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British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies
ISSN: 1353-0194 (Print) 1469-3542 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cbjm20
Arab Socialism and Ecumenical Tendencies inEgypt 1962–1970
Menahem Merhavy
To cite this article: Menahem Merhavy (2016): Arab Socialism and EcumenicalTendencies in Egypt 1962–1970, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, DOI:10.1080/13530194.2015.1124753
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2015.1124753
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British Journal of Middle eastern studies, 2016http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13530194.2015.1124753
Arab Socialism and Ecumenical Tendencies in Egypt 1962–1970
Menahem Merhavy
truman institute, hebrew university, Jerusalem, israel
Introduction
In 1981, Hasan Hanafi, a professor of philosophy at Cairo University who wrote extensively on Islamic discourse, published the first and only issue of the magazine al-Yasar al-Islami [The Islamic Left]. Hanafi aspired to establish a new movement of the same name that would replace the old ideologies, which seemed irrelevant in the post-1967 Arab arena. Hanafi attempted to accord Islam its rightful place as he shaped his political ideal. In it the Islamic past appears as a ‘socialist utopia where revelation made Islamic scholars and rulers aware of social justice and the demands of the poor’.1 Hanafi’s initiative was short-lived and seemed to lack resonance. However, as I will show here, it had deeper roots than being merely the idea of an Egyptian intellectual under attack by his colleagues and estranged from his academic milieu. The deep roots of this thought and the circle of (mainly) Egyptian intellectuals who developed it are the subject of this study.
1Martin riexinger, ‘nasserism revitalized: a Critical reading of hasan hanafī’s Projects “the islamic left” and “occidentalism”’, Die Welt des Islams, new series 47(1) (2007), pp. 63–118, 82.
ABSTRACTDuring the 1960s in Egypt, a group of intellectuals and publicists with left-leaning tendencies sought to base their socialist views on Islamic principles by reading early Islamic history as a repository of heroes and villains to fit their model of Arab socialist society. Beyond political aggrandizement of Nasserism, this article claims that these intellectuals described Islam as socialist, which led them in unexpected directions. First and foremost, such study led several to make surprising claims regarding the leaders of early Islam that ipso facto brought them closer to the Shiʿi view of this formative period of Islam. Rather than merely translating socialism into Islamic terminology, these scholars imbued early Islamic history with fresh and revolutionary meaning. The process of making Islam more relevant to twentieth-century Muslims meant re-examining age-old rivalries, which had the potential to change the relations between Sunni and Shiʿi Islam dramatically.
© 2016 British society for Middle eastern studies
CONTACT Menahem Merhavy [email protected]
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The popularity of socialist ideologies in the Middle East was not confined to Egypt; Muslim thinkers from different countries (among them Iraq, Lebanon and Syria) and diverse ideolo-gies and backgrounds—such as Sayyid Qutb2 of the Muslim Brothers and the Lebanese Shiʿite scholar Hussein Muruwwa3—grappled with the messages of socialism and searched for its relevance to modern believers. Whether rejecting socialist tenets altogether or accepting specific elements, these thinkers found their Islamic worldview influenced to varying degrees.
No less significant is the fact that socialism, along with its adversary capitalism, was viewed as an ideology imported from the West and hence often suspected of serving Western imperialist goals such as dividing and ruling Muslim societies or subjugating them to a political bloc headed by a Western power. Postcolonial Muslim thinkers sought an authentically Islamic and relevant ideology, one in discursive response to those ide-ologies whose origins were Western. This led to two differing views on socialism: total rejection or selective appropriation. The group of scholars analysed here are among those who took the second approach.4
It was in Egypt, though, that the question of the compatibility of socialism with Islamic values became most pressing, due to the Nasserist ideology of Arab socialism. Nasserism was challenged by its own rhetoric, profusely using terms such as ‘proletariat’ and ‘exploitation’, while promising an authentic Arab message rather than imported ideologies.5 This study examines the discourse of a group of Egyptian thinkers, active from the late 1950s until 1970, who developed a worldview that interweaved socialist and Islamic principles. By claiming that Islam preaches socialist values, they reinterpreted the formative period of Islam and grappled with its earliest tensions and schisms—first and foremost the Sunni–Shiʿi divide.
Additionally, this interpretation of Islam necessitated a rereading of some of its early sources, namely some Quranic verses, as well as traditions of the Prophet and his first fol-lowers (Hadith). I argue that as a consequence of this innovative interpretation of the form-ative period of Islam, these Sunni authors developed a philosophy of Islam that rendered the Sunni–Shiʿi divide almost devoid of content and came close to a unifying perception of Islam in which this divide has virtually no place.
Finally, I will conclude that this discourse emerged in tandem with a call from Sunni clerics for bridging the gap between the two religions, also known as taqrib.6 It thus sought to com-pete with the unifying tendencies of the religious establishment in Egypt and complement socialist thought at the same time.
Islamic History and Social Justice
In May 1962 president Gamal Abd al-Nasser proclaimed the enactment of a National Charter (al-Mithaq al-Watani), whose steps included nationalization of various industries as well as
2sayyid Qutb, al-ʻadala al-ijjtimaʻiya fi'l-Islam (Beirut: dar al-Suruq, 1974).3hussein Muruwwa, Al-nazaʻat al-maddiyat fi al-falsafat al-ʻarabiyyat al-ʼislamiyyat (Beirut: dar al-faraabi, 1979).4norman Cigar, ‘arab socialism revisited: the Yugoslav roots of its ideology’, Middle Eastern Studies, 19(2) (april 1983), pp. 152–187.5Cigar, ‘arab socialism revisited’, p. 162.6on the taqrib movement, see rainer Brunner, Islamic Ecumenism in the 20th Century: The Azhar and Shiism between Rapprochement and Restraint (Boston: Brill, 2004), pp. 338–375; Ze'ev Maghen, ‘unity or hegemony? iranian attitudes to the sunni-shiʿi divide’, in ofra Bengio and Meir litvak (eds), The Sunna and Shiʿa in History: Division and Ecumenism in the Muslim Middle East (new York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 183–201.
