Fransis al-Marrash on Religion and Cultural Revival

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on questions of religiosity in the works of the Aleppine Christian scholar Fransis al-Marrash (1836–74), one of the leading figures of the Arab nahda (cultural revival). It presents the characteristics of al-Marrash’s concepts of true and false religion, and how these concepts relate to his theory of civilization. The article concludes that al-Marrash’s preoccupation with these concepts resulted in the formulation of contested modes of religiosity and a particular perception of reformed religion.

KEYWORDS:

• Fransis al-Marrash
• tamaddun
• nahda
• Arab Enlightenment
• enlightened religion
• civilization

Notes

1. See, for example, Gay, Rise of Modern Paganism; Gay, The Science of Freedom.

2. Barnett, Enlightenment and Religion, 1–44; Munck, Enlightenment, 1–20.

3. For an extended critique of the relation between Enlightenment and secularism, see Aston, “Enlightenment and Religion”; Barnett, Enlightenment and Religion, 45–80.

4. Hourani, Arabic Thought, vi.

5. Abu-ʿUksa, Freedom in the Arab World, 30–31.

6. Hourani, Arabic Thought, 247–48.

7. Stephan, “Reconsidering Transcendence/Immanence,” 349–67.

8. Moreh, Studies in Modern Arabic Prose, 92–97. See also Moreh, Modern Arabic Poetry, 44–45.

9. Bushrui and Jenkins, Kahlil Gibran, 55–56.

10. Moosa, Origins of Modern Arabic Fiction, 185–86.

11. For the translation of this title, I have followed that of Matti Moosa, ibid., 188.

12. Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 144–47.

13. Hijji, “Risala min Halab,” 367–69; Wihbi, “Radʿ al-Jusur,” 1871, 482–83; al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 484–85; Hijji, “Risala min Halab,” 557–61; Qandalaft, “Risala min Halab,” 616; al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 616–19.

14. al-Marrash, “Siyahat al-ʿAql,” 1871, 269–73.

15. Cheikho, Al-Adab al-ʿArabiyya, 2:40–45; De Tarrazi, Taʿrikh al-Sihafa al-ʿArabiyya, 1913, 1:143.

16. al-Bustani, “Majmaʿ fi Rumya,” 1870, 264.

17. Cheikho, Al-Adab al-ʿArabiyya, 2:40–41.

18. Faris, “Al-Nahda al-Dusturiyya wa-Siyasat al-ʿUthmaniyyin fi al-Diyar al-Misriyya,” 1910, 258.

19. De Tarrazi, Taʾrikh al-Sihafa al-ʿArabiyya, 1914, 2:287–81; al-Himsi, Udabaʿ Halab dhuu al-Athar fi al-Qarn al-Tasiʿ ʿAshar, 17–20; Van Dyck, Kitab Iktifaʿ al-Qanuʿ bima huwa Matbuʿ, 482; Sarkis, Muʿjam al-Matbuʿat al-ʿArabiyya wal-Muʿarraba, 2:1730–31.

20. Mutran, “Rthaʿ li-Maryana Marrash,” 1922, 321–22; De Tarrazi, Taʿrikh al-Sihafa al-ʿArabiyya, 1914, 2:241–45.

21. Cheikho, Al-Adab al-ʿArabiyya, 2:40–45; Zaydan, Tarikh Adab al-Lugha al-ʿArabiyya, 4:215–16; De Tarrazi, Taʾrikh al-Sihafa al-ʿArabiyya, 1914, 2:40–45; al-Himsi, Udabaʾ Halab dhuu al-Athar fi al-Qarn al-Tasiʿ ʿAshar, 20–30.

22. This, at all events, was the last article he published: al-Marrash, “Hal Lughz ʿAbd al-Majid Afandi Namya,” 1874, 267–68.

23. De Tarrazi, Taʾrikh al-Sihafa al-ʿArabiyya, vol. 1, 141–42; De Tarrazi, Al-Salasil al-Tarikhiyya, 235; al-Hulw, Al-Fikr al-Librali, 219.

24. Cheikho, Al-Adab al-ʿArabiyya, 2: 141–42.

25. al-Marrash, Rihlat Baris, 31–35.

26. He wrote a few poems glorifying Paris and comparing it with heaven: al-Marrash, Kitab Mashhad al-Ahwal, 19–31; al-Marrash, Rihlat Baris, 32–34, 41.

27. al-Marrash, Rihlat Baris, 43–44.

