Nahda
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Featured: |
Al-Nahda (Arabic for "awakening" or "renaissance") was a cultural renaissance that began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Egypt, then later moving to Ottoman-ruled Arabic-speaking regions including Lebanon, Syria and others. It is often regarded as a period of intellectual modernization and reform.
In traditional scholarship, the Nahda is seen as connected to the cultural shock brought on by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798, and the reformist drive of subsequent rulers such as Muhammad Ali. However, recent scholarship has shown that the Middle Eastern and North African Renaissance was a cultural reform program that was as "autogenetic" as it was Western inspired, linked to the Ottoman Tanzimat and internal changes in political economy and communal reformations in Egypt and Syro-Lebanon.
The Egyptian nahda was articulated in purely Egyptian terms, and its participants were mostly Egyptians, and Cairo was the geographical center of the movement. But al-Nahda was also felt in neighboring Arab capitals, notably Beirut and Damascus. The shared language of Arabic-speaking nations ensured that the accomplishments of the movement could be quickly picked up by intellectuals in Arab countries.
In the Ottoman-ruled Arabic regions, major influence and motive were the 19th century tanzimat reforms of the Ottoman Empire, which brought a constitutional order to Ottoman politics and engendered a new political class and later the Young Turk Revolution, which allowed proliferation of press and other publications.
Further reading
- Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples, New York: Warner Books, 1991. (ISBN 0-446-39392-4)
- Ira M. Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd Ed. Cambridge University Press, 2002.
- Karen Armstrong, The Battle for God, New York City, 2000.
- Samir Kassir, Considérations sur le malheur arabe, Paris, 2004.
- Stephen Sheehi, Foundations of Modern Arab Identity, University Press of Florida, 2004.
- Fruma Zachs and Sharon Halevi, From Difa Al-Nisa to Masalat Al-Nisa in greater Syria: Readers and writers debate women and their rights, 1858–1900. International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 41, no. 4 (2009): 615 – 633.