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the building of a robust state bureaucracy and limitation of private entrepreneurship.7 The publication of the charter, which was eclectic in content and fit to the measures of Nasser’s populist policies, was followed by a campaign intended to lend historical legitimacy to these steps in order to buttress Nasser’s leadership and the ideological innovation it brought with it.8
A host of Egyptian thinkers claimed an ideological connection between the values of Islam and socialism: Muhammad Tal’at Isa,9 Kamal al-Din Rif’at10 and Muhtar Abd al-Qadir Bahr11—to name just a few—endorsed the compatibility of socialism and Islam. However, this necessitated a reinterpretation of the history of Islam in its formative period, the years following Muhammad’s ministry when the bulk of its scriptures were compiled. This effort to reinterpret the early period of Islam had implications that extended beyond the immediate concern of these authors, as we shall see.
A distinct group of Egyptian thinkers sought to promote the view that the modern struggle pitting the radical elements in society against the conservative and reaction-ary elements is a reincarnation of an age-old struggle whose roots date back to the emergence of Islam. These intellectuals came to the defence of Nasser’s socialism by claiming that it was not only compatible with Islam, but even that early Islam was a precursor to socialism. In the backdrop of the debate over the correct interpretation of early Islam’s struggle was the controversy over the political, social and cultural future of Egypt. Nasserism was competing with the Muslim Brothers as well as other national ideologies that still enjoyed popularity among Egyptian nationalists.12 According to the view developed by these writers, the four righteous caliphs were considered precursors of socialism, preaching and modelling the tenets of social justice. Reading early Islam in this way rendered it both symbolic and more concrete and relevant: symbolic because it served as a model for a devout Islamic society and concrete since events in early Islam and the social justice discourse of its leaders were seen as defending themes of modern urgency, such as social justice and economic modesty.
Early Islam as a Mirror
The need to tie what Nasser termed ‘Arab socialism’ with early Islam began with Nasser himself, who tried to support his political economy using Islamic tradition.13 Rising ten-sions with the Muslim Brotherhood probably contributed to that, since the leadership of the Brotherhood was deeply disappointed when the 1952 rise of the officers to power
7ibrahim G. aoudé, ‘from national Bourgeois development to “infitah”: egypt 1952–1992’, Arab Studies Quarterly, 16(1) (Winter 1994), pp. 1–23, 7–8.8leonard Binder, ‘Gamal abd al-nasser: iconology, ideology, and demonology’, in elie Podeh and onn Winckler (eds), Rethinking Nasserism: Revolution and Historical Memory in Modern Egypt (Gainesville: university Press of florida, 2004), pp. 45–71, 51–52.9Muhammad tal’at isa, ‘al nuzum al-diniyya wa al-ishtirakiyya’, al majalla al mistiyya lilulum al-siyasiyya, 49 (1965), pp. 61–96.10Kamal al-din rif’at, ‘al ishtirakiyya al-arabiyya baina nazariyya wa tatbiq’, in salah al-din Muhaimer and abdu Michail rizk (eds), fi al ishtirakiyyah al arabiyyah (al-dar al-Qawmiyyah: Cairo, 1964), pp. 117–125.11Muhtar abd al-Qadir Bahr, adwa ala al-thawra al-ishtirakiyya al-arabiyyah (Cairo, unknown publisher, 1963).12elliott Colla, Conflicted Antiq al arabiyyah (al-Dar al-Qawmiyyah uities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity (durham, nC: duke university Press, 2007), p. 276; Carrie rosefsky Wickham, The Muslim Brotherhood: Evolution of an Islamist Movement (Princeton, nJ: Princeton university Press, 2013), pp. 27–28.13see, for example, allusions to salah al-din in Gamal abdel-nasser, President Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s Speeches and Press Interviews (Cairo: uar information dept., 1958), pp. 126–127. for a more general declaration linking his policies with islam, see p. 356.
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was not followed by the adoption of shariʿa law.14 The most radical wing in the group became more focused and determined in its hostility to the state and everything it rep-resented.15 The socialist rhetoric of Nasser, then, suffered from a deep problem of root-lessness, especially because along with the talk on socialism, Nasser led a third-worldist nonalignment campaign that regarded imported ideologies as suspicious and aspired to represent Egyptian authenticity.16 Nasser seems to have developed this course in an effort to address the ever-growing number of supporters of socialism in the Arab world—many of whom, he rightly felt, were more comfortable in cushioning socialist claims with Islamic terminology.17
As Nasser’s administration took socialist steps such as nationalization of banks and some industries in Egypt, the need to found such actions on pillars of faith grew as many Egyptians beyond his small circle of politicians felt their effects.18
The need to see early Islam as pointing towards social justice was evident. In order to do so, Egyptian writers sought to prove that there were many similarities between early Islam and Nasser’s Egypt regarding the dilemmas facing society. This they did, to the point of claiming that very little actually separates the two periods. Since, obviously, much has changed, it is interesting to note how they bridged the 1300-odd years sep-arating one period from the other. Although political necessity was the stimulus to this trend, once launched, it took on a life of its own. However, there are great differences between the way Nasser used symbols of Islamic content and their use by the ideologues who clung to Islamic history in their pursuit of historical depth to socialist ideology. Nasser seems to have used Islamic symbols spontaneously and not consistently; for instance, when Syria broke from the United Arab Republic in 1961, Nasser compared its leadership to those tribal leaders who were reluctant to submit to the authority of Abu Bakr following the death of the Prophet. By creating such a juxtaposition, Nasser apparently hoped to evoke the collective Islamic fear that a civil war would result due to particularistic interests. In the case of Nasser, then, it seems that early Islam was merely used to support his personal ambitions and vision for Egypt. Such was not the case with other thinkers who were part of this intellectual current.