28. Ibid., 44.

29. For works that address the concept of civilization in Arabic, see Zachs, “Cultural and Conceptual Contributions,” 153–82; Bashkin, “Journeys between Civility and Wilderness,” 126–45; El-Ariss, Trials of Arab Modernity, 53–87; Benlahcene, “Civilization,” 49–64; Schaebler, “Civilizing Others,” 3–31; Abu-ʿUksa, Freedom in the Arab World, 50–83.

30. For further details, see Abu-ʿUksa, “Imagining Modernity.”

31. a-Marrash, Kitab Ghabat al-Haqq, 6–20.

32. See, for instance, ibid., 39; al-Marrash, “Shahadat al-Tabiʿa,” 249.

33. See al-Bustani, NafIr Suriyya; al-Dahdah, Birjis Baris; al-Marrash, Mirʿat al-Hasnaʿ, 242.

34. al-Marrash, Kitab Ghabat al-Haqq, 4.

35. Ibid., 36–39.

36. For selected examples of discussions on rational modes of faith written during the French invasion of Egypt and the Levant, see al-Jabarti, ʿAjaʾib al-Athar, vol. 3, 191, and al-Jabarti, Mazhar al-Taqdis, 27–28; and al-Sharqawi, Tuhfat al-Nazirin, 122; see also al-Tahtawi’s 1834 Paris travelogue, Takhlis al-Ibriz, 19, 35.

37. Abu-ʿUksa, Freedom in the Arab World, 50–83.

38. Abu-ʿUksa, “Imagining Modernity.”

39. Abu-ʿUksa, Freedom in the Arab World, 84–155.

40. al-Marrash, Kitab Mashhad al-Ahwal, 31–35, 39.

41. al-Marrash was among the early scholars who constructed a clear concept of cultural revival, for which he used two words; yaqaza and nahda (as in the phrase nuhud al-tamaddun, ‘the revival of civilization’). Al-Marrash, Kitab Ghabat al-Haqq, 57, 113, 131, 134; Ibid., 31–35, 39.

42. al-Marrash, “Al-Jaraʾid,” 157–59; al-Marrash, “Al-Qarn al-Tasiʿ ʿAshar,” 561–65.

43. al-Marrash, “Al-Qarn al-Tasiʿ ʿAshar,” 561; Al-Bashir, March 27, 1878; Al-Bashir, April 20, 1872; Al-Bashir, February 9, 1871.

44. al-Marrash, Kitab Mashhad al-Ahwal, 31–35, 39, 52–53, 56.

45. al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 617–18; al-Marrash, “Al-Tamaddun al-Mutawahhish,” 633.

46. al-Marrash, “Shahadat al-Tabiʿa,” 287.

47. al-Marrash, Kitab Mashhad al-Ahwal, 31–35, 39.

48. Ibid., 57.

49. Ibid., 59–60, 68.

50. al-Farabi, Fusul al-Madani, 37, 117; al-Farabi, Kitab al-Siyasa, 69, 87–101; Miskawayh, Tahdhib al-Akhlaq, 109.

51. al-Marrash, Kitab Mashhad al-Ahwal, 117–28.

52. al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 619.

53. al-Marrash, “Shahadat al-Tabiʿa,” 247, 249–51, 293.

54. Ibid., 249–51.

55. Ibid., 277; Elshakry, Reading Darwin in Arabic, 146.

56. al-Marrash, “Shahadat al-Tabiʿa,” 278–80.

57. Ibid., 280–81, 289–92.

58. al-Marrash, “Al-Nur,” 94–95; al-Marrash, “Al-Nur,” 51–52.

59. al-Marrash, “Al-Nur,” 51–52.

60. Ibid.; al-Marrash, “Al-Nur,” 94–95; al-Marrash, Kitab Mashhad al-Ahwal, 2–3.

61. al-Marrash, “Al-Nur,” 94–95.

62. al-Marrash, Kitab Mashhad al-Ahwal, 2–6, 17–18.

63. al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 616–19; Hijji, “Risala min Halab,” 367–69; al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 484–85; Hijji, “Risala min Halab,” 557–61.

64. al-Marrash, “Siyahat al-ʿAql,” 269–73.

65. al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 616–19; Hijji, “Risala min Halab,” 367–69; al-Marrash, “Risala min Halab,” 484–85; Hijji, “Risala min Halab,” 557–61.

66. al-Marrash, “Shahadat al-Tabiʿa,” 247, 287.

67. al-Marrash, “Al-Haya wa-Arkaniha al-Arbaʿa,” 681.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wael Abu-ʿUksa

Wael Abu-ʿUksa, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His publications include Freedom in the Arab World: Concepts and Ideologies in Arabic Thought in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and “The Construction of the Concepts ‘Democracy’ and ‘Republic’ in Arabic in the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean, 1798–1878,” Journal of the History of Ideas (2019).