumes power in Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Syria and Iraq, he attempts to work out a common denominator for these regimes from the socio-political viewpoint, concluding that it is the presence of the petite bourgeoisie. Michel Kamel put considerable effort into his work (which is definitely better than that of both Shweiry and Mukhtar). After enumeration of the social groups that constitute the petite bourgeoisie, he tackles legislation enacted by the ruling elites in the above countries, and deduces features of the political and ideological role of the ruling [567]


parties. There will be more about this study in later sections. However, it must be said that there is still a problem in associating nationalist thought with the petite bourgeoisie. There is no basis for talking about nationalism and petite bourgeoisie as if they are organically linked. Kamel differs from Shweiry and Mukhtar in that he proceeded from personal experiences and could analyse in the light of his method, while the two others produced nothing in support of their judgements. Shweiry in particular is prone to arbitrary judgements and continues to “soar” above realities so as later to pronounce aggressive judgements dictated by preconceived attitudes. He says: The question is not whether or not to acknowledge class struggle and its background ideas. It is not important that Saπadeh should attack capitalism and claim representation of the interests of the workers, peasants, the unclothed, the barefooted, the crushed, the castaways, the oppressed and the tattered. The question in consideration is that Saπadeh, in his petit bourgeois nationalist ideology, did not adopt the idea of class struggle and did not understand the nature of contradictions in society and how private property is the essence of exploitation.114

We may now ask what are the classes meant to emerge in historical struggles in the Arab world? What is this petite bourgeoisie from which sprang the nationalist doctrine? Do social classes in the Arab countries correspond to those which Marx analysed in the West? Are Arab social classes an extension of European classes?115 The historical materialist method seems committed beforehand to ascribe all spiritual phenomena (or “superstructure” in Marxist terminology), including ideologies, to social classes as an expression of, or tools for, their interests. This approach developed gradually with some thinkers into a mechanism shoving everything that does not lend itself to quick classification (proletarian-capitalist) into an enormous compartment labelled “petite bourgeoisie” until this compartment overflowed with a mixture of conflicting thoughts having one quality in common: they are not Marxist. Faced with this theoretical confusion about the class question, I thought it appropriate to begin from the beginning – in other words, with Marx’s theory of social class.

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Marx’s social class theory Marx did not advance a clear-cut definition of social class, although he used this term widely in all that he wrote or advocated. At first sight this may seem a strange omission by a thinker who regarded man’s history from the oldest times to this day as one of class struggle.116 Yet it is possible to deduce his concept of class from his theory of historical materialism. It can be gathered from the bulk of Marx’s writings that classes are groups of people brought together on the basis of producing material good. In other words, a social class finds its basis in the mode of production, and it is defined by its relationship to the production process. On reaching a certain stage of development this process produces a schism in social existence. The first such schism was an outcome of the agricultural production mode when united and conflicting classes came into being. As for the privileged social class, it comprises the producers and owners of the means of production. Classes, then, are not a question of institutions, of poor and rich, or of an agglomeration of individuals joined by a common interest. A class is a historical and social reality emanating from production relations which engender struggles among its individuals. According to Marx, classes had not always existed. Classes only exist when the material conditions necessary for their existence began to form. A class does not emerge simply because one day a group of people decide to exploit another group of people. In order for classes to exist, a surplus product must be produced. In order for a surplus product to be produced, the forces of production must have developed to a certain extent. For Marx, class struggle (or class conflict – the two terms have a similar meaning) is conceived as the driving force behind history. Marx famously writes in the Communist Manifesto: The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guildmaster and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden now open fight, a fight that each time ended either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large or in the common ruin of the contending classes.117

Each epoch of history was, for Marx, characterized by the existence of two main classes. But history also shows that between these classes [569]


certain groups had existed that do not strictly fit the Marxist definition of class.118 These groups are either remnants of the passing epoch or a product of the new mode of production. In modern society, for example, we find leftovers from the feudal epoch like landlords and peasants, who are clearly different from the capitalists and workers, side by side with the accountants, cadres and book-keepers who are products of the new system. Because Marx determined class by its relationship to the means of production, which is a variable, he never defined class in a definitive manner. His disciples took up the problem after his death. The need for a formal definition of “class” was deemed imperative in order to protect the October Revolution and provide a solid intellectual basis for revolutionary Marxist movements elsewhere. One such definition is that of Nikolai Bukharin: “A social class is the aggregate of persons playing the same part in production, standing in the same relation towards other persons in the production process, these relations being also expressed in things [instruments of labour].”119 As faithful as he was to Marxist tradition, this definition of Bukharin is inadequate not only because it depends on the production process, but also because it does not define this process in any clear terms. Lenin, who preceded Bukharin, was more systematic in that he incorporated the concept of ownership in his definition. It is ownership, then, that differentiates one class from another, but it does not define the nature of class. For the classes which had ownership over the means of production through history have not always been the same; nor have the classes that were at the other end of the scale. For the sake of clarity, we can say that neither the peasants under feudalism nor the proletariat under capitalism had ownership over the means of production, but this does not mean, from a Marxist perspective, that the peasants and the capitalists form one class simply because they share this common feature. For Marx there were a number of factors which he believed would lead to the potential revolutionary overthrow of capitalism and the capitalist class. These factors were called contradictions. Perhaps the best way to explain contradictions, though not the most accurate, is to describe them as the seeds of destruction of a given economic system. Each economic system has within it the seeds of its own destruction – that is, certain contradictions. These contradictions give expression to, and are eventually resolved through, the dynamic element of class struggle. One of these [570]


contradictions was the tendency for capital to become ever more concentrated in fewer and fewer hands while workers were ever more concentrated in cities and factories. The social nature of production was thus contrasted increasingly with the private nature of productive property.120 But why, if all these contradictions existed, did the working class not seek to overthrow this exploitative system of production? Marx accounts for this by making a distinction between a class in itself and a class for itself. A class in itself simply refers to an aggregate of individuals all sharing a common relationship to the means of production and thereby sharing common interests. A class for itself was a class that was conscious of those interests.121 The Marxists in the Arab world Marx faced a major theoretical difficulty incorporating the middle classes in his intellectual construct because they lived on the margins of the production process. This was a weak point which his critics seized on to show that his theory of historical materialism was imprecise. For Marxists in the third world, particularly Arab Marxists, Marx’s theory of social classes was problematical because the modes of production in the third world differed in several important ways from those that Marx had studied.122 Even though all agree that the development of social classes in the Arab world is incompatible with that of the West, no one has yet offered to study the development of Arab social classes and their struggle through history. In the Arabian Peninsula, for example, a pastoral mode of production has been in existence since the last Ice Age, but there has never been a proper study of the social classes that have emerged from it and how they have developed through history. In the past Farhan Salah wrote about the Asiatic mode of production in the pre-Islamic period, but his analysis falters on several fronts.123 In fact, he does not seem to be able to distinguish between “mode of production” and “mode of life” or show understanding of the primary concepts and issues. In the Fertile Crescent, on the other hand, the mode of production overlaps between nomadism and semi-nomadism, and in some parts it is based on agriculture tinted with feudal traditions. Moreover, the mode of production fluctuates from one region to another for geographical reasons and between mountain regions and flat areas. Still, no Marxist has tried to study this mode or the social classes that emerged from it. [571]


It is worth noting that Saπadeh touched on this problem from a spiritual-materialist perspective in the chapter entitled “Society and its Development” in his book The Rise of Nations. We will come back to this in subsequent sections. In contrast, it has been more a subject of polemics than of proper scholarly investigation in Arab Marxist circles. For example, in his lecture “The Arab Nation, Arab unity, Imperialism, Socialism”, the Marxist writer Elias Murkass, stated: “Suffice to say here … that the history of the East is not the history of the West. It might be possible to sum up the history of the West in a dialectic manner or divide it into precise socio-economic epochs, but the situation in Eastern societies does not allow for this.”124 This, as far as Murkass goes, is really common knowledge. Perhaps he should have paid more attention to studying the modes of production in the East than criticizing social nationalism. The primary duty of Marxists in the Arab world is to do what Marx did – to study Arab modes of production and the social classes they have produced over time. What has taken place is the reverse. Arab Marxists have proceeded to divide Arab societies along class lines without first studying the material base on which they depend. As a result, their studies have turned out vague and unrealistic. Between the class and the nation: Marx and Saπadeh Marxism restricts the revolutionary role in society to the new class sprouting from the new mode of production. Such a mode is the result of technological and scientific progress. Class struggle is therefore subsequent, and not prior, to this progress.125 It should be mentioned that Saπadeh too notes that the mastery by science of nature’s difficulties [led] to the economic machine which placed in the capitalist’s hands a powerful tool he had never dreamt of. The growing power of the capital resisted any other power, material or moral, and destroyed the old system: the nobility, freemen and slaves. It set up a new system: capitalists, businessmen and workers or as may be called the upper, middle and lower classes.126

From this machine was born the industrial revolution which set sociology on a new basis. It did not only rob the family of its industry and the craftsman of his [572]


trade, but also created huge workshops and factories comprising hundreds and even thousands of workers in each industrial establishment. As a result, there arose in towns and industrial centres a class of workers known in modern phraseology as “the proletariat”. This class became in recent decades an enormous political force as opposed to the agricultural class which, being far from cultural centres and dispersed over vast areas, did not have the opportunity to form a dynamic political force.127

