Inscribing the arab self: butrus al-bustanï and paradigms of subjective reform

British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies

Volumn 27, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 7-24

  Sheehi, Stephen Paul ^a  

^a AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF SHARJAH   (United Arab Emirates)

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EID: 33745811642     PISSN: 13530194     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13530190050010967     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. Farah Antun, Ibn Rushd wa Falsafaluhii, (Alexandria: al-Jam'iyya, 1903), dedication.
2. Most recently, Leila Tarrazi-Fawaz has documented the violence in Mount Lebanon and Damascus, asserting that concurrent social and economic transformations eroded the traditional power structure and motivated the civil and inter-confessional discontent. See An Occasion for War (London: I.B. Tauris, 1994).
3. For the relationship between confessionalism and economy during the period, see Dominique Chevellier, La société du Mont Liban a l'époque de la révolution industrielle (Paris: P. Geunther, 1971);
4. Leila Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth Century Beirut (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983);
5. Samir Khalaf, Persistence and Change in Nineteenth Century Lebanon (Beirut: AUB Press, 1979);
6. Waddah Sharara, Fi Usul al-ta 'iß (Beirut: Dar al-Taffah), and, the often overlooked, I.M. Smilianskaya, al-Harakat al-Fallahi ya ßLubnan (Beirut: Dar al-Farabi, 1972).
7. Mikha'il Mishaqah, al-Jawab 'ala Iqtirah al-Ahbab, written in 1873, published by Asad Rustum as Mukhtarat al-Jawab 'ala Iqtirah al-Ahbab (Beirut: Wizara al-Tarbiya al-Wataniyya, 1955).
8. Rustum's source however is incomplete. Brandan Wheeler has adroitly pieced together a 'complete' narrative of Mishaqah's wriungs in his otherwise inappropriately titled translation of the chronicle-memoir. Murder, Mayhem, Pillage, and Plunder (Albany: SUNY Albany, 1988).
9. Al-Jam'iyya al-Suriyya li'l-'Ulum wa'l-Funun (The Syrian Society of the Arts and Sciences) was a literary-scientific circle centred around the American Protestant mission. Al-Mu'allim Butrus al-Bustani was its secretary and also the editor of a collection of the papers presented at the Society's meetings. Written by American missionaries and native intellectuals, the compilation included six articles by al-Bustani, as well as an article by Mishaqah himself on superstition, entitled 'FI Sa'd wa'1-Nahs wa'l-'Ayn'. Republished by Yusuf Quzmakhuri, 'A'mal al-Jamfyya al-Suriyya li'l-'UIum wa'1-Funun 1847-1852, (Beirut: Dar al-Hamra', 1990).
10. Mayhem, p. 244. Rustum's Mukhtarat curiously ends immediately before Mishaqah's account of the war of 1860.
11. Ibid., p. 244.
12. see Butrus al-Bustani, Nafir Suriyya ([Beirut: s.n., [1861]), republished as Nafir Suriyya (Beirut: Dar Fikr li'1-Abhath, 1990). For a truncated analysis of Nafir Suriyya, see my article 'Unpacking Arab Subjectivity' in The Journal of Arab Studies (Spring) 1998.
13. Al-Mu 'allim Butrus al-Bustani studied at the renowned Maronite seminary 'Ayn Waraqa. After teaching at 'Ayn Waraqa, he tutored American Protestant missionaries in Beirut, eventually converting to Protestantism just as fellow 'Ayn Waraqa alumnus Ahmad Fans al-Shidyaq and Mishaqah had. Al-Mu'allim Butrus subsequently taught at the Americans' school in Abeih before moving to Beirut to translate the Bible into Arabic with Eli Smith ( 1848-1856) and also was the dragoman for the American consul. Al-Bustani became the unofficial leader of the native Protestant community, leading the protest and, eventually, the rebellion against the American missionaries who had restricted them from leadership positions in the native church. Gradually distancing himself from the mission, he established his own school, al-Madrasa al-Wataniyya (the National School), the first secular school in the Middle East. Among other works, he compiled a comprehensive 'modern' Arabic dictionary, Muhit al-Muhit (1869), founded the ground-breaking literary-scientific journal al-Jinan (1870-1883) and composed half of the first Arabic encyclopedia. Da 'irat al-Ma'arif (Beirut: Dar al-Ma'arif, 1876).
14. For a basic biography and review of works, see Yusuf Qizmakhuri, Rajul Sublq li-'Asrihi: al-Mu allim Butrus al-Bustani (Beirut: Bisan, 1994/Amman: al-M'ahad al-Malaki li'1-Dirasat al-Diniyya, 1994).
