Sadiq al-Azm

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Sadiq al-Azm (2006)

Sadik Jalal al-Asm ( Arabic صادق جلال العظم, DMG Ṣādiq Ǧalāl al-ʿAẓm ; more common English transcription: Sadiq Jalal al-Azm ; * November 1934 in Damascus ; † December 11, 2016 in Berlin ) was a Syrian philosopher , university professor and human rights activist .

Life

Al-Azm grew up in Damascus as the son of a wealthy and traditional Sunni family. At the American University of Beirut (AUB) he studied philosophy up to a BA in 1957 before continuing his studies at Yale University . There he obtained an MA in 1959 and a doctorate (Ph. D.) in 1961 with a dissertation on the French philosopher Henri Bergson .

academic career

In 1963 he returned to the AUB as a lecturer in philosophy in Beirut. In 1968 the college dismissed him after advocating a number of controversial positions. Students protested against his dismissal with a strike lasting several days. He then worked as a research assistant at the Center for Palestine Studies maintained by the PLO in Beirut, until he was also dismissed there in 1970 for expressing critical views. As a result, he worked as a freelance author for various magazines, sometimes under a pseudonym. From 1977 until his retirement in 1999 he was Professor of Modern European Philosophy at Damascus University . He has taught as a visiting professor at many universities around the world, including 1988–1992 and 2005–2008 in Princeton , in German-speaking countries in Berlin, Bonn, Hamburg, Lüneburg and Oldenburg, among others. In 2011/2012 he was a Fellow at the Käte Hamburger Center for Legal Culture in Bonn, 1990/1991 and 2012/2013 at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin .

Scientific work

Al-Azm dealt intensively with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant , for which he wrote two books in English and whose contribution to the enlightenment of the history of ideas influenced him significantly. In his preoccupation with the social conditions in the Arab world , the writings of the Syrian Marxist Yassin al-Hafiz in particular had a formative influence on him at the beginning of the 1960s . Al-Azm achieved great fame through his works Self-Criticism After the Defeat and Criticism of Religious Thought , published in 1968 and 1969 , with which he radically attacked central dogmas of the political and religious-cultural discourse within Arab society. Self-criticism after the defeat is an analysis of the state of the Arab world on the occasion of the historic turning point that the Six Day War of 1967 represented. The work has been described as "one of the most impressive and controversial writings of Arab political thought" and "the sharpest of all accusations against Arab society and culture". Al-Azm deplored the backwardness of his region and its political leaders and called for a fundamental modernization that would break with traditional traditions. The secularization of Arab society must be an important part of this . In his Critique of Religious Thought , he worked out philosophical inadequacies in dominant religious interpretations and their inhibiting influence on the development of contemporary Arab culture . During the phase between the Israeli-Arab wars of 1967 and 1973 , which was shaped by Marxist ideas of revolutionary liberation , he warned of the rise of religious-conservative forces in politics. Since then, many of his writings have been banned in several Arab countries, but continue to be in high demand from their readership.

In the decades that followed, the relationship between Islamic culture and social enlightenment and modernity remained a central theme of his philosophical work. In doing so, he took an active part in the most important debates on the relationship between Islam and the West, in which al-Azm always argued against the idea of ​​a separation into two worlds. A prominent example is his criticism of Edward Said's thesis on Western Orientalism : According to al-Azm, Said depicts the West as narrowed and reduced as the concept of orientalism derived from imperialism that Said introduced into scientific discourse. To illustrate this, Al-Azm contrasted this with an orientalist image of Occidentalism . Al-Azm also made numerous contributions to the discussion about the death threats against the British-Indian author of the novel The Satanic Verses , Salman Rushdie , based on Islamic religious regulations by the Iranian revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini . As one of very few Arab intellectuals, he vehemently defended Rushdie.

Political commitment

After the Six Day War of 1967 and under the influence of the international cultural upheaval of the student revolts of 1968, al-Azm became involved in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and in 1969 was one of several Syrians among the founders of the split from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP ) formed Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP). Under the leadership of Nayef Hawatmeh , the Marxist- oriented DFLP, unlike the other PLO parties , advocated the idea of ​​a solution to the Middle East conflict through negotiations with Israel and the establishment of a separate state in the Palestinian territories that Israel had occupied since 1967 . In the following years he wrote two books and numerous articles that dealt critically with the ideologies of the Palestinian liberation movement. In 1975 al-Azm was one of the founding members of the magazine "Khamsin. Revue des socialistes révolutionnaires du Proche-Orient". The magazine, published by members of the Israeli Socialist Organization ( Matzpen ) and representatives of a new Arab left, propagated a socialist revolution in the Middle East. On the one hand, this meant overcoming the historical Palestine conflict: Israel as a Jewish state should transform itself into a community in which Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would live together on the basis of individual and collective equality and mutual recognition. On the other hand, Khamsin campaigned for the secularization and modernization of the entire Middle East, in order to bring about a separation of state and religion, to guarantee recognition and security for ethnic and religious minorities, as well as to guarantee gender equality.

