Nahda

Introduction

Nahda, also referred to as the Arab Awakening or Enlightenment, was a cultural movement that flourished in Arabic-speaking areas of the Ottoman Empire, mainly in Egypt, Lebanon and Syria, during the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century. In traditional science, Nahda is thought to be associated with the culture shock caused by Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798 and the reform movement of later rulers such as Muhammad Ali of Egypt. However, more recent research has shown that Nahda's cultural reform program was as "autogenetic" as it was Western-inspired, having been associated with the Tanzimat – the period of reform within the Ottoman Empire that brought a constitutional order to Ottoman politics and created a new political order – as well as the later Young Turk Revolution, allowing for the dissemination of the press and other publications and internal changes in politics economy and community reforms in Egypt and Syria and Lebanon. The renaissance itself began simultaneously in both Egypt and Great Syria. Due to their different backgrounds, the aspects they focused on also differed. with Egypt focused on the political aspects of the Islamic world, while Greater Syria focused on the more cultural aspects. However, the concepts were not region-specific, and this distinction blurred as the Renaissance progressed (‘Nahda’).

The Nahda period marked a significant change in the relationship between West Asia and the West. Before this period, the East relied significantly less on the West for spiritual progress and inspiration. However, many scholars in the East realized that they were lagging behind the West intellectually. This realization encouraged Eastern sentiments to adopt Western ideas in efforts to maintain their roles on a world stage. This adoption of Western ideas involved many different things. An important aspect to note is the translation of Western texts into Arabic. Through these translations, many important linguistic changes took place, in which new words were created to keep pace with Western linguistics. Another notable aspect of the Nahda period is the increased openness to Western ideals. This transparency sparked an improvement in women's treatment. In short, the Nahda movement involved significant influence from West to East. This influence created significant intellectual and cultural shifts in the East, which have contributed significantly to the current trends observed in the East to date (Laurilliard).

History

Before the Nahda period, the dynamics in East and West the influence between them seemed very different. The East produced many spiritual achievements, which the West relied heavily on. Because many academic papers examining this period are written through a Eurocentric lens, the extent of this influence is not portrayed as accurately as it should. However, Eastern influence in the West was the prevailing dynamic in the pre-Nahda period. This influence includes the adoption by the West of ideas produced at the House of Wisdom in Baghdad. It is important to note this relationship before the Nahda period to reinforce how significant a change the Nahda period affected between these two geographical regions (Laurilliard).

A prominent figure of Nahda is widely considered to be the Egyptian scholar Rifa'a al-Tahtawi (1801–1873). He was sent to Paris in 1826 by the government of Muhammad Ali to study Western sciences and educational methods. His political views, initially influenced by the conservative Islamic teachings of al-Azhar University, changed on various issues and he came to support parliamentarism and women's education. Tahtawi's suggestion was that Egypt and the Muslim world had much to learn from Europe and he generally embraced Western society, but he also argued that reforms should be adapted to the values of Islamic civilization. This view became Nahda's trademark (‘Nahda’).

Politics

Throughout the nineteenth century there was strong opposition to the Ottoman Sultan in all parts of the Empire. Over the past half century, many theories about nationalism have been put forward. These can be broken down into modernist theory, ethno-symbolist theory, primordial theory, and eternal theory. Modernists believe that nationalism begins mainly in an industrialized Europe. Ethno-symbolism focuses on the distinctive symbols, values, and traditions that bind modern nations (Ramdani). Nahda supporters usually supported reforms. In 1876, the Ottoman Empire issued a constitution as the culmination of the Tanzimat reforms (1839–1876) and inaugurated the Empire's First Constitutional Era. It was inspired by European methods of governance and designed to restore the Empire to the same level as the Western powers. The constitution was opposed by the Sultan, as he controlled his powers. The introduction of parliamentarism also created a political order in the Ottoman-controlled provinces, from which later emerged a liberal nationalist elite that would lead the various nationalist movements, particularly Egyptian nationalism. Egyptian nationalism was non-Arab, emphasizing ethnic Egyptian identity and history in response to European colonialism and the Turkish occupation of Egypt. This paralleled the rise of the Young Turks in the central Ottoman provinces and administration. Discontent with Turkish rule merged with protests against the Sultan's autocracy, and largely secular notions of Arab nationalism emerged as a cultural response to the Ottoman Caliphates' claims to religious legitimacy. The main other example of the late Nahda era was the emerging Palestinian nationalism, which was distinguished from Syrian nationalism by Jewish immigration to Palestine and the subsequent sense of Palestinian exceptionalism (‘Nahda’).

