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“The book was published in 1936, and to a large extent the same question that Hussein faced then actually faces Egypt and many other parts of the Arab world today. At that time the Arab world, especially Egypt and the Levant and even parts of North Africa, was really in a dilemma. Sixty or 70 years had passed since the Europeans had arrived in the Middle East in the mid-19th century. And some of the brilliant minds of the Arab world had gone to Europe, mainly to Vienna, Paris, London and Rome, to try to learn from the West. By that time Egypt had already had its first modern constitution in 1923, in which the parliament rather than the monarch was the most important player in internal politics – which was a major development in the ruling framework in an Arab country. The society as a whole was opening up. Girls were getting educated; it was the time of the first wave of Egyptian girls to go to university. The Islamic headscarf was on the retreat. The society as a whole was gradually embracing new experiences and to some extent new identity. This was not Kamal Ataturk’s Turkey, where a ruling elite has decided to jettison its heritage and adopt a different identity. It was a gradual development taking over the entire society, across all social classes.” Read more...
The best books on The Arab World
Tarek Osman, Foreign Correspondent
