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Acculturation as a Theme in Contemporary Arab Literature

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2024

Gustave E. von Grunebaum

Extract

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Acculturation, or more precisely Westernization, in the Near and Middle East has gone through distinct typical phases. After the shock of inferiority discovered, an almost complete surrender to the foreign values and (not infrequently misunderstood) aspirations; then, with Westernization partially realised, a recoiling from the alien, which however continues to be absorbed greedily, and a falling back on the native tradition; this tradition is restyled and, in some cases, newly created with borrowed techniques of scholarship to give respectability to the results. Finally, with Westernization very largely completed in terms of governmental reforms, acceptance of the values of science and adoption of Western literary and artistic form, regained self-confidence expresses itself in hostility to the West and insistence on the native and original character of the borrowed product.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 10 , Issue 39 , September 1962 , pp. 84 - 118
Copyright
Copyright © 1962 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

1 Muqaddima (Cairo, n.d.), p. 147; ed. E. Quatremère (Paris, 1858), I, 266-67; trans. F. Rosenthal (New York, 1958), I, 299.

2 Muqaddima (Cairo), p. 147; ed. E. Quatremère, I, 267; trans. Rosenthal, I, 300.

3 R. Maunier, Sociologie coloniale, II (2nd ed., Paris, 1949), 372.

4 G. E. von Grunebaum, Self-Image and Approach to History, 1958, p. 10 of mimeograph. This sense of obligation to improve an imperfect world is a characteristic of the modern West only; it was absent as late as the fifteenth century; cf., e.g., J. Huizinga, Herbst des Mittelalters (7th. ed., Stuttgart, 1953), pp. 32-33.

5 O. Mannoni, Psychologie de la colonisation (Paris, 1950), p. 87; for Ben nabi cf. G. E. von Grunebaum, "Das geistige Problem der Verwestlichung in der Selbstsicht der arabischen Welt," Saeculum, X (1959-60), 289-327, at p. 321.

6 Mannoni, op. cit., p. 136, seems to think so with regard to the Madagascans.

7 The Day of Sacrifice (New York, 1959), pp. vii-viii.

8 Le Passé simple, Paris, 1954, pp. 248-49; 251.

9 Nous sans masque (a lecture given on May 11, 1959); French translation by M. Barbot, Orient, XI (1959), 147-63, at p. 158. Anà ahyà was published in 1958. What Augustin Berque (1884-1946) said of the Algerian intellectual applies with equal force to the Arab, the Middle Eastern intellectual in general, and perhaps to most of the Western-schooled élites of new or resurgent nations in Asia and Africa. Ideas with which one discourses in the West, become in the Maghreb "tyrannical, imperious mistresses (which) jealously seize the mind. They are ideas that are a moving force, but also defensive reflexes. Here one thinks, not for the sake of thinking, but against someone…" ("Les intellectuels algériens," Revue Africaine, XCI (1947; no. 410-411), 123-151, at p. 138). Another ob servation of Berque's deserves recording as it describes to perfection one important aspect of the contact between the intellectual and his people and which com pensates for the prevailing sense of mutual estrangement: "The exciting of the people's instincts by an ideology which remains inaccessible to it." (ibid., p. 128).

10 Cf. A. Ghedira, "Essai d'une biographie d'Abù 1-Qàsim al-Šäbbï," Arabica, VI (1959), 266-80, esp. at pp. 280 and 273-74.

11 The Meaning of the Disaster (originally published in 1948), trans. R. B. Winder (Beirut, 1956), p. 40.

12 Ibid., p. 48.

13 Ibid., p. 41.

14 Preface to Ihsàn Khànum, trans. H. Pérès, "Prefaces by the Arabian Authors to Their Novels or Collections of Short Stories and Novellas," Annales de l'Institut d'études orientales (Université d'Alger), V (1939-41), 137-195, at p. 159.

15 "Ueber das Wesen der europäischen Kultur und ihr Verhältnis zur rus sischen" apud D. Tschizewskij and D. Groh, Europa und Russland. Texte zum Problem des westeuropaïschen und russischen Selbstverstandnisses (Darmstadt, 1959).

16 Loc. cit., pp. 160-161.

17 Mannoni, op. cit., p. 141.

18 Apophthegmata basileon, 175A (Bernardakis, II, 9).

19 Aetia Romana, quest. 83, 283F-284C (Bernardakis, II, 300-302); cf. Mau nier, op. cit., II, 110-111 and 117.

20 Abu ‘I-Fadl ‘Allami, Ä in-i Akbari, trans. H. S. Jarrett, 2nd. rev. ed. Sir Jadu-Nath Sarkar (Calcutta, 1939-49), II, 45 (cf. also I, 215); R. S. Sharma, The Crescent in India (rev. ed.; Poona, 1954), p. 449 and 469.