Arts

At the cultural heart of the spiritual awakening, Nahda, Egypt's modernization movement in the 19th century was the end of innovations that came on the train of military, scientific, technological imports from the West. The vanguard of this movement, which is simultaneously unfolding in Istanbul, came from a leading member of the government. It may seem remarkable that graduates of such a conservative religious institution took the lead as a change. Egypt did not have an imperial state service with its own education as the Ottomans did. Thus, the conservatively-raised sheikhs and watts were obliged to play the role filled by Otto's grand viziers and their ambassadors in European capitals, aided by converts from the West seeking work among "secular" Muslims who identified with the state rather than the educated ulema. In Egypt, the reasoned voice advocating change came from the very custodians of the conservative tradition. Consequently, this voice would speak throughout the century with great caution, often hesitantly and sometimes in contradictory ways (Livingston).

Literature

During the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, some new developments in Arabic literature began to emerge, initially clinging to classical forms, but addressing contemporary issues and the challenges facing the Arab world in modern times. Francis Maras was influential in introducing French romanticism into the Arab world, especially through his use of poetic prose and prose, whose writings were the earliest examples in modern Arabic literature. In Egypt, Ahmad Shawqi (1868–1932), among others, began to explore the limits of classical qasida, although he remained a distinctly neoclassical poet. After him, others began to use poetry to explore themes of anti-colonialism as well as classical concepts. In 1914, Muhammad Husayn Haykal (1888–1956) published Zainab, often considered the first modern Egyptian novel. This novel started a movement to modernize Arabic fiction. A group of young writers formed the New School and in 1925 began publishing the weekly literary magazine The Dawn, which would have a great impact on Arabic literature. The group was particularly influenced by Russian writers of the 19th century such as Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and Gogol. Around the same time, Mahajari poets contributed further from America to the development of the forms available to Arab poets. The most famous of these, Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), challenged political and religious institutions with his writing. Some of the Mahajaris later returned to Lebanon, such as Mikhail Naimi (1898-1989) (‘Nahda’).

Other pioneering figures of Nahda were the Lebanese novelist, playwright and poet Zainab Fawaz, and the Lebanese novelist Labiba Hashim. Fawaz was the first Arab woman to write a novel and play. Her novel Good consequences (Ḥusn al-'Awāqib aw Ghādah al-Zāhirah) was a source of inspiration for many women of this period, who began to write openly about their struggles and thereby free themselves from the gender restrictions caused by society. Labiba Hashim published one of the first women's magazines in West Asia. In doing so, she encouraged other women to produce literature, as she hired women to work as journalists and editors for the company. In addition, she was a well-known lecturer at an Egyptian university, a very unusual job for women during this time period (Laurilliard).

Music

The beginning of contemporary Arabic music begins with the redefinition of the Arabic scale. Moreover, the emergence of "modern" music theory roughly coincides with the beginning of the era defined by many historians as the modern era in Western Asia, usually dating back to the arrival of Napoleon's troops in Egypt in 1798 and the subsequent influx of Westernizing and modernizing influences observed throughout West Asian societies. The presence of Western missionary education among Syrian Christians since the sixteenth century was also a contributing factor to the complex processes of innovation and adaptation to a "modernizing" environment. By the time of the direct French presence, Syria's Christian population had "already been touched by certain aspects of European thought," with educated families producing the founders of the nineteenth-century literary renaissance of Arabs, commonly referred to as "Nahda" ("rebirth, rebirth, awakening") (Popper).

To meet the Western cultural challenge, Egypt had to present a learned art of high value. The challenge was real: the Egyptian elites, taught in French universities, had the free time to discover the high position of music in Europe (The Nahda « AMAR Foundation for Arab Music Archiving & Research). Egyptian music had already begun to be recorded in the 1910s. By the 1930s, Egypt's classical musical tradition had flourished. In general, modern Egyptian music of the time combined its rich indigenous traditions with certain elements of Western music (‘Music of Egypt’). Modern classical Egyptian music began through the creative work of traditional classical musicians Abdu El Hamouly, Almaz and Mahmud Osman, as well as later composers and singers, 20Th century, Sayed Darwish, um Kulthum, Mohammed Abdel Wahab, Abdel Halim Hafez and Baligh Hamdy. Most of these artists were members of traditional Egyptian music (‘Music of Egypt’).

In the early 20th century, the first generation of Egyptian composers, such as Yousef Grace, Abu Khairat and Hassan Rashid, began writing music for Western instruments (‘Music of Egypt’).

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