Int. J. Middle East Stud.

14 (1982), 459-479 Printed in the United States of America

Ralph M. Coury

WHO "INVENTED" EGYPTIAN ARAB NATIONALISM?

Part 2

Part 1, (IJMES, 14 [1982], 249-281) presented arguments in favor of the first of

two major contentions in respect to the development of Egyptian Arab na-
tionalism between the two world wars; namely, that a rigid dichotomization
between an assumed Arab-Islamic orientation of the Palace and a secular-liberal,
Egyptian orientation of the Wafd and other parties is false. In the preceding
segment I tried to show that in the interwar period both the Wafd and the Palace
began to develop Arab nationalist orientations, albeit cautiously, and in a
manner that continued to subordinate Arab concerns to the national question
more narrowly conceived. I was particularly interested in demonstrating that no
new, activist pan-Arab policy could be attributed to the Palace in the late
thirties. Part 2 elaborates upon these and other themes as it discusses my second
major contention:

2. Growing interest in various forms of Arab unity and coopera-

tion among different branches of Egypt's ruling class reflect new
political and socioeconomic developments within Egypt and the
Arab world and are not best understood primarily in terms of
dynastic ambitions or the persistence and reassertion of a tempo-
rarily repressed and abstractly conceived Islamism.
Why did representatives of various branches of Egypt's ruling class become more
interested in the Arab world and begin to identify themselves as Arabs in the
interwar period? I believe that the answer can be found in a mingling of new
socioeconomic and political factors, the influence of which was first felt in Egypt
and the Arab East during the interwar period. I shall begin with the more purely
socioeconomic dimension and then proceed to the political, although it is
obvious that these two realms cannot be neatly separated.
1. During the interwar period there was an increase in the number of
unemployed university graduates whose horizons were closed because the
Egyptianization of employment and the country's economic development were
insufficient. The increasing Egyptianization of the state structure and the limited
growth of capitalism after World War I provided an outlet for graduates, but
even in the late 20s there were many unemployed intellectuals.133 Greater Arab

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460 Ralph M. Coury
unity was propounded as one solution by the press and leaders of various
parties. Muhammad Husain Haikal, for example, known in the twenties as an
exponent of a separate Egyptian nationalism, in 1927 called in the Liberal
Constitutionalist newspaper al-Siyasa for the strengthening of economic and
cultural ties with the countries of the Arab East, citing specifically the need for
officials in all branches of .work in these countries, a need which he thought
Egypt could supply.134 The possibilities of Egyptian employment within the Arab
world did not remain theoretical. In Iraq, in particular, many recent Egyptian
graduates of the university worked as teachers in secondary and higher schools.
It was Sanhuri and other Egyptians, for example, who organized the School of
Law in Baghdad in the mid-30s.135 The interwar period also witnessed the first
discussions of the possibilities of inducing rural emigration as an outlet for the
increasing mass of landless and impoverished peasants.136
2. The Arab world came to be regarded as a potential market for new
Egyptian industry and a field for other forms of economic activity. Bank Misr
established a bank in Syria and Lebanon in 1927 and the Misr group was active
in other countries of the Mashriq, especially Saudi Arabia. In the 20s it bought
steamships for the transfer of pilgrims, built the Misr Hotel in Suez and a
number of projects in the Hijaz, and established Air Misr between Cairo,
Khartoum, Damascus and Baghdad.137 As Abdel-Malek notes, Talat Harb had
discovered the Arab East nearly twenty years before the Alexandria Protocol.
Lamenting the destruction of unity between Syria and Egypt through great
power intervention in 1840 ("God alone knows how the fate of the people of the
East might have improved if this had not occurred"),138 he told an audience in
Beirut in July, 1925, that "We Egyptians, who consider Egypt and Syria two
sisterly nations linked by the Arabic language and many cultural ties, share your
feelings and desires for prosperity and nationalist aspirations."139 And in
Damascus a few days later he told members of the Arab Language Academy,
"We Egyptians will continue to fulfill our obligations in the service of our
common Arab culture. Perhaps then we shall see other (Arab) nations organizing
to add their efforts to ours, so that out of this meeting there will come a body of
knowledge and basis for exploration through which the mind of the East can be
sustained."140
In particular, the interwar period marked the further development of a process
that had begun before World War I, that is, the export of cultural products-
books, newspapers, magazines, and films by which the Egyptianization of
popular Arab middle class culture began. In this respect, as in others, Egyptian-
Arab relations contained a dialectical element, for the Egyptianization of Arab
culture worked in turn toward the Arabization of an Egyptian literary and
cultural production (in which, of course, many Arabs of non-Egyptian origin
participated) aimed at an audience transcending Egypt.141 One result of the ever
increasing cultural and social contacts during the interwar period is the fact that
the term Arab, used generally in the nineteenth century—and this was true of
other Arab countries as well—to refer mainly to the bedouin, came to be used
for all Arabic speakers, including Egyptians. We often see writers and speakers
first using the term ahl al-arabiyya or abna al arabiyya.w Such usage reflects
either a conscious effort to educate audiences to a new sense of unity or a
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 461

transition through which these leaders of opinion were themselves passing. Harb
is a case in point. In 1925 we find him speaking of the sons of the Arabic
language but also of the Arab peoples and Arab countries;143 then, in 1936, of
the sons of Arabism;144 and, finally, in 1939, in an unequivocal context, of Arab
nations which constitute a single entity.145
3. Various political movements within the Arab world increasingly sought
Egypt's political, financial, and moral support in their struggle against colonial-
ism. Nationalists traveled to Cairo or established permanent residency there to
publish newspapers and form organizations that would familiarize Egyptians
with Arab causes.146 Although these nationalists argued in terms of religious and
linguistic-cultural ties, a persistent theme was that Egyptian identity with the
Arab world would benefit Egypt's political and economic interests. In a letter
written to Shakib Arslan in 1921, for example, Rashid Rida asked him "to bear
down on the Egyptians" and fault them for their isolation and separateness from
their brethren among the Arabs. "You should show them," he said, "and remind
them that the neighbouring Arab states will insist, if independence is given to all,
to be dependencies of Egypt."147 Or here is Riyad al-Sulh, addressing Makram
Ubaid on the latter's visit to Lebanon in 1931: "If there is any sacrifice in Egypt
accepting the leadership of the Arab countries, it is our sacrifice and if there is a
benefit it will be for Egypt alone whether in negotiations or revolution. . . If the
negotiator with whom Egypt is negotiating . . . knows that Egypt is supported by
all the Arab countries and that they are influenced by her, then the position of
the Egyptian negotiator will be stronger than if he spoke in Egypt's name alone.
Likewise, in revolution we will be with Egypt if Egypt is Arab."148
Such themes, in which Egypt is looked upon as a leader or savior, testify both
to the Eastern Arabs' recognition that Egypt's size made it the natural leader in
any form of greater unity and to the relative (in comparison to Egypt) weakness
of the ruling classes in the Fertile Crescent area, the feebleness of internal
cohesion in the countries over which they presided, as well as their need to draw
upon Egyptian strength in their response to the more direct threat of Zionism
and the domination of an imperialism that had in some cases not yet granted
them even formal independence.149
4. Egyptians of varying orientations began to perceive the possibility of a
larger ensemble within which Egypt might take leadership and gain political
advantage. Such an idea was reinforced as the growing weakness of the im-
perialist states became more apparent as a result of the First World War and the
Great Depression, and after the Treaty of 1936 defined Egypt's international
position and gave her somewhat more leeway in an inter-Arab context. "The
Egyptian revolution has failed," Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini asserted in an article in
al-Risala in 1935, "because we have walled in our nationalism in walls similar to
the walls of China. I say this because I believe in what 1 call Arab nationalism
and I believe that it is political nonsense that each Arab country should be
separated in its efforts without the cooperation of its brethren."150 And in
September, 1939, in an essay entitled "The Egyptians are Arabs," Ubaid wrote
that Arab unity already existed but that it was in need of organization in order
to form a front to resist imperialism and to develop Arab economic capacity.
"We are brothers in our struggle to liberate our nations and to attain our
462 Ralph M. Coury
freedom and if disaster strengthens the union of those who must sacrifice, what
of nations which are linked by language, traditions and essential social ties?"151
Ubaid spoke of struggle but for him struggle meant political maneuvering and
the application of diplomatic pressure on the great powers. As I have already
said of the ruling class as a whole, the Wafdist leadership accepted the principle
of political independence by stages, and, within this gradualist framework,
sought to obtain real but often only formal concessions. In such a context
greater unity was seen as providing the potential for greater leverage and a
greater ability to bluff. The creation of an Egyptian sphere of influence within
the Arab circle (an actual federation or state did not necessarily have to be
created) might be a bargaining chip for the pitifully weaker side. "It is within the
capacity of Egypt and one of its obligations," Azzam wrote as editor of the
Wafdist al-Kashshaf in 1928, "to exploit Egypt's central position in the Arab
world to a great extent in its relationships with all the Western nations so that
these will know that if Egypt is satisfied the Near East as a whole is satisfied."152
It was in such terms that politicians were to argue both publicly and privately in
the next decade. Thus al-Nahhas spoke of the Treaty of 1936 between Egypt and
Britain as inaugurating an era of peace and brotherhood, not simply between
Britain and Egypt but between Britain and all the peoples of the Middle East.153
5. Palestine forced representatives of the Egyptian ruling class to think within
an Arab context. The following reasons may be given:
a. Progressives and patriotic nationalists sympathized with the struggle of the
Palestinian people and saw Zionist colonization as part of the strategy for
greater political control over the Middle East and/or another means by which
Western economic interests could exploit the region.
b. Fear of the specific dangers to Egypt inherent in the establishment of a
Zionist state also became a strong element in Egyptian opposition.
Al-Nahhas protested to the British on the basis of what he called three
angles—Arab, Muslim and Egyptian. From the Arab standpoint, he told Kelly
on August 9, 1937, Palestine "belonged to the hereditary population, whether
Christians, Moslems or Jewish," and all these were Palestinian. New Jewish
immigrants from the United States or Poland were "as much foreigners in
Palestine as they would be in Egypt, despite Moses's connection with the latter."
From a Muslim angle, permanent protection of the holy places by Britain was
intolerable. From an Egyptian angle, he said, there was danger in having a
strong Jewish state as a neighbor, "with the inevitable tendency to expand owing
to powerful resources."154 Who could say that the Jews, he asked Lampson on
July 25, 1937, would not claim Sinai next and provoke trouble among the Jewish
community within Egypt itself? The only solution, he urged, was the creation of
an independent Arab state, with the fullest guarantees of religious and racial
toleration for Jews and Arabs, Muslims and Christians alike. Jewish immigration
should be strictly limited to normal absorptive capacity and "Arabs should not
be plucked up by the roots to make way for strangers in their native land."155 As
I have already pointed out, such private entreaties on al-Nahhas's part were
frequent. Thus, throughout 1936, according to Kelly, he had taken "every
opportunity of passionately advocating the Arab cause in private conversation,
using on one occasion the phrase 'We, too, are Arabs.'"156 Such concern about
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 463

