Re-visiting the Arab Cultural Renaissance: Al-Nahda and the Reception of European Literature

Dr Zainab Abdulkadhim Salman

doi:10.36473/ujhss.v60i2.1595

Abstract

Al-Nahda – the Renaissance corresponds to the advent of “modern civilization” (al-tamaddun al-ḥadîṯ) in Egypt and the East through contacts with the West. The Renaissance is opposed to the Middle Ages (al-qurûn al-wusṭâ), times of darkness. It is intended, more than a renewal of old models, a revolution of knowledge and thought. It is born of more or less violent contacts with the outside. Just as the Renaissance of the East is fertilized by the Western contributions so the European Renaissance which preceded it is largely attributed to the philosophical and scientific mediation of the Arabs of Andalusia. My research is a re-consideration of al-Nahda, highlighting the development of contemporary Arabic literature as a result of the late-19th – early 20th cultural rebirth of the Arab world, with a special stress on the French-Egyptian cultural transfer and the importance of translation.

Highlights

Any approach to contemporary Arabic literature is rather complex because, in our opinion, if for the period before the very vast production seems to have a unitary fund both from the aesthetic point of view and from that of the social environment from which it is produced, as regards the modern-contemporary literature this unity is lacking and it would, be preferable to treat the literature of the individual Arab countries separately
Why betray a work by erasing its foreign side? Why give yourself a work, or attribute your work to another, if it is not because we still do not know how to position ourselves in relation to foreign and new literature? All the problems of translation at that time in Egypt seem to have the same original cause: they stemmed from the groping of the pioneers of modern Arabic literature who had to integrate certain data from a foreign culture into theirs
They managed to create modern literature made of acquired and borrowed and the translation was an essential step to this evolution by allowing a progressive discovery of foreign literature

Summary

Introduction

Any approach to contemporary Arabic literature is rather complex because, in our opinion, if for the period before the very vast production seems to have a unitary fund both from the aesthetic point of view and from that of the social environment from which it is produced, as regards the modern-contemporary literature this unity is lacking and it would, be preferable to treat the literature of the individual Arab countries separately. If the arrival of the French forces at that time on the Egyptian horizon forced the Arab thinkers to question the relationship which bound them to the West and which began under the sign of military invasion, the reception of the works western to the mid-nineteenth century in Arab-Muslim countries has given another dimension to this report abroad, which was no longer imposed by arms, but by technology, science and culture This period of openness to the West which marked the beginning of the modern Arab Renaissance, the Nahda, literally “the rebirth”, was at once political, cultural and religious, and extended from the end of the eighteenth century until the middle of the 20th century. Since the language of the Western sciences, which was essential for the development of his political projects, was foreign, Muhammad Ali gave translation a very important place, it is thanks to the translators that Egypt could maintain effective links with Europe He privileged the military, industrial, administrative and teaching fields and it was under his government that the official Egyptian printing press of Boulaq was founded in 1820. Despite this craze for French literature, Arabic translations were not always very faithful to the original works

Tradutore – traditore

Conclusion