It is quite clear that Saπadeh in his views about the Western situation is close to Marx, but, to Saπadeh, this is a foreign environment. Consequently, Western reality does not furnish a focal point of his concerns. He is only interested in the fact that the new Western reality has taken the lead in modern civilization and he is keen to involve his nation in the dynamics of this civilization which bears the stamp of the Industrial Revolution. While Saπadeh acknowledges that the new class which sprang out of this revolution is an “enormous political force”, he refuses to consider it as the only one. It is almost entirely absent from Saπadeh’s society. Can Syrian society be doomed to stand still until a broad base of a working population has been formed? As a leader of a national liberation movement, Saπadeh refused to keep Syrian society in a state of backwardness when he assertively believed in the possibility of its awakening. The characteristics of Marxist thought are therefore different from those of social nationalism. While Saπadeh had wanted to liberate his nation from the domination of other nations, which impose their will and policies, he also wished to liberate the individual in his society. He stated: “The modern machine by its very nature and function does not enslave man and his energies but rather frees him from the chains of limited production. But it was the system which man created subsequently to the rise of the machine which put man in chains instead of expanding his freedom, activity and effectiveness.”128 In this respect, Nassar finds that: Saπadeh’s criticism aimed at the capitalist system … was born out of the principle of individual liberty in the economic field. But since that system led to man’s enslavement instead of freeing him and multiplying his energies, the nationalist liberation movement should not follow in its wake, although it is imperative that such a movement should give consideration to the question of individual freedom and capital seriously without slighting economic considerations.129 [573]


Marx’s and Saπadeh’s ideas move on two different planes which sometimes meet and sometimes draw apart. But each has his own focus: the class for the former, the nation for the latter.130 Lenin and Saπadeh While Marx was more of a theoretician than a revolutionary, Lenin was the reverse. As for Saπadeh, he was a theoretician, founder of a party and a revolutionary. In him we find much the same attitude Lenin had to adopt through his revolutionary career. Lenin says that: “Social-democracy must point out that under imperialism the division of nations into oppressing and oppressed ones is a fundamental, most important and inevitable fact.”131 Similarly, Saπadeh condemned “the international system which divides nations into great imperial nations and degraded, constrained and deprived nations”.132 Lenin’s departure from the class, then, takes him to the concept of nation and leads him to assume nationalist stances that are fundamentally similar to Saπadeh’s. In defending Marx’s internationalism Lenin wrote: On the other hand, in contrast to the Proudhonists, who “repudiated” the national problem “in the name of the social revolution”, Marx, having in mind mainly the interests of the proletarian class struggle in the advanced countries, put into the forefront the fundamental principle of internationalism and socialism, viz., that no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations.133

In accordance with his strategy to protect the first socialist state, Stalin deliberately overlooked Lenin’s statements that suggested nationalist tendencies in order to compel communists outside the Soviet Union to above all uphold the Soviet state. Thus the political implications of the Third Socialist International transformed communist parties throughout the world into instruments serving the ends of Russian politics. For this reason Saπadeh vehemently criticized communist parties. When Stalinism was condemned, a new face of Lenin hitherto unknown came into sight through writings newly brought to light. It is noteworthy that the founder of the Soviet state, observing that capital had dominated the greater part of the world and imposed its political order there, considered that the third world did not lend itself to Marx’s concept of the social class, and thought the future would rest on the nationalist liberation war.134 In his report on the plan of the Russian Communist Party in 1921, he wrote: [574]


Since the beginning of the twentieth century considerable changes have taken place in this part of the world which may be summed up as follows. The movement in the colonial countries is still regarded as an insignificant national and totally peaceful movement. But this is not so. It has undergone great change since the beginning of the twentieth century: millions and hundreds of millions, in fact, the overwhelming majority of the population of the globe are now coming forward as independent, active and revolutionary factors. It is perfectly clear that in the impending decisive battles in the world revolution, the movement of the majority of the population of the globe, initially directed towards national liberation, will turn against capitalism and imperialism and will, perhaps, play a much more revolutionary part than we expect.135

Apparently Saπadeh and Lenin saw the same thing but from a different point of view. This is best expressed by Inπam Raad when he said: “Saπadeh, in the twenties, saw as did Lenin in the same period, that a revolution was looming in the East. What this Eastern revolution would be like is the main issue on which they differed.”136 Lenin regarded the revolution of the East as one against imperialism. But he studied this revolution from the viewpoint of its antithesis: imperialism. He therefore analysed imperialism as an economic colonial octopus sprawling over markets of various nations. Saπadeh, on the other hand, looked at the question not from the angle of imperialism but the opposite of imperialism. As Raad put it: If imperialism is the highest form of capitalism, and if it is the greatest enemy of the people, the opposite of imperialism must be the highest form of revolution. Consequently, it represents a pure leftist movement rejecting the greatest enemy of the people and the highest forms of capitalism. On this basis, the class revolution is no longer isolated from nationalist premises which represent the left. It is actually the national revolution against what Saπadeh calls the international class system – that is, against world imperialism – and it is the starting point of the modern left.137

In considering that at a certain historical stage the revolutionary role depends on the nation rather than class, Lenin has shifted to a clearly nationalist position. Although Marx, Lenin138 and Stalin139 entertain different concepts of nation from that of Saπadeh, nation remains distinct from class by a spatial, hence geographical, dimension. Class is [575]


distinguished by a temporal, hence, historical dimension. Here is the difference between the two focal points, the nationalist and the Marxist: the former proceeds from geography to absorb history, while the latter starts from history to absorb geography. Class-based analysis could not at a certain stage comprehend nationalist thought, as was the case with Lenin, but if we consider Saπadeh as a nationalist par excellence this is proof that he was an independent social nationalist thinker.

Conclusion The social nationalist doctrine does not advocate class struggle in the Marxist-Leninist sense. But it advocates social struggle. The class against which Marxism declares war is not the only one that social nationalism fights. Besides this class there are social categories that escape the historical materialist approach but are observed by the wider horizon of the spiritual-materialist method. Such categories may be more dangerous than the middle class, which is related to a certain mode of production. These categories may derive their power and sway from a basis which may not be materialist. Because of this divergence, we find social nationalism to be more comprehensive than Marxism in relation not only to social struggle but also to international struggle – that is, imperialism: Social nationalism and Marxist-Leninism converge in analysing the capitalist economic side of imperialism. But social nationalism does not stop at this point in comprehending and rejecting the modern phenomenon of imperialism. For if imperialism is an extension of capitalism, this analysis applies to capitalist imperialism only. But there are various kinds of domination and aggression which take place on other bases and out of other motives.140

The social structure in the Arab world and specifically in the Fertile Crescent is not the same as elsewhere. Therefore to impart a petite bourgeois political thought to nationalist ideology is simplistic. Social nationalist doctrine is outside this concept. It fundamentally involves the people.

[576]


NOTES 1 Occasionally, scholars have used the term “National Socialism” instead of “Social Nationalism” when referring to Antun Saπadeh. This is a gross mistake. On the difference between the two concepts see Adel Beshara, Syrian Nationalism: An Inquiry into the Political Philosophy of Antun Sa πadeh. Beirut: Bissan, 1995, pp. 84–88; and Abboud Abboud, The SSNP, Sydney, 1980. 2 The Syrian (including Lebanese) Communist Party was formed in 1924 by a group of intellectuals and the Syrian Social Nationalist Party of Antun Saπadeh in 1932. 3 J.V. Stalin, On the Opposition, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1974, pp. 765–849. 4 During the 1950s, the party’s inconsistent policies on pan-Arabism and the Nasserite movement cost it support and eventually isolated it. Surviving underground, in 1965 the LCP decided to end its isolation and became a member of the Front for Progressive Parties and National Forces, which later became the Lebanese National Movement under Kamal Jumblatt. 5 See Roman Szporluk, Communism and Nationalism: Karl Marx Versus Friedrich List, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. 6 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Collected Works, Moscow: International Publishers, 1975, pp. 765–849. 7 Youssef Shweiry, introduction to Labib Zuwiyya Yamak, Al-Hizb al-Qawmi al-Ijtimaeπ, Beirut: Dar Ibn Khaldun, 1973, p. 23. 8 Ibid., p. 181. 9 See John Edward Toews, Hegelianism: The Path Toward Dialectical Humanism, 1805–1841, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. 10 “The Marxian theory predicates the destruction of the petit bourgeois and the forcible thrusting of that somewhat unpleasant individual into the pit of proletarianism whence he is to come forth as an avenging angel and to repay his sufferings at the hands of the greater capitalism by the destruction of the latter.” http://digital.library.arizona.edu/bisbee/docs/021.php 11 Nassif Nassar, Tariq al-Istiqial al-Falsafi (The Path of Philosophical Independence), Beirut: Dar Al-Taliπa, 1979, pp. 63–64. 12 See also Garaudy, Karl Marx, Seghers, 1964, p. 313; and Garaudy, Karl Marx: The Evolution of his Thought, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976. 13 Ibid., p. 20. 14 Ibid., p. 21. 15 Ibid., p. 22. 16 See Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher, 1844. See also, Joachim Ritter, Hegel and the French Revolution: Essays on the Philosophy of Right, translated with an introduction by Richard Dien Winfield, Cambridge, Mass.; London, England: MIT Press, 1982. 17 www.marxists.org/francais/lenin/works/1950/08/vil19050800g.htm 18 http://sep.free.fr/marx/ 19 Lenin, Vladimir Ilich. Collected Works, Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1960–70, vol. TXIX, p. 3. 20 Andrew Seth, Hegelianism and Personality, Edinburgh: W. Blackwood and Sons, 1887; Eric Weil, Hegel and the State, translated by Mark A. Cohen, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. 21 Shweiry’s introduction to Yamak, Al-Hizb al-Qawmi al-Ijtimaeπ, p. 213. [577]