Shortly after the death of long-time Syrian dictator Hafiz al-Assad in June 2000, al-Azm joined forces with leading intellectuals in the country to jointly publish the "Manifesto of 99": a call for the abolition of martial law, an amnesty for all political prisoners and to establish the rule of law and civil rights. In 2001 he was one of the first to sign the “Declaration of a Thousand”, which went a little further in its demands. In 2006 he joined the Beirut-Damascus Declaration, an open call to end Syrian control over Lebanon.

After the outbreak of the revolutionary unrest in Syria, which culminated in the current civil war , initially surprised him in January 2011, he was actively involved in the democratic opposition to dictator Bashar al-Assad and the strengthened jihadist groups. He saw the uprising against the regime as a revolution supported by the people, which he supported as an intellectual belonging to the political left . After the escalation of the armed violence, al-Azm and his wife were granted political asylum in Germany in 2012. As a representative of the Syrian Writers' Union, he was a member of the 60-strong national coalition of Syrian revolutionary and opposition forces ("Syrian National Coalition"), the opposition alliance formed in November 2012, which has since been recognized by several Western and Arab countries as the legitimate political representative of the Syrian people.

Controversy

With his writings, al-Azm has provoked fierce opposition from various camps since the 1960s, including from conservatives , religious fundamentalists and nationalists . His first time in 1965 published essay Satan tragedy with which he, the traditional Islamic understanding of the responsibility of God for evil questioned led to the publication of his book Critique of Religious Thought (1969) to a by the local Mufti expressed fatwa that of him Found guilty of apostasy and caused an uproar in religious and academic circles. The Lebanese authorities were under pressure from the religious establishment seize a part of the support, took the now as " heretics from Damascus " outlawed al-Azm for two weeks in custody and brought a charge of inciting sectarianism was acquitted, but he which early 1970th Shortly before, he had already lost his job as a university lecturer after, among other things, signing a petition calling on the US to withdraw from Vietnam, submitting his book Self-Criticism after the Defeat, which attacked the Arab political elites , and did not shy away from it, Resolve differences of opinion with influential professors.

Works (selection)

Monographs

  • Kant's Theory of Time. Philosophical Library, New York 1967
  • Self-criticism after the defeat (Arabic, 1968), published in English translation as: Self-Criticism after the Defeat. Saqi Books, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-863564-88-8 .
  • Critique of religious thought (Arabic, 1969), published in English translation as: Critique of religious thought. Gerlach Press, Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-940924-44-5 .
  • The Origins of Kant's Arguments in the Antinomies. Clarendon / Oxford University Press, Oxford 1972, ISBN 978-0198243755 .
  • The Mental Taboo: Salman Rushdie and the Truth in Literature. Riad el-Rayyes Books, London 1992 (Arabic).
  • Discomfort in Modernity - Enlightenment in Islam . Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-596-11578-7 .
  • Islam and Secular Humanism . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2005, ISBN 3-16-148527-0 .
  • Secularism, fundamentalism, and the struggle for the meaning of Islam. (three-volume collection of essays) - Volume 1: On fundamentalisms ; Volume 2: Islam - submission and disobedience ; Volume 3: Is Islam secularizable? Challenging political and religious taboos. Gerlach Press, Berlin 2013-2014, ISBN 978-3-940924-20-9 .

items

  • The Palestine Resistance Movement Reconsidered. In: Edward Said (Ed.): The Arabs Today: Alternatives for Tomorrow. Pp. 121–135, Columbus 1973, published in German translation as: The Palestinian Resistance re-thought. In: Die Third World Volume 3 (1974) p. 164 ff.
  • Palestinian Zionism. In: Die Welt des Islams Vol. 28 (1988), 90-98.
  • The Importance of Being Earnest About Salman Rushdie. In: Die Welt des Islams Vol. 31, No. 1 (1991), pp. 1-49.
  • Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse. In Alexander Lyon Macfie (ed.): Orientalism: A Reader. Pp. 217-238, New York University Press, New York City 2000.
  • Syria and the peace process. Negotiations, power games, maneuvers - views from Damascus . In: Lettre International , No. 51, Winter 2000.
  • Interview with Sadik Jalal al-Azm: "Bringing politics back into play" . In: International. No. 1–2, 2004, ISSN  1010-9285 , pp. 16–21 ( PDF file; 4.8 MB ).