Palestine was also widely shared among sections of the ruling class which were
much more moderate. In August of 1938 Shaikh al-Maraghi told Smart, the
Oriental Secretary, that "the feeling in Egypt regarding Palestine was genuine
and widespread, and that the Egyptians viewed with alarm the establishment of a
Jewish state on their frontier." "The Jews," he noted, "were an intelligent and
capable people, backed by vast financial resources and international connections"
and "Egypt and the Arab states feared that such a Jewish state would eventually
overflow its borders and imperil the independence of the surrounding Moslem
states." 157
This theme of the specific threat of a Zionist state to Egypt grew stronger as
the 30s drew to a close, but it was not novel. In the Chamber of Deputies a
decade before, Mustafa al-Shurbaji and Shaikh Abd al-Wahhab Sulaiman asked
the foreign minister about alleged reports that Sinai was to be annexed to
Palestine in exchange for the movement of British troops from the west to the
east of the canal. They cautioned the governmment to be wary of a strong
movement—they did not mention its name—which was trying to influence
governments to bring this about. Sinai had gold, coal and oil, they argued, not
to mention its strategic importance, and Egypt could not give it up.158
c. The Egyptian ruling class was directed to seek an inter-Arab solution to the
Palestine question because of the fear of a Palestinian popular revolution which
might inspire a radicalization of Egypt. In his memoirs, Muhammad Husain
Haikal writes that men of importance supported the Palestinian cause for
religious reasons or because they feared that a Jewish state would threaten
Egypt's economic and political life. "Furthermore," he adds, "the immigration of
a people into a country in spite of the will of its inhabitants would . . . push them
to revolt against these immigrants, a revolt that would have far-reaching
influence and whose results would bear the greatest of dangers."159
d. A Zionist state was looked upon as a threat to Egypt's special economic
position within the Arab world and to her chances of becoming that world's
industrial, technological, and financial center. Thus Muhammad AH Alluba, one
of the principal representatives of the Misr group, wrote in 1942 in his Mabadifi
Usul al-Siyasa al Misriyya, "A wound to Palestine is a wound to Egypt and its
not remaining Arab a limitation to Egypt itself in its independence and economic
existence. If Zionism is established in Palestine . . . its harm will not be limited to
Palestine alone. Rather, it will immediately extend to affect the destiny of all the
neighbouring countries, to place limits on their economies, industries, trade,
wealth and independence."160 Lampson echoed the fears of Alluba and others
when he wrote, in January 1939, "It must not be supposed that religious
fanaticism is alone responsible for Egyptian support of the Palestinian Arabs.
Practically all Egyptians sympathize with the Arabs in their struggle, and more
informed classes are apprehensive of Jewish encroachments on the nations and
economy of the Near East. Egyptians are afraid—perhaps not without reason—
that a powerful and neighboring Jewish state would seriously affect Egypt's
economic primacy in the Near East."161
6. The emergence of new political forces within the interwar period focused
Egyptian attention on Arab questions. During the interwar period the leadership
of the Wafd, as well as other representatives of the Egyptian ruling class, was
464 Ralph M. Coury
gradualist in its orientation. It sought, as I have already pointed out, to channel
nationalist currents within a framework which operated under the assumption
that national problems could be solved by applying pressure to Britain and
by gradual internal reforms. The thirties, however, witnessed the beginnings
of what has been called a radicalization and polarization of political life and
ideology. The rank and file of the Wafd's members, those who provided its
activists and cadres, were drawn from the middle and lower middle classes.
Beginning in the mid-30s and continuing into and after the Second World War,
these strata provided the rank and file of new political groupings, both within
(al-Talia al-Wafdiyya) and outside the Wafd that diverged, or had the tendency
to diverge, from the thought and practices of the traditional leadership.162 The
complex problem of the causes of the formation of these groups lies beyond the
scope of this paper. Certainly pressures upon the material life of the middle and
lower middle classes, particularly after the Second World War, are of great
significance. What must be emphasized here is that these groups, whether of the
left or of the right, the communists or the Muslim Brotherhood, attached, albeit
from greatly differing ideological perspectives, new importance to the Arab
world and the Palestinian problem. In 1931 the Egyptian Communist Party, the
first Egyptian party to do so, included a clause within its program calling for
struggle on behalf of the liberation of all Arab peoples from imperialism, as well
as the achievement of a complete Arab unity that would include all free Arabs.
And two years later, Misr al-Fatat, which looked upon communism as one of its
principal enemies, included a clause about Egypt's unity with the Arab world in
its own program.163 I cannot go into the varying relationship between the rank
and file of these political movements and the different branches of the nation's
leaders. Efforts were made to co-opt, court, or crush the new forces that were
emerging. What can be briefly said, however, is that the rank and file of these
various movements provided the "pressure of the masses"164 upon which men
like al-Nahhas and Muhammad Mahmud sought to draw but to which they also
had to respond. However, to assume that pressure from below made al-Nahhas
or others firmer in relation to the Palestinian or other Arab issues does not
mean, of course, that their own professed interest was merely rhetorical or
geared solely to gain them popular support. Here, as in respect to other issues,
the Egyptian leadership in its various branches would seek to channel and harness
the Arabist tendency according to its own liking, purposes, and needs.
What the future might hold in this respect was speculated upon with remark-
ably forthright cynicism by Hafiz Ramadan, leader of the Nationalist Party, as
early as 1928. The situation, Ramadan told Smart, the Oriental Secretary, in
November of that year, was exactly as it had been in 1909, after the death of
Mustafa Kamil. That year marked the end of a myth which had greatly stirred
the Egyptian people, and the fortunes of the Nationalist Party started to decline.
In 1918 a new myth appeared to replace the old one but now it (the Zaghlulist
one) was also at an end. "II faut empecher la naissance des mythes," he
continued. If the presently discomfitted elements of the Wafd were simply left to
themselves and nothing were done to captivate the Egyptian imagination, it was
inevitable that sooner or later another myth would arise that would be to the
mutual danger of both British and Egyptians, for the latter also suffered from
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 465
these upheavals. Something had to be done to harmonize Egyptian nationalism
with. British policy. In this respect Ramadan advised that the whole problem of
the Middle East should be examined. Federationist tendencies, he argued, were
inevitable among the region's Arabic speaking units, especially in reaction to
what he took to be the inevitable formation of a northern bloc, militarily strong
but economically and administratively immature, between Turkey, Persia, and
Afghanistan. If such an Arab federation were formed Egypt could play a great
role. She could supply the money and the technicians necessary for the develop-
ment of the less advanced Arab countries. The North African countries would be
excluded from the scheme, as unity of the spoken language was essential. In any
case, this federative development was impossible without the aegis of England
which alone could provide security against encroachment. England alone could
overcome the differences that arose among the Arabic units, although this
activity would have to be generally and discreetly invisible, only to appear at
junctures in which its beneficent action would be apparent to those who
experienced it. Thus gradually Egypt and her Arab consorts would come to look
on Britain as a necessary element in the scheme of their mutual development.
With that gradual realization the "myth danger" would be avoided. The task
would take twenty to thirty years but would not require great men. "They were
dangerous," Ramadan concluded, "for they merely intoxicated the crowd and
did nothing effective." What the task did require was a major political state,
composed of men of action working steadily toward their goal.165