one such thinker is Muhammad ʿAlī Mahir (1917–1989), a poet, author, and columnist in the state-owned daily al-Jumhuriyya, who wrote the book 'A Muslim Reads the Charter in Light of the Quran’.19 In this book Mahir combined excerpts from the 1962 charter, speeches by Nasser and verses from the Quran. A Muslim Reads the Charter could be read as a socialist commentary on the Quran, offering an alternative to religious exegesis of both Quran and Hadith traditions and shifting the focus from theological matters to those of social justice and equality.
14Wickham, Muslim Brotherhood, p. 27; on ways in which the potential for gaining political power intensified inner cleavages within the Muslim Brotherhood, see Barbara Zollner, ‘Prison talk: the Muslim Brotherhood’s internal struggle during Gamal abdel nasser’s Persecution, 1954 to 1971’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, 39(3) (august 2007), pp. 411–433, 414.15Wickham, Muslim Brotherhood, p. 27.16Binder, ‘Gamal abd al-nasser’, pp. 66–67.17see, for example, nasser, Speeches and Press Interviews, p. 356; al-Ishtirakiyyah (Cairo: al-dar al-Qawmīyyah lil-tibaʻah wa-al-nashr, 1964), p. 136.18James Jankowski, Nasser’s Egypt, Arab Nationalism, and the United Arab Republic (Boulder, Co: lynne rienner Publishers, 2001), pp. 162–163.19Muhammad ʿalī Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq fi dau' al-islam (Cairo: dar al-Katib al-'arabī, 1968).
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Drawing on a parallelism that defined the radical forces as ‘believers’ and their reactionary enemies as ‘unbelievers’, Mahir tried to conceptualize twentieth-century struggles as being a second round of those that followed the birth of Islam.
A clear example of his meshing past and present is a paragraph in which Mahir inte-grates Quranic verse and terminology with language evoking the tension between the Saudi monarchy and Egypt: ‘We have learned from past believers (as-sabiqun bil iman) that the Avant-garde of fighters of the believers must take the bulk of the struggle [jihad] by themselves…’.20 The struggle of Nasser against the conservatives is a reincarnation of the struggle of the leaders of Islam against the Meccan elite, who continued to hold significant power and showed no willingness to relinquish it in the face of the new message of Muhammad.
For Mahir every obstacle Nasser’s Arab socialism has to face mirrors one confronted by the first believers, and every accomplishment attests to the just path it has taken. The 1952 fall of the Egyptian monarchy and the nationalization of the Suez Canal four years later are compared to the Prophet’s success in taking Mecca from the pagan elite that had ruled there earlier.21
Besides the use of socialist terminology and its fusion with Islamic terms such as jihad, Mahir compares the Free officers’ revolution with the period of early Islam and its enemies with the enemies Muhammad faced when trying to bring his gospel to the people of the Arab peninsula in the seventh century. The same applies to the third-worldist dimension of the charter, which refers to solidarity with anti-colonialist movements of Asia, Africa and Latin America. Mahir relates such solidarity to the first Muslims, who took in the Abyssinians and protected them.22
The social parallels between both sides in modern Egypt—the anti-imperialists and the old elite—are interwoven in every historical allusion Mahir makes, as for example in the following paragraph:
As the underprivileged [musta’zafun] wandered to yatrib, moved the forces of exploitation into action. And in believing yatrib, began the society of believers the period of the new man with the removal of exploitation and the facilitation of the natural rights of equal opportunities. And under the worthy edicts of the religion, the people worked for the revolution of believers for the dismantling of the social classes, and the end of the rule of one class [over the others].23
Mahir uses the word ‘underprivileged’ (musta'zafun), which bears both an Islamic connotation (especially to Shiʿite Muslims) and a postcolonial one, to describe the local population, the genuine Egyptians, who are trampled on by the elite—who joined hands with the foreign occupiers before 1952.24
By changing the criterion of merit from one of religious piety to one of struggling for social justice, Mahir situates himself closer to the Islamist criticism of the Muslim Brothers towards traditional Islam and the establishment that was blamed for providing it with legitimacy.25 Hypocrisy is the enemy of true faith and of the struggle for social equality and justice, he declares:
20Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 84.21Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 168.22Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 75.23Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 279.24see, for example, Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 21.25emmanuel sivan, Radical Islam: Medieval Theology and Modern Politics (new haven, Ct: Yale university Press, 1990), pp. 6–7.