21 Cf. Maunier, Sociologie coloniale, I (Paris, 1932), 68-72.

22 Passé simple, p. 99.

23 On this point cf. Maunier, I, 138 ff.

24 This is the suggestive title of a study by O. Hatzfeld in the Cahiers du monde non chrétien, XVI (1950), 387-403 (on which cf. G. E. von Grunebaum, Saeculum, X, 318).

25 Dichtung und Wahrheit, Buch 17 (Hanser-Ausgabe, S. 564).

26 Cf. Pérès, op. cit., p. 142. Cf. also Jamil al-Mudawwar, Hadarat al-Islam fi Dar as-salàm (1888), for whose Preface cf. ibid., p. 140; a detailed study of Mudawwar has been prepared by Erika Röcher, Untersuchungen zu Gamil al-Mudauwars Hadarat al-Islàm… (Berlin, 1958).

27 The sense of the universal messianic significance of the development of one's own society recurs on all cultural levels; cf. e.g., the belief of the Papua in New Guinea who, on the defeat of the Japanese at the end of World War II, thought the Manseren (Messiah) on his way to New Guinea "to herald the beginning of the Golden Era of the Papuans which at the same time is the golden era of the world"; C. A. O. van Nieuwenhuijze, Aspects of Islam in Post-Colonial Indonesia (The Hague and Bandung, 1958), p. 13, note 1.

28 Documents de la Revue des deux Mondes, I, July 1958, pp. 43 and 44.

29 Cf. G. E. von Grunebaum, "Fall and Rise of Islam. A Self-View," Studi orientalistici in onore di Giorgio Levi Della Vida (Rome, 1956), I, 420-33, at p. 425, with reference to ‘Ali al-Hasani an-Nadwi, Ma dha khasara ‘l-'alam bi'nhitat al-muslimin? (2nd ed., Cairo, 1370-1951), pp. 100-101.

30 Ibid., p. 424, with reference to Nadwi, pp. 96-100.

31 Cf. G. E. von Grunebaum in Klassizismus und Kulturverfall, eds. G. E. von Grunebaum and W. Hartner (Frankfurt am Main, 1960), p. 28 and the materials and references on pp. 28-30.

32 Loc. cit., pp. 281-83.

33 On these books cf. Mannoni, op. cit., pp. 190-97.

34 "Erster philosophischer Brief" (written in 1829) apud Tschizewskij, op cit., pp. 73-93, at pp. 73 ff.; cf. also note 1 on p. 73-74.

35 Letter to G. Herwegh, 25 August 1849, apud Tschizewskij, op. cit., pp. 202-220, at p. 218.

36 Loc. cit., p. 260. Be it noted, incidentally, that Kireevskij's letter contains, pp. 269-70, a characterisation of Islamic civilisation which does not of course transcend the knowledge of his period and is of purely historical interest.

37 Pérès, op. cit., pp. 164-165.

38 F.-J. Bonjean and Ahmed Deif, Mansour. Histoire d'un enfant du pays d'Egypte (Paris, 1924), pp. 187-88; reference to this story is especially appropriate in the light of the fact that, in 1858, Napoleon III sent the great prestidigitator, R. Houdin, to Algeria with a view to having him demonstrate to the Muslims that the alleged miracles of their saints are nothing but sleights-of-hand.

39 Bonjean-Deif, op. cit., p. 272.

40 Koran 51-56.

41 Bonjean-Deif, op. cit., p. 169.

42 Ash-Sharq wa'l-Gharb (Cairo, 1955), p. 1.

43 From Europa und die Menschheit, written in 1923, apud Tschizewskij, op. cit., p. 520; cf. also p. 521. From a (if not necessary, the) Communist viewpoint, generously enlivened with Russian patriotism, the limited validity of European culture is aggressively asserted in various "wissenschaftstheoretische" statements of which the following brief selections constitute a fair sample.