As should be obvious from my remarks in Part 1, I am not contending that by

the end of the interwar period a sense of Arab unity and interest in Arab
problems had assumed as much importance in Egypt as they had in other parts
of the Arab East. If a significant number of politicians, litterateurs, ulama and
businessmen had discovered their Arabness and the Arab world around them,
many others remained indifferent, unknowing, or even hostile. Certainly a
number of sources, both British and Arab, could be invoked to illustrate the
general isolationism of Egyptians in comparison with their brethren to the east.
When the Iraqi Tawfiq al-Suwaidi passed through Egypt in August of 1938 on
his way to a meeting of the League of Nations, he noted that the average
educated Egyptian knew much more of Europe and America than of the lands
east of Suez, that Egypt had long been preoccupied with her own political,
administrative, and cultural affairs and that, although the Palestinian question
was one of the principal topics of discussion, Egyptians lacked sufficient knowl-
edge of its intricacies.166 In explanation, it is necessary to point out that a
number of the political and economic factors to which I have referred remained
relatively weak in this period. The sphere of operations of Egyptian industrial
and commercial establishments, for example, remained limited. In 1938, Egypt's
exports to Iraq, Palestine, and Syria amounted to 0.2 percent, 0.3 percent, and
0.7 percent, respectively, of her total exports, whereas her imports from them
amounted to 0.4 percent, 0.7 percent and 0.6 percent.167 And, although Egyptians
did indeed increasingly regard Zionist colonization as a real threat, they did not
look upon it as being as direct a danger to their material life as did the ruling
classes of Iraq or Syria.168 Moreover, various influences and tendencies continued
466 Ralph M. Coury
to inhibit the development of Egyptian Arabism. In this respect one might
mention Egypt's long history as a separate and relatively unified political entity,
as well as the wealth and stability of an Egyptian ruling class which, while more
aware of its chances within a wider Arab circle, was much more content and
hence perhaps even more timid than some of its counterparts to the east.
Certainly representatives of this class, during the period between the wars and
later, generally continued to conceive and speak of Arab unity in terms of the
unified and coordinated action of a community of independent states, whereas in
the Arab East the Arab nation states were often characterized as artificial
creations imposed by foreigners and standing in the way of an already existing
Arab nation. Thinkers like Azzam and Alluba spoke of the Arab "nation" as a
supra-national entity which already existed but this entity, particularly in the
political form that it might eventually receive, was perceived as the sum of
discreet parts added to one another. Despite the existence of romantic and
organic theories of Arab nationalism in Egypt, the emphasis upon the ultimate
necessity of the disintegration of all borders remained more common among the
politicians of the Mashriq.
Nevertheless, the fact remains that the seeds of future developments, such as
the formation of the Arab League (which, of course, did not effectively limit
individual sovereignty) were sown in this period. In September of 1936 Kelly
wrote that it had hitherto seemed that Egyptian interests in the neighboring Arab
states had been superficial, but that there were "definite signs of a changing
outlook in this respect," and that there was "no doubt whatever that but for the
treaty negotiations this change would have become very manifest in connection
with affairs in Palestine." He remarked that although the Arab movement
"might be vague and theoretical when it came to concrete action" it was a
"sufficiently definite and shaping state of mind" which might hold considerable
future significance.169 Even Lampson, who remained uneasily skeptical in the
summer of 1936, maintaining that the pan-Arab movement had "little real
strength in Egypt," wrote in August of the same year that "Egypt has long
aspired to exercise a moral and cultural influence over the Moslem nations of the
Near East" and that "this desire will probably be increased when her full
independence is consecrated by the Anglo-Egyptian treaty settlement."170 In
particular, he could not see how Egyptian governments could refrain from
addressing themselves to the Palestinian problem. By February 1937, he was to
observe that it "seemed inevitable that Egypt and the neighboring Arabic
countries must sooner or later get together with a view to international co-
operation" and that "in principle it would seem undesirable to oppose tendencies
which have in them such elements of inevitability."171
In the interwar period, then, Egyptians began to identify themselves as Arabs,
and became increasingly involved in the Arab world. I do not believe that such
identity and involvement can be understood apart from the factors to which I
have pointed. As Abdel-Malek has noted, from the late thirties until the
revolution of 1952, a sense of Arab unity as an historical and cultural necessity,
as an instrument of political and economic realism, and as the complement to
the individual growth of Egypt, began to develop. Here, again, is Azzam, who
was to be the first Secretary General of the Arab League, and to whom Kedourie
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 467