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How can the exploiter demand faith and peace from the exploited under the pretense of loyalty to the religion? Is it enough that a person will pray at a mosque or some cell, with the inspiration of a fatal, tricky ruthless thief?26
The fight of the Free officers, according to Mahir, is against ‘the imperialist infidel bases’ who struck root in Egypt in the monarchical period.27 Not unlike Sayyid Qutb’s criticism of Muslim society, Mahir’s offers the following diagnosis, that imperialism, once con-fronted with the prospects of failure, has resorted to other means: ‘it has dropped its traditional weapons and taken on weapons of a new kind, not one made of iron and fire, but rather an indirect one, one that attacks these peoples and controls them from within.’28 Mahir tries to find deep roots in the special place of Egypt in the Arab nations and in Islam, drawing on both Arab nationalism and Egypt’s history as a leader in the region. Nasser’s claim for regional leadership receives historical depth and a sense of continuity in Mahir’s analysis.
Since Islam originated in Saudi Arabia, a staunch enemy of Nasserist Egypt, turning to early Islam as a source of inspiration could undermine Egypt’s claim to a leading role in the Arab world. Mahir then finds precedent in a figure of Egyptian origin among the precursors of Islam: Hagar, the mother of Ishmael.29
When the latter travelled to the peninsula and married local women, he became Arabized and was the first Egyptian to do so, thus initiating the union between Egyptians and their Arab brethren.30 Just like the discourse of Iranian intellectuals at the time, Mahir sees the Egyptian people as the ultimate underprivileged, the downtrodden, whether oppressed by a foreign occupier from without or a local elite from within. Thus, when he glosses over Egyptian history from the time of Muhammad till his day, it seems like a continuous parade of oppression with sporadic attempts at breaking loose by some Egyptian leaders. The ottomans, Napoleon, the Khedivs and the British are all oppressors of the same mould, a long line opposed to the freedom of the nation. Belief in Islam, for Mahir, is the key to freeing oneself from the yoke of serfdom to foreigners; it puts the responsibility for the task of freedom on the believer: ‘The believer knows that he is the Caliph of Allah on earth (and no-one else)’.31 The believer, then, is responsible for shaping the world on values of justice and equality, and he should not expect such values to come from above. Since it is relevant to all, the revolutionary message to the believers has to be practical and implementable, not polemical or theoretical as some of the traditional jurisprudence is. It is implied. Mahir terms it ‘the believing revolution’ (thawra mu'minah).32
other Egyptian thinkers also heeded the call of Nasser. one of them, Mahmud Shalabi, relates the circumstances of the first book in a series he wrote for this purpose. According to him, President Nasser complained of the lack of books that explain the unique character and deep roots of Arab socialism.33 Shalabi took on the challenge in what became the first in a series, the Ishtirakiyyat (the plural form of ishtirakiyyah, i.e. socialism). In these books,
26Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 25.27Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 54.28Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 76.29Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 88.30Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 88.31Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, p. 294.32Mahir, Muslim yaqra' al-Mitaq, pp. 296–297.33Mahmud shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahirah al-hadīthah, 1966), p. 6.
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Shalabi offers a socialist reading of the biographies of Muhammad and the righteous caliphs, making them the precursors of a socialist trend in the early days of Islam.34
In the introduction to Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, the first book in the series, Shalabi describes Nasser’s message as parallel to that of the Prophet himself:
The Arab Nation is swept with the fire of socialism these days. The president is holding the torch and is walking in front of the nation. Are you behind me, oh people, this is the right way.35
It is worthwhile quoting Nasser here, since his wish, according to Shalabi, expresses more than mere political necessity in his need to rely on early Islam as a source of inspiration for his Arab socialism. It tells us, in fact, that it had to do with the very essence of the message he tried to promote and represent:
I would like to present our special character [shakhsiyya mustaqilla] in a book … and I do not want to rely in our researches on other sources, other than our own.36
In other words, the academic trend that the Egyptian intellectuals were trying to promote joined the quest for authenticity that was central to the activity of the Muslim Brothers, as well as to partisans of Pharaonic Egyptian nationalism, both of whom claimed to express the genuine and authentic spirit of the nation.37
The evolution of socialism from early Islam to modern Egypt, according to Shalabi, has mainly to do with the central role of the state in implementing the socialist order. What was once done as grassroots initiative is enforced, in his days, by the state, which represents the will of the people and hence embodies the spirit of the individuals who led Islam during its first years. This statism was another contribution of the socialist discourse of Shalabi and his friends, since it responded to the deep suspicion held by the Muslim Brothers towards the state and its political system.38He [Muhammad] has taught us that the goal of every economic order in the world is the prosperity and happiness of its members. We have come to the conclusion that the goal of Islamic socialism is the attainment of happiness of its members, as they are centered around [the notion that] There is no God but Allah.39
Shalabi applies a utilitarian approach to Islamic concepts, so that each will assert and support the other. There is no contradiction between maximum happiness for all and equality before good. In fact, the two are complementary:
Since all money originates in the land, God’s land, and since God is the only true possessor of the land, then all human beings can do is utilise the land to their profit. Economic equality ema-nates directly from faith, since it is the equality before God from which the status of all humans emanates … and if some people came and took over resources, Islam does not recognize that [as legitimate].40
Islam has dictated the equal distribution of resources between humans.41 Moreover, if the rich do not want to share their money with the poor, and they defy the principle
34shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad; shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat ʿ Uthman (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahirah al-hadīthah, 1968); shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Abu Dharr (Beirut: dar al-Jīl, pref. 1974); shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Abu Bakr (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahirah al-hadīthah, 1963); shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat ʿUmar (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qahirah al-hadīthah, 1964–1965).35shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 5.36shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 6.37Colla, Conflicted Antiquities, p. 276.38Brynjar lia, The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: The Rise of an Islamic Mass Movement, 1928–1942 (reading, uK: ithaca Press, 1998), pp. 202–203; Wickham, Muslim Brotherhood, 44.39shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 17.40shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 37.41shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 38.