22 Inπam Raad in his paper “A Comparison between Saπadeh’s Social Nationalism and European Doctrines”, Beirut, Fikr, March 1976. 23 Ibid. 24 Edward Saπab, La Syrie ou la révolution dans la rancoeur, ed. Julliard, 1968. 25 Antun Saπadeh, Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1980, p. 33. 26 Full text of this letter can be found in Beshara, op. cit., pp. 228–231. 27 On this clash see Nadim Makdisi, “The Syrian National Party: A Case Study of the First Inroads of National Socialism in the Arab World”, PhD Dissertation, American University of Beirut, 1960, pp. 30–32. 28 On the organization of the SSNP after Saπadeh’s death see Labib Z. Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1966, chapter 9. 29 Shweiry, op.cit ., p. 12. 30 Ibid. 31 See Melissa Schrift, Biography of a Chairman Mao Badge: The Creation and Mass Consumption of a Personality Cult, New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001. See also Nina Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! The Lenin Cult in the Soviet Union, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983. As for the personality cult that developed around Stalin, the following poem is a prime example: O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples, Thou who broughtest man to birth. Thou who fructifies the earth, Thou who restorest to centuries, Thou who makest bloom the spring, Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords … Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou, Sun reflected by millions of hearts. 32 See Kamal al-Haj, Moujaz al-Falsafat al-Lubnaniyyah (A Summary of Lebanese Philosophy), Beirut: Al-Karim Publications, 1974, p. 598; and Majid Khadduri, Political Trends in the Arab World: The Role of Ideas and Ideals in Politics, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984, p. 190. 33 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 96. 34 Ibid., p. 115. 35 Nassar, op. cit. 36 Ibid., pp. 118–119. 37 See Antun Saπadeh, Shuruh fi al-Aqida (Commentaries on the Ideology), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1958. 38 Garaudy, op. cit., p. 21. 39 Nassar, op. cit., p. 102. 40 Antun Saπadeh, Nushuπs al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1978, p. 110. 41 Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 88. 42 See Alan White, Absolute Knowledge: Hegel and the Problem of Metaphysics, Ohio University Press, 1983; and Robert Stern, ed. G.W.F. Hegel: Critical Assessments, London: Routledge, 1993. [578]


43 Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 132. 44 Saπadeh’s views are clearly set out in The Rise of Nations. 45 Mounir Khoury, “Al-Thwarah al-Ijtimaπiyahh fi al-Aπlam al-Arabi” (The Social Revolution in the Arab World), Beirut: Fikr, nos. 5–6, 1975. 46 Ibid., p. 25. 47 Ibid., p. 27. 48 Ibid., p. 25. 49 Labib Zuwiyya Yamak, “Al-Falsafa al-Madrahiyyah wa-nahiyatuha al-Siraπiyyah” (The Philosophy of Spiritual-materialism and its View of Struggle), in Asad al-Ashqar, Asar Amaliqa (The Age of Giants), Beirut: n.p., 1967. 50 Ibid. 51 Yamak, The Syrian Social Nationalist Party: An Ideological Analysis, 1966, p. 105. 52 Nassar, op. cit., p. 174. 53 Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, pp. 98–137. 54 See Isaiah Berlin, The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas and their History, London: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Inc., 1998. 55 Karl Marx, L’idéologie Allemande, Paris: Editions Sociales, 1965, p. 25. 56 Ibid. 57 Letter from Engels to Marx, 21 September 1880 in Marx and Engels, Collected Works, op. cit., vol. 46. 58 http://perso.magic.fr/nac/classiques/contrib 59 Georg Lukács, Histoire et conscience de classe, ed. De Minuit, 1960, p. 23. 60 Pierre Fougeyrollas, Metamorphoses of Philosophy, Paris: Harmattan, 1978, p. 25. 61 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 88. 62 Ibid., p. 58. 63 See Antun Saπadeh, Aπda Al-Arab Aπda Lubnan (Enemies of Arabs Enemies of Lebanon), Beirut, 1979. This book is a selection of Saπadeh’s views on Arabism and Lebanese isolationism. See also, Issam Al-Mahayri, Al-Uruba al-Suriyyah al-Qawmiyyah al-Ijtimaπiyyah (The Arabism of Syrian Social Nationalism), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1958; and Sami Khuri, Radd Ala Sati Husri (A Reply to Sati Husri), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956. 64 Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 159. 65 See Inπam Raad, “A Comparison between Saπadeh’s Social Nationalism and European Doctrines”. 66 Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 65. 67 Ibid., p. 62. 68 Ibid., p. 63. 69 See Daher, Society and Man. 70 See last chapter in ibid. 71 See Antun Saπadeh, “Al-Majmuπ wa al-Mujtama” (The Group and Society), Al-Nizam al-Jadid, vol. 1, Beirut and Damascus: SSNP Publications, 1951. 72 In certain respects, Saπadeh’s articulation is very close to that of the Italian Marxist thinker Antonio Gramsci. See Carl Boggs, Gramsci’s Marxism, London: Pluto Press Ltd, 1976, pp. 36–85. 73 The basic thought that runs through the Manifesto is this: economic production, and the structure of society of every historical epoch necessarily arising therefrom, constitutes the foundation for the political and intellectual history of that epoch; [579]


74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83

84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91

92 93

that consequently (ever since the dissolution of the primaeval communal ownership of land) all history has been a history of class struggles, of struggles between exploited and exploiting, between dominated and dominating classes at various stages of social evolution; that this struggle, however, has now reached a stage where the exploited and oppressed class (the proletariat) can no longer emancipate itself from the class which exploits and oppresses it (the bourgeoisie), without at the same time forever freeing the whole of society from exploitation, oppression and class struggles. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, chapters 6 and 7. See Inπam Raad, Al-Muntalaqat al-Fikriyyah wa al-Istratijiyyah al-Thawriyyah. Saπadeh, The Ten Lectures, p. 75. On this topic see the chapter on Saπadeh’s criticism of liberalist theory in Nasser, op. cit. See Michael H., Kater, The Nazi Party: A Social Profile of Members and Leaders: 1919–1945, London: Basil Blackwell, 1983. Erwin Rommel and B.H. Liddell-Hart (eds), The Rommel Papers, Cambridge: De Capo Press, 1953. See Daher, op. cit., pp. 146–167. See Martin McCauley, The Soviet Union: 1917–1991, London: Longman, 1993. Also, Frank Füredi, The Soviet Union Demystified: A Materialist Analysis, London: Junius, 1986. F. Hegel, Philosophy of Right, translated by T.M. Knox, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967. See also Bernard Cullen, Hegel’s Social and Political Thought: An Introduction, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979. Sectarian attitudes, behaviour and structures have been a feature of Syrian life – and in cultures and societies far from Syria – for a considerable time. See Ussama Makdisi, The Culture of Sectarianism: Community, History, and Violence in Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Lebanon, Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. On Saπadeh’s attitude to sectarianism see Nadim Makdisi, op. cit., pp. 77–82. This argument is emphasized by Mohammed Keshly (a Marxist writer) in his book On Capitalism and the Left in Lebanon, and also by George Hawi in an article in Al-Tareeq, September 1969. See al-Huriyyah, Beirut, 1969, no. 485. Ibid. See Laqueur, Walter, Communism and Nationalism in the Middle East, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956. Ibid. See Vladimir Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 1, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, pp. 667–766. See also Tom Kemp, Theories of Imperialism, London: Dobson, 1967. See Bassam Tibi, Arab Nationalism: Between Islam and the Nation-State, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997. See also Adeed Dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Saπadeh, Enemies of Arabs Enemies of Lebanon. There is no better evidence of the open-mindedness of the social nationalist thought than the constant call of SSNP leaders for dialogue – dialogue of all forms and with all parties. [580]