honors and awards

Web links

Commons : Sadiq Jalal al-Azm  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

literature

  • Fouad Ajami: The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967. 2nd edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1992, ISBN 978-0-521-43243-6 .
  • Michaelle Brouwers: Democracy and Civil Society in Arab Political Thought: Transcultural Possibilities. Syracuse University Press, Syracuse 2006, ISBN 978-0-815-63099-9 .
  • Elizabeth Suzanne Kassab: Contemporary Arab Thought: Cultural Critique in Comparative Perspective. Columbia University Press, New York City 2010, ISBN 978-0-231-14489-6 .
  • Lutz Fiedler: Matzpen. Another Israeli story (= writings of the Simon Dubnow Institute. , Volume 25). Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, ISBN 978-3-525-37056-8 , pp. 263-300.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Prominent Syrian philosopher Sadiq al-Azm died. Associated Press article in Salt Lake Tribune , December 12, 2016, accessed December 13, 2016.
  2. ↑ a b Jean-Pierre Rondas: Islam's Satanic Tragedy, as Described in Sadik al-Azm's Exegesis. In: Ludo Abicht (Ed.): Islam & Europe: Challenges and Opportunities. Leuven University Press, Leuven 2008, p. 129 f.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Elie Chalala, Michael Teague: 40 Year-Old Classic Remains Influential: Sadiq Jalal al-Azm's 'The Critique of Religious Thought'. Al Jadid , archived from the original on July 15, 2013 ; accessed on December 13, 2016 .
  4. ↑ Sami Moubayed: Steel and Silk - Men and Women who Shaped Syria 1900-2000 . Seattle, 2006, p. 429
  5. ↑ Ghada Talhami, Sadik al-Azm: An Interview with Sadik al-Azm. In: Arab Studies Quarterly Volume 19, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 113–126, here p. 122 (English).
  6. ^ Former fellows . Website of the Käte-Hamburger-Kolleg, accessed on August 28, 2015.
  7. ↑ Prize winner: Sadik Al-Azm . Portrait on the website of the Goethe-Institut, August 28, 2015, accessed on December 13, 2016 (pdf; 140 kB).
  8. ^ Epilogue by Kai-Henning Gerlach and Walter Saller to al-Azm: Uneasiness in the modern age: Enlightenment in Islam. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 1993, p. 139.
  9. ↑ Ghada Talhami, Sadik al-Azm: An Interview with Sadik al-Azm. In: Arab Studies Quarterly Volume 19, No. 3 (Summer 1997), pp. 113–126, here p. 115 (English).
  10. ^ Fouad Ajami: The Arab Predicament: Arab Political Thought and Practice Since 1967. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1981, reviewed second edition 1992, ISBN 052143243X , p. 37.
  11. ↑ Malcolm Kerr: The Arab Cold War: Gamal ʿAbd al-Nasir and his rivals, 1958-1970 . Oxford University Press, London, 3rd edition 1971, ISBN 0195014758 , p. 135.
  12. ↑ a b Kersten Knipp: Interview with Dr. Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm: The Syrian Revolution and the Role of the Intellectual. In: The Republic. Al-Jumhuriya.net, April 27, 2013, archived from the original on October 19, 2014 ; accessed on December 13, 2016 .
  13. ^ Epilogue by Kai-Henning Gerlach and Walter Saller to al-Azm: Uneasiness in the modern age: Enlightenment in Islam. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 1993, p. 144.
  14. ↑ Mouaffaq Nyrabia: Syria: The children of the Six-Day War. (pdf, 728 kB) In: 1968: Memories and legacies GHI Bulletin Supplement 6 (2009). German Historical Institute, Washington DC, p. 148 , archived from the original on June 22, 2015 ; accessed on December 13, 2016 .
  15. ^ A b c Franck Mermier: Sadik Jalal al-Azm ou la pensée en bataille . Preface to al-Azm: Ces interdits qui nous hantent: islam, censure, orientalisme. Éditions Parenthèses, Marseilles 2008, p. 10, accessed on August 29, 2015 (pdf; 459 kB; French).
  16. ^ Lutz Fiedler: Matzpen. Another Israeli story . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2017, p. 263-300 .
  17. ^ Statement by 99 Syrian Intellectuals . al-Hayat , September 27, 2000, via Middle East Bulletin , October 5, 2000, accessed August 29, 2015.
  18. ↑ Quarrelsome scout . Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , August 11, 2011, accessed on December 13, 2016.
  19. ↑ a b c Kersten Knipp: Portrait Sadik Al-Azm: A militant Arab enlightener. Qantara.de , December 13, 2009, archived from the original on May 13, 2015 ; accessed on December 13, 2016 .
  20. ↑ Sadik J. al-Azm: Syria in Revolt: Understanding the Unthinkable War . Boston Review , August 18, 2014, accessed December 13, 2016.
  21. ^ Goethe Medal for Syrian philosopher Sadik Al-Azm. KNA article on Qantara.de , June 10, 2015, archived from the original on June 11, 2015 ; accessed on December 13, 2016 .
  22. ↑ USA recognizes Syrian opposition: "take responsibility". dapd / dpa article on taz.de , December 12, 2012, accessed on December 13, 2016.
  23. ^ Epilogue by Kai-Henning Gerlach and Walter Saller to al-Azm: Uneasiness in the modern age: Enlightenment in Islam. Fischer Taschenbuch, Frankfurt 1993, p. 138.
personal data
SURNAME Azm, Sadiq al-
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Azm, Sadiq Jalal al-; صادق جلال العظم
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Syrian thinker and philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH November 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Damascus
DATE OF DEATH December 11, 2016
Place of death Berlin