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of equal distribution, the state is obligated to allocate it despite elite opposition, that is, to nationalize infrastructure and the means of production.42 Muhammad and the sahaba, according to Shalabi, were a communal group, the members of whom shared their possessions; joining the group meant giving up one’s personal possessions. That was threatening to the Meccan elite, who were afraid that the idea would spread and deprive them of their privilege.43 one of the main goals of Islam was to stop and reverse the process whereby the rich get richer and the poor poorer.44 The idea that the emergence of Islam was a result of economic interests in the Arab peninsula in the seventh century has a long history in research on the period. It mainly originated with Montgomery Watt, who asserts that ‘[t]he tension felt by Muhammad and some of his contemporaries was doubtless due ultimately to this contrast between men’s conscious attitudes and the economic basis of their life’.45 The rise of Islam, according to this view, was ‘a response to the malaise of the times … due to the transition from a nomadic to a settled economy’.46 Watt’s assertion has been repeated by other scholars, such as Lammens and Kister.47
The state is the authority charged with preventing the gulf between the classes from deepening, which ruins society and any chance of its social cohesion. Muhammad’s view of the role of the state in division of resources (spoils of war, for instance) brought him into conflict with some of his companions, who expected to get a lion’s share of the spoils of war and not divide it equally with the rest of the community.48 The greatness of the Prophet, then, comes from the fact that he saw the good of the state’s overriding class interests that were jeopardized by the deep-ening of social gaps. The allusion to nationalization by Nasser is evident in the way Shalabi describes the actions of Muhammad and the pressures he had to endure when carrying them out.49 Shalabi combines the anti-colonialist message and the religious one when describing the conquest of Iraq by Abu Bakr. The reason for the great success of Abu Bakr’s campaign there against the Persians was his message of freedom and the end of exploitation, side by side with the monotheistic message. Throwing off the yoke of the imperialistic Persians gave the religious message the social power it needed in order to take root in Iraq.50
Ahmad Abbas Salih’s al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam [Right and Left in Islam] was another attempt to find deep historical roots for contemporary struggles over the socio-political order.51 Salih, who edited Nasserist Egypt’s flagship leftist publication al-Katib [The Writer], offered a less idealized version of early Islam. Instead of viewing early Islam as a precursor to socialism, Salih saw Nasser’s socialism as a development of tendencies that trace back to the
42shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 38.43shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 45.44shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 98.45William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Mecca (oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953), p. 20.46William Montgomery Watt, Muhammad at Medina (oxford: oxford university Press, 1956), p. 261.47see Patricia Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam (Princeton, nJ: Princeton university Press, 1987), pp. 3, 231–232. see also Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 261.48shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, pp. 117–118.49see, for instance, shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Muhammad, p. 119.50shalabi, Ishtirakiyyat Abu Bakr, pp. 203–206.51ahmad abbas salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam (Beirut: al-Muʼassasah al-ʻarabīyah lil-dirasat wa-al-nashr, 1972).
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seventh century rather than as a continuous movement. However, he refrained from roman-ticizing Islam in the manner of Shalabi. His rendering of early Islam as a source of inspiration for socialism is more nuanced and critical. According to Salih, modern socialism is the fruit of evolution of principles promoted by early Muslims, not a continuous tendency from their days to the present. In this spirit he defines the purpose of his inquiry: ‘to reveal the historical continuity in the Arab region, where the forces of right and left are concentrated. And that the struggle for social justice will not stop…’.52 However, as a disclaimer to this inquiry, and maybe also to distinguish himself from other intellectuals of the same bent, Salih limits his argument for socialist ideas in early Islam:
We do not claim that the socialism of early Islam is similar to the modern one, since our society is different in every form and manner from that of that time. However, we do suggest that there are principles of justice that we should abide by.53
Salih is loyal to Nasser’s pretensions of a leading role for Egypt in the Arab world, and through that the rehabilitation of Arab status in the world. He is not dealing with a solely Egyptian problem, but rather with an all-Arab one. Feeling the tension of using symbols and figures from the remote past in order to inspire and justify policy in the present (a problem that many a socialist engaged with throughout the twentieth century), Salih clarifies: ‘We do not wish return to the Umayyad or Abbasid caliphates, but rather to reconnect with the stem we sprang from’.54
Salih perceives the emergence of Islam as a coalition of the deprived merchants against the tyrannical powers in Mecca.55 The people who fought for Islam against the Meccan elite did so for the sake of their rights and to regain their honour.56 Unlike some leaders of the Sahaba, like the first four caliphs (the rashidun), most of the people who rallied round Muhammad’s flag were of low status, economically as well as socially. In this way Salih explains two things: first, he can present Islam as the religion of the deprived (again, a somewhat Shiʿi tendency brought home by a Sunni); secondly, the rashidun, whose wealthy status Salih does not deny, are in fact elevated in this way, since they supported a new economic order that ran against their personal interests. In a manner not unlike that of the role of intellectuals in Marxism, instead of becoming an ideolog-ical liability, they step out of the ordinary network of interests they were situated in by social circumstances.57 He goes to great lengths to show that Islam was the faith of the deprived classes, even to the point of saying that Muhammad himself erred when he tried to lure the rich and powerful to his faith, only to be rebuked by the Quran for that and return to the right path.58
Arab greatness and Islamic civilization are inseparable for Salih, and the restoration of one will bring about that of the other. Interestingly, Salih maps the two camps in the conflict following the death of the Prophet into right and left, referring to ʿAlī as left and Muʿāwiya as right. He even describes the ascendancy of Muʿāwiya as an extreme-right takeover of the
52salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 136.53salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 8.54salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 9.55salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 47.56salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 48.57salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, pp. 52–53. on the role of the intellectuals in Marxism, see shlomo avineri, ‘Marx and the intellectuals’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 28(2) (april–June 1967), pp. 269–278.58salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 53.
