Sadiq Jalal al-Azm
Encyclopedia
Sadiq Jalal Al-Azm (born in Damascus
, Syria
, in 1934) is a Professor Emeritus of Modern European Philosophy at the University of Damascus
in Syria. He has been a visiting professor in the department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University
until 2007. His area of specialization was the philosophy of Immanuel Kant
with a more current emphasis upon the Islam
ic world and its relationship to the West, and he has contributed to the discourse of "Orientalism
" He is also known as a human rights
advocate and a champion of intellectual freedom and free speech.
. The Al-Azm family had risen to prominence by the eighteenth century under the rule of the Ottoman Empire
in Greater Syria
, which had been acquired in 1516 by the cosmopolitan Turkish Empire.
Al-Azm was schooled in Beirut
, Lebanon
earning the B.A. in Philosophy from the American University of Beirut
(1957). Al-Azm earned the M.A. (1959) and Ph.D. (1961) from Yale University
majoring in Modern European Philosophy.
. His 1968 book Al-Nakd al-Dhati Ba’da al-Hazima [Self-Criticism After the Defeat] (Dar al-Taliah, Beirut) analyzes the impact of the Six Day War on Arabs. Many of his books are banned to this day in Arab nations (with the exception of Lebanon
).
He was professor of Modern European Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Damascus from 1977-1999. He continues to be active in lecturing at European and American universities as a visiting professor. In 2004, he won the Erasmus Prize
with Fatema Mernissi
and Abdulkarim Soroush. In 2004, he also received the Dr. Leopold-Lucas-Preis of the Evangelical-Theological Faculty of the University of Tübingen. In 2005 he became a Dr. Honoris Causa at Hamburg University.
In it, Al-Azm's rebuke of political and religious leaders and the media who supported them for exploiting their populations' religious sentiments was relentless and made him enemies. He applied a Marxist-materialist critique to religion, not to discredit people's religious commitments, but to expose how, "Arab regimes found in religion a crutch they could use to calm down the Arab public and cover-up for their incompetence and failure laid bare by the defeat, by adopting religious and spiritual explanations for the Israeli victory..." (From the "Introduction")
Al-Azm would be released from prison in mid-January 1970 after the "Court decided in consensus to drop the charges filed against the Defendant Sadiq Al-Azm and Bashir Al-Daouk due to the lack of criminal elements they were charged with." (From the "Appendix: Documents from the Tribunal of the Author and Publisher") Subsequent editions of Naqd al-Fikr al-Dini include the Documents from the Tribunal and continue to be published in Arabic to this day, though with restricted access in the Middle East.
Al-Azm has long believed his arrest was motivated by other factors, perhaps as a way to "settle scores with their critics and foes."(1991) Regardless, the arguments Al-Azm raised in Critique of Religious Thought continue to be debated, and there have been numerous books published in Arabic furthering the positions of both sides of the debate
The most thorough chronicling of the "affair", to use the author's own words, outside the Middle East was in the German journal, Der Islam, by Stefan Wild in an essay translated "God and Man in Lebanon: The Sadiq Al-Azm Affair" in 1971.http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/islm.1971.48.2.206
's Orientalism
, claiming that it essentialises
'the West' in the same manner that Said criticises imperial powers and their scholars of essentialising 'the East'. In his 1981 essay, Al-Azm wrote of Said: the stylist and polemicist in Edward Said very often runs away with the systematic thinker...we find Said...tracing the origins of Orientalism all the way back to Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides and Dante. In other words, Orientalism is not really a thoroughly modern phenomenon, as we thought earlier, but is the natural product of an ancient and almost irresistible European bent of mind to misrepresent the realities of other cultures, peoples and their languages...Here the author seems to be saying that the 'European mind', from Homer to Karl Marx and A.H.R.Gibb, is inherently bent on distorting all human realities other than its own.
Within a decade Al-Azm would become an active participant in the dialogue surrounding free speech and the 1988 publication of The Satanic Verses
by Salman Rushdie.
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
, Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, in 1934) is a Professor Emeritus of Modern European Philosophy at the University of Damascus
University of Damascus
The University of Damascus is the largest and oldest university in Syria, located in the capital Damascus and has campuses in other Syrian cities. It was founded in 1923 through the merger of the School of Medicine and the Institute of Law , also making it the oldest university in modern-day Syria...
in Syria. He has been a visiting professor in the department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
until 2007. His area of specialization was the philosophy of Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher from Königsberg , researching, lecturing and writing on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 18th Century Enlightenment....
with a more current emphasis upon the Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
ic world and its relationship to the West, and he has contributed to the discourse of "Orientalism
Orientalism
Orientalism is a term used for the imitation or depiction of aspects of Eastern cultures in the West by writers, designers and artists, as well as having other meanings...