and others have attributed so important a role: "Our future life will become
successful if we become an industrial people. It will be almost impossible to exist
as a military state, a state that guarantees its own military defenses first of all
and assures its inhabitants of subsistence, without carrying out a thorough
industrial revolution. That revolution in itself obliges us to have living space.
This living space consists in our brothers, who understand us and who offer us
an advantage in relation to others. On the economic level we need the Arab
states, which, as has been demonstrated, possess the richest resources and the
raw materials essential to our future industry and which at the same time
constitute the only market open to our future life."172
To speak of the influences I have dealt with above, a number of which must be
understood in terms of the political economy of Egypt and her neighbors during
the interwar period, does not exclude the importance of other factors, such as
dynastic or individual ambitions, especially if we are seeking to analyze the
motives and developments leading up to a particular event. Surely an explanation
of the formation of the Arab League should be able to accommodate al-Nahhas'
alleged desire for glory, his eagerness "to please the British" or to thwart Nuri
al-Said, with the more general tendencies to which I have referred. In this respect
we must seek to differentiate and relate the long-term trends of a society and
movements that are occasional, immediate or almost accidental. It is, of course,
only in terms of long-term tendencies that one can explain the persistence of
Arab nationalism either as a buttress for conservatism or as a principle of action
for either the Arab ruling classes or Arab radicals.
What remains to be considered, if only briefly, are the factors that have led
many scholars of Egyptian Arab nationalism to neglect or hardly touch upon the
elements 1 have emphasized. I believe that the shortcomings of many works on
Egyptian Arab nationalism or Arab nationalism in general stem from a shared
idealism and atomism that conceives of Arab nationalism in abstract terms and
which does not meaningfully or systematically relate this nationalism to a larger
social and political environment. Arab nationalism has often been perceived in
terms of an autonomously decisive essence that is everywhere the same in its
painful deficiencies and inadequacies. Arab nationalism as such has again and
again been portrayed as authoritarian and despotic, as extremist and tending to
violence, and as a form of mythological thinking that distorts history and
existing political realities. Thus, as I have mentioned, Kedourie speaks of the
Egyptian and Syrian Arab nationalists as rigid doctrinaires who lacked "a sense
of concrete difficulties" and who possessed faith in "sedition and violence and a
contempt for moderation." And such views are clearly shared by Vatikiotis who,
in his survey of modern Egypt, contrasts the sentimental enthusiasm of Nasser's
Arab-Islamic nationalism to the rational nationalism of liberals like Lutfi al-
Sayyid and who, in another context, speaks of all revolutionary ideology, of
which Arab nationalism of the "sentimental" sort is apparently an example, as in
"direct conflict with . . . man's rational, biological and psychological makeup."173
Moreover, the deficiencies of Arab nationalism have often been seen as linked
to millennial deficiencies in Arab-Islamic thought and political culture which
may have been temporarily or somewhat offset by the influence of Western
science and liberalism but which have been ever ready to reassert themselves in a
468 Ralph M. Coury
society that remains true to its essential, traditional nature: to its supposedly
aberrant mentality, its rigidity and intellectual impoverishment, its alleged
brutality and despotism. Thus Safran sees the crisis of Egyptian intellectuals as
proceeding from their inability to meet modern challenges by overcoming the
persistent and centuries-old Islamic intellectual traditions of finding perfection in
the past, of denying man and nature any efficacy, and of taking the facts of
history as norms.174 Given what is taken to be the persistence of Islamic
"patterns," Arab nationalist thinking that differentiates between imperialists and
anti-imperialists is seen as a "disconcerting echo of facile dichotomies between
the East and West and 'the abode of Islam and the abode of war,'" and the
foundation of the Arab League as well as that of the U.A.R. are viewed as the
products of a broad, popular, religiously inspired sense of Muslim solidarity that
is given outward expression in secular and political terms by Egypt's leaders.175
In a similar fashion, albeit uneasily, Mitchell sees the violence of some of the
Muslim Brotherhood, who, he shows, were drawn to Mahir and other architects
of pan-Arab and pan-Islamic policy, as proceeding from an inherent Islamic
potential for Mahdism, whose "heresy," and here Mitchell quotes Gibb, is the
belief that "not only the minds and wills of men can be dominated by force but
that truth can be demonstrated by the edge of the sword."176
What I have called idealism is, of course, intimately linked to atomism, the
inability to transcend ideas or individuals. To the extent that any effort is made
to link ideology with wider concrete realities, it is to see Arab ideology as a
defense mechanism, as the deviant and irrational response of frustrated or
marginal intellectuals and officials to economic failure or political, intellectual,
and psychological humiliation, or as an abortive attempt to provide a system of
central values to replace the religious ideology that once held Middle Eastern
peoples together. Or it is sometimes seen, at least at the level of the state, as the
means by which powerful individuals or elite groups (not considered in any way
representative of their class, to say nothing of their peoples as a whole)
manipulate the masses solely for the purpose of their own aggrandizement. The
tendency, as Bryan Turner points out, is to reduce ideological structures and
practices to an account of the biography of the belief of individuals. Thus
Kedourie instinctively seeks an explanation for Egypt's entrance into the Arab
League negotiations mainly in terms of al-Nahhas' desire to please the King, to
damage his opponents, or to win the approval of the British. Sylvia Haim sees
Makram Ubaid's expressions of interest in Arab and Islamic affairs as merely the
shrewd strategy of a Copt who felt that he had to make such professions to win
Muslim sympathy.177 And Heyworth-Dunne explains the Arab nationalism of the
Azzam family, and hence their role of helping Egypt "discover Arabism," to this
family's alleged consciousness of being different from other Egyptians (a con-
sciousness which, in fact, the Azzams did not possess) because of their Arabian
descent and their maintenance of Arab habits and customs.178
Such atomistic idealism has been the subject of much critical commentary in
recent years and it is not my purpose to further elaborate upon a critique which
has been forcefully undertaken by many scholars.179 My own presuppositions
should be fairly obvious. I have proceeded under the assumption that Arab
nationalist ideology in Egypt is not pure illusion and that it has not proceeded
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 469