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shura.59 The mistake of the Shiʿi faith is in adding all sorts of legends to ʿ Alī and his supporters, while what it really amounted to was a social-economic rift between right and left. Salih, like earlier Arab nationalists of the early twentieth century, tended to conflate Arab nationalism and Islamic identity.60
Salih’s reading of the period following the death of the Prophet is indeed closer to the Shiʿi reading of it: the message of the Prophet was socialist in essence and spoke about equality and attending to the needs of the underprivileged. Abu Bakr and ʿUmar were wrong when they diverted from this legacy and allied with the reactionary Meccan elite. ʿ Umar was better, since he repented during his last days and tried to bring Islam back to its original message. Apparently it cost him his life. ʿAlī, then, was the true heir of this legacy and if not for the reactionary coalition that formed against him, the true message of the Prophet would have been served by the leadership of the believers.61 When comparing ʿ Alī, whose education and worldview were shaped by the Prophet, and Muʿawiyah, who was raised in the shadow of Abu-Sufyan and hence tied strongly with the men of power and wealth, the picture is clear as to who represents ‘true’ Islam.62 Salih ends his book with a dramatic, Shiʿi-like description of the death of Husain, ʿAlī’s son, whose tragedy marked ‘the end of the first round of fight-ing between the left and the right. It ended with the most horrifying martyrdom, and the greatest valor’.63
Salih criticizes the effects of Egyptian particularistic nationalism and the uses it made of archaeological findings from the Pharaonic ages. These brought modern Egyptians to think of themselves as the true heirs of ancient Egyptians, while the Arab conquest changed Egypt beyond recognition and rendered its past remote:
And whenever the historian tries to constitute links between modern Egypt and the Pharaonic civilization, he would not find any source or evidence for that, because the Pharaonic civilization is no more, and from an earlier age, well before the Roman conquest.64
Contrary to Shalabi, Salih wants to correct what he sees as an orientalist mistake that viewed the emergence of Islam as resulting from the interests of Meccan merchants.65 Nothing is further from the truth; in fact, the spread of Islam placed the interests of these merchants at risk, which is why they rejected it in the first place.66
ʿAlī and Salman the Persian represent the left, according to this analysis, while ʿUt hmān’s deviation from this socialist path and his rise to power represented a reaction by the right side of Islam’s political map.67 The reactionary policies of ʿUt hmān led to the socialist revolt in Islam.68 This revolt, let by Abu Dharr and, following his death, by others, was meant to put the masses rather than the wealthy at the centre of Islamic daʿwa.
59abu Bakr and ʿ umar represent the political centre, according to this analysis; see salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 59.60albert hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge university Press, 1983), pp. 260–261; adeed dawisha, Arab Nationalism in the Twentieth Century: From Triumph to Despair (Princeton, nJ: Princeton university Press, 2003), pp. 23–24.61salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, pp. 75–76; 116–117.62salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 122.63salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 170.64salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 15.65see Crone, Meccan Trade and the Rise of Islam, pp. 3, 231–232. see also Watt, Muhammad at Medina, p. 261.66salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 44.67salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, pp. 62, 64, 70.68salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 82.
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ʿAlī’s caliphate is a victory for the left, if only for a short period of time.69 ʿAlī was unpretentious and tried to avoid conflict, devoid of selfish interests. ʿAlī's sons contin-ued his legacy, though not necessarily with the same ideological awareness. According to Salih, Hasan, ʿAlī's son and the second Imam, had no ideological motivations; it was his brother Husain who tried to lead the socialist line of his father, which is why he was murdered.70 Muʿawiyah, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of ʿAlī, a bloodthirsty and ambitious politician.71
From Salih’s outspokenly positive view of ʿAlī, in contrast to his negative one of ʿUthmān, one can understand better the taqrib tendency that rose from this analysis. If ʿAlī is the true leader, while at least some of his opponents were selfish, pleasure-seeking bourgeoisie, then it is not altogether out of the question to view Shiʿa as those who identify with the deprived and underprivileged.
Despite the fact that it is not exactly a Shiʿi view (since Abu Bakr and ʿUmar end up look-ing good in his analysis), it does seem that Salih tries to walk a thin line by calling Abu Bakr and ʿUmar a middle path between right and left, thus expressing opinions that were not so outrageous in the intellectual climate of Egypt at the time. It is here, again, that we see the taqrib tendency that emerges from this ideological interpretation of early Islam, written by Sunni authors.