94 Maxim Rodinson, Elias Murkass and Emil Touma, The Nation, the Nationalist Issue, Arab Unity and Marxism, Beirut: Dar-al-Haqiqa, 1971. 95 Ibid., p. 172. 96 Ibid., p. 173. 97 Kamal Jumblatt, Istijwab Jumblatt al-Tareekhy Lil Hukouma Hawla Istishhad Saπadeh Aam 1949 (Jumblatt’s Historical Interpellation to the [Lebanese] Government Over Saπadeh’s Martyrdom in 1949), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1977. 98 I shall not dwell too long on those who dealt with Saπadeh’s nationalist thought. For an overwhelming reply, see Imad Mansour, “Qiraπ it Nushuπ al-Umam ala Dawπa al-Manhaj al-Iazi Antajahu” (A Reading in The Rise of Nations), Beirut, Fikr, no. 13. 99 Shweiry, op. cit., p. 14. 100 Ibid., p. 32. 101 Ibid. 102 Ibid. On the crisis see Mustafa Abdul Satir, Ayyam wa Qadiyyah (The Cause We Lived For), Beirut: Fikr, 1982; Abdullah, Saπadeh Awraq Qawmiyyah (National Papers), Beirut: n.p., 1987; and Ibrahim Yammout, Al-Hissad al-Mur (The Bitter Harvest), Beirut: Dar al-Rukin, 1993. 103 Salah Mukhtar, Some Ideological Issues of the Petit Bourgeoisie, Beirut: Dar al-Taliaπ, 1975. 104 Ibid., pp. 75–76. 105 Ibid., p. 77. 106 Ibid., p. 102. 107 Ibid., p. 25. 108 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, New York: International Publishers, 1948. 109 Ibid. 110 Michel Kamel, La Rôle Politique et ideologique de la petite bourgeiousie dans la Monde Arab, Ducluot: Sociologie Nouvelle, 1972. 111 It is noteworthy that Marx and Engels were scions of bourgeois families, brought up and living in a typical middle class milieu. Marx was the son of a well-to-do member of the bar and married the daughter of a Prussian nobleman. His brotherin-law was Cabinet Minister of the Interior and as such the Chief of the Royal Prussian Police. Engels was the son of a wealthy manufacturer and a rich businessman himself; he indulged in the amusements of the British gentry such as riding to hounds in a red coat, and snobbishly refused to marry his mistress because she was of low origin. From the very Marxian point of view one would have to qualify Marxism as a doctrine of bourgeois origin. 112 On this party see John F. Devlin, The Baπth Party: A History from its Origins to 1966, Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1976. 113 Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt during the Nasser Years: Ideology, Politics, and Civil Society, Boulder: Westview Press, 1994. 114 Shweiry, op. cit., p. 44. 115 See Daniel Bates and Amal Rassam, Peoples and Cultures of the Middle East, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000. 116 All of Marx’s books, pamphlets and writings turn around the concept of the social class, and the essence of his political and economic programme is the [581]


117 118

119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130

131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

abolition of “social classes” and the establishment of what he styles a classless society. But he never told us what be had in mind when employing the term “social class” and what justifies ascribing to the division of society into “social classes” the same effects as its division into castes had. Marx and Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party. In Marxist terms a class is a group of people with a specific relationship to the means of production (social production). Marxists explain history in terms of a war of classes between those who control social production and those who produce social goods. In the Marxist view of capitalism this is a conflict between capitalists (bourgeoisie) and workers (the proletariat). Modern usage of the word “class” generally considers only the relative wealth of individuals or social groups, and not the ownership of the means of production. See A.J.P. Taylor’s introduction to The Communist Manifesto, Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1967. Nikolai Bukharin, Historical Materialism, Moscow: International Publishers, 1925, p. 120. G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx’s Theory of History: A Defence, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978. See David McLellan, Karl Marx: His Life and Thought, New York: Harper & Row, 1973, chapter on “Class”. See Richard R. Fagen, Carmen Diana Deere, and José Luis Coraggio (eds), Transition and Development: Problems of Third World Socialism, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1986. On present period see Mai Yamani, The Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia, Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2000. Maxim Rodinson, Elias Murkass, Emil Touma, The Nation, The Nationalist Issue, Arab Unity and Marxism, Beirut: Dar-al-Haqiqa, 1971, p. 67. John Lewis, The Marxism of Marx, London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1972. Saπadeh, The Rise of Nations, p. 87. Ibid. Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 37. Nassar, op. cit., p. 78. For an analysis of how the concept of “nation” is the core theme in Saπadeh’s thought see Haider Haj Ismail, Al-Manahaj Ind Sa πadeh wa al-Qiaraπat al-Khams (Saπadeh’s Methodology: Five Readings), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 2004, pp. 67–126. V. Lenin, Collected Works, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, vol. 22, 1960–1970, pp. 143–156. Saπadeh, Commentaries on the Ideology, p. 133. Lenin, Collected Works, op. cit., p. 144. Leon Trotsky, “Nationalism In Lenin”, in Pravda, no. 86, 23 April 1920. Lenin, from a speech delivered at Third Congress of the Communist International, 1921 in his Collected Works, vol. 33, 1921–1923. Inπam Raad, Al-Muntalaqat al-Fikriyyah wa al-Istratijiyyah al-Thawriyyah, p. 58. Ibid. Lenin wrote: “In my writings on the national question I have already said that an abstract presentation of the question of nationalism in general is of no use at all. A distinction must necessarily be made between the nationalism of an oppressor nation and that of an oppressed nation, the nationalism of a big nation and that [582]


of a small nation.” Quoted in Ivan Dzyuba Internationalism or Russification, New York: Monad Press, 1968, p. 60. See also V.I. Lenin, Marxism and Nationalism (introduction by Doug Lorimer), Chippendale, NSW: Resistance Books, 2002. 139 See J.V. Stalin, Marxism and the National Question, Moscow: Prosveshcheniye, 1913. 140 Inπam Raad, Harb al-Tahrir al-Qawmiyya (National Liberation War), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1970, p. 43.

[583]


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Works by Antun Saπadeh Nushuπ al-Umam (The Rise of Nations), Beirut: n.p., 1938. (The authors in this work use different publications of The Rise of Nations; the specific dates, publishers and page numbers are given in the relevant endnotes for each chapter.) An-Nizam al-Jadid, Beirut and Damascus: SSNP Publications, 1950–1956. Al-Islam fi Risalateih (Islam in its Two Messages), Damascus: n.p., 1954. (The authors in this work use different publications of Islam in its Two Messages; the specific dates, publishers and page numbers are given in the relevant endnotes for each chapter.) Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature), 3rd edition, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1955. Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956. (The authors in this work use different publications of The Ten Lectures; where needed, the specific dates, publishers and page numbers are given in the relevant endnotes for each chapter.) Shuruh fi al-Aqida (Commentaries on the Ideology), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1958. Marhalat ma Qabl al-Taπsis (1921–1932) (The Stage Prior to the Formation [of the SSNP]), Beirut: SSNP, 1975. Al-Inπizaliyyah Aflasat (1947–1949), (Isolationism Has Gone Bankrupt), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1976. Mukhtarat fi al-Masπalah al-Lubnaniyyah (1936–1943) (Selections of the Lebanese Question), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1976. (The authors cite different publishers and editions of these works; the specific editions, publishers, dates and page numbers are given in the relevant endnotes for each chapter.) Marahil al-Masπalah al Filastiniyyah: 1921–1949 (The Stages of the Palestine Question), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1977. Al-Rasaπil (Correspondences), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1978–1990. Al-Athar al-Kamilah (Collected Works), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1978–1995. (The authors cite different publishers and volumes of [585]

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these works; the specific dates, publishers and page numbers are given in the relevant endnotes for each chapter.) Aπda al-Arab Aπda Lubnan (Enemies of Arabs Enemies of Lebanon), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1979. Al-Rassaπeel (Letters), Beirut: Dar Fikr for Research and Publication, 1989. Mukhtarat fi al-Hizbiyyah al-Dinniyyah (An Anthology on Religious Partisanship), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 1993. Al-Islam fi Risalateih al-Masihiyyah wal Muhammadiyyah, 5th edition, Beirut: Al-Rukn, 1995. With regards Al-Aamal al-Kamilah, the authors sometimes cite different publishers and publication dates; the specific information is given in the relevant endnotes for each chapter. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 1, from the period 1921–1931, 2nd edition, 1982. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 2, for the period 1932–1936, 1st edition, 1976. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 3, for the year 1937, 2nd edition, 1985. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 4, for the year 1938, 1st edition, 1980. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 5, Nushuπ al Umam (The Rise of Nations), 3rd edition, 1980. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 6, for the year 1939, 1st edition, 1983. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 7, for the year 1940, undated. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 8, for the year 1941, undated. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 9, for the years 1940–1942, Junun al Khulud (Megalomania), undated. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 10, for the year 1942, undated. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 11, for the year 1943, undated. [586]

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Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 12, for the years 1944–1945, undated. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 13, for the year 1946, 1st edition, 1984. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 14, for the year 1947, 1st edition, 1987. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 15, for the year 1948, 1st edition, 1989. Al-Aamal al-Kamilah (Complete Works), Beirut: SSNP Information Bureau, vol. 16, for the year 1949, 1st edition, 1989. Saπadeh fi Awwal Athat (Saπadeh on the First of March), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956.

Articles by Antun Saπadeh “The Opening of a New Way for the Syrian Nation”, Al-Jumhur, Beirut, June 1937. “Political Independence in the Key to Economic Independence”, Souria al-Jadida (New Syria), 30 September 1939. “Greater Syria”, al-Zawbaπa, no. 63, 1 July 1943. “Haqq al-Siraπ Haqq al-Taqaddum” (The Right to Struggle is the Right to Progress), Kull Shayπ, 107, Beirut, 15 April 1949.

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Al-Nizam al-Jadid al-Saπih Al-Safir Al-Samir Al-Shams al-Thaqafah Al-Usba al-Zawbaπa (Argentina) An-Nahda (Beirut) An-Nahda (Sydney) Christian Science Monitor Fikr Hadeeqat Al-Akhbar Hiwar Misr al-Fatat Nafir Suriyya National Geographic New York Herald Tribune New York Times Sabah al-Khair Suriya al-Jadida The Times (London)

Dissertations Angus, Mundy. The Arab Government in Syria: 1918–1920, MA Dissertation, American University of Beirut, 1965. Dawn, Clarence E. The Project of Greater Syria, PhD Dissertation, Princeton University, 1948. Makdisi, Nadim K. “The Syrian National Party: A Case Study of the First Inroads of National Socialism in the Arab World”, PhD Dissertation, American University of Beirut, 1960. Salt, Jeremy. Islam in Syrian Ideology and Political Practice, MA Thesis, University of Melbourne, 1976. Sethian, Robert Dasho. “The Syrian National Party”, PhD Dissertation, University of Michigan, 1946.