" He is also known as a human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
advocate and a champion of intellectual freedom and free speech.
Birth and Education
He grew up in the well-known Damascene Sunni land-owning family of al-AzmAl-Azm
Al-Azm is a prominent Damascene family. The origins of the family are Arabic, as it belonged to a notable family from the region of Ma'arrat al-Numan south of Aleppo. The family rose to prominence in the 18th century. Their rule started with appointment of Ismail Pasha al-Azm as wāli of Damascus...
. The Al-Azm family had risen to prominence by the eighteenth century under the rule of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
in Greater Syria
Greater Syria
Greater Syria , also known simply as Syria, is a term that denotes a region in the Near East bordering the Eastern Mediterranean Sea or the Levant....
, which had been acquired in 1516 by the cosmopolitan Turkish Empire.
Al-Azm was schooled in Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
earning the B.A. in Philosophy from the American University of Beirut
American University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut is a private, independent university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionaries in 1866...
(1957). Al-Azm earned the M.A. (1959) and Ph.D. (1961) from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
majoring in Modern European Philosophy.
Career
In 1963, after finishing the Ph.D., he began teaching at the American University of BeirutAmerican University of Beirut
The American University of Beirut is a private, independent university in Beirut, Lebanon. It was founded as the Syrian Protestant College by American missionaries in 1866...
. His 1968 book Al-Nakd al-Dhati Ba’da al-Hazima [Self-Criticism After the Defeat] (Dar al-Taliah, Beirut) analyzes the impact of the Six Day War on Arabs. Many of his books are banned to this day in Arab nations (with the exception of Lebanon
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
).
He was professor of Modern European Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Damascus from 1977-1999. He continues to be active in lecturing at European and American universities as a visiting professor. In 2004, he won the Erasmus Prize
Erasmus Prize
The Erasmus Prize is an annual prize awarded by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation, a Dutch non-profit organization, to individuals or institutions that have made notable contributions to European culture, society, or social science. The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation was founded on 23 June 1958 by...
with Fatema Mernissi
Fatema Mernissi
Fatema or Fatima Mernissi is a Moroccan feminist writer and sociologist.-Biography:Mernissi was born into a middle-class family in Fes in 1940. She received her primary education in a school established by the nationalist movement, and secondary level education in an all-girls school funded by the...
and Abdulkarim Soroush. In 2004, he also received the Dr. Leopold-Lucas-Preis of the Evangelical-Theological Faculty of the University of Tübingen. In 2005 he became a Dr. Honoris Causa at Hamburg University.
Controversy and Arrest
Al-Azm was at the center of a political controversy in late-1969 early-1970 when he was arrested (in absentia) along with his publisher in December 1969 by the Lebanese government; he had fled to Syria only to later return to Beirut to turn himself in, where he was jailed in early January 1970. He was charged for writing a book that aimed at provoking feuds among the various religious sects of Lebanon. This was after publication in book form of various essays that previously appeared in journals, magazines and periodicals. Together, they comprised the 1969 book, Naqd al-Fikr al-Dini [Critique of Religious Thought] (Dar al-Taliah, Beirut).In it, Al-Azm's rebuke of political and religious leaders and the media who supported them for exploiting their populations' religious sentiments was relentless and made him enemies. He applied a Marxist-materialist critique to religion, not to discredit people's religious commitments, but to expose how, "Arab regimes found in religion a crutch they could use to calm down the Arab public and cover-up for their incompetence and failure laid bare by the defeat, by adopting religious and spiritual explanations for the Israeli victory..." (From the "Introduction")
Al-Azm would be released from prison in mid-January 1970 after the "Court decided in consensus to drop the charges filed against the Defendant Sadiq Al-Azm and Bashir Al-Daouk due to the lack of criminal elements they were charged with." (From the "Appendix: Documents from the Tribunal of the Author and Publisher") Subsequent editions of Naqd al-Fikr al-Dini include the Documents from the Tribunal and continue to be published in Arabic to this day, though with restricted access in the Middle East.