from a sort of fate that compels Arab consciousness to differ from reality. On
the contrary, I have seen this ideology (as it was embraced and manipulated by
representatives of the Egyptian ruling class in the interwar period and later) as
an inextricable mixture of illusory, deceptive representations and scientific
insight, as the vehicle of distortion and suppression but also of sound thinking.
I recognize, of course, that individual Arab nationalist thinkers and politicians
who made up the governing elite did indeed compete for influence and posts at
the state level, but I believe that at the same time they have served as the nuclei
through which the interests of broader groups and classes have found expression.
Berque has written that the political practice of an entire generation of nationalist
leaders in the interwar period was dominated by a characteristically bourgeois
phenomenon which combined the most inveterate spirit of intrigue with loyalty
to one's class. It is necessary to realize that the class loyalty one finds in the more
purely Egyptian nationalism of the early period is no less characteristic of the
later Egyptian Arab nationalism that was to transcend Egypt's borders. I have
already spoken of the pressure from below which tended to make members of
the Egyptian political elite firmer in respect to Arab questions. Yet it is also clear
that the Arabism adopted by this elite made increasingly good sense from the
perspective of the bourgeoisie which they especially represented, including that
upper or haute bourgeoisie of land-owners, merchants, financiers, and indus-
trialists whose influence played so large a role in politics before Nasserism. Azzam
and other members of the political elite undoubtedly sought, according to their
own orientations, to serve the Egyptian nation as a whole, or at least it is in such
terms that their nationalism (Egyptian, Arab, or otherwise) was invariably
presented. But this does not mean that their Egyptianism or Arabism was not
also marked by a kind of special class pleading, by what might be described as a
mystical representation of the ruling class's latent tendencies and future evolu-
tion, as well as (often explicitly and at a formal level) a rational calculation of
its possibilities and objective necessities. If considered from this perspective,
then even the mythological and romantic themes of Azzam and others (which
have often been presented as primarily arising from the need of individuals to
heal the "wounds" suffered through their encounter with the West's superior
culture)180 can be viewed as having had a functional and strategic value in the
concrete and local struggles waged by the Egyptian ruling class. The considered
mode of thought of many of these nationalists, as is true of the Slavophiles who
spoke of Russia as a "god-bearer" or of Americans who spoke of the United
States as a "new Jerusalem," may have been erroneous, contradictory and
fantastic, but if we look at a deeper level we can discern certain functional
rationalities and unities, and not simply those which arose from the need to
respond to humiliation or decay.
In the thirties and forties, for example, Azzam claimed that the Arabs had an
historic mission to redeem the world because of their ancient and uniquely
inhering liberal, democratic, and peace-loving spiritual and cultural qualities, or
else because of their sheer rawness, their youth and vitality in comparison to an
old and crippled West. The Arabs' "mission," he argued in various contexts,
would not only insure that peace, moderation, humanity, and justice would
prevail internationally, between colonizers and colonized or among great powers,
470 Ralph M. Coury
it would also inspire and sustain domestic arrangements that would exemplify
the Arabs' special capacity to find a "middle ground" and achieve social
equilibrium among the classes. Such equilibrium would be won not only
through the intervention of the state to provide social welfare and to promote
economic development and social mobility, but also through the maintenance of
hierarchical arrangements analogous to those within the family and through the
promulgation of the belief that duties should take precedence over rights, that
perfection of the social order is not possible, and that the way to freedom and
justice rests less upon external law, institutions, and structures than it does upon
the spontaneous good will and self-denial of rulers and ruled.181
An Arabism defined in terms of such conservatism surely aimed to limit the
expression of revolutionary impulses and to secure the dominance of the
Egyptian and other Arab ruling classes and the political position of their
regimes. It was an Arabism that sought to channel discontent, in respect to both
domestic and foreign affairs, within the governing elite's traditionally gradualist,
peaceful, and meliorist framework. Yet, if this type of Arabism can be perceived
as supporting the "holding action" of a ruling class aware of revolutionary
stirrings, its emphasis upon youth, vitality, and mission, and upon the special role
that Egyptians and other Arabs were uniquely destined and qualified to play
in the world of the future, can also be regarded as the reflection and rein-
forcement of a kind of bourgeois self-exultation. Such self-exaltation need not
be taken as a turning back upon the self to seek solace in illusions, as a grand
but impotent gesture of defiance vis-a-vis a superior West. It can rather be
regarded as a testimony, mythical to be sure, but no more fantastic than many
national mythologies the world over, to the rising fortunes and potentials of a
ruling class whose most perspicacious representatives remained alert, as Azzam
said of Ubaid, to the winds of historical opportunity. Egypt may have indeed
experienced decay from'its contact with the West but the causes of such decay,
as Eric Davis points out, were materialistic rather than intellectual and cultural
forces, and they more adversely affected the peasantry than the bourgeoisie.182
The ruling Egyptian bourgeoisie had in fact made material and cultural gains
that it wished to consolidate and expand. It was a class that had enjoyed stable
and significant growth since the nineteenth century and its representatives were
becoming ever more conscious of its chances and responsibilities as the Eastern
Arab world's dominant indigenous political and economic force.
To understand these various functions of Arabism is to understand how this
ideology, at least as adopted and manipulated by representatives of the Egyptian
ruling class, would simultaneously seek to excite and restrain, to lead forward
and withdraw.183 Accepting certain domestic and international frameworks as
given, Egypt's leadership would proceed to maneuver according to certain
legalities and peaceful methods and the Egyptian masses, as Berque shows,
would be used and directed but held back and never unleashed. The result was to
be what the French scholar has termed a politics of "dynamic uncertainty," in
which there was a disparity between acts and words, realities and formula-
tions.184 In this respect the Egyptian and Arab people of whom Azzam and
others speak were not to be the Egyptian and Arab community of those in
power, although they were admitted into this community verbally, to be drawn
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 471