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Arabic references (articles) ∏Aql, Fadil Saπid. “Our National Army”, al-Bashir, 25 January 1941. Armanazi, Gayth. “Mashruπ Souria al-Kubra” (“The Concept of Greater Syria”), An-Nahda, Sydney, 17 December 1987. Daye, John. “Shibli Shumayyel”, Sabah al-Khair, 31 January 1977. —“Ishtirakiyyat Shibli Shumayyel Bayn al-Marxiyya Wa al-Saπadeyya”, Sabah al-Khair, 14 February 1977. —“Khalil Saπadeh Qada Awwal Haraka Tulla-biyya”, Sabah al-Khair, I, 83, 14 March 1977. —“Al-Sheikh ‘Abdul Rahman al-Kawakibi Awπwal ∏Alim Deeny Qala Bifasl al-Deen an al-Dawla”, An-Nahda, 16 June 1983. —“Gibran Al Aqeedi Wa al-Siyassi”, An-Nahda, Sydney, 27 June 1985, 4 July 1985, 22 August 1985. —“Gibran Wa al-Ruwwad” (II), An-Nahda, I, 257, 17 April 1986. Farhat, Muhammad. “Wajdi Al-Sayegh Alama Thagafiyya”, Al-Safir, I, 3,989, 15 March 1985. Hage, Muhammad. “Majnoun … Kena Ismahu Antun Saπadeh” (A Madman … His name was Antun Saπadeh), al-Raπye al-Ome, Kuwait, 17 June 1981. Khadduri, Majeed. “Ittijahat al-Fikr al-Siyassi Fi al-Watan al-Arabi”, Beirut: Hiwar Beirut: no. 26/27, March–April 1987. Khoury, Mounir. “Al-Thwarah al-Ijtimaπiyyah fi al-Aπlam al-Arabi” (The Social Revolution in the Arab World), Beirut: Fikr, nos. 5–6, 1975. Al-Maalouf, Shafiq. “Al-Shiπar al-Arabi fi al-Brazil” (Arab Poetry in Brazil), Al-Usba, nos. 7 and 8, 1953. Maπlouf, Hilmi. “Masseer al-Fikr Fi al-Hizb al-Qawmi”, An-Nahar, I, no. 3,763, 19 December 1947. Al-Mahayri, Issam. “Ana Issam al-Mahayri Ashhad”, An-Nahda, 7 July 1983. [589]

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Mansour, Hanna. “Minn Jamiπeyyat 1875 Ila Jamiπeyyat 1877 al-Sirriyya”, Sabab al-Khair, Beirut, 3 January 1977. Mansour, Imad. “Qiraπit Nushuπ al-Umam ala Dawπa al-Manhaj al-lazi Antajahu” (A Reading in The Rise of Nations), Beirut: Fikr, no. 13. Qawatli, Hussain. “Al-Muslimoun Maπa Baqaπ al-Taπifiyya al-Siyasiyya”, Al-Fikr al-Islami, Beirut: Dar al-Fatwa, November 1985. Qubursy, Abdullah. “Nahwa Tashreeπh Jadid”, Afaq, I, no. 4, 1959. —“Radd Ala Fouad Afram”, Sabah al-Khair, I, no. 364, 29 January 1983. Raad, Inπam. “Mun al-Bidaya Aπlana Saπadeh: La Ukhuwwa Maπa al-Qahr al-Ijtimaπi”, Mulhaq An-Nahar, 26 November 1972. —“A Comparison between Saπadeh’s Social Nationalism and European Doctrines”, Beirut, Fikr, March 1976. Rifaπi, Ahmad Farid. “Hawla Batalin Zinjiyyin ∏Azim, Rasul al-Wataniyyah Toussaint al-Fatih” (On a Great Negro Hero: The Messenger of Patriotism Toussaint the Conqueror), al-Hilal, 1 March 1930. Saπadeh, Sofia Antun. “Fikr Antun Saπadeh kama Yarahu Aziz Azmeh”, al-Hayat (Afaq), 24 October 1993. Sayegh, Nasri. “Muwqif Saπadeh Min Ad-Din”, Fikr, no. 35–36, 1980, p. 148. Yamak, Labib Zuwiyya. “Al-Falsafa al-Madrahiyyah wa-nahiyatuha al-Siraπiyyah” (The Philosophy of Spiritual-materialism and its View of Struggle) in Asad al-Ashqar, Asar Amaliqa (The Age of Giants), Beirut: n.p., 1967. Zaydan, Waleed. “Al-Muqaddimat al-Awwaliyya Li Fikr Saπadeh al-Ijπtimaπi”, Fikr, no. 62–63, 1985. Zugayb, Henri. “Abu Madi al-Mushakis” (Abu Madi the Quarrelsome), Al-Naqid, London, June 1991.

Arabic references (books) Abboud, Maroun. Ruwwad al-Nahda al-Hadeetha, Beirut: Dar al-Thakafa, 1977. Antun, Farah. Ibn Rushd Wa Falsafatuh, ed. Adonis Akra, Beirut: Adonis Akra, 1981. ∏Aql, Saπid. Qadmus, 1st edition, Beirut: n.p., 1947. Al-Awar, Amin. Hadha Huwa al-Hizb al-Qawmi, Beirut: An-Najah Printers, 1962. [590]

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—Maπ Antun Saπadeh (In the Company of Antun Saπadeh), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1975. —Antun Sa πadeh: Mun al-Wilada Hatta al-Taπsees (1904–1932), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1982. —Min al-Juπba, Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1986. Gibran, Khalil. Damπah Wa Ibtissama (The Complete Works in Arabic), Beirut: Dar al-Huda, n.d. Al-Haj, Kamal. Moujaz al-Falsafat al-Lubnaniyyah (A Summary of Lebanese Philosophy), Beirut: Al-Karim Publications, 1974. El-Haje, Badr. Al-Judhur al-Tarikhiyyah li al Mashruπ al Sahyuni fi Lubnan (The Historical Roots of the Zionist Project in Lebanon), Beirut: Dar Musbah al-Fikr, 1982. —Silsalat al-Aamal al-Majhula: Khalil Saπadeh (The Unknown Works of Khalil Saπadeh), London: Riad el-Rayyes Books Ltd, 1987. Halal, Mohammad. Al-Adab al-Mouqarin (Comparative Literature), Beirut: Dar al-Awada, n.d. Hallaq, Hassan. Al-Tayyarat al-Siyasiyyah fi Lubnan 1943–1952 (The Political Currents in Lebanon), Beirut: Maπhad al-Inmaπ al-Arabi, 1981. Hardan, Nawwaf. Saπadeh fi al-Mahjar (Saπadeh Abroad), Beirut: Dar Fikr, vol. 1, 1988. Harik, Ilia. Al-Tahawwul al-Siyassi Fi Tareekh Lubnan Al Hadeeth, Beirut: al-Ahliyyah Publications, 1982. Husri, Sati. Al-Uruba baina Du ∏atiha was Muπaridhiha (Arabism between its Supporters and its Opponents), Beirut: Dar al-Ilm Lil-Malayyeen, 1952. Hussein, Taha. Islamiyyat, Beirut: Dar al-Adab, 1967. Ismail, Haidar Haj. Al-Mujtamaπh Wa al-Deen Wa al-Ishtirakiyya: Farah Antun, Beirut: Sima Publications, 1972. —Tabeπh al-Istibdad wa Ahwal al-Thawra: Al-Marrash, al-Kawakibi, Khalil Saπadeh, Beirut: Sima Publications, 1972. —Al-Manahaj Ind Saπadeh wa al-Qiaraπat al-Khams (Saπadeh’s Methodology: Five Readings), Beirut: Dar Fikr, 2004. Jumblatt, Kamal. Istijwab Jumblat al-Tareekhy Lil Hukouma Hawla Istishhad Sa πadeh Aam 1949 (Jumblatt’s Historical Interpellation to the [Lebanese] Government Over Saπadeh’s Martyrdom in 1949), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1977. —Adwaπ ala al-Hakikat al-Qadiya al-Suriyya al-Qawmiyya, Beirut: Progressive House, 1987. [592]