Al-Azm has long believed his arrest was motivated by other factors, perhaps as a way to "settle scores with their critics and foes."(1991) Regardless, the arguments Al-Azm raised in Critique of Religious Thought continue to be debated, and there have been numerous books published in Arabic furthering the positions of both sides of the debate
The most thorough chronicling of the "affair", to use the author's own words, outside the Middle East was in the German journal, Der Islam, by Stefan Wild in an essay translated "God and Man in Lebanon: The Sadiq Al-Azm Affair" in 1971.http://www.reference-global.com/doi/abs/10.1515/islm.1971.48.2.206
Prominent Views
He is also a notable critic of Edward SaidEdward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
's Orientalism
Orientalism (book)
Orientalism is a book published in 1978 by Edward Said that has been highly influential and controversial in postcolonial studies and other fields. In the book, Said effectively redefined the term "Orientalism" to mean a constellation of false assumptions underlying Western attitudes toward the...
, claiming that it essentialises
Essentialism
In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
'the West' in the same manner that Said criticises imperial powers and their scholars of essentialising 'the East'. In his 1981 essay, Al-Azm wrote of Said: the stylist and polemicist in Edward Said very often runs away with the systematic thinker...we find Said...tracing the origins of Orientalism all the way back to Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides and Dante. In other words, Orientalism is not really a thoroughly modern phenomenon, as we thought earlier, but is the natural product of an ancient and almost irresistible European bent of mind to misrepresent the realities of other cultures, peoples and their languages...Here the author seems to be saying that the 'European mind', from Homer to Karl Marx and A.H.R.Gibb, is inherently bent on distorting all human realities other than its own.
Within a decade Al-Azm would become an active participant in the dialogue surrounding free speech and the 1988 publication of The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses is Salman Rushdie's fourth novel, first published in 1988 and inspired in part by the life of Prophet Muhammad. As with his previous books, Rushdie used magical realism and relied on contemporary events and people to create his characters...
by Salman Rushdie.
Books
- 1967 Kant's Theory of Time New York, Philosophical Library.
- 1972 The Origins of Kant's Arguments in the Antinomies Oxford, Clarendon/Oxford University Press.
- 1980 Four Philosophical Essays Damascus, Damascus University Publications.
- 1992 The Mental Taboo:Salman Rushdie and the Truth Within Literature. London, Riad El-Rayess Books.
- 2012 [forthcoming]Self-Criticism After the Defeat. Saqi Books. London.http://www.saqibooks.com/saqi/display.asp?K=9780863564888&sf=KEYWORD&sort=sort_title&st1=azm&x=22&y=11&m=1&dc=1
Articles
- 1967 "Whitehead's Notions of Order and Freedom." The Personalist: International Review of Philosophy, Theology and Literature. University of Southern California. 48:4, 579-591.
- 1968 "Absolute Space and Kant's First Antinomy of Pure Reason." Kant-Studien University of Koln, 2:151-164.
- 1968 "Kant's Conception of the Noumenon." Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review Queen's University, 6:4, 516-520.
- 1973 "The Palestinian Resistance Movement Reconsidered." The Arabs Today: Alternatives for Tomorrow Columbus, Ohio: Forum Associates Inc., 121-135.
- 1981 "Orientalism and Orientalism in Reverse." Khamsin No.8: 5-26. Reprinted in Alexander Lyon Macfie, Ed. Orientalism: A Reader New York: New York University Press, 2000. 217-238."http://www.nyupress.org/books/Orientalism-products_id-2559.html See Reference 1 for full article link.