upon and invoked. And if these masses ever were to take the initiative to
overcome their material and spiritual alienation in order to share in the com-
munity of power, their enemies would say that they were in fact destroying that
community.
No more vivid illustration of such ideological presuppositions could be
provided than that given by Saad Zaghlul in his address to the union of tramway
workers in Cairo on July 4, 1924. In this address, the Wafd's leader took the
existence of the special economic interests of the Egyptian upper class for
granted as a regrettable evil while he praised the masses for strengthening the
national movement through their disavowal of any such interests of their own:
1 am very happy and joyful every time I perceive that this movement is not made up solely
of what is called the upper class. Instead, it also draws its origin, or, rather, it especially
draws its origin, from the class which those envious of us call 'the herd' (al-racTya). And I
am proud to be from 'the herd,'just like you. If this movement were limited to the upper
class it would not have had the base it has had and it would not have spread as it has and
the nationalist principles would not have been victorious. This is true because the class of
'the herd' is the class of the greatest numbers in the nation. It is the class which has no
special interests. And it is the class whose principles are always steadfast—its principles of
complete independence for Egypt and the Sudan. For if the wealthy man or the official in
a high post says 'Long live the nation' he might also say 'Long live my office' or 'my
interests.' For this reason the opinion of many of those who have such interests or posts
reverse themselves or change. But 'the herd,' like you, does not change and does not
exchange its beliefs."'85
Zaghlul here speaks of the masses in terms of the Egyptian nation but his vision
as to what constitutes their proper role would be shared by an Egyptian
leadership which, in the thirties, would begin to speak in the name of the Arabs
and Islam.
Men like Azzam, Mahir, and others can be seen as successors to Zaghlul and, at
the same time, as precursors who to some extent anticipated the ideological and,
in certain instances, the economic and political forms of a Nasserism that did not
radically transform the indigenous Egyptian class structure and that ultimately
favored, for all its real breaks with the past, the interests of a reconstituted
bourgeoisie that followed "a policy of prudent compromise and carefully con-
trolled initiative" both inside and outside of Egypt.186
The rational dimensions of the Arab nationalist ideology that members of the
intellectual and political elite began to adopt during the interwar period do not,
however, have to be extricated through explication and the deciphering of class
interests and perspectives expressed in romantic terms. Political leaders such as
Makram Ubaid or influential litterateurs such as Abd al-Qadir al-Mazini or
Mahmud Azmi remained as explicitly rationalist, utilitarian and liberal as Arab
nationalists as they had been when they were Egyptian nationalists and saw no
conflict between the two orientations. They recognized the realities that united
the Arab world and sought to build upon these for rational ends. Thus al-
Mazini, in an article published in al-Risala in 1935, argued that even if the Arabs
had not been united for centuries by linguistic, cultural and emotional ties, such
unity would have to be created in the present. Al-Mazini believed that this unity
was needed for utilitarian reasons, because the Arabic-speaking countries could
472 Ralph M. Coury
not hope to win and maintain their political rights or develop their economic
strength as small, weak states.187 Even the Copt Salama Musa, whose Fabianism
and uncompromising secularism set him apart from the mainstream of established
influential thinkers and politicians, certainly to the left of Ubaid and al-Mazini,
to say nothing of men such as Azzam and Mahir, could write as if Arabism were
the only larger tie, outside of Egyptianism, that were consistent with the rational-
ity and realism that he always championed. "One of the truths about bonds of
unity," Musa wrote in the mid-twenties, "is that they arise naturally and without
being forced. If they do not exist in the first place it is foolish to seek to create
them willfully. National unity, for example, exists in Egypt. No one thinks of
forming an organization to strengthen this tie, even if we might form an
association to organize national activities or to direct national efforts to a
specific goal. Likewise, the tie of language exists in the Arab world. It is based
upon ancient and modern Arabic literature, the Arabic press and that Arabic
language which we speak. We do not need to strengthen this tie, even if we need
to organize it and form a public opinion among the Arab nations that can be
drawn upon for their common good, so that they can obtain their independence
and constitutional governments, that is, so that they can repulse both foreign
and domestic usurpers." Musa proceeded to argue that he did not understand
why Shaikh Muhammad Najib was planning the formation of an organization
called al-Rabita al-Sharqiyya. Musa felt bound to the Chinese and Japanese by a
common humanity and, perhaps, by the fact that, as "Eastern" nations, their
fortunes vis-a-vis the great Western powers affected the fortunes of Egypt. Yet
the cultural and emotional links that bound Egyptians to Russians or other
Europeans simply did not exist in respect to the Japanese or Chinese. How
different it was with the Arabs! It was the Arabic language, he wrote, and the
sense of "brotherhood" which it creates, that "makes us burn with anger
whenever we read news of the struggle of the Tunisians or the Syrians for
independence and of their battle against this foreign imperialism that now
unleashes its dogs among them and that desires to destroy the ties that link us. If
one of us sat in Tangier in Morocco he would not feel that he was a stranger, for
he would find people speaking his language and their souls stamped by the same
taste in which he was raised. And this is, at the least, what I have felt. Al-Ustadh
al-Zahawi, an intellectual from Baghdad, is now in Egypt. If an Egyptian sat
with him he would feel only that he was in the presence of an Egyptian."188
Although one might wish that Musa had here displayed greater foresight for
the potentials of Third Worldism, the point that I seek to make in this context is
that the Arabist orientation which began to develop in the twenties was not the
monopoly of romanticists from the political and intellectual right. It is perhaps
of even greater importance to note, however, that even when we turn to this
right, to those whose Arab nationalism was more likely to be tinged with a
religious coloring and who were more prone to speak in terms of eternally
inhering vocations, we find the romantic and explicitly utilitarian, the pre-
posterous and realistic, juxtaposed. Thus a writer like Alluba opposed the
establishment of a Zionist state.on the basis of the need to resist what he took to
be the inherent evil and racism of the Jewish religion,189 but also, as we have
seen, he opposed it on the basis of the geopolitical and economic needs of the
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 473
Egyptian state. And Azzam argued for the Arabness of the Egyptian people not
only on the basis of blood and spiritual ties190 and the Arabs' "eternal mission,"
but also on the basis of the necessity for Egyptian "living space" and strong
economic blocks in the age of the cartel and trust.
In emphasizing the rational dimensions of Arab nationalist ideology, in
focusing on its functional and strategic value in a concrete struggle, I do not
mean to imply that this nationalism was concocted, ex nihilo, as a simple,
mechanical response to the needs of a rational calculus. It may be true that Arab
nationalist thinkers in Egypt and elsewhere articulated their arguments in terms
of ideas and theories imported from Europe and that these theories were marked
by the special interests of the classes they represented and to which they
remained loyal. But this does not mean that these thinkers did not draw upon
and reflect, if in sometimes distorted form, a truly indigenous system of meaning
and values, of identity and culture, of real needs and impulses, that cut across
class lines and hence made class alliances possible. In this respect it is necessary
to refute the theses of Kedourie, Haim, and others who have denied that any
sense of common Arab ethnicity or proto-Arab nationalist sentiments existed in
, the Arab world, and particularly in Egypt, before the development of Arab
nationalist ideology. "Among the Egyptians," Haim asserts, "the term Arab, as
used in current speech, is derogatory, denoting a shiftless nomad, someone to be
looked upon with contempt by a people who had been settled cultivators from
time immemorial."191 This is a glaring misrepresentation, even if it contains
elements of truth. It is true that in the nineteenth century the Egyptians, as was
the case with other Arabs, did not generally refer to themselves as Arabs. The
Arabs (al arab) as such were usually nomads. This usage has continued some-
what until the present day, especially among the uneducated. It is also true
that centuries of conflict between desert and town have naturally exerted an
influence that has left its mark in the daily speech and proverbs of Egyptian
peasants and city dwellers. In his dictionary of proverbs and folklore Ahmad
Amin observes, "They [the bedouin] look upon fallahin, as do the Turks, with
scorn. Hence they oppress them greatly. They prevent their daughters marrying
people of the countryside and restrict marriage to their own kind . . . Among the
well-known proverbs of the Egyptians is 'The oppression of the Turks rather
than the justice of the Arabs.'"192
Yet in the nineteenth century, before the development of the modern sense of
Arab identity, sedentarized Egyptians, and not merely those of Peninsular origin,
would often refer to themselves as children or sons of the Arabs {awlad or abna
al-arab) to distinguish themselves from the Turks or other non-Arabic speakers
and the sense of difference to which such usage refers could assume significant
meaning in struggles between Arabic and non-Arabic speakers, such as that
which took place between Egyptians and Turks in the seventeenth century for
control over the Egyptian guilds.193
Moreover, the popular image of the bedouin or the quintessential Arab in the
"sedentarized mind" was (and is) not without its ambivalences. If the "Arab,"
understood as the bedouin, was a shiftless savage, he was also a noble savage
who possessed qualities that were the object of envy and admiration as well as
fear. In the West Utopian concepts of a life close to uncorrupted nature have
474 Ralph M. Coury
often been associated with rural peoples who till the soil in simplicity and
freedom. In the Arab world and elsewhere in the Middle East it is the desert that
has traditionally lent itself to a similar idealization. That the Arab or bedouin is
courageous, freedom-loving, generous (karim al-nafs), eloquent (baligh al-lisan),
and strong are common motifs in belles-lettres or such folk tales as those of
Antar or Abu Zaid al-Hilali.194 Furthermore, such motifs are not solely literary.
They have left their traces in proverbs and daily usage. It is simply not true that
the term Arab "as used in current speech"—and here I assume that Haim is
referring to those who do not speak of Arabs in the modern sense—"is invariably
or predominantly, derogatory." "Let us be Arabs together," says the Faiyumi,
when he wishes to call upon his fellows to engage in serious deliberations.195 If a
man is generous in the Said he is complimented by being referred to as ibn arab.
Conversely, if the individual is niggardly, he is reproached for having come to
dwell within walls (sakant al-hayt), for having left the tents of the desert and
their generosity.196 Besides virtues such as courage, generosity, and physical
prowess, the bedouin, or more particularly, the bedouin shaikh or sayyid, is said
to possess hiltn—a mature and sober self-control that enables him to work
patiently for the maintenance of justice, order and the reconciliation of opposites.
The bedouin is seen as anarchic and impetuous but, conversely, his society is
associated with mechanisms (such as the great tribal councils in which a neutral
and prestigious sayyid or group of men representing a neutral clan arbitrate and
make peace between warring individuals or factions) that work for the restora-
tion of social peace. In Silwa the assemblies convoked for the purpose of
arbitration are referred to as "Arab councils" and a man seeking arbitration or a
just solution to some dispute pleads for an "Arab verdict."197 To be sure, the
inhabitants of Silwa take pride in describing themselves as descendents of Arab
stock related to the Prophet. But the fact that some of their traditions and
institutions (such as the council of arbitration) rather than others should be
pointedly designated Arab is neither insignificant nor accidental.
The Arab nationalist ideology that the Egyptian ruling class began to adopt in
the interwar period according to its own prudent and cautious orientation may
have been developed by thinkers and politicians who, save for the socialists
who accepted class struggle, remained loyal to the essential bourgeois values,
interests and perspectives of the strata to which they had belonged. Yet the
Egyptian and other Arab middle classes, including that upper bourgeoisie for
whom Azzam, Mahir, and others in the political elite especially spoke, were not
the bourgeoisie in an abstract sense. They were, rather, bourgeoisies with their
particular cultures and structures, called upon to act in specific Arab (and
Egyptian, Syrian, etc.) and international situations.198 Their representatives may
have "invented" a form of Arab nationalist ideology. They did not "invent" the
Arab world, the Arab people, or the positive values and characteristics with
which Arabness has been associated.
HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT

NOTES

EDITOR'S NOTE: Part 1 of this article appeared in IJMES, 14 (1982), 249-281.

 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 475

'"Berque, Imperialism and Revolution, pp. 456-457; Marius Deeb, Parly Politics in Egypt: The
Wafd and Its Rivals. 1919-1939 (London, 1979), pp. 315-324.
l34
Quoted in Ramadan, Tatawwur, II, 346.
l35
For Egyptians in Iraq see Sayigh, al-Fikra al-Arabiyya, p. 184; al-Ahram, Oct. 20, 1936 and July
2, 1937; and Jalal al-Sayyid, "Mustafa Wakil: Misri Fi Baghdad: 1941," Afaq Arabiyya, 5 (Jan.,
1976), 132-139. Wakil, a member of Misr al-Fatat, and an important contact between this party and
youthful Iraqi nationalists, was a teacher of sports in the school for secondary teachers in Baghdad.
'"See al-Ahram, Sept. 26, 1935; and Sami Shawkat, Ahdafuna (Baghdad, 1939), p. 90.
'"Harb's activities within the Arab world are discussed in Abdel-Malek, Egypt: Military Society,
pp. 251-252; Hafiz Mahmud, Kamil al-Falaki, and Mahmud Fathi Umar, Talat Harb (Cairo, 1936),
pp. 113-123; and Fathi Radwan, Talat Harb Bahth ft Uzma (Cairo, 1970), pp. 82-87.
'"Talat Harb, Majmuat Khutab (Cairo, 1927), p. 127.
'"Ibid., p. 131.
l40
Ibid., p. 140.
m
T h e newspaper industry is a good example. In the twenties a number of Egyptian papers had an
"Eastern" (really dealing only with the Arabs) page, often written by a Syrian or Lebanese who lived
in Egypt, al-Ahram had Asad Daghir, al-Muqattam, Amin Said; al-Jihad, Sami Sarraj; al-Balagh,
Tawfiq Diyab; al-Hilal, Habib Jamati; and Kawkab al-Sharq, Ahmad Hafiz Awad. Initially, these
pages seem to have been directed more to non-Egyptians than Egyptians but they were nevertheless
to play their role in the Arabization of Egyptian opinion. The Journalist Hafiz Mahmud, for
example, says that he never looked at such papers until he heard the Syrian Dr. Abd al-Rahman
Shahbandar speak in Cairo and say that Egypt would be the capital of the future united Arab East.
After that he began to follow Shahbandar about to hear his speeches and to follow, with his friends,
the Arab pages that he had not looked at before. See Hafiz Mahmud, al-Maarik fi al-Sahafa wa
al-Siyasa wa al-Fikr. 1919-1932 (Cairo, 1967), pp. 56-57. For the earliest cultural contacts between
Egypt and the Arab East see Muhammad Yusif Najam, "al-Silat al-Thaqafiyya bain Misr wa Lubnan
fi al-Nahda al-Haditha," al-Adab, 6 (June, 1962), 1-3, and 66-69.
l42
The term "sons of the Arabs" was, as we saw, used by Makram in addressing the Iraqi visitors in
1936. See note 22.
l43
In a speech in Damascus given July 7, 1925. See Harb, Majmuat Khutab, pp. 136, 139.
l44
In a speech in Baghdad, quoted in Mahmud, al-Maarik, p. 115.
l45
Harb, "al-Taawun al-Iqtisadi bain al-Umam al-Arabiyya," in a special edition of al-Hilal, "al-
Arab wa al-Islam," April, 1939, p. 34.
l46
The activities of such organizations are referred to frequently in many of the works 1 have cited.
See, in particular, Daghir, Mudhakkirati, pp. 93-98, and 152-174; and Sayigh, al-Fikra al-Arabiyya,
pp. 175-180.
U7
al-Sayyid Rashid Rida, in a letter of Jan. 30, 1923, found in Amir Shakib Arslan, Akha Arbain
Sana (Damascus, 1938), p. 323.
l48
Quoted in Tahir, Nazarat, p. 132.
l49
Such a comparison draws its inspiration from Amin, The Arab Nation, pp. 33-49; and Abdel-
Malek, Egypt: Military Society, pp. 246-287.
l50
Abd al Qadir al-Mazini, "al-Qawmiyya al-Arabiyya," al-Risala, ed. 112, Aug. 26, 1935, p. 1363.
15l
Makram Ubaid, "al-Misriyyun Arab," in a special edition of al-Hilal, "al-Arab wa al-lslam,"
April 1939, p. 32.
'"Abd al Rahman Azzam, al-Kashshaf, Jan. 21, 1928.
'"Cited in Berque, Imperialism and Revolution, p. 153.
I54
F.O. 406/75 4694 no. 63 E 4668/22/31. Kelly, Alexandria, to Halifax, F.O., Aug. 9, 1937.
'"F.O. 406/75 4694 E 4320/22/31 no. 427. Lampson, Cairo, to Eden, F.O., July 25, 1937.
'"F.O. 406/74 no. 108, E. 5831/381/63. Kelly, Ramleh, to the F. O., Sept. 4, 1936.
1!7
F.O. 406/76 E 5015/10/31, no. 74. Bateman, Cairo, to Halifax, F.O., on a conversation between
al-Maraghi and Smart, the Oriental Secretary, on August. 20, 1938. Al-Maraghi's fears were shared by
a good friend, Muhammad Mahmud, leader of the Liberal Constitutionalists and Prime Minister, who
told the British that the Parliamentary Conference for the Defense of Palestine was a great nuisance
to himself and that it would get no official recognition, but who was, in his own right, nevertheless
very concerned about the question of Palestine. See F.O. 406/76/ E 4658/10/31, Halifax F.O., to
Bateman, Cairo, Aug. 4, 1938.
'"Minutes of Session 62, Chamber of Deputies, May 12, 1927, pp. 953-954.
476 Ralph M. Coury
159
From a manuscript of Haikal's unpublished memoirs, which Dr. Charles Smith of San Diego
State University has allowed me to quote. Haikal's fears were to be expressed in his paper al-Siyasa,
and particularly at the time of the Palestinian crisis of 1929. On Sept. 21, 1929 one of the paper's
leading writers, Muhammad Abd Allah Anan, urged the Palestinians to show restraint, arguing that
it was within the power of the Arabs to win by a peaceful, continuous struggle and that they should
proceed without shedding blood.
""Muhammad Ali Alluba, Mabadi fi Usul al-Siyasa al-Misriyya (Cairo, 1942), p. 284. Haikal
expressed the same views in an article of al-Siyasa (July 17, 1937) about the effect of the
establishment of a Zionist state on Egypt's economic position and political leadership.
"'F.O. 371/23304/ J 377/1/16. Lampson, Cairo, to the F.O., Jan. 16, 1939.
I62
I say "tendency" to diverge because I feel that the "revolutionary" nature of some of these
groupings must be kept in perspective. I believe that Mahmud Hussein is correct when he says that
the Brotherhood (and this would be true of Misr al-Fatat) wished to rely on its mass base and
underground apparatus to exert decisive pressures on the regime and that its leadership was hostile to
spontaneous, uncontrolled mass action and a popular upsurge. Thus, the Brotherhood's policy at the
top, Hussein says, was to maneuver between the various currents of the ruling class and even, at one
time, to flirt with the occupying power. See Hussein, Class Conflict, pp. 72-87.
'"The interest of the Muslim Brotherhood and Misr al-Fatat in Palestine and the Arabs is well
known. What has been given less attention is the growing interest of the radical and Marxist left. See
Fajr al-Jadid, May 16, June 16, and throughout July, 1945; and Rifat al-Said, al-Sahafa al- Yasariyya
fi Misr. 1925-1945 (Beirut, 1974), pp. 137-143, 171-173; also, passim, al-Yasar al-Misri wa al-
Qadiyya al-Filisliniyya (Beirut, 1974).
' " F o r a discussion of political life between the wars and the role of the "pressure of the masses,"
see Hassan Riad, L'Egypte Nasserienne (Paris, 1964), pp. 203-219.
165
F.O. 371/13123/1744/ J 3130/4/16. R. H. Hoare, acting High Commissioner to Lord
Cashendun, F.O., Nov. 5, 1928.
'"Tawfiq al-Suwaidi, Mudhakkirati (Beirut, 1969), pp. 292-293.
167
A. A. J. El-Gritly, The Structure of Modern Industry in Egypt (Cairo, 1948), p. 566.
168
For Ismail Sidqi's refusal to believe that a Jewish state might be a threat to Egypt, see Tahir,
Mutaqal Hakstib, p. 493. Even Azzam, who understood Arab realities much better than Sidqi, seems
to have awakened to the seriousness of the Zionist project rather slowly. For example, in his speech
on the Italians in Libya given at the General Islamic Conference in Jerusalem, he said that the Jews
were "weak" and "dependent upon funds which they received" but that the Italian colonist in
Libya—whose aims were the same—dealt with Muslims through bayonets. "If there is danger which
all Moslems should unite to combat," he said, "it is the Italian danger." Such remarks can be
attributed, in part, to Azzam's generally pro-British moderation, and contrast with his later estimate
of the potential danger of Zionism.
"'F.O. 406/74 no. 108, E 5831/381/65. Kelly, Ramleh, to the F.O., Sept. 4, 1936.
"°F.O. 406/74 4694 no. 94, E 5207/94/31. Lampson, Cairo, to Eden, F.O., Aug. 18, 1936.
"'F.O. 371/20801/1783 E 987. Lampson, Cairo, to the F.O., Feb. I, 1937.
'"Quoted by Abdel-Malek, Egypt: Military Society, p. 251, from a passage which originally
appeared in Sati al-Husri, al-Uruba Awwalan (Beirut, 1961), pp. 121-122. The statement was made
in 1950 but the sentiments existed long before. For example, in an article of al-Hilal of Feb., 1934,
Azzam argued: "We are in the age of the cartel and trust. Do the Iraqis or the Syrians or the
Egyptians believe that they can reach an honorable life without unity? Let the leaders of opinion and
the perceptive recall that there can be no existence for the state before rebirth and no endurance for it
without security and safety and there is no security without strength." Quoted in Anwar al-Jundi,
al-Adab al-Arabi al-Hadith fi al-Muqawama wa al-Tajammu (Cairo, 1959), p. 515.
" 3 P . J. Vatikiotis, Revolution in the Middle East and Other Case Studies (London, 1972), pp. 8-9,
proceedings of a seminar.
174
Safran, Egypt in Search, pp. 7-25.
'"Ibid., pp. 257-258.
"'Mitchell, Muslim Brothers, p. 327. I say that Mitchell writes in this manner "uneasily" because
of note 93 which he affixes to the passage I have cited: "We have qualified with the word 'potential'
because of uncertainty about the apparently purely religious implication [for Mahdism] as used by
Gibb, Modern Trends, pp. 121 and 113 ff." Mitchell adds that "even in Smith [Wilfred Cantwell] the
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 All