The relevance of the narrowing gap from the Shiʿa is most apparent to Salih. In his anal-ysis, the Sunni accusation that the Shiʿa use ʿAlī’s family ties to the Prophet as a pretext to grab power is ridiculous, since both Umayyads and Abbasids bequeathed power according to inheritance.72
Like Salih, who suggested that from its very beginning, the leadership of the believers was a battlefield between two competing social forces—namely the rich and powerful and the deprived (who represent the true legacy of the Prophet)—the writer and playwright Abd al-Hamid Juda al-Sahhar (1913–1974) depicts the development of a rift within the commu-nity of believers. Thus, some of the struggles of the early period of the faith become highly relevant, since they represent trends that are controversial in modern society. Al-Sahhar poses the conflict between Abu Dharr (d. 652/3) and ʿUthmān and Muʿāwiya as a precursor of socialist class struggles.73
Abu Dharr, who became the subject of many left-leaning commentators in the twen-tieth century, fit the agenda of questioning the immaculate aura of the sahaba, espe-cially regarding the question of passing down power during the first caliphs.74 Abu Dharr represented the puritanical approach; he criticized some of the first believers for lack of commitment and even opposed the leadership of ʿUt h mān following the
69salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, pp. 87, 105.70salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 170.71salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 122.72salih, al-Yamin wa-al-yasar fi al-Islam, p. 60.73abd al-hamid Juda al-sahhar, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari: al-ishtiraki al-zahid (Cairo: dar al-hilal, 1966), pp. 123–124; on abu dharr see J. robson, ‘abu Ḏharr’, in P. Bearman, th. Bianquis, C.e. Bosworth, e. van donzel and W.P. heinrichs (eds), Encyclopaedia of Islam (2nd edn) (Brill online, 2014), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-is-lam-2/abu-dharr-siM_0173 (first appeared online: 2012; 1st print edn isBn: 9789004161214, 1960–2007).74naser Gozashteh and rahim Gholami, ‘abu dharr al-Ghifarī’, in Wilferd Madelung and farhad daftary (eds), Encyclopaedia Islamica (Brill online, 2014), http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-islamica/abu-dharr-al-ghifari-siM_0121.
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death of ʿUmar. All this made him the epitome of a social reformer in the eyes of many intellectuals in the Arab world and beyond.75 The fact that he was famous for ascetic living and refrained from the pursuit of capital made him a desirable figure to be hailed as the first socialist. The choice of Abu Dharr was yet another element that brought leftist Sunni authors closer to the historical narrative of the Shiʿi faith, since he was one of the rare characters that both could hail as exemplary. Moreover, the combination of his criticism of the mechanisms of power and his close relationship with ʿAlī made him the most suitable figure for praise, which made the two branches of Islam seem closer than ever.76 According to al-Sahhar, the rashidun were not on the proper side of this struggle, and it is Abu Dharr who is the true ancestor of the people who seek justice in our days. He thus creates a crack in the traditionally positive Sunni view of the rashidun and suggests that the negative behaviour of the Umayyads who followed them reflects on the first four caliphs.
In the same vein as demystifying the first generation of Muslims, including the compan-ions, we learn that the struggle of Islam against its enemies (the Ridda wars) was mainly about charity.77
Al-Sahhar makes a distinction between ʿUmar on the one hand and ʿUt h mān and Muʿāwiya on the other. ʿUmar, according to this view, established the most enlight-ened socialism that ever existed. Loyal to the figure of Abu Dharr, ʿUt h mān was not an optimal choice for leading the Umma and might have detracted from the legacy of the Prophet.78
The economic aspect—that is, socialism—completes the other pillars of Islam, all of which are intended to bridge the gap between rich and poor. By situating all believers in the same place and under the same conditions, the lines between the haves and the have-nots blur and even disappear. They all wear the same clothes while on hajj and feel hunger and thirst just the same during Ramadan.79
The last writer I will discuss who sought models of inspiration for Arab socialism in early Islam is Mustafa al-Sibai (1915–1964).80 Al-Sibai founded the Muslim Brotherhood branch in Syria and was active in Egypt for a while. He criticized the acquiescence of Arab society, prior to the message of Islam, regarding social and economic gaps. Indeed, it was a world where ‘the poor were regarded as marginal, not to be taken into account in social life at all. Considered a burden on society, lacking any potential to elevate it’. According to al-Sibai the poor perceived poverty as a curse from heaven.81 The great message of Islam as a faith and a state was that it did not agree with this order and changed it by establishing a model society of social solidarity: ‘it was the first society, not only in the
75see, for example, rajaʼī ʻatīyah, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari: al-taqi al-zahid, al-sadiq al-lahjah (Cairo: al-hayʼah al-Misrīyah al-ʻAmmah lil-Kitab, 2005); ahmad ibrahim faqih, Liqa' wa-hiwar ma'a Abu Dharr al-Ghaffari (Cairo: kotob arabia, 2007); abd al-hamid Juda al-sahhar and alili shariati, Mardi az rubzah (tehran: shabdīz, 1356 [1977]); Qadri Qalʻaji, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari: awwal thaʼir fi al-Islam (Beirut: dar al-ʻilm lil-Malayīn, 1956); abd al-halim Mahmud, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari wa-al-shuyuʻiyah (egypt: dar al-Maʻarif, 1975).76al-sahhar, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, pp. 123–124.77al-sahhar, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, pp. 178–179.78al-sahhar, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, pp. 190–191.79al-sahhar, Abu Dharr al-Ghifari, pp. 199–200.80Mustafa al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam (Cairo: al-dar al-Qawmīyah lil-tibaʻah wa-al-nashr, 1961), p. 196. ruth roded, ‘lessons by a syrian islamist from the life of the Prophet Muhammad’, Middle Eastern Studies, 42(6) (november 2006), pp. 855–872.81al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam, p. 196.
