Islamic Reform and Arab Nationalism: Expanding the Crescent from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean (1880s-1930s)

186 Pages·2010·0.73 MB·English

by  Amal N. Ghazal

ISLAMIC REFORM AND ARAB
NATIONALISM
BridgingAfricanandArabhistories,thisbookexaminestherelation-
shipbetweenIslam,nationalism,andtheevolutionofidentitypolitics
from the late nineteenth century to World War Two. It provides a
crossnational,crossregionalanalysisofreligiousreform,nationalism,
and anticolonialism from Zanzibar to Oman, North Africa, and the
Middle East.
ThisbookwidensthescopeofmodernArabhistorybyintegrating
Omani rule in Zanzibar in the historiography of Arab nationalism
andIslamicreform.Itexaminestheintellectualandpoliticaltiesand
networks between Zanzibar, Oman, Algeria, Egypt, Istanbul, and
theLevantandthewaysthoselinksshapedthepoliticsofidentityof
the Omani elite in Zanzibar. Out of these connections emerges an
Omani intelligentsia strongly tied to the Arab cultural nahd.a and to
movementsofIslamicreform,pan-Islamism,andpan-Arabism. The
book examines Zanzibari nationalism, as formulated by the Omani
intelligentsia,throughtheprismofthesepan-Islamicconnectionsand
in the light of Omani responses to British policies in Zanzibar. The
authorshedslightonIbadism–anoverlookedsectofIslam–andits
modernintellectualhistoryandtheroleoftheOmanieliteinbridging
Ibadism with pan-Islamism and pan-Arabism.
Although much has been written about nationalism in the Arab
world,thisisthefirstbooktodiscussnationalisminZanzibarinthe
widercontextofreligiousreformandnationalismintheArabworld,
and the first to offer a new framework of analysis to the study of
pan-Islamic and pan-Arab movements and nationalism.
Amal N. Ghazal is Assistant Professor of History at Dalhousie
University, Canada.
CULTURE AND CIVILIZATION IN THE
MIDDLE EAST
Edited by Ian Richard Netton
Professor of Islamic Studies, University of Exeter
ThisseriesstudiestheMiddleEastthroughthetwinfociofitsdiversecultures
andcivilizations.Comprisingoriginalmonographsaswellasscholarlysur-
veys,itcoverstopicsinthefieldsofMiddleEasternliterature,archaeology,
law, history, philosophy, science, folklore, art, architecture, and language.
Whilethereisapluralityofviews,theseriespresentsseriousscholarshipin
alucidandstimulatingfashion.
PreviouslypublishedbyCurzon
THEORIGINSOFISLAMICLAW
TheQur’an,theMuwatta’,andMadinanAmal
YasinDutton
AJEWISHARCHIVEFROMOLDCAIRO
ThehistoryofCambridgeUniversity’sGenizahCollection
StefanReif
THEFORMATIVEPERIODOFTWELVERSHI’ISM
HadithasdiscoursebetweenQumandBaghdad
AndrewJ.Newman
QUR’ANTRANSLATION
Discourse,texture,andexegesis
HusseinAbdul-Raof
CHRISTIANSINAL-ANDALUS711–1000
AnnRosemaryChristys
FOLKLOREANDFOLKLIFEINTHEUNITEDARABEMIRATES
SayyidHamidHurriez
THEFORMATIONOFHANBALISM
Pietyintopower
NimrodHurvitz
ARABICLITERATURE
Anoverview
PierreCachia
STRUCTUREANDMEANINGINMEDIEVALARABIC
ANDPERSIANLYRICPOETRY
Orientpearls
JulieScottMeisami
MUSLIMSANDCHRISTIANSINNORMANSICILY
Arabic-speakersandtheendofIslam
AlexanderMetcalfe
MODERNARABHISTORIOGRAPHY
Historicaldiscourseandthenation-state
YoussefChoueiri
THEPHILOSOPHICALPOETICSOFALFARABI,AVICENNA,
ANDAVERROES
TheAristotelianreception
SalimKemal
PublishedbyRoutledge
THEEPISTEMOLOGYOFIBNKHALDUN
ZaidAhmad
THEHANBALISCHOOLOFLAWANDIBNTAYMIYYAH
Conflictorconcilation
AbdulHakimIAl-Matroudi
ARABICRHETORIC
Apragmaticanalysis
HusseinAbdul-Raof
ARABREPRESENTATIONSOFTHEOCCIDENT
East-westencountersinArabicfiction
RasheedEl-Enany
GODANDHUMANSINISLAMICTHOUGHT
Abdal-Jabba¯r,IbnS¯ına¯,andal-Ghaza¯l¯ı
MahaElkaisy-Friemuth
ORIGINALISLAM
MalikandthemadhhabofMadina
YasinDutton
AL-GHAZALIANDTHEQUR’AN
Onebook,manymeanings
MartinWhittingham
BIRTHOFTHEPROPHETMUHAMMAD
DevotionalpietyinSunniIslam
MarionHolmesKatz