15. For a discussion in English of al-Bustani's social-political views, Albert Hourani's Arab Thought in the Liberal Age (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962) is still empirically the most concise. Regarding al-Bustam's relations with the mission, see 'Abd al-Latif Tibawi, "The American Missionaries in Beirut and Butrus al-Bustani in St Antonv's Papers. No.16
16. see Kamal Salibi, The Modern History of Lebanon (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1965), p. 145.
17. see George Antonius, The Arab Awakening (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1939), pp. 49-50.
18. For a critical, if not pedantic, reading of Antonius's work as a historical source, see Ernest Dawn, From Ottomanism to Arabism (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973); or Sylvie Haim, "The Arab Awakening: A Source for the Historian?', in Welts des Islams, 2 (1953).
19. Hadiqat al-Akhbar, established in Beirut in 1856, was the first weekly newspaper in Arabic published in Greater Syria. Its founder and editor was Khalil Khuri, also the author of poetry and social criticism in 'Asral-JadTd (The New Age) and al-Nasha'id al-Fu'adiyya (The Loving Anthems) and founder of al-Maiba'a al-Suriyya (the Syrian Press).
20. In his review 'The Arab Awakening Forty Years Later', Albert Hourani makes the argument that Antonius' work is an important primary source not for its empirical but rhetorical content, saying that 'the analysis of 'Arabism' as an ideology, with all that this implies, is missing from The Arab Awakening, but it is also missing from the work of most of its critics'. See Hourani, The Emergence of the Modem Middle East (London: Macmillan Press, 1981), p. 206.
21. Butrus al-Bustanl, Khutba fi Adab al-'Arab ([Beirut]: s.n., [1859]), in colophon; also published in A'mal al-Jam'iyya al-Suriyya, op. cit. For a discussion of it, see Yusuf Choueiri's Arab History and the Nation-State; A Study in Modern Arab Historiography, 1820-1980 (London: Routledge Press, 1989); or Qizmakhuri, Rajul, pp. 40-47.
22. By al-'ulum w-a'l-ma'arif, al-Bustani did limit himself to the classical disciplines like al-'msha, 'ilm al-falak, or 'ilm al-fiqh. He states in his introduction to his encyclopedia that al-'ulum wa'l-ma' arif/include literature, the political sciences like civil and commercial law; the 'historical sciences' like geography, ancient and modern history, and Greek mythology; the 'educational sciences' of algebra and engineering; the natural sciences like botany, geology, chemistry, and medicine; and 'the arts and crafts' including architecture, music, photography, mining, and printing. See Da'irat al-ma'arif (Tehran: Matbu'at-i Isma'iliyya, 1971; 1st edn.), pp. 3-5.
23. For an analysis of this 'formula' for reform, see my article, 'Epistemography of the Modem Arab Subject' in Public, 16 (Toronto, 1997).
24. In an article entitled, 'Ittihad wa ulfah' As'ad Trad expresses the same idiom of al-Bustani's discourse of national 'progress'. See al-Jinan (Beirut), I (1870), pp. 304-305 and 340-344. Later, his son, Salim al-Bustani, develops the idiom in his article 'al-Ulfa wa'1-Ittihad wa'l-Ta'aqqul wa la siyyama fi'l-Wilayat al-'Arabiyya" (Concord, Unity, and Reason in the Arab Provinces'), in al-Jinan, VII (1876), pp. 649-652.
25. 18 The concepts are prominent in the Egyptian independence movement. For an example, see Mustafa Kamal's article in 'Abd al-Latif Hamza, Adab al-Maqala al-Sahayya fi Misr (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-'Arabl, n.d.), 5, p. 115; originally in Kamal's newspaper al-Liwa, 2 January 1900.
26. 19 Nafir Suriyya, IX, p. 48. Citations are as such: tract (watanlyya) number is in roman numerals, followed by the page number found in Nafir's republication (1990). All translations are my own.
27. Ibid., VII, p. 35. Al-Bustani also writes, 'We call the attention of the nation's sons to two issues. The first issue is that the reform of their overall condition and their country is dependent on unity, which is accomplished only through personal effort. This is because relying on fate to reform them is like a hungry man relying on feeling filled if his friend or companion has eaten. Hoping for things to get better on their own is like an ignorant man hoping to become a philosopher if his neighbour or coreligious has studied ... Secondly, the demonstration of inter-communal hate ... is very detrimental. It induces the cessation or prevention of unity and concord, upon which the people's and country's success are both dependent' (IX, 54).
