OCCIDENTALISM IN LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY EGYPT

A Study By: Alaa Bayoumi

Copyright © 2005 by Alaa Bayoumi. Don’t re-publish without Author’s permission.

Abstract

This new study argues that any policy seeking to reform Arabs’ perceptions of the US and the West should simultaneously attempt to promote democracy in Muslim societies, to reform Western foreign policies toward the Muslim world, to educate Muslims about the social and moral values of the West, and to spread a view of reform as a gradual, educational, and nonviolent process.

It analyzes the Occidental discourses of three intellectual leaders of late nineteenth century Egypt, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Qasim Amin, and Abd al-Rahman al-Kawakibi. It highlights four main factors that shaped the three writers’ views of the West.

These factors are: the way each writer saw reform as a process, the way each writer viewed the effects of Western foreign policies on the Muslim world, and the attitudes of each writer toward Muslim governments and toward the socially conservative Muslim masses.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1: Critique of Contemporary Debate on Arab Occidentalism

Chapter 2: Circumstances of Late Nineteenth Century Egypt

Chapter 3: The Occidental Discourse of Jamal Al-Din Al-Afghani

Chapter 4: The Occidental Discourse of Qasim Amin

Chapter 5: The Occidental Discourse of Abdul Al-Rahman Al-Kawakibi

Conclusions and Policy Implications: Occidentalism in Late Nineteenth Century Egypt

Reference List