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Karam, Adib. Ahzab al-Lubnaniyyin wa Jamπiyyatihum fi al-Rubaπ al-Awal min al-Qarn al-Ishreen (The Political Parties of the Lebanese and their Societies During the First Quarter of the Twentieth Century), Beirut: Dar An-Nahar, 2003. Karam, Antun Ghattas. Al-Ramziyyah, Beirut: Dar al-Kashaf, 1949. —Malamih al-Adab al-Arabi al-Hadith (Characteristics of Contemporary Arab Literature), Beirut: Dar al-Nahar, 1980. Karam, Youssef. Tarikh al-Falsafat al-Haditha (History of Modern Philosophy), Cairo: Dar al-Maπarif, 1962. Al-Kawakibi, Abd al-Rahman. Tabaeπh al-Istibdad, Beirut: Sima Publications, 1981. —Umm Al-Qura (The Mother of all Towns), Cairo: n.p., 1931. Kawtharani, Wajih. Al-Itijahat al-Ijtimaiya wa al-Siyassiya fi Jabal Lubnan wa al-Mashraq al-Arabi (The Social and Political Trends in Mount Lebanon and the Arab East), Beirut: Bashoun Publications, 1986. Khalifa, Issam. Ibhas fi Tarikh Lubnan al-Muπassir (Studies in the Modern History of Lebanon), Beirut: Dar al-Jalil, 1985. Khalil, Louis. Al-Hizb al-Suri al-Qawmi Muπamarah ∏ala al-Din wa al-Watan, (The Syrian National Party is a Conspiracy Against Religion and Country), Beirut: n.p., 1936. Al-Khazin, William. Al-Shiπar wa al-Wataniyya fi Lubnan wa al-Bilad al-Arabiyyah (Poetry and Patriotism in Lebanon and the Arab Countries), 2nd edition, Beirut: Dar al-Mashriq, 1984. Khoury, Ghattas. Suria al-Jadida, São Paulo: n.p., July 1983. Khuri, Sami. Radd Ala Sati Husri (A Reply to Sati Husri), Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1956. Kohn, Hans. A History of Nationalism in the East, New York: Harcourt Brace, 1929. Lebanese government, Qadiyyat al-Hizb al-Qawmi (The Case of the National Party), Beirut: Wizarat al-Anbaπ Fi Lubnan, 1949. Al-Madi, Munib and Musa, Sulayman. Tarikh al-Urdaun fi al-Qarn al-ishrin, Amman: Maktabat al-Muhtassab, 1988. Al-Mahayri, Issam. Al-Murafaπa Bi Daπwa al-Qawmiyyeen al-Ijtimaπiyyeen Fi al-Mahkama al-Askariyya Bi Dimashq, Beirut: n.p., 1955. —Al-Uruba al-Suriyyah al-Qawmiyyah al-Ijtimaπiyyah (The Arabism of Syrian Social Nationalism,) Beirut: SSNP Publications, 1958. Makdissi, Anis. Al-Founoun Al-Adabiyya wa Aπalamuha fi al-Nahda al-Arabiyya al-Haditha, 3rd edition, Beirut: Dar-Al-Ilm, 1980. [593]

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[615]


Index

Note: Antun Saπadeh is referred to in the index as AS. A Abbasids 83, 104, 493 Abd al-Raziq, Ali 105 Abduh, Muhammad 323–4, 396, 398 Abdullah, King of Jordan 130–2, 141 see also Greater Syria Scheme Abqar 497–501 Abu Madi 484, 485, 487 al-Afghani, Al-Sayyid Jamal al-Din 396, 398 agriculture, Phoenician 198–9, 200 Al-Ahd 87 Alexander the Great 175 Alexandretta 245 Alexandria Conference 126–7 alphabet, development of 202–3 ancient history 164–217 monarchy 177–83 Syrian-Western collaboration 172–4 Syrian-Western conflict 174–7 see also Carthage; Phoenicians; Umayyad Caliphate Andalusian League 431–3, 436–7 Antioch 197–8, 206, 232 Antun, Farah 322–4, 469 ∏Aql, Fadil Saπid 210–12 ∏Aql, Saπid 168, 195–210, 470–1 ancient Phoenicia 198–200, 201–3 Qadmus 195–8, 203, 471–2 and religion 206, 208–10 and the West 204–6 Arab Empire 82–3, 464–5 Arab League 121, 126 Arab Marxists 571–2 Arab nationalism 48, 85, 110, 511, 562 and the Andalusian League 433–4

in Egypt 17, 106, 128–30 and the Greater Syria Scheme 145–7 and the Kurds 58 and the petite bourgeoisie 566–8, 576 and religion 104–9 see also Syrian nationalism Arabian peninsula oil 54 social classes 571 Arabic language 214, 442–3 Arida, Antoine 234, 235, 237, 238, 522 Arslan, Shakib 477–8 arts 204, 444–5 see also poetry al-Asir, Abdul Rahman 472 association, freedom of 524 Assyrians 95, 99 al-Atrash, Sultan 124 B Babylonia 177–8, 179, 180–1 Balfour declaration 2, 140 Al-Bashir 318 Beirut, proposed Maronite revolt 241 Beirut Society 86–7 Berbers 184, 188, 190–1 Berdyaev, Nicholas 388–9 Berkeley, George 354, 358–9 Bible 294, 309, 400–1, 403–5 Bikfayyah 244 Bolivar, Simon 55 The Book of Teachings (Kitab al-Taπalim) 3, 58 Brazil 55, 428, 431–2, 454–6 Bshamoun 247 Bustani, Butrus 17, 86, 137, 318, 320 [617]

ANTUN SAπADEH Byzantines

100, 103

C Cadmus 195–6 Canaanites 166–7 Canada 55 capitalism and nationalism 272–3, 274–6 see also Marxism Carcalla (Roman emperor) 172 Carthage 168–70, 178, 183–95, 187 as an imperial power 189–91 and Lebanese nationalism 210–11, 212–14 and race 184, 188–9, 189–90 symbolizing AS’s political views 192–4, 216–17 and Syrian nationalism 185–6, 187–8, 194–5, 213–14 Catroux, George 126, 246 censorship 522, 523 Christianity and the Church 206, 207–8 compared to Islam 397–8, 400–17 and the nature of God 375–6 and secularism 290–308 under the Ottoman Empire 103–4 Churchill, Winston 123, 125 Cilicia-Alexandretta 152 citizenship 92–7, 513–14, 521–4 civil rights see rights and citizenship civilizations 20–1, 61 class struggle 276–7, 564–72, 576 AS and Lenin 574–6 AS and Marx 572–4 colonialism effect on socio-economic cycle 54–5, 56 see also mandate system commerce and trade, Phoenicians 167–8, 170–1, 184–5, 199–201 Communist Party 511 Lebanese 540, 561, 562 see also Marxism communitarianism 364 community, and nationhood 19, 22, 24, 109–13 compound organization 169–70 confirmation theory 352

consciousness 355, 370 Corm, Charles 230, 238 creativity 526 critics of AS 7–11 crucifixion 415, 416 culture and human existence 366 and nationhood 26–31, 49, 109–13, 450 and the origins of religion 402–3, 405 and values 294 customs and traditions 30–1, 70–1, 533 D Damascus 197–8 Darwinism 319 Daw, Nuπman 449, 450–2 democracy 215, 512–34 civil rights 513–18, 521–4 diversity 526–9, 534 elections 516–19 goals 512–13 leadership 519 modernity and reform 530–3 political parties 520, 524, 527–9 rights of women 529–30 desertification 100–1 Dhimmis 102–3 diaspora (Lebanese and Syrians) 213–14, 217–18, 322, 450, 454–7 literature 427–9, 431–9 Dibs, Yusuf 137, 229 diversity 62–3, 93–7, 526–9, 534 see also sectarianism divine law 292–6, 300, 377–8 Djilas, Milovan, The New Class 67 E economic development 164, 165–6, 170–1 Eddé, Emile 238–9, 246 Egypt 128–30 ancient history 165–6, 179–80, 181–2 influences on Carthage 187 nationalism 17, 106, 128–30 elections 516–19 empire-building 168–9 Engels, Friedrich 543–4

[618]

INDEX environment and community 21–2, 52–4 man’s relationship with 366–7 and religion 401–3, 405, 408–12 epistemological scepticism 352 epistemology see knowledge equality see rights and citizenship ethics 204, 374–82 ethnic diversity 93–7, 526–7 European Union (EU) 62 exile see Saπadeh, Antun, early life; writings of AS existence human 364–8 and knowledge 353 man-society 372–3 nature of 358–64 and realism 355–6 existentialism 365 expatriate life see diaspora (Lebanese and Syrians); Saπadeh, Antun, early life; Syrian literature F Faisal I, King 122, 141–2 Faji πtu Hubb (A Love Tragedy) 444, 469 Fakhr al-Din II 224 Farah, Elias 394–5 Farhat, Elias 229, 432, 433, 438, 442 fascism 177, 182, 365, 544–5, 555 Al-Fatat 87 Faysal, Amir 88 Fertile Crescent 98, 99, 140, 513, 571 Fertile Crescent Scheme 126, 130, 134 The Folly of Immortality (Junun al-Khulud) 4, 478–9 France 100, 103, 106 and Lebanon 224–5, 245–7 occupation of Syria 122–3, 124, 125, 204 see also mandate system Franco, Francisco 56 Franjiyyah, Hamid 453–4 Free Syrians Party 430 freedoms 371, 521–4, 532–4 through struggle 52 see also democracy Freemasons 430

G Garaudy, Roger 542–3 Gemayel, Pièrre 226, 239, 525 General Syrian Congress 88 geography Phoenician colonies 184, 187, 190–1, 213 and regional nationalism 18, 19–24, 164 Syria 97–101, 149–50 German nationalism 47–8 Ghabat al-Haqq 320 Ghallab, Muhammad 179, 181 Ghanem, Shukri 230 Ghazi, King of Iraq 124 Gibran, Gibran Khalil 228–9, 324–5, 469 God, nature of 304–8, 374–6 Great Britain and the Greater Syria Scheme 123, 125–6, 135–6, 139–44 mandate system 100 Greater Syria Scheme 121–57 AS’s attitude to 121–2, 128–32 British attitude to 123, 125–6, 135–6, 139–44 Longrigg-Porath claim 132–4 origin and development 121, 122–8 and the Syrian national doctrine 147–56 Greek civilization 173, 174–5, 187 H Haddad, Abdul Masih 484, 485–8 Hage, Muhammad 136 Al-Halaqat Al-Dhahabiyya 325 Hammurabi 180, 192 Hannibal 184, 187, 189, 193, 217 Haykal 491, 493 Hegel, G.W. F. 282, 560 Hegelianism and AS 542, 543, 545, 546, 550 leadership 544–5 Marxist perspective on 542–4, 549 heritage studies 391–2 analytical approaches to 394–7 AS and Salafiyya 397–400 AS’s understanding of Islam 400–17 sources 392–4