tendency to tie activism and violence (which gives rise to the labels) too specifically to the religious
phenomenon, Islam, does some violence to the very mundane drives which inspire much of the
ferment in the modern Muslim world. Much more rapidly than we believed possible when this study
was begun, it will become increasingly difficult to isolate the religious aspect for purposes of
analyzing modern Muslims."
'"Sylvia Haim, Arab Nationalism: An Anthology (Berkeley, 1964), p. 52.
'"James Heyworth-Dunne, "Egypt Discovers Arabism: the Role of the Azzams," Jewish Observer
and Orient Review, 14, (March 26, 1965), 20.
'"See, for example, Review of Middle East Studies, I (1975), 2 (1976), and 3 (1978); Edward Said,
Orientalism, (New York, 1978); and Bryan S. Turner, Marx and the End of Orientalism (London,
1978).
"°See, for example, Ernest Dawn, From Ottomanism to Arabism (Urbana, 111., 1973), pp. 122-147.
""See, for example, Abd al-Rahman Azzam, "al-Arab Umma al-Mustaqbal," al-Fath, 28 Jamada
al-Ula, 1351 (Sept. 19, 1932), p. 9; passim, "Wahda al-Thaqafa al-Islamiyya," al-Fath, 29 Shaban,
1352 (Dec. 17, 1933), p. 4; "Muqarana bain al-Sharq wa al-Gharb bi Munasaba Muahada al-Taif,"
al-Fath, 9 Rabi al-Awwal, 1353 (June 22, 1934), p. 15; "Darura al-Wahda al-Arabiyya lil Salam
al-Alami," al-Rabita al-Arabiyya, March 24, 1937; "al-Wahda al-Arabiyya wa al-Wahda al-
Alamiyya," address given in Ewart Hall, American University of Cairo, Cairo, Jan. 4, 1946; "al-
Malik Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud Kama Araftahu," in al-Malik Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud wa al Mamlaka
al-Arabiyya al-Saudiyya, Abd Allah Husain, ed. (Cairo, 1948), pp. 104-107; passim, al-Risala al-
Khalida, 2d edition (Cairo, 1954), pp. 215-250, an exact reprint of the 1946 edition which was based
on radio broadcasts given in the 1940s. There is an expanded English translation of this work entitled
The Eternal Message of Muhammad, Cesar Farah, trans. (New York, 1964).
182
For a discussion of the development and stability of this bourgeoisie see Eric Davis, "Political
Development or Political Economy?: Political Theory and the Study of Social Change in Egypt and
the Third World," Review of Middle East Studies, I (1975), 41-61. According to Davis, approaching
Egyptian society in terms of an undifferentiated social structure does not allow for an understanding
of social change in Egypt during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. "A political economy
approach . . . would significantly modify the 'decay thesis." While Egypt certainly did experience
decay as a result of its contact with the West, the causes of this decay were materialist rather than
idealist forces. We would argue that this decay most adversely affected the peasantry, rather than the
bourgeoisie, as reflected in the rise of rents, the difficulty of small land holders in obtaining credit, an
inflation in food prices, the fragmentation of land holdings and the dispossession of a large number
of small holders of their land. For the landowning bourgeoisie which grew out of the rural notable
stratum . . . the nineteenth century was an ever-increasing accumulation of capital and the displace-
ment of the Turco-Circassian ruling class as a major indigenous economic and political force. With
the weakening of European colonialism . . . the Egyptian bourgeoisie found itself a junior partner in
the extraction of surplus for the world market. Thus Egyptian politics during the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries witnessed a consolidation of the native bourgeoisie's hold over Egyptian society"
(here p. 58).
'"This apparently contradictory quality has been identified and brilliantly analyzed in Berque's
fine work on modern Egypt. Berque recognizes the class dimensions of an ideology which seems to
excite and restrain but he seeks to relate it, as well, to millennial traditions within the Arab world, to
"a process which seems to arise from the remote depths of Middle Eastern history." See his
comments upon a manifesto issued by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1947. In Berque, Imperialism and
Revolution, p. 601.
" 4 lbid., pp. 386-387, where he speaks of the Wafd's efforts to canalize the anger of the masses.
'"Cited in Anis, Thawra, pp. 119-120.
l!6
For this prudent policy, see Maxime Rodinson, The Arabs, (Chicago, 1981), pp. 110-115. For
Mahir's economic orientation with which Azzam was in sympathy see Berque, Imperialism and
Revolution, pp. 464-465. According to Berque, Mahir was one of the first to be concerned with the
control of social development: "He recommended an 'orientation,' taujih, which was to be revived in
a revolutionary form after 1952, but which this tactician of the monarchy was already planning in
1936. He declared: 'Our evolution must be given a direction, one adapted to the specific character of
the Egyptian people, to its customs and capacities, just as we must match our social institutions to
the results of this evolution of material progress and of innovation, in all fields of work, of the
478 Ralph M. Coury
economy and of the circumstances of modern life.'" Berque realizes that Mahir's aim was to "strangle
the revolutionary impulse." In this respect it is relevant to point out that as early as January, 1927, in
a debate in the Egyptian Chamber of Deputies, Azzam advocated government interference to
mitigate the effects of capitalist development on the poor peasantry. He cited with approval a law of
Mussolini's which sought to "determine the relation between landlords and peasants" through the
setting up of a process of arbitration in which courts made up of representatives of each would
liquidate outstanding disputes and discuss conflicts between owners and peasants on the land. Azzam
said that he chose Mussolini as an example because "he was able to get rid of communism in his
country and because he is the best example for those who have defended individual ownership." See
minutes of session 8, Chamber of Deputies, January 10, 1927, pp. 240-241. For a view of Nasserism
which emphasizes the socio-economic continuities that link the pre- and post-1952 periods, see Davis,
"Political Development or Political Economy? Political Theory and the Study of Social Change in
Egypt and the Third World," pp. 56-57. Davis writes: "Rather than destroying the Egyptian
bourgeoisie, the 1952 Revolution strengthened it. This statement should not be interpreted in
individual but in class terms. In other words, while many individual landowners and businessmen
may have been expropriated, this does not imply a radical transformation in the mode of production
(semi-capitalist in agriculture and state capitalism in industry) or the indigenous class structure. What
can be effectively argued, 1 think, is that the change entailed by the 1952 Revolution consisted of the
replacement of the upper levels of the Egyptian bourgeoisie by its lower level elements. The situation
of peasants and workers remained appreciably the same since relations of production experienced no
drastic change" (p. 56).
I8
'al-Mazini, "al-Qawmiyya al-Arabiyya," p. 1363.
l88
Salama Musa, "al-Rabita al-Sharqiyya wa Sair al-Rawabit," in Mukhtarat Salama Musa,
(Beirut, 1963), pp. 127-130. That Musa should have expressed such sentiments may come as a
surprise to those who associate him with a vigorous Egyptianism that adamantly opposed Arab
identity and nationalism. Musa's thoughts and formulations in respect to the Arabs seem to have
fluctuated from period to period and according to various contexts. I nevertheless believe that a pe-
rusal of his work as a whole would support the view that he was not opposed in principle to the idea of
Arab identity or even Arab nationalism as long as these were not associated with values and practices
that were incompatible with the egalitarianism, democracy and scientific modernity that he
championed. Those who see him as an irrevocable enemy of Arabism have pointed to passages such
as that found in al-Yawm wa al-Ghad (1927) in which he declares that Egyptians owe no fidelity to
the Arabs. Yet a careful reading of the context in which this and similar statements occur would
show that when Musa spoke of the "Arabs" in this way he was referring to the Arabs of ancient and
medieval times whose cultural, social and political values were, in his view, alien and unsuitable for
contemporary Egyptians. He did not reject the concept of a common modern and scientific Arab
culture as such. Thus in al-Hayat wa al-Adab (1930), in an article entitled "Misr, Markaz, al-Thaqafa
al-Arabiyya," he wrote, "All of us desire that the Arab world be united through the Arabic language.
However, we do not wish to sacrifice our personality through this unity, nor do we want unity
between us and the rest of the Arab countries to be only linguistic. Rather, we wish to be linked to
these countries in a modern culture, based upon science and industry. It will be a culture that unites
all of us through ties of sedentary civilization (al-hadara) and not of bedouinism (al-badawa). The
path of our coming to know each other better and of our achieving mutual accord must be built
upon modern views of government, marriage, and social reform, upon scientific discoveries and
inventions. In other words, we must be united by the ties of modern civilization and modern culture
so that our social sentiments and goals of reform will [also] unite." See al-Hayat wa al-Adab (Cairo,
n.d., [1930]), pp. 101-102.
"'Muhammad Ali Alluba, Filistin wa Damir al-Insani (Cairo, 1964),pp. 171-173.
"°See, for example, his arguments against Taha Husain, quoted in Ahmad Shuqairi, Hiwar wa
Asrar Maa al-Muluk wa al-Ruasa (Beirut, n.d.), pp. 48-50.
"'Haim, Anthology, p. 52.
"2Ahmad Amin, Qamus al-Adat wa Taqalid wa Taabir al-Misriyya (Cairo, 1953), pp. 49-50.
'"Gabriel Baer has written of this struggle on the basis of his study of Kitab al-Dhakhair wa
al-Tuhaffi Bir al-Sanai wa al-Hiraf, an Egyptian manuscript written at the end of the sixteenth or in
the seventeenth century and kept in the Landes-bibliothek of Gotha. According to Baer, "This
struggle is reflected throughout the Gotha manuscript, and to judge by this source it assumed the
 Who "Invented" Egyptian Arab Nationalism? Part 2 479

character of antagonism between Arabs (Egyptians) and Ottomans. The Ottomans are not only
accused of having caused the decline of the guilds but of having practiced discrimination against
awlad al-arab, whose tekyes they destroyed while keeping intact those of the Ottomans. This seems to
have generated fervent hatred of the Turks; they are described as beasts and accused of being
sodomites (luwat). It is not only the nakib of the guilds that is superior to the governor, but Arabs in
general are superior to Turks—and therefore Arab sheikhs of guilds to Turkish ones." He then
quotes a passage of the manuscript which says that the shaikhs of guilds should be from the sons of
the Arabs (abna al-arab) because "they are superior" and "only the Arabs possess learning and
eloquence." See Gabriel Baer, The Egyptian Guilds in Modern Times (Jerusalem, 1964), pp. 14-15.
1M
Amin, The Arab Nation, p. 21; William Polk, The United States and the Arab World (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1965), pp. 28-29; and Khalduft S. al-Husry, Three Reformers (Beirut, 1966), pp. 94-95,
where he criticizes Haim for writing that al-Kawakabi must have derived his ideas about the nobility
of the bedouin from Blunt.
"5A conversation with Madame Nihad Sirhan, a native of Faiyum and an anthropologist from
Indiana University, Cairo, April 21, 1971.
'"A conversation with Dr. Ahmad Shams al-Din al-Hijazi, lecturer at the Institute for Drama,
Cairo, and a native of Luxor, Cairo, April 4, 1971.
'"Hamed Ammar, Growing Up in an Egyptian Village (New York, 1966), pp. 58-60.
"8The necessity of differentiating the particular histories, cultures and structures of each of the
Western (and Third World) bourgeoisies is, of course, one of the lessons to be drawn from Gramsci.
See Lynne Lawner's introduction to Antonio Gramsci, Letters from Prison (New York, 1973), p. 52.