"The only truly scholarly methodology, the Marxist-Leninist one, gave Soviet scholars the possibility of unrolling and solving boldly the most important prob lems of Byzantine history, which had remained beyond the realm of bourgeois scholars or which bourgeois scholarship had proved itself incapable of solving. In contrast to the bourgeois Byzantine experts, the Soviet historians study Byzantine history, according to Stalin's directions, as the history of the active masses, the history of the peoples."…

"The Soviet Byzantine and Slavic experts battle determinedly against the reactionary concepts of foreign historians, who try to minimize the historical role of Slavic institutions in the development of the medieval order of society."…

"The most important task facing the Soviet Byzantine experts is the irrecon cilable battle against the reactionary bourgeois ideology of American and West European Byzantine experts."…

"… In the first volume of Vizantijsckij Vremennik, which appeared in 1947, this spirit of irreconciliable battle against reactionary foreign Byzantine scholarship was still missing. Instead of sharp, unmasking criticism, the first issue of the periodical presented cosmopolitan ideas of peaceful co-scholarship with foreign bourgeois Byzantine experts. In addition, the lead editorial presented the deeply mistaken and also unpatriotic thesis that Byzantine scholarship was a ‘worldwide' study; and that Soviet Byzantine experts had the task, ‘of taking an honorable place' in this ‘worldwide' study."…

"Inasmuch as the materialist in scholarship represents the point of view of the proletariat, he presents a truly objective judgment of the occurrences; for, as the learning of the most revolutionary class, Marxist-Leninist learning is the only progressive, objective learning." (From M. W. Lewtschenko, "Gegen den bürger lichen Kosmopolitismus in der sowjetischen Byzantinistik", 1949; trans. apud Johs. Irmscher (Hg.), Aus der Sowjetbyzantinistik. Eine Auswahl prinzipieller Beiträge, Berlin, 1956, pp. 13-22, at pp. 13, 15, 16, 17 and 19).

By substituting as one must "Western" for "bürgerlich reaktionär" the denial of the claim to universal methodological validity of Occidental science comes out in bold relief. The political-psychological motivation of the statements is obvious; the patriotic parti pris places these expressions of Marxist-Leninist unmistakably alongside the other nationalistic self-reconstructions with which this paper is concerned. That our examples could, in the nature of things, be drawn only from the literature of a very few national groups should not stand in the way of recognising the phenomenon as universal within a certain political-psychological framework. It would be easy to add illustrations from the indigenista restyling of Mexican history, from what a number of African states are trying to do with their past, etc. etc.

44 Amin, op. cit., pp. 35-44; on pp. 38-41 the author quotes from one of Maxim Gorki's writings a list of scandalous fait divers which the Russian writer had culled from Western newspapers; this section is one of the few passages of Amin's essay that are frankly propagandistic and almost touchingly naive.

45 From Vom anderen Ufer (1850) apud Tschizewskij, op. cit., p. 195.

46 Apud Tschizewskij, op. cit., pp. 262 and 252.

47 Amin, op. cit., p. 55. The reference to Nur ad-Din Zangi may be based on a passage like the following which is taken from Abu Shama (d. 1267) Kitab ar-raudatain, ed. Barbier de Meynard (Paris, 1898-1906), I, 43. There Zangi is shown in 1159 soliciting the consent of the 'ulama' for some legal action in these words : wa-laissa al-'amal illa ‘alà ma tattafiquna ‘alaihi wa-tashhaduna bihi wa–‘alà hada kana ‘s-sahaba (ridwan Allah ‘alaihim) yajtami'una wa-yatashawaruna fi masalih al-muslimina; i.e. no action will be taken unless you agree to it and bear witness to it; in this manner the Companions (of the Prophet) assembled and consulted on the concerns of the Muslims. The injunction to consult goes back to Koran 42:36 where God's reward is promised to "those who have responded to their Lord and established the prayer, their affair being matter of counsel amongst them, wa-amru-hum shura baina-hum, and from what We have provided them with, contributed." The phrase is often quoted, its bearing, however, never precisely defined; at least one author, Qudama b. Ja'far (d. ca. 948) cites Alexander the Great soliciting the advice of Aristotle in support of the scriptural command; cf. D. Sourdel, Le Vizirat ‘abbaside de 749 a 936 (Damascus, 1959-60), II, 712-13. In 128/745-46. an "arbitration court" decides to "depose Nasr (b. Sayyar, the Umayyad governor of Khurasan) wa-yakuna ‘l-amr shurà" presumably to let future leadership be a matter of consultation, either in the sense of government by com mittee or of the next governor to be agreed upon in committee. The phrase as quoted from Ibn Katir, al-Bidaya wa'n-nihaya (Cairo, 1932-39), X, 271, goes unmentioned in J. Wellhausen's presentation of the pertinent events, The Arab Kingdom and Its Fall (Calcutta, 1927), p. 486.