[619]

ANTUN SAπADEH history of Syria 81–91, 100–1, 405, 464 see also ancient history Hitler, Adolf 177, 178 Hitti, Philip K. 469 human existence 364–8 Husayn, Sharif 87 Husayn, Taha 463–4 Husri, Sati 7 Huwayyik, Elias 224 I Ibn Rushd 323 ‘Ideal’ in literature 464–6, 467, 493–7 idealism 354–5 ideology 510–12 immaculate conception 414–15 immigrant minorities 217, 218 independence AS’s conception of 242–9, 248–9 intellectual and cultural 472–5 India, socio-economic cycle 56 indigenous antiquity 195–210 individual 363, 364–5 personality 370–2 and society 368–73 and values 382 individualist doctrine 370 Industrial Revolution 33, 54, 61, 63–4, 68, 573 Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature (Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri) 5, 435–6, 488–9, 534 intellectual life 201–3, 204 interaction 549–50 see also social interaction internationalism 278–80 Iraq 56, 100, 124, 141–2, 316 Islam 377–8 heritage studies 395–400 and nationalism 104–5 and the nature of God 375–6 and secularism 289, 290–310 as understood by AS 400–17 Islam in its two messages (Al-Islam fi Risalateih) 4, 295, 392, 393–4, 400–19, 525 Islamic fundamentalism 509

Israeli-Phalanges contacts

240–2

J Al-Janan (magazine) 318 Al-Jaridah (magazine) 1, 429, 438 Jerusalem 197–8 Judaism 207, 208–9 compared with Islam 403–5, 412–13 Jumblatt, Kamal 7 Junun al-Khulud (The Folly of Immortality) 4, 478–9 Justinian Code 173 K Kamel, Michel 567–8 Kant, Immanuel 354, 355 Kappers, Ariens 233 Karam, Khalil 229 Karam, Youssef 317 Kataπib Party 168, 226, 239–42, 251, 511 al-Kawakibi, Abdul Rahman 321 Khadduri, Majid 18–19 Khalil, Louis 233–4 Khoury, Mounir 551 Khuri, Beshara 239, 246 al-Khuri, Rashid Salim (al-Qarawi) 432, 433, 438, 442, 478–84 and Islam in its Two Messages 4, 393–4, 397 Kierkegaard, Soren 365 King-Crane Commission 224, 225–6 Kitab al-Taπalim (The Book of Teachings) 3, 58 knowledge 268, 352–8 and religion 285–8, 293–6, 377 Kurdish separatism 56 L language and nationhood 26–8, 47–8, 51, 214 Stalin’s view 66–7 law in antiquity 172–3, 175 divine 292–6, 300, 377–8 leadership 519, 544–8 League of Nations, minority rights 93, 95 Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) 540, 561, 562

[620]

INDEX Lebanese Isolationism 398 Lebanese nationalism 210–13, 226–8, 234, 439 Maronite writers 228–33 see also ∏Aql, Saπid Lebanese Phalanges see Kataπib Party Lebanon 204, 223–53, 517, 522 1947 elections 249–50 in antiquity 172, 174, 198–9, 205 and ∏Aql, Saπid 195–8 creation of 223–6 and the Greater Syria Scheme 153 independence 242–9 rebellion 252–3 religion 236 sectarian problem 58, 316–17 state opposition to AS 510–11 Zionist-Lebanonist alliance 237–42 see also Phoenicianism; Phoenicians Leibniz, Gottfried 372–3 Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 570, 574–6 Leninist-Marxism 63 and socio-economic cycle 64–7 letters 449–54 Liberalism 269 literary criticism 440–2, 467–72, 479–84, 497–501 literary societies 86–7 Andalusian League 431–3, 436–7 literature 444–5, 447–8 see also Syrian Literature; writings of AS Longrigg, Stephen 132 Longrigg-Porath claim 132–4 A Love Tragedy (Faji πtu Hubb) 444, 469 Lyttleton, Oliver 125 M al-Maalifa 432, 433 Maalouf, Yusuf 488, 490 Abqar 497–501 Maan 122 al-Maπarri, Abuπl Alaπ 464 Madness of Immortality 436–7 Al-Madrahiyyah (spiritual-materialism) 357, 359–62, 364, 365–6, 373, 549–52 applied analytical approach 558–61 as a scientific method 554–7

as a social reality 552–4 and socio-political action 557–8 Mahjari literature 477–84 Al-Majalla (magazine) 1, 19, 322, 429, 444 Malik, Charles 452 man see human existence man-society 372–3, 383 mandate system 88–90, 100, 104, 107, 140 creation of Lebanon 224–6 Lebanese independence 243–7 source of oppression 515–16, 517, 518 see also France, occupation of Syria Maronites 224–5, 227, 231–2, 233–7, 514 nationalist writers 228–33 and Zionism 237–9 Marrash, Francis 320 Marxism AS’s opposition to 276–83 economics and socio-economic cycle 63–4 perspective on nationalism 539–42 and philosophy 268–9 social classes 564–72 and social nationalism 276–83, 557–8, 561–3, 572–6 spiritual-materialist doctrine 552–4, 558–61 view of AS as Hegelian 541–2, 544–5, 547–8, 549 Masπoud, Habib 433–4, 436 materialism 280–3, 552–7 matter, and existence 358, 359–62 Mediterraneanism 172–3, 195, 197, 200–3, 226 memoirs 445–9 Messiah 413–14, 415–16 micro-nationalism 217–18 migration see diaspora Millet System 103 mind concept of 52, 54, 70 and existence 362–4 and knowledge 356–7 and personality 371 minorities see diversity; sectarianism

[621]

ANTUN SAπADEH misinterpretation of AS 7, 8–9 Misr al-Fatat see Young Egypt (Misr al-Fatat) missionary institutions 86, 106 monarchy 155–6, 192 in antiquity 177–83, 215 monotheism 414 Monument Committee 441–2 Mount Lebanon 224, 232, 233, 438–9 massacres 316 Mraeden, Azizia 434–5 Mubarak, Ignatius 237–8, 241 Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr (The Ten Lectures) 6, 95, 438 Mukhtar, Salah 565–8 Mukhtarat fi al-Hizbiyyah al-Dinniyah (An Anthology on Religious Partisanship) 378–9 Al-Muqtataff (journal) 318 music 444, 445 Mussolini, Benito 177, 178 Al-Mutassarifiyya 224, 317

social nationalism; Syrian nationalism; Western nationalism nationalist thought 47–9 nationality and citizenship 92–7 nature and man 20, 366–7 Nazism 47–8, 365, 555, 559 New Testament 400–1 Nietzsche, F.W. 324–5 novels 3, 444 Nuπayma 493, 494, 495 Nushuπ Al-Umam see (The) Rise of Nations (Nushuπ Al-Umam)

N Naccache, Albert 238 Nafir Suria 137, 318 Nahhas, Mustafa Pasha 89, 128–30 Nassar, Salwa 530 nation AS’s concept of 17–19, 22, 50–1, 69–72, 227, 270–1 customs and traditions 30–1 Lenin’s concept of 574, 575 and social nationalism 557 see also state National Bloc 124, 145, 523, 526, 527 National Muslim Council 517 national social conscience 32 national sovereignty 82 nationalism 2, 9, 267, 270–83 and capitalism 272–3, 274–6 inequality among nations 271–2 in literature 433–5 Marxist perspective on 539–42 secular 86–7, 105–9 in the third world 272, 273–6 writers and intellectuals 317–25 see also Arab nationalism; German nationalism; regional nationalism;

P Palestine 59, 106, 239 and the Greater Syria Scheme 141, 145–7, 152 Zionist-Lebanonist alliance 237–8 Pan-Islamism 105, 477 Paris 205 Paris Peace Conference 1919 230 parliaments 516–19, 520 partition of Syria 100 patriotism 439 Pensot, Henri 245–6 Persians 100 Personal Status laws 331–2, 337, 514, 532 personality 370–2 cults 547–8 petite bourgeoisie 540, 564–8 philosophy 267, 268–70, 351–84 ethics 374–82 existence 353, 355–6, 358–68 individual and society 368–73 knowledge 351–8 of politics 382–4 Phoenicianism 226, 230–3 Phoenicians 165–71, 173, 204, 210–11

O oil in Arabia 54 Old Testament 403–5 Oriental ‘Ideal’ 493–7 Oriental Society 137 Ottoman Empire 83–6, 100, 211, 224, 225 religious communities 103, 316–17

[622]