28. See Rifa'a Rafi' al-Tahtawi's own formula for national 'progress and civilization' methodically laid out in his introduction to Kitab Manahij al-Albab al-Mifriyya fi Mabahij al-Adab al-'Asriyya (Cairo: s.n., 1869), 2nd edn (Cairo: Matba'at Sharikat al-Ragha'ib, 1912).
29. According to Austin, constative statements are fundamentally factual and objective truths. They are, to a degree, autonomous 'utterances', comprehensible even without a specific context. Performative statements, however, are circumstantial and bound to their context for meaning and intelligibility. In other words, performative statements are contingent on an exterior reference for coherent signification. See J. L. S Austin, How to Do Things with Words (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), e.g. pp. 3, 6-8, or 42.
30. Derrida recognizes that constative statements also function within an index of meaning and context. Therefore, they too are subtle ideological utterances, which find significance in the same semantic ambiguities as performative statements. Austin himself calls into question the 'felicity' or 'happinessof constative statements, recognizing how they are contingent on outside signification. (Austin, op. cit. p. 136.) In fact, he explicitly shows how the 'truth or falsity of a statement', the constantive utterance, 'depends not merely on the meanings of the words,' particularly in relation to fact, 'but on what act you were performing in what circumstances'. (Austin, op.cit, pp. 142 and 145.) Irrespective of these acknowledgments, Derrida reveals that Austin still does not relinquish the objective nature of constative statements, stating that whatever ambiguity that the constative may have arises from the process of interpretation not enunciation itself. See Derrida's article, 'Signature Event Context' in Glyph (Baltimore: Vol. I, 1977). As a historical and cultural review, Khutba assumes impartiality, and therefore, should be taken, for the time-being, as a series of constative statements. Likewise, as a series of illocutionary and perlocutionary acts, that is, a rhetorical address meant to induce its reader to action, Nafir can be understood as performative. (Austin, op. cit., pp. 109-110.) 14
31. Nafir, V, pp. 27-28.
32. Bakhtin has taught us to recognize the diverse discursive pedigrees and relationships within language and discourses. Consequently, we acknowledge the dialogia of Nafir's narrative, its ideological platform, as a heteroglossia of the discourses, or a diverse assemblage of performative and constative statements that point to the complexity of the subject the text puts forth. See M. M. Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1992), e.g. pp. 279 and 291.
33. Nafir, I, p. 9.
34. While al-Bustani was one of the earliest advocates of women's rights, writing 'Ta'lim al-Nisa" (The Education of Women) in A'mal al-Jam'iyya al-Suriyya, the national subject which he and other intellectuals imagined was fundamentally male.
35. Nafir, VII, p. 38.
36. Ibid., XI, p. 69.
37. Ibid., IV, p. 22.
38. Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet shows that a similar equation involving 'love of the nation', 'civilization', and national unity existed in the process of the formation of Iranian national subjectivity at the turn of the century. See her 'Frontier Phenomenon: Perceptions of the Land in Iranian Nationalism', in Critique, 10, (1997), pp. 30-36.
39. 'Love of the nation' even became the motto for the constitutionalist movement in the Ottoman Empire. Salim al-Bustani invokes the idiom many times, posing it as diametrically opposite to 'fanaticism' (ta'assub). For an example, see his editorial, 'Ijaba dawa'ihubb al-watan wa nabdh al-inshiqaq wa 'l-ta'assub' in al-Jinan, 9 ( 1878), pp. 511-513.
40. Al-Tahtawi, Manahij, p. 10.
41. Muhammad al-Muwaylihi, HadTth 'Isa ihn Hisham, (Cairo: Matba'at al-Ma'arif, 1907), pp. 74-6. First serialized in the journal Misbah al-Sharq (1898).
42. Nafir, VIII, p. 45.
43. Ibid., X, p. 60.
44. Ibid., XI, p. 69. See n. 20 for a similar passage.
45. Jacques Derrida states, 'The supplement adds itself, it is a surplus, a plenitude enriching another plenitude, the fullest measure of presence. It cumulates and accumulates presence ... But the supplement supplements. It adds only to replace. It intervenes or insinuates itself in-the-place-of; if it fills, it is as if one fills a void'. See Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), pp. 144-145.