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peninsula, but around the world as well, that was established on the values of solidarity, cooperation and a sense of responsibility’.82
In the same light, al-Sibai interprets the Rida wars that followed the death of Muhammad as an attempt by some of the elite to be rid of the message of equality of Islam and to avoid the social responsibility of zakat.83 Regarding the Umayyads, al-Sibai takes a middle path, admitting that they ‘undoubtedly diverted from the ways of the rashidun in a few things’ yet claims that their policy of zakat was continuous with that of the previous era.84 In what seems like an apologetic tone, al-Sibai claims that despite the weakening of social solidar-ity during some of the Islamic periods, Muslims were closer to socialism than any other society.85 Interestingly, al-Sibai attempts to explain the persistence of traditional ties, like family relations, as part of the socialist tendencies in Muslim society. It is in these smallest social units that one internalizes the principle of solidarity—to one’s parents, siblings and other relatives. From there it radiates to wider social circles. Thus, family ties that could be perceived as standing in the way of a socialist utopia are shown as characteristic of progress and evidence of Islam’s strength.86
Al-Sibai adds a postcolonial message to his analysis of socialism. He defines two kinds of socialism, one Eastern and the other Western. The first, the creation of Islam, fits the cultures of the East and is beneficial to their societies. The Western variant has caused damage when active outside the West. Al-Sibai says, ‘I do not refer to the benefit it brought to the West or to countries other than our own, but rather to what it has done in our country: atheism, corruption, treachery’. Socialist values and communism are two distinct things, not to be confused. After all, ‘[t]he purpose of communism has been to divide the Arab world and encourage inner fighting among them’.87 Al-Sibai adds an important element to the thought of the other intellectuals who have been analysed here. For one, his Islamist activity and lack of commitment to the ecumenical ideas of the taqrib focuses his socialist tendencies on the values of solidarity and social responsibility. More importantly, al-Sibai’s attempt to reconcile socialism and Islam, done parallel to the unification of Egypt and Syria, was prob-ably motivated by Nasser’s attempt to win over the hearts of Syrians to his socialist agenda. While lacking a pro-Shiʿi tendency like the other writers of this cast, he made an effort to render socialism more relevant to Islamists in Syria.
Conclusion
Hasan Hanafi, who has dedicated a great deal of his academic and intellectual work to the translation of Islamic concepts to Western philosophical ideas, may have been late in his attempt at breathing new life to left-leaning tendencies using Islamic history and heroes.
Beyond aspiring to past greatness and tapping an important reservoir of symbols, the need of mainly Egyptian thinkers to anchor socialist tendencies in early Islam has far-reaching repercussions for our understanding of the ideological constraints of leftist ideologues in the Arab world in the 1950s and 1960s. It seems that even at its height, the Arab left had to found
82al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam, p. 196.83al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam, p. 200.84al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam, p. 202.85al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam, p. 202.86al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam, p. 209.87al-sibai, Ishtirakiyat al-Islam, p. 232.
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its vision on religious grounds. Whether this was done out of expediency or deep religious conviction, it means that even an earthly message of social justice had to be conceptualized in historical ties to Islam and could not remain a secular message.
Additionally, the religious tone of socialist thinkers in Egypt I have described here did not remain within the boundaries of traditional commentary on the Quran and Hadith, but rather demanded reappraisal of some of Islam’s first schisms, namely that of Shiʿi Islam from Sunna. Since the message of Islam was modified to socialist tendencies, the need for closeness with Shiʿi Islam became pressing for mainly two reasons.
First, Shiʿi Islam held the reservoir of symbols that fit the socialist message well, as ʿ Alī and his followers were remembered and commemorated by Shiʿi traditions as modest, pious and lacking power. More importantly, the fact that they epitomized the underprivileged, those oppressed by the powers that be, made them fit role models for thinkers in the capital of twentieth-century Egypt seeking ideological ancestors who fought the old elites.
Second, Islamic ancestry mitigated another dissonance for Egyptian thinkers, that of their relationship to Arab nationalism. Since Saudi Arabia, the political entity ruling over the place where Islam emerged, was leading the anti-Nasserist camp, Islamic ancestry could buttress a feeling of Egyptian leadership in the Arab Muslim world, despite Nasserism’s hostility towards the Saudi state.88 By claiming Islamic ideological ancestry, Egyptian thinkers sought to disen-franchise Saudi Islamic claims for hegemony. Indeed, one can link the tendency of Egyptian thinkers to find origins of socialist trends in early Islam with the movement that came to be known as taqrib. Since the struggles of early Islam were read in a modernist light showing rad-ical versus conservative trends, it was almost natural to see traditional animosities about the identity of the heir of the Prophet as mere political, temporal trivialities, which are emptied of significance to the modern believer. Rendering early Islam more relevant to the socialist Arab entailed challenging the relevance of old historical cleavages, such as that between Sunni and Shiʿa. It is no wonder, then, that the same direction emerged from both Egypt and Iran at the same time. While Egyptian thinkers sought to recruit Islam to their socialist bent and thus legitimize it and purge its atheistic image, Khomeini aspired to lift the Islamic revival he was leading above and beyond the traditional, sectarian and specifically Iranian context. Claiming to have found a modern, Islamic answer to the secular nation-state, such thinkers were tempted to look for wider circles than their own society in the very framework of the nation-state they had loathed at earlier stages of their political activity.
Acknowledgements
Menahem Merhavy is a research fellow at the Truman Institute, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Menahem Merhavy would like to thank Rami Ginat, Israel Gershoni and Meir Litvak for commenting on earlier drafts of this article. In addition he would like to thank Truman Institute at the Hebrew University.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
88Joseph Mann, ‘King faisal and the Challenge of nasser’s revolutionary ideology’, Middle Eastern Studies, 48(5) (2012), pp. 749–764.
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