INDEX agriculture 198–9, 200 commerce and trade 167–8, 170–1, 184–5, 199–201 development of thought 201–3 monarchy 178 and power 194, 201 slavery 176 see also Carthage; Phoenicianism poetry 475–7, 534 criticism 470–2, 479–84, 497–501 political clubs 86–7 political parties 520, 523, 524, 527–9, 564 political reform 531–2 politics AS’s doctrine 382–4 revolutionary 382–4 Western 204–5 Porath, Yehoshua 132 psychological element in society 36, 556 see also spiritual element in society public opinion 515, 517, 521 Q Qadmus 471–2 introduction to 195–8, 203 al-Qarawi see al-Khuri, Rashid Salim Qurπan 294–5, 301–2 compared with New Testament 400–1 compared with Old Testament 403–5 people of the book 412–13 R Rababi, Elias 241–2 Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya 324, 432, 484, 485, 487, 488 race 91–2 in Carthage 184, 188–9, 189–90 and nationhood 24–6, 47–8, 51, 57–8 Rashayya fortress 247 rational knowledge 354 realism 355–6 reason 269–70, 548–9 and secularism 293, 305–8, 327 reform 530–3 regional nationalism 17–40 AS’s place in the debate 17–19 cultural factors 26–31

and geography 18, 19–24, 164 race 24–6 and the state 34–340 unity of life and destiny 30, 32–3, 40, 49–50 see also socio-economic cycle religion 206–7, 209–10, 376–80 and Arab nationalism 104–9 diversity 93, 526–7 and ethics 374–5 historic alignments 83–5, 102–4 Maronite Church 224–5, 231–2, 233–7, 514 and monarchy 179–80 and nationhood 28–30, 48 nature of God 304–8, 374–6 partisanship see sectarianism and race 91 see also Christianity and the Church; heritage studies; Islam; Judaism; secularization religious fanaticism 2, 106, 331, 336 Religious Partisanship, An Anthology on (Mukhtarat fi al-Hizbiyyah al-Dinniyah) 378–9 revolutionary politics 382–4 rights and citizenship 513–19, 521–4, 534 minority rights 93–7, 526–9 Rihani, Amin 229, 432, 488, 489–90, 491 The Rise of Nations (Nushuπ Al-Umam) 3–4, 11, 443 ancient history 165, 185–6, 201, 216 concept of nation 19, 20, 22, 51–3 race 24, 25 religion 206 socio-economic cycle 33–4, 56, 68 spiritual-materialist doctrine 280, 282, 549, 554 Roman Empire 165, 172, 173, 174–5, 210–11, 410 Rousseau, Jean Jacques 440–1 Russia 100, 103 see also USSR S Saπadeh, Antun early life 428–31, 454–7

[623]

ANTUN SAπADEH execution 6, 253 imprisonment 243–4, 245 love of the arts 444–5 love of languages 442–4 principle ideas 1–2 return to Syria 2–3, 430–1 Saπadeh, Khalil 321–2, 428–9, 437–8, 469 Saπid, Nuri 89, 126, 142 Al-Saπih (magazine) 484, 485, 487 St Paul 409–10 Salafite studies 395–9 Saudi Arabia 54, 104, 106, 129 Scipio Africanus 175 scripts 202–3 sectarianism 330–1, 336–7, 339–40, 440 effect on Syrian society 378–80 historic reasons for 103–5, 316–17 Marxist view 560–1 see also minority rights secular activism 332–3 secular nationalism 86–7, 105–9, 235–6, 325–32 secularization 267, 283–308, 315–25 AS’s concept of 284–5, 325–32, 514–15 and AS’s concept of religion 290–2, 399–400 conflict with religion 289–90 and divine law 292–6, 300, 418 Islam and politics 301–2 metaphysical nature of belief 296–7, 298–301, 302 nature of God 304–8, 375–6 and Personal Status 331–2, 337 reform principles 329–31, 531–2 and social nationalism 327, 328, 332–41 society and religion 297–8 spiritual element 288–9 universality of religion 302–4 writers and intellectuals 318–25 see also secular nationalism self, active role of 353–4, 356 separatist tendencies 56–7 Shahbandar, Abd al-Rahman 124 Shaheen, Tanious 317 Sharabi, Hisham 395–6

Shariπah law 103, 309 Shiπites 236 Shumayyel, Shibli 318 Shweiry, Youssef 564–8 Sidon 197–8, 205 Al-Siraπ al-Fikri fi al-Adab al-Suri (Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature) 5, 435–6, 488–9, 534 slavery 175–6 social change 171, 532–3 social interaction 33, 533 in the socio-economic cycle 57–60 social justice 337–8 social liberation 277–8 social nationalism 268–70, 274–5 and Marxism 276–83, 557–8, 561–3, 572–6 and secularism 327, 328, 332–41 society and human existence 366–7 and the individual 368–73 and religion 297–8, 410–12 and the state 38–40 values 380, 381–2 socio-economic cycle 33–4, 53–5, 69–71 concept 49–51 interaction with different cycles 61–3 and Leninist-Marxism 64–7 and Marxian economics 63–4 and separatist tendencies 56–7 and social interaction 57–60 and society 67–9 sociography 54, 60–1 soul and existence 358–62 South America 217–18 expatriate literature 427–9, 431–7 Soviet Union see USSR Spain, separatist tendencies 56 spiritual element in society 36, 93, 281–2, 288–9 soul and matter 358–62, 494 spiritual-materialism see Al-Madrahiyyah (spiritual-materialism) SSNP see Syrian National Party (SSNP) Stalin, Joseph 64–7, 539, 560, 574 state and nation 34–40, 177, 227 political reform 531–2

[624]

INDEX and religion 108–9, 401–7 see also secularization and society 38–40 subjective and objective in nationalist thought 49, 52, 53–5 Sunnis 236 surahs 411–12 Sykes-Picot Agreement 59, 100, 244 Syria 1949 coup 250–1 AS’s view of revolution 71–2 geography 97–101, 149–50 history 1, 81–91, 100–1, 405, 464 minorities 92–7 race 91–2 religion 102–4 sectarianism 316–17 Syrian League 428 Syrian literature 489–93, 501–2 Al-Rabita al-Qalamiyya 324, 484, 485, 487, 488 expatriate 427–9, 431–7 Intellectual Conflict in Syrian Literature 5, 435–6, 488–9, 534 Mahjari 477–84 myth 497–501 revival 467–75 shortcomings 463–7 The ‘Ideal’ 493–7 Syrian national doctrine (SND), and the Greater Syria Scheme 147–56 Syrian National Party (SSNP) 71, 121, 130, 333–5 AS’s leadership 544–8 AS’s return from exile 5–6 critics of 338–40 and cultural independence 472–3 founding 3, 23 Lebanese elections 1947 249–50 and Lebanese independence 243, 244–5, 247, 248 Longrigg-Porath claim 132–4 and the Maronite Church 233–5 Marxist view of 541, 564–5 national homeland 97–8 persecution of 510–11 and poets 195, 478, 483, 484, 489 rebellion in Lebanon 252–3

Reform Principles 329–31 secularism 334–8 socio-economic cycle 68 and Syrian coup 250–1 Syrian nationalism 17, 81–113, 560–1 and citizenship 92–7 and communism 561–3 and geography 97–101 historical background 81–91, 136–9 leadership 215 and Maronite writers 228–33 racial background 91–2 and religion 101–9 role of Carthage 185–6, 187–8, 194–5, 213–14 social community 109–13 see also Greater Syria Scheme; Syrian National Party (SSNP) Syrian revolution 165–6 Syrian Scientific Society 137 Syrian Society 137 Syrian-Western relationships in antiquity 172–4, 174–7 T al-Tahtawi, Rifaπa 17 Tayzini, Tayyib 395, 396–7 The Ten Lectures (Al-Muhadarat al-Ashr) 6, 95, 438 Thamarat al-Funoun 318 third-world, nationalism in 272, 273–6 tolerance 524–6 Torah 294–5 Touma, Emil 563 trade see commerce and trade traditions see customs and traditions Treaty of Berlin 1878 225 U Ugarit 231 Umayyad Caliphate 83, 104, 197, 464–5 unity of life and destiny 31, 32–3, 34, 49–50, 69 and minority rights 92–3, 96 and religion 101–2 USA 55, 62 Al-Usba 431, 432, 433, 434, 435–6

[625]

ANTUN SAπADEH USSR 62–3, 555, 559–60 see also Russia V values 380–2, 408–12 Village Poet see al-Khuri, Rashid Salim voting rights 516–19 W Wahhabi movement 85, 104, 509 Washington, George 55 Weizmann, Chaim 238, 239 Weltanschauung 383–4 Western civilization 204–6 rejection of 172, 212 Western literature 468–9 Western nationalism 35–6, 88, 272–3 Western perspective on AS 8–11 Western politics 204–5 Western rule see mandate system Westernization 111–13 women liberation of 529–30 St Paul’s attitude to 410 in Syrian literature 468 Woodhead Royal Commission 124 World War I 428, 438–9 British interest in Syria 140

World War II, invasion of Lebanon and Syria 246 writings of AS 3–7, 9–10, 427 journalism 429, 437–40 letters 449–54 literary criticism 440–2, 467–72, 479–84, 497–501 memoirs 445–9 poetry 475–7 see also critics of AS; individual titles Y Yamak, Labib Zuwiyya 40, 333, 551–2 Yaziji, Nasif 86 Young Egypt (Misr al-Fatat) 170, 178, 181–3, 211–12 Young Turk Movement 106 Z Zaim, Husni 250–3 Al-Zawbaπa (journal) 4, 478–9, 488 Ziadeh, May 529 Zionism 2, 454–5 and the Greater Syria Scheme 144–7 and minority rights 94–5 Zionist-Lebanonist alliance 237–42 Zuryak, Constantine 58

[626]

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