46. Nafir, XI, pp. 68-69.
47. Ibid., III, p. 19.
48. Ibid., IX, p. 52.
49. Ibid., IX, p. 51.
50. Ibid., IX, p. 52.
51. Ibid., IX, p. 52.
52. see Ahmad Faris al-Shidyaq's al-Saq 'ala al-Saqfima huwa al-Farfyaq (Paris: Benjamin Duprat, 1855). This generic collage relates the wanderings of the protagonists, al-Fariyaq, throughout Europe and the Middle East. Also, see 'Abd Allah al-Nadim's short lived journal al-Tankit wa'l-Tabkit, which contains innumerable short stories usually regarding the drastic social changes underway at the time, many of which were motivated by the prominence of Western culture or foreigners in Egypt. For a humorous and brief example see, 'al-'Arabi al-Tafarnaj' about a native son who upon returning from study in Europe has forgotten Arabic and become estranged from his peasant parents. See "Abd Allah al-Nadim, al-Tankit wa'1-Tabkit, (Alexandria), I (1881), pp. 7-8; reprinted (Cairo: al-Hay'a al-Misriyya, 1994), pp. 40-41.
53. Nafir, I, p. 10.
54. Ibid., IX, p. 52.
55. Ibid., IX, p. 53.
56. Ibid., IX, p. 53.
57. A series of editorials and articles appeared in al-Jinan at the end of 1882 and beginning of 1883 discussing the 'Urabi Revolt, British pacification, and direct intervention in Egypt. These articles are particularly interesting in relation to the discourse of national reform put forth by Nafir. While initially sympathetic to 'Urabi's struggle, Salim al-Bustani increasingly saw the revolt as self-centred and myopic. The discourse that Salim invokes is directly rooted in his father's work, posing the tension between individual interests (al-sawalih al-ifradiyya) versus public welfare (al-sawalih al'umumiyya). See for an example, the editorial 'Jumla Siyasiyya' in al-Jinan, 13 (1882), pp. 445-447. For one of Sallm's more sympathetic articles towards the British in Egypt, see the following fortnight's editorial, 'Ihtilal Bantaniya ff Mi$r' in al-Jinan, 13 (1882), pp. 577-579.
58. Nafir, X, p. 60.
59. Ibid., XI, p. 67.
60. Less than a decade after Nafir, Salim al-Bustani, for example, wrote a short story in the first volume of his father's journal al-Jinan, entitled 'Najib wa Latifa' (1870), demonstrating the effects of superficial adoption of European ways. 'Abd Allah al-Nadim has numerous similar short stories. See al-Tankit.
61. The fact that al-Bustani, as a dragoman, was not entrusted with the keys to the American consulate, when they were forced to close for a period of time, apparently disturbed him. Also, a running debate between the Beirut mission and Rufus Anderson, the Foreign Corresponding Secretary of the American Board of Foreign Missions (ABCFM) in Boston, took place during 1850-1851, debating whether to ordain a 'native minister'. As the most erudite and brilliant convert in Lebanon, al-Bustani was an obvious choice. However, by the time the offer was extended in the mid to late 1850s, al-Bustani had started to distance himself from the mission and turned down the offer despite his earlier interest. See Tibawi, 'American Missionaries'; also see the ABCFM archives, particularly letters from Cornelius Van Dyck to Anderson, 17 August 1850; William Thomson to Anderson, 2 September 1850; and Eli Smith to Anderson, 17 June 1851. Also insightful are the personal letters between al-Bustani and Eli Smith in 'Personal Correspondence'. These letters are found in the ABCFM Series, in Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA.
62. Nafir, VIII, p. 41.
63. For example, ibid., V, p. 28.
64. Ibid., V, p. 26.
65. Amending Hegel, Rene Girard identifies a similar process in subject formation, particularly between the subject, his desire, and his Other. In the case of the nineteenth century Arab subject, he might say that the native Arab coterminously identifies with European ontological and political presence while also resenting it because he must, in fact, rely on it for success. See Rene Girard, Deceit, Desire, and the Novel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1965).
66. Nafir, VIII, p. 44 (my italics).
67. Ibid., VIII, p. 42.
68. Ibid., VIII, p. 42.
69. For a similar assertion see, ibid., X, p. 56.
70. see Butrus al-Bustani, Khitab fi'l-Hay'a al-Ijtima'iyya wa'l-Muqabala bayn al-'Awa'id al-'Arabiyya wa'l-Ifranjiyya (Beirut: Matba'at al-Ma'arif, 1869).
71. Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and Its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), p. 5.
72. For the most lucid definition of la pensée, the thinkable, see the introduction to Muhammad Arkoun, Lectures du Coran (Paris: O.P. Maisonneuve et Larose, 1982).
73. Al-Bustani wrote at length about the classical Arab heritage. It is no coincidence that he took an interest in poets such as al-Jahiz and al-Mutanabbi who expressed strong proto-Arab nationalistic sentiments and are relevent in discussing the shu'ubi debate. For example, al-Bustani edited and republishcd Diwan al-Mutanabbi (Beirut: n.p., 1860).