48 Loc cit., p. 257; the whole passage, pp. 255-57, is very important in our context: revulsion from Westlertum and concentration on the study of Russian history into which the pre-established principles of Russian life are read.

49 Esp. pp. 157 ff.

50 Op. cit., pp. 140-41.

51 Loc. cit., pp. 293-94.

52 Op. cit., pp. 156-64. What would appear to be a more realistic and consequently a more productive attitude has been formulated by Muhammad an-Naqqash who, first of all, affirms his belief in the tendency to progress as a major characteristic of man and then finds the natural, the inevitable road of advancement in Occidentalisation. Such Occidentalisation is already very largely an accomplished fact. Western civilisation so-called is actually not a prerogative of a number of occidental lands but a common possession of the European and the American continents (with some qualifications) and of a part of Asia. Now that the Arab has put behind him his national struggles he is free to examine the various modes of life and make his choice. What this choice is to be cannot be in doubt. Besides, the leaven of Western civilisation has long since penetrated Arab society; it is now a matter of completing the work and of taking conscious stock of the process. "The rising generations do not believe in half-measures; they do not find it acceptable to borrow what pleases us from western civilization and to reject what does not please us. Personally, I admit to feeling no admiration for the Japanese dictum: ‘Acquire western science and western techniques, but preserve the cult of ancestors and the traditions of our forebears.' Civilization consists of matter and spirit; these two elements must unite and go side by side. If we do not commune spiritually and intellectually with western civilization, that is to say with the apogee of the human civilization in which we Arabs have a share: if we are content to borrow its material realizations, we shall be like the donkey loaded with books…; we will stay at the stage of copying and imitating; we will not surpass it, attaining the realms of invention and discovery; we will not join the force of creators." (Translated from an article in al-'Ulum, February 1960, in Orient, XV (1960), 167-174; the quotation is taken from p. 174).

53 We owe to Dr. Farès a very perceptive (though fortunately no longer as painfully correct) analysis "Des difficultés d'ordre linguistique, culturel et social que rencontre un écrivain arabe moderne, spécialement en Egypte," Revue des études musulmanes, 1936, 221-246.

54 On Mas'adi cf. M. Ferid-Ghazi, "La littérature tunisienne contemporaine," Orient, XII (1959), pp. 131-97, esp. at pp. 134-43; on pp. 157-63 a few scenes from as-Sudd are given in translation. Another kind of integration through a particularism common to French and Arab writers in North Africa is suggested by a remark of Mouloud Feraoun's: (b. 1913) "I am by no means thinking of a narrow nationalism or regionalism; the essential thing for me is to find in the works of North Africans beings of flesh and blood like those I see around me. They may be called Rieux or Smaïl, it will please me equally because they are from my home. And I say to myself that the people from my home are no longer absent from literature." (Quoted by A. Dupuy, L'Algérie dans les lettres d'expres sion française [Paris, 1956], p. 157, n. 2).

55 Le Passé simple, pp. 198-201.

56 Ibid., p. 197.

57 On Memmi cf. A. Dupuy, La Tunisie dans les lettres d'expression française (Paris, 1956), pp. 101-103 and 128-131. On the whole, the nahda among the North African Muslims has been more effective in their French than in their Arab production; consequently, their French contribution to world literature is more significant than what maghrabi authors have accomplished in Arabic. This judgment is easily substantiated by contrasting the listings of Arabic works owed to North African Muslim authors in H. Pérès, "Quelques aspects de la renaissance intellectuelle au xxe siècle en Afrique du Nord," La Table Ronde, No. 81, Oct. Nov., 1957. In this instance the realisation of a cultural individuality is stimulated rather than impeded by the adoption of a more suitably perfected tool, the French language, and the technical and intellectual association supporting it.

58 This is not, of course, to overlook the presence of "self-stylisation" in many a statement made by Indian intellectuals about themselves; for examples cf. E. Shils, "The Culture of the Indian Intellectual," The Sewanee Review (April and July 1959), reprinted as a brochure in the Reprint Series of the Committee on South Asian Studies, the University of Chicago (1959; 46 pp.). When the acculturation problem of Indian and Arab is considered it must be remembered that actually the individual is faced with three "options"—the indigenous tradition, the mo dernised indigenous tradition (in varying stages of medernisation and Western isation), and the Western tradition (again in varying forms and types).