- 1988 "Palestinian Zionism." Die Welt Des Islams Leiden, 28: 90-98.http://www.jstor.org/pss/1571166?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Doff%26Query%3Dpalestinian%2Bzionism%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3D%2528palesinian%2Bzionism%2529%2BAND%2Bjid%253A%2528j100404%2529%26Search%3DSearch%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&Search=yes
- 1991 "The Importance of Being Earnest About Salman Rushdie." Die Welt Des Islams 31:1, 1-49. Reprinted in D.M.Fletcher, Ed. Reading Rushdie: Perspectives on the Fiction of Salman Rushdie Amsterdam/Altanta: Rodopi, 1994.http://books.google.com/books?id=LEiEZdDYjtcC&pg=PA255&lpg=PA255&dq=the+importance+of+being+earnest+about+salman+rushdie&source=bl&ots=ik1cJmExgq&sig=T-lDuqcThY5sBkXj19Do0iEUZGM&hl=en&ei=INE9TdTVAoGB8gba4_jICg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=the%20importance%20of%20being%20earnest%20about%20salman%20rushdie&f=false
- 1993/1994 "Islamic Fundamentalism Reconsidered: A Critical Outline of Problems, Ideas and Approaches." South Asia Bulletin, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East Part 1:13:93-121 http://cssaame.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/13/1_and_2/93 Part 2: 14:73-98 http://cssaame.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/14/1/73
- 1994 "Is the Fatwa a Fatwa?" In For Rushdie: Essays by Arab and Muslim Writers in Defense of Free Speech Anouar Abdallah, et al. New York: George Braziller.http://www.georgebraziller.com/catalog/nonfiction/forrushdie.html
- 1996 "Is Islam Secularizable?" Jahrbuch fur Philosophie des Forschungsinstituts fur Philosophie."
- 2000 "The Satanic Verses Post Festum:The Global, The Local, The Literary." Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East 20:1&2.http://cssaame.dukejournals.org/cgi/pdf_extract/20/1-2/44
- 2000 "The View from Damascus" New York Review of Books June 15.http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2000/jun/15/the-view-from-damascus/
- 2000 "The View from Damascus, cont'd." New York Review of Books August 10.http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2000/aug/10/the-view-from-damascus-contd/
- 2002 "Western Historical Thinking from an Arabian Perspective." in Western Historical Thinking: An Intercultural Debate Edited Jorn Rusen. New York: Berghahn Books. [Original German 1999] http://books.google.com/books?id=c0ZWTmUqJdoC&pg=PA119&dq=Western+Historical+Thinking+from+an+Arabian+Perspective&hl=en&ei=ZdY9Tb-4HoT4sAOO1MChAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Western%20Historical%20Thinking%20from%20an%20Arabian%20Perspective&f=false
- 2004 "Viewpoint: Islam, Terrorism and the West Today." Die Welt Des Islams 44:1, 114-128.http://www.jstor.org/pss/1571337
- 2004 "Time Out of Joint." Boston Review October/November http://bostonreview.net/BR29.5/alazm.php
- 2008 "Science and Religion, an Uneasy Relationship in the Judeo-Christian-Muslim Heritage." Islam and Europe: Challenges and Opportunities. Marie-Claire Foblets, Ed. http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/cup_detail.taf?ti_id=5325
- 2010 "Farewell, Master of Critical Thought." On the passing of Egyptian intellectual Nasr Abu ZaydNasr Abu ZaydNasr Hamid Abu Zayd was an Egyptian Qur'anic thinker and one of the leading liberal theologians in Islam. He is famous for his project of a humanistic Qur'anic hermeneutics.- Biography :...
http://www.resetdoc.org/story/00000021294 - 2011 "Orientalism and Conspiracy." In Orientalism and Conspiracy. See above, pgs. 3-28.
- 2011 "The Arab Spring: 'Why Exactly at this Time?'" originally published in Arabic in Al Tariq Quarterly (Beirut) Summer 2011, English translation by Steve Miller in Reason Papers: A Journal of Interdisciplinary Normative Studies vol. 33 Fall 2011 full text.
Interviews
- 1997 "An Interview with Sadik Al-Azm." Arab Studies Quarterly, summer.http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2501/is_n3_v19/ai_20755838/?tag=content;col1 Also appeared in The June 1967 War After Three Decades. Edited by William W. Haddad, Et al. Washington, D.C., Association of Arab-American University Graduates. 1999.
- 1998 "Trends in Arab Thought: An Interview with Sadek Jalal al-Azm." Journal for Palestine Studies, 27:2, 68-80.http://www.jstor.org/pss/2538285
- 2000 "Analysis: The Rise and Rise of Bashar." BBC news report. June 21.http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/799596.stm
- 2005 "An Arab Exit Strategy." An Internet interview with Sadik al-Azm, Vali Nasr, Vahal Abdulrahman and Ammar Adbulhamid on Open Source Radio. November 10. http://www.radioopensource.org/an-arab-exit-strategy/
- 2009 Portrait Sadiq Al-Azm: An Argumentative Arab Enlightener http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-478/_nr-983/i.html
- 2011 Interview with Sadiq Jalal al-Azm: A New Spirit of Revolution