ʿAbd ar-Rahmān al-Kawākibī

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al-Kawakibi

ʿAbd ar-Rahmān al-Kawākibī ( Arabic عبد الرحمن الكواكبي, DMG ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī ; born In Aleppo in 1855 ; died 1902 in Cairo ) was an influential Syrian Islamic theologian and publicist.

Childhood and youth

Kawakibi spent several years of his childhood with an aunt in Antakya, as his mother died early. In 1865 he returned to his hometown. He studied at Madrasat al-Kawakibi, which his family had founded and which his father led.

life and work

Kawakibi was a propagator of an Arab cultural renaissance ( Nahda ). The intellectual had a profound influence on the development of the Arab nationalist movements. It is one of the representatives of the current of the reform tradition ( Islah ) of the Afghan Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani (1838-1897) and the Egyptian Muhammad Abduh (1849-1905) and his compatriot Rashid Rida (1865-1935).

From 1872 to 1876 he worked as a journalist for the bilingual newspaper Firat, which appeared in Aleppo.

As the editor of two newspapers, including the weekly asch-Shahbāʾ , he spoke out in favor of Arab nationalism , criticized the Turkish authorities under the Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamid II and advocated social and religious reforms. The al-Shahbāʾ newspaper was banned after the 16th edition. In 1879 he brought out another weekly newspaper called al-Iʿtidāl . This was also banned in October of the same year. Al-Kawakibi was later arrested and detained for several months.

In exile in Egypt he became acquainted in Cairo with the Muslim reformist leaders Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani , Muhammad Abduh and Raschid Rida , who influenced him ideologically. He took part in activities for Islamic reform and was active as a journalist. As a writer, he preached religious reforms and advocated the revival of Arab culture. He promoted his goals in Arab countries as well as East Africa and South Asia.

Kawakibi was supported by the Egyptian Khedive Abbas Hilmi Pascha with a grant and the financing of his trips. His work underlined the political goals of the Egyptian ruler, who was formally subordinate to the Ottomans, after expanding his political power and delegitimizing the Ottoman claim to leadership.

He stressed that in creating and spreading Islamic culture, the Arabs had made a special contribution to the leadership of the Islamic world and should therefore be responsible for its central leadership: Mecca (in Saudi Arabia ) instead of Istanbul (the capital of the Ottoman Empire Empire ).

In 1900 al-Kawakibi published the text Umm al-Qurā ("the mother of the cities"), in which he called for a secret Islamic congress to be held every year during the Hajj in Mecca . In it he called for an Arab caliphate and called on the intellectuals to take action against the Ottoman Empire.

His writing on despotism (Arabic short name: Ṭabāʾiʿ al-istibdād ) accounts for the humiliating way in which the Ottomans treated their subjects .

The 1998 Syrian film A Land for a Stranger directed by Samir Zikra filmed the life of al-Kawakibi and his struggle for reform.

A colloquium was held in Aleppo (Ḥalab) in 2008 in honor of al-Kawakibi's 100th year of death .

Quote ('The Nature of Despotism')

“Science has revealed numerous facts over the past centuries, and these are ascribed to its discoverers, who were Europeans or Americans. But those who carefully examine the Qur'an will find that most of these facts were explicitly or implicitly mentioned in the Qur'an thirteen centuries ago; and these should not remain hidden, but when they are discovered show a miracle of the Qur'an and point out that it is the word of the Lord who alone knows the hidden. "

Fonts (selection)

  • Taba'i 'al-Istibdad wa-Masari' al-Isti'bad
  • Umm al-Qura (1899)
    • in German (excerpt): 'Abdarraḥman al-Kawākibi, Revival of the Arab Caliphate , in Andreas Meier, Ed .: The Political Mission of Islam. Programs and Criticism between Fundamentalism and Reforms. Original voices from the Islamic world. Peter Hammer Verlag , Wuppertal 1994, ISBN 3-87294-616-1 , pp. 94-100 (with introduction to the ed.)

Editions & translations

  • Abd Al Rahman Al Kawakibi: You despotisme et autres essais . 2013 (French)
  • Abd ar-Rahman al-Kawakibi: Taba'i 'al-Istibdad wa Masari' al-Isti'bad . Al-Kamel Publishing House. 1st edition (2006) (Arabic)

literature

  • Ryuichi Funatsu: Al-Kawākibī's Thesis and its Echoes in the Arab World Today. Harvard Middle Eastern and Islamic Review 7 (2006), 1–40 ( PDF ( Memento of July 9, 2010 in the Internet Archive ))
  • Chamieh, Ibtissam: Socio-politique chez ʿAbd arRahmân al-Kawâkibî écrivain et réformateur du XIXe siècle. 1986. Paris 1, Univ., Diss., 1986
  • Antonino Pellitteri: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī (1853/54 - 1902): nuovi materiali bio-bibliografici. Roma: Is. per l'Oriente CA Nallino, 1996 [published] 1998
  • Salam Kawakibi: “Un réformateur et la science”, Le courant réformiste musulman et sa réception dans les sociétés arabes , Ifpo (Institut français du Proche-Orient), Damas, 2003
  • Sylvia G. Haim: Blunt and al-Kawākibi, in: Oriente Moderno , xxxv (1955), pp. 132-143.
  • Tauber, Eliezer: "Three Approaches, One Idea: Religion and State in the Thought of 'Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi, Najib' Azuri and Rashid Rida." In British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 21, pp. 190–198 ( JSTOR 195472 )
  • George Antonius : The Arab Awakening , GP Putnam's Sons, 1946.
  • George N. Atiyeh : “Humanism and Secularism in the Modern Arab Heritage: The Ideas of al-Kawakibi and Zurayk”, in: George Nicholas Atiyeh, Ibrahim Oweiss (Eds.): Arab Civilization: Challenges and Responses: Studies in Honor of Constantine K. Zurayk. 1988, p. 42 ff.
  • Itzchak Weismann : Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi: Islamic Reform and Arab Revival . Oxford, Oneworld 2015

Web links

References and footnotes

  1. ↑ The year of birth 1854 also occurs.
  2. ↑ see also Salafism & Arab Nationalism
  3. ^ William L. Cleveland, Martin Bunton: A history of the modern Middle East . Perseus Books Group, New York 2016, ISBN 978-0-8133-4980-0 , pp. 120 .
  4. ^ Efraim Karsh: Islamic Imperialism - A History , New Haven, 2007, p. 147
  5. ↑ Umm al-Qurā is an epithet of the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia
  6. ↑ aljazeera.com: Profile: Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi
  7. ↑ elsevier.nl ( Memento from January 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ): "In zijn werk De aard van het despotisme veegde hij de vloer aan met de vernederende manners waarop de Ottoman hun onderdanen treat."
  8. ^ Film.at: A Land for a Stranger
  9. ↑ Colloque à l'Occasion du Centenaire de la Disparition du Cheikh ʿAbd-al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī (Nadwat bi-Munāsabat Murūr 100 ʿĀm ʿala Wafāt ʿAbd-ar-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī)
  10. ↑ Translation quoted from: islamic-sciences.de: The Quran and science (Institute for Humanities and Islamic Studies eV)
personal data
SURNAME Kawākibī, ʿAbd ar-Rahmān al-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kawakibi, Abd al-Rahman al
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian Islamic theologian and publicist
DATE OF BIRTH 1855
PLACE OF BIRTH Aleppo
DATE OF DEATH 1902
Place of death Cairo