SPACEANDMUSLIMURBANLIFE
AtthelimitsoftheLabyrinthofFez
SimonO’Meara
ISLAMSCIENCE
TheintellectualcareerofNizamal-Dinal-Nizaburi
RobertG.Morrison
IBN‘ARABΖTIMEANDCOSMOLOGY
MohamedHajYousef
THESTATUSOFWOMENINISLAMICLAWANDSOCIETY
(cid:2)
Annotatedtranslationofal-T.a¯hiral-H.adda¯d’sImra’tuna¯ fi‘l-shar¯ı awa
(cid:2)
’l-mujtama,withanintroduction
RonakHusniandDanielL.Newman
ISLAMANDTHEBAHA’IFAITH
AcomparativestudyofMuhammad‘Abduhand‘Abdul-Baha‘Abbas
OliverScharbrodt
COMTEDEGOBINEAUANDORIENTALISM
Selectedeasternwritings
TranslatedbyDanielO’Donoghue
EditedbyGeoffreyNash
EARLYISLAMICSPAIN
ThehistoryofIbnal-Qu¯.t¯ıya
DavidJames
GERMANORIENTALISM
ThestudyoftheMiddleEastandIslamfrom1800to1945
UrsulaWokoeck
MULLA¯ S.ADRA¯ ANDMETAPHYSICS
Modulationofbeing
SajjadH.Rizvi
SCHOOLSOFQUR’ANICEXEGESIS
Genesisanddevelopment
HusseinAbdul-Raof
AL-GHAZALI,AVERROES,ANDTHEINTERPRETATIONOFTHEQUR’AN
CommonsenseandphilosophyinIslam
AvitalWohlman,translatedbyDavidBurrell
EASTERNCHRISTIANITYINTHEMODERNMIDDLEEAST
EditedbyAnthonyO’MahonyandEmmaLoosley
ISLAMICREFORMANDARABNATIONALISM
ExpandingtheCrescentfromtheMediterraneantotheIndianOcean
(1880s–1930s)
AmalN.Ghazal
ISLAMICETHICS
DivineCommandTheoryinArabo-Islamicthought
Mariamal-Attar
ISLAMIC REFORM
AND ARAB
NATIONALISM
Expanding the Crescent from the
Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean
(1880s–1930s)
Amal N. Ghazal
Firstpublished2010
byRoutledge
2ParkSquare,MiltonPark,Abingdon,Oxon,OX144RN
SimultaneouslypublishedintheUSAandCanada
byRoutledge
270MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NY10016
RoutledgeisanimprintoftheTaylor&FrancisGroup,aninforma
business
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
©2010AmalN.Ghazal
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereprintedor
reproducedorutilisedinanyformorbyanyelectronic,mechanical,
orothermeans,nowknownorhereafterinvented,including
photocopyingandrecording,orinanyinformationstorageor
retrievalsystem,withoutpermissioninwritingfromthepublishers.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationData
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
LibraryofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Ghazal,AmalN.
IslamicreformandArabnationalismexpandingthecrescentfromthe
MediterraneantotheIndianOcean(1880s–1930s)/AmalN.Ghazal
p.cm–(CultureandcivilizationintheMiddleEast)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Summary:ThisbookexaminestherelationshipbetweenIslamand
nationalismandtheevolutionofidentifypolitics.BridgingAfrican
andArabhistories,itprovidesacrossnationalandcrossregional
analysisofintellectualmovementsfromZanzibarontheIndian
OceanthroughtoOmanandintotheMediterranean.
1.Arabnationalism.2Nationalism–Religiousaspect–Islam.
3.Islamicrenewal.4.Islamandpolitics–Arabcountries.
5.Anti-imperialistmovements–Arabcountries.I.Title
DS63.6G4652010
320.540917(cid:2)4927–dc22 2009038188
ISBN 0-203-85529-9 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN13:978-0-415-77980-7(hbk)
ISBN10:0-415-77980-4(hbk)
ISBN13:978-0-203-85529-4(ebk)
ISBN10:0-203-85529-9(ebk)
To all those who have crossed my path
and have made this possible …
And to Noor,
the anchor of my life

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments x
Map xiii
ListofAbbreviations xiv
1 ArabsinZanzibar:revisitinghistory 1
2 TheIbadinahd.ainOmanandZanzibar:fromtajdı¯d to
anticolonialism 20
3 ZanzibarandMzab:historicallegaciesandcolonialencounters 37
4 Zanzibar:intherealmoftheMashriq 50
5 Na¯s.iral-Bahla¯n¯ı:“Amaninanationandanationinaman” 66
6 IntherealmofSalafiIslam:theIbadidiaspora,theArabicpress,
andthemakingofZanzibarinationalism 91
7 Guardingthewat.an:educationandidentityininterwar
Zanzibar 109
Conclusion 125
Notes 129
Bibliography 